JULY-AUGUST 2002 "PJ" GAENIR Firedocs, and Speaking Her Mind By Cheryle Hopton On November 1, 1995, Palyne "PJ" Gaenir took up the challenge and began studying remote viewing. In December 1995, she unveiled a web site called Firedocs, which served as a "collection point" of links for her various personal projects, as well as her favorite topic -- remote viewing. Three and a half years later, on July 4, 1998, after working extensively with the public and media on behalf of CRV, she said she was "declaring her independence," and shocked the RV community (among others) by boldly publishing the original DIA/Army Coordinate Remote Viewing Manual on the Internet. Then she quietly retired from public view. In the past, she was known for welcoming students of any method into her projects, as well as psychics, and the public, but she is also known for very strongly pushing the RV scientific protocol. Today, in retrospect, she goes so far as to wryly refer to herself publicly as a “former CRV parrot.” Perhaps that’s why some people expect her to be true to a particular method or theory, and therefore consider her unpredictable. She says she supports those with earnest intent, and who promote what she sees as “the greater good of RV.” She fights for what she believes in, and says what she thinks. She tells us her opinions are not based on who is her friend -- or not; that she takes what she sees as a fair, right, just, and appropriate position on any given issue, with her personal likes and dislikes being secondary. She jokes that it’s painful to sometimes defend people she is not fond of, or pick on people she really likes, but “someone’s gotta do it.” As with most of us, her views have changed a bit over the years, but if you take the time to read through this interview and Firedocs, you’ll get a glimpse into the whole person. You will also learn a lot about remote viewing. [Questions and answers via email, July 2002] Interview How did you first become interested in Remote Viewing, and what influenced your decision to become involved? I was talking to David Pursglove (author of Zen in the Art of Close Encounters) online, Halloween 1995 about PK. I said, "If you could bend a fork, you could stop a man's heart. Psi has serious military and ethical considerations." He said, "Speaking of psi and the military! Last week I was at a private group where a man who'd been a psychic for the DIA spoke. He trains people to do what he does. He only accepts people via reference, but I'll give you one if you want to contact him." I knew it was the thing I would do. Not just maybe, not just hopefully, it was like it was already worked out; I was instantly obsessed. I sent an email to Leonard "Lyn" Buchanan, and heard back from him the next day. We emailed almost daily until April of 1996 when I went out to see him in MD for 5 days of CRV training. Back then he taught one-on-one. Who trained you in RV, and what was the initial methodology? Well, first I learned via email with Lyn, as his experiment to see if such a thing "could" be taught via writing. (He said he concluded I could learn it that way, but most couldn't.) Then I trained some in person with Lyn, 5 days one-on-one, a great introduction. Then I trained some with Paul Smith. Then some more with Lyn. I trained "informally" with two former intell people I cannot name in ERV and late-stage CRV, and there's a lot of little stuff. I was introduced to many people in intell and science, some of whom aren't public, which I picked up info from over time. I've trained informally with graduates of TRV and SRV to see what they were like, and others. I've had the benefit of years of correspondence with Joe McMoneagle and Dr. Edwin May, and I have to credit them as being highly educational, and kind to share their time. And, I have trained myself, and discovered some things about myself, which is what this all comes down to in the end. What were the early days in the civilian remote viewing community like? Chaos. I answered Lyn's email for a long time, plus my own, plus Usenet and web BBS and CompuServe stuff -- massive quantities of typing. (In early ’98, I counted over 60,000 separate posts from me in my archives!) But 99% of everything I did was dis-educating the public from the crazy stuff they thought was RV. People who’d heard Ed Dames were sure the world was ending "Real soon now," and people who’d heard Courtney Brown were on a "Save the Martians" campaign, and people who’d read David Morehouse thought RV was some kind of cosmic orgasm! And of course, everybody thought with just a few thousand bucks and a week you could be nearly omniscient. At the end of '95 I made a website called RV Science as I "had a feeling" that this was desperately needed for the public and media. I had psychologists and physicists around the world share their work with me, but Drs. Puthoff and May were buried in the media frenzy, didn't know me from Adam, and wouldn't respond to me. So I closed it before it opened -- a big loss. (I did get a nice website for Dr. Charles Tart out of it.) So my early work is invisible. After that I stuck with a focus on CRV, until I found my perception of what was "important" and "real" changing to a much wider scope. There was no "civilian community" in RV then. "Community" is an overstatement. There was a ton of interested, hyper people, a few self-dubbed gurus -- and me trying to be a one-man savior of RV's reputation on the Internet. (McMoneagle had an RV book out since ‘93, Mind Trek, and that did help a lot as a reference.) Over time, more "cohesion" began to take place in the layman's RV field. Alas, what this mostly brought together was methodology training, not necessarily RV in a larger context. How did you gain access to the DIA/Army CRV Manual? A couple former intell people sent me a copy, and a number of TRV students sent me a copy. I had half a dozen or more before I put it online. It had been used by Psi-Tech in TRV training, but it was like a millionth-generation bad photocopy, not even redone, and it still had the CRV cover on it! Which was funny because Ed was on the radio insisting TRV "Started where Ingo's CRV left off" and such, yet here he was teaching the CRV manual. But Ed was giving the manual as part of training, whereas Lyn had his own manual, and Paul doesn't have a manual. So other than the intell guys, TRV students were the main source. I received a lot of private stuff from TRV/SRV students who appreciated my being open to them as viewers when nobody else really was. The CRV Manual was first published in the civilian community on your website. What led to your decision to publish the manual, and were you apprehensive about the task of transcribing it, and the possible repercussions? I'd spent 2.5 years counseling people by phone, email, in written letter and in person, who had bad experiences in RV methods training. They'd been tasked on their own deaths during training, on the destruction of earth, on aliens and religious subjects, and so on. They had profound cognitive dissonance issues. Most of them were trashed as viewers; it would take years to work out the psychology. Many had trashed their lives, left spouses, spent kids' college funds and more as a result of the panic and obsession their "training" had caused. My personal studies prior to RV were in hypnosis, and I saw it as cult indoctrination -- the viewer "being open" and the monitor there to "guide and correct" them is a totally hypnotic modality. The way I saw it, it boiled down to the "big secret" of methods. I figured once the CRV manual was public, people wouldn't need to risk their psychology -- let alone big money -- just to "see what it was about." I also thought some of the "ostentatious" stuff would be obvious -- the "technical doubletalk" done on the radio would be seen for what it was. I figured those who really wanted personal training would take it anyway, and since I'd made probably half a mill for a couple of trainers (and I'd made zero), I no longer cared about harming their income. I wasn't worried about putting it online once I figured out nobody could legally prosecute me for it. And, I was angry about the way things had gone in the layman's RV field, to be honest. I considered it my "final gift" to the public when I retired from RV on 7/4/98. I wasn't going to be around to defend RV anymore, so I hoped having the "secret" in hand would do what I hadn't been able to do -- bring some sanity to the field. What was the genesis of the 'Firedocs' site? I knew tons of people with an RV interest, I was very active in CompuServe prior to the www, and it was just the easiest way to present my stuff. Fire was my old Usenet pen name, and firedocs was the PC directory where I kept my Internet posts. So -- not very innovative! You started the now defunct 'Viewer List', discussion group that ceased operating in June 1998, and was replaced by 'Star Gate' which was established by Steve Crietzman. What was the initial purpose of the 'Viewer List', and what made you decide to close it? I had a private web Viewer Forum back in early '97, with BBS, chat, practice targets and so on. The Viewer List was the "public outreach arm" of the forum. When I retired in mid-98, I gave warning and offered to publish information on other lists that people wanted to begin. There were many lists started at that time. Crietzman's was just one. It has no heritage or connection with mine, except that many of my members signed up for it, and others. I closed mine down because I was leaving the field. I was exhausted and burned out, and had so many disputes, even with "my own" method and people, I was beginning to sound like a skeptic. You seem to have kept a relatively low profile the last four years, but you recently started a new list, 'pjrv · RV Oasis (Practical Psi w/PJ Gaenir).' Why are you jumping back into the fray? Very low. I jumped back in via posting around July 4, as an anniversary of sorts, but it took awhile to get the list and website stuff set up. I've been too busy with life to focus on RV development for years, but now I'm finally doing so, and I wanted some people to talk with about it. I figured four years was enough time for the field to mellow, a lot of good viewers to come into their skill, and so on. This was a little naive on my part I see already, but oh well! RV has been in the civilian sector since the late 1980’s, even though it wasn’t declassified until September 1995. When you became involved in the early 1990’s did you expect RV would be more widely accepted and better regarded in the mainstream by 2002? I expected that more people would be capable viewers by now -- that someone other than McMoneagle could do it consistently well in public within protocol -- and that obviously affected "all" my ideas of the future. There are considerably more players in the RV community today than in 1995. Do you see this as a positive progression of the skill, or are we in danger of diluting/polluting the skill to the point where it loses credibility? I think the expansion of the field has been in the area of psychic methodologies, which everyone calls RV. I have yet to associate methodologies with skill in remote viewing, though many disagree with me on this, of course. In my opinion it's about diligent double-blind practice with feedback, not the method. I don't think harming skill can be defined as an issue until there's a little more skill to measure. Do you see anything occurring in the RV field today that gives you hope for the future of RV? Sure! There is a lot of “drive” in the field. Wheaton’s HRVG is a tight group, and I believe group-focus and "combined intent" is a very powerful thing. Calabrese’s TDS is another tight group and they appear to be making a living with RV, which is very cool. Interestingly, both of these have developed “in spite of” a great deal of criticism from others in the RV field, and in its own way, I think that has actually helped strengthen their determination. I have my disagreements now and then, but I respect that they are working hard toward something they believe in, and their groups are highly focused and dedicated to hands-on practice, without which RV skill just doesn’t happen. There is much more follow-up and cohesion in these groups than there has been in most any others I have encountered. I think the growth of “creative ideas” in the RV field -- with or without recognition from others -- demonstrates the kind of individual striving and group-intent that can change the world sometimes. Beyond methods, over the last few years Joseph McMoneagle has published several books, and his Remote Viewing Secrets: A Handbook is literally the RV-bible. I have met viewers whose “training” was a Joe book and regular practice in protocol. So more of the public now has the opportunity, if they’ve the discipline and interest, to buy a paperback and develop just as well on their own as I have seen anybody do under methods training. I am hoping in a few years, we will start to see a spate of good viewers who come “out of the blue”, and who might just bring some real sparks of life -- and probably chaos, but the creatively good kind -- into this field. If you could do anything differently in retrospect, what would that be? Well, years ago I was a real evangelist about CRV methodology, mostly because I saw the method and its trainers as “the sane alternative” to the (much more popular back then) other options. I really fought hard to present the method and its people as "The Experts" and so on, and I left my archives and such online for years to sponsor that. But four years later, I come back into this field, and those experts have now gone on to become “The Establishment” to some degree. Mark Twain once said, “When I find myself siding with the majority, I know it is time to reform.” That is how I feel now. My real goal was only to provide a safe and sane haven for aspiring viewers and for RV’s future -- not simply to establish a "different recognized authority" than some other-guy. I feel strongly now that authority on Viewing can only be based on real evidence of skill. I’m sorry to say that pretty much restricts the icons in this field to Ingo Swann’s past science work, Joseph McMoneagle’s past and present science (and media), and a few others who are either dead now or not public. (We don’t know the skill of anybody from intell, because that is all classified, and none of them beyond Joe demonstrate it. For that matter there’s even debate about who "is" experienced from intell -- and there may be more we don’t know about yet. You also can’t believe media, which is notoriously out of protocol, or “one” demo from anybody.) This measure dramatically changes the landscape of authority in the layman’s RV field -- and moves the emphasis away from methods and onto performance. My asking for in-protocol, consistent evidence of skill horrifies almost everybody. But as far as I’m concerned, we are all equals, we are all striving, and a little less talk and a lot more demonstration is what the field needs. What claims or hype about remote viewing really make you cringe? Pretty much all of them beyond "a small number of people who work really hard might be able to do this well." Do you think it’s possible for civilians working as part-time viewers to master remote viewing? It better be, as there is almost nothing else. We all have to work for a living, or whatever takes up our schedule. I think psychology is probably the thing trained, more than psi, and how effective that might be, and how long it takes, is a highly individualized issue. If you had a magic wand, and you could wave it at the RV community, what type of positive changes would you make? I would change the focus from methods to protocol, from external structure to one of internal exploration. It's my opinion the CRV methods were compiled (not invented) to be an external way of training internal processing, and the use of them for applications has torqued the understanding of what makes a good viewer -- it isn't anything outside a person. I'd mix psychological development in with the process, and be adamant about double-blind practice, constantly, for years. I think this would result in a lot more successful viewers. RV always has a profound effect on the life of a viewer -- sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and occasionally both. In what ways has it most affected or inspired you? Well it’s harder than I expected. It’s easy to do amazingly well once in awhile, and to do well during training (monitor frontloaded), and to find accurate data in the majority of sessions. But accurate doesn’t mean specific or prolific (or useful), and consistency is another issue. That’s been hard for me to come to terms with, and tough to hold the long-term grind -- especially when my psychology rebels against success, and I then find it hard to "get around to" practice, or see how I sabotage myself by doing laughably bad right after having some breakthrough experience. It was difficult for me to move beyond some kind of Pollyanna optimism that Ingo’s “magic methods” would “make” me a great viewer. Seeing hundreds of others trained, in the same situation, finally brought it home to me. Also, I’m interested in science, and many of the things researched, such as the % of population capable of doing RV at a world-class level (about ½ of 1%) are answers I just don’t want to hear. Much of RV has been as disturbing and frustrating to me as enlightening. On the other hand, it is changing my conception of reality. I was already left of center, with years of highly "anomalous" experience, but RV is like a constant refresher course in the equality-of-energy-construct nature of reality, of events and objects and identities as being weirdly alike fundamentally, of the indefinite and changeable quality of identity; things like that which go so far beyond "armchair philosophy" when you “feel it inside you” it can’t be described. I think good viewers must be very different from the rest of our culture and probably have to work hard on "seeming normal" to everybody else. What I find curious is the endless, larger-me I didn’t know and am still meeting thanks to RV. What I find profound is the variable nature of every aspect of reality we think we know something about. What I find revolutionary is my changing perception of death, and my perception of consciousness beyond that point. But what I find most inspirational is actually the continuing public interest in RV. We are all so keen to evolve! With all this drive, creativity, and determination, how can we not succeed?   Return to Home Page Privacy Statement Copyright © 2002, H.R.V.G. All rights reserved.