The U.S. Governments Remote Viewing Program and How it Could Help your Dowsing

Summary:
This article explores key insights from three former U.S. military remote viewers—David Morehouse (Psychic Warrior), Joseph McMoneagle (Mind Trek), and Lyn Buchanan (The Seventh Sense)—and how their methods can enhance your dowsing practice. It covers techniques for relaxation, meditation, expanding awareness, and working with different states of consciousness. By understanding the roles of the conscious, subconscious, and body mind, and learning to bridge them, dowsers can improve accuracy and develop deeper intuitive skill.

What the U.S. Government’s Remote Viewing Research Can Teach Us About Dowsing

Back in the 1970s and '80s, the U.S. government ran several remote viewing programs—most famously Project Star Gate. These programs have since been declassified, and some of the people involved have shared their experiences in books. In particular, Psychic Warrior by Major David Morehouse, Mind Trek by Joseph McMoneagle, and The Seventh Sense by Lyn Buchanan give us a fascinating look into what remote viewing is—and how we might borrow some of their techniques to improve our dowsing practice.

One especially intriguing moment comes from Psychic Warrior, where Major Morehouse describes his first tour of the remote viewing facility:

“Mell led me three doors farther down the hall. ‘This is the dowsing room. It is where you'll be trained to find a moving target on the map. You will learn any number of methods to do it, but whatever works best for you is obviously what you will use. The large drafting table will have a flat map of a suspected location on it.’ On the wall was a map of the world. ‘In the closet there you'll find pendulums, rulers, dowsing rods—hell, anything you'd need. Over there against the far wall is a map storage box; it has just about every large-scale map of every target we've worked.’”

That definitely got my attention.

After reading these books, I wanted to share a few techniques and insights that you can start using to sharpen your own dowsing skills.

Skill 1: Relaxation

Relaxation is key. Without it, we’re just chasing mental noise. Remote viewers use a range of techniques to achieve a calm, focused state—progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback, yoga, autogenic training—you name it. Anything that calms the body and mind will help. Eastern fitness systems like Tai Chi or Qigong are also great for building a solid mind-body connection.

The goal here is to reduce physical tension and mental distraction so your intuitive senses can tune in more clearly. A peaceful body supports a peaceful mind, and both are essential for good dowsing.

Skill 2: Meditation and Becoming “Centred”

Remote viewing—and dowsing too—works best when you're mentally still. That means learning to meditate or become “centred,” a term often used by the remote viewers to describe a state of quiet inner awareness.

What does “centered” mean in practice? It’s a sense of balance and calm, like mentally standing still on a fence post. You’re not thinking hard, you’re just being. No judgment. No analysis. Just awareness.

There are lots of ways to train in this: meditating with a mantra, focusing on a candle flame, watching incense smoke, or using visualization techniques. My own practice combines Vedic Transcendental Meditation with light self-hypnosis to bring me to a state of “no-thought,” also known as transcendence.

Skill 3: Expanding Awareness

Once you're relaxed and centred, the next step is to open up your awareness—to become sensitive to the world beyond the usual senses.

Remote viewers kept journals and tracked dreams, impressions, and imagery that bubbled up during their practice. I recommend doing the same. Keep notes of your meditations, dowsing sessions, dreams, or any subtle nudges from the world around you. This trains your subconscious to communicate more clearly.

Also, try to observe without judging. Just notice. Let your senses take in the world without labelling or categorizing. It sounds simple, but this kind of open observation actually helps you shift into a different level of perception—one more in tune with subtle information.

Using Your Intent

Here's a fun little exercise I picked up from Mind Trek by Joseph McMoneagle:

“When you are planning a trip to the shopping center, drive to it with the intention of parking there. You will be surprised at the results. Don't be put off if it doesn't work all the time.”

Sounds familiar? You’ve probably heard something similar in dowsing circles or even in books like Power vs. Force by Dr. David Hawkins. The idea is that focused intent—when properly aligned—can influence outcomes in subtle ways. Try it out!

Different States of Mind and Consciousness

In The Seventh Sense, Lyn Buchanan breaks down the different states of mind remote viewers experience during sessions. It’s relevant to us because dowsing and remote viewing share a lot of overlap.

One of the biggest takeaways from the government research is that the real challenge isn’t accessing information—it’s interpreting it correctly. Your subconscious mind already knows much more than your conscious mind. The trouble is in getting that information across the divide between the two.

The Conscious, Subconscious, and Body Minds

Let’s break this down a bit. You’ve got three levels to work with:

• The conscious mind: Your everyday awareness—the thinking, analysing, doing part.
• The subconscious mind: The deep reservoir of memory, intuition, and awareness beyond the senses.
• The body mind: The physical intelligence that keeps your heart beating, your digestion working, and your reflexes reacting.

Here’s the trick: the subconscious knows, but the conscious mind often misinterprets it. That's where the body mind comes in—it can act as a kind of interpreter between the two.

Ever notice how your hand jerks away from a hot surface before you even register the pain? That’s the body mind in action, reacting from a deeper place of awareness. In dowsing, we want to engage this same intelligence to help us interpret signals from the subconscious.

Training the Body Mind in Dowsing

When we dowse with rods or a pendulum, we’re using the body mind as the interpreter. But for it to work well, we need to do two things:

Get the conscious mind out of the way—set aside logic, analysis, and ego.

Train the body mind—by practicing with tools and techniques until it reliably responds to subtle inner promptings.

Instruments like pendulums, angle rods, and even finger dowsing are all ways to connect these parts of the mind. With consistent practice and the right state of mind, the flow of information from your subconscious can become clearer, and your dowsing more accurate.

Final Thoughts

The U.S. government reportedly spent over $20 million on remote viewing research. And while that’s all declassified now, we can still benefit from the knowledge they uncovered. Many of the techniques used by trained remote viewers are directly applicable to our work as dowsers.

At the end of the day, both practices rely on the same thing: tuning in to subtle information and finding reliable ways to interpret it. The more we train the mind—conscious, subconscious, and body—the more effective our dowsing becomes.

So, give some of these methods a try. Keep a journal. Practice being centered. Explore how your intent shapes outcomes. And most of all, enjoy the journey!