Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

REMOTE VIEWING

Seeing or sensing remote objects Clairvoyantly, using an - 'inner eye' or allegedly through Astral Travel. It is a skill claimed by shamans in Tibet, Siberia, Africa and India for centuries.

In the 18th century, Emanuel Swedenborg was renowned for his remote visions. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, mesmerists discovered that many of their hypnotised subjects could give detailed accounts of distant locations or could 'see' into other people's bodies or brains. In the late 19th century psychic investigators of the Society of Psychical Research in London conducted many experiments into 'travelling Clairvoyance' with subjects who closed their eyes, were blindfolded or even blind.

In the 1970s, two American physicists, Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, established a project at Stanford University to exploit data amassed by previous research and to conduct further experiments into the phenomena. They concluded that remote viewing occurred naturally in many people's lives and that it was possible to train people as remote viewers, regardless of innate psychic abilities.

Subjects could be taught to 'visit' a location and accurately describe buildings, people and natural features. Intelligence agencies, such as the CIA and KGB, are now known to have used remote viewers to help penetrate the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc