Perhaps. It's obviously the case that some people are naturally skilled as remote viewers (SRI found a number of them and employed them in their research for a number of government agencies). But the fact that remote viewing skills can be taught and developed in people who have not previously demonstrated psychic abilities supports Swann's theory that such skills are latent in all humans and generally repressed in our time. Swann theorizes that this might not have been the case early in our species' history, i.e., that at an earlier time humans were considerably more open to subliminal information. It's worth noting that the NDE research has reported a frequent manifestation of psychic abilities in people following their NDE experiences. This is one of many areas of consciousness research that calls for increased attention.
I don’t remember which event led to the coining of the term ‘eight martinis’ (it might have been Swann’s remote viewing of the structure of an immense magnetometer buried and shielded beneath the building in which SRI was located and his additional ability to interfere with the operation of the magnetometer), but there were many events in remote viewing experiments at SRI that were designated as ‘eight martini’ events, not just one.
Remote viewing is in itself an enormous subject, and much information about experiments and results so far is contained in published articles and books by Puthoff and Targ (the physicists who directed the program at SRI) and by Swann, McMoneagle, and other remote viewers at SRI and in military RV programs. Many remote viewers were trained in the military programs and are bound by secrecy oaths not to discuss specific findings and cases, and that is also true for Puthoff, Targ, and other scientists involved in RV research. Swann and other civilian RVers employed in the SRI research have also been bound by nondisclosure agreements concerning some cases, events, and results. But there is a great deal that can be learned by reading the major RV literature.
