STAGE I

      A.  Concept:

         Any given site has an overall nature or "gestalt," as it is referred to below, that makes it uniquely what it is. In Stage I, the remote viewer is taught to acquire the signal line, attune himself to it, and proceed to decode and objectify this site getalt and the major pieces of information that pertain to it. A properly executed Stage I is the very foundation of everything that follows after it, and it is therefore of utmost importance to maintain correct structure and achieve an accurate Stage I concept of the site. All CRV sessions begin with Stage I.

      B.  Definitions:

         1. Major Gestalt: The overall impression presented by all elements of the site taken for their composite interactive meaning. The one concept that more than all others would be the best description of the site.

         2. Ideogram: The "I" component of the I/A/B sequence. The ideogram is the spontaneous graphic representation of the major gestalt, manifested by the motion of the viewer's pen on paper, which motion is produced by the impingement of the signal line on the autonomic nervous system and the reflexive transmission of the resultant nervous energy to the muscles of the viewer's hand and arm. The objectified ideogram has no "scale;" that is, the size of the ideogram relative to the paper seems to have no relevance to the actual size of any component at the site.

         3. "A" Component: The "feeling/motion" component of the ideogram. The "feeling/motion" is essentially the impression of the physical consistency (hard, soft, solid, fluid, gaseous, etc.) and contour/shape/motion of the site. For example, the monitor has selected, unknown to the viewer, a mountain as the trainee's site. At the iteration of the coordinate, the trainee produces an appropriate ideogram, and responds verbally, at the same time as he writes it: "Rising up, peak, down." This is the "motion" sensation he experienced as his pen produced the ideogram. He then says "solid," having experienced the site as being solid as opposed to fluid or airy. This is the "feeling" component of the Stage 1 process. There are at least five possible types of feelings: solidity, liquidity, energetic, airiness (that is, where there is more air space than anything else, such as some suspension bridges might manifest), and temperature. Other feeling descriptors are possible, but encountered only in rare circumstances and connected with unusual sites. These components and how they are expressed in structure will be discussed more fully below. Though in discussions of theory this aspect is usually address as "feeling/motion," it will normally be the case in actual session work that the motion aspect is decoded first with the feeling portion coming second.

         4. "B" Component: The first (spontaneous) analytic response to the ideogram and "A" component.

      C.  Site Requirements:

         For training in Stage I, a stage-specific site is selected. Basic Stage I coordinate remote viewing sites generally comprise an area isolated by some five miles on a side and possess easily identifiable major gestalts that may be easily decoded in simple Stage I sessions. All sites have Stage I gestalts, but for training Stage I perceptions these "simple" sites are selected.

      D. Types of Ideograms:

         There are four types of ideograms:

         1. Single: One unbroken mark or line, containing only one "A" component (feeling/motion) and one "B" component.

         2. Double: Two basically parallel marks or lines. Produces usually at least three sets of "A" and "B" components: one for the area between the marks, and one each for the areas on either side of the marks. Two other "A" and "B" components may be present as well, one for each of the marks. Railroad tracks, roads, canals, etc. may produce this type of ideogram.

         3. Multiple: Two or more different marks, each producing its own set or sets of "A" and "B" components. Such an ideogram may be obtained when there is more than one major gestalt present at a given site--such as a lake, city and mountain--all within the area designated by the coordinate. This type of ideogram may occasion the necessity of taking a "Too Much Break" because of the volume of information contained in more than one major gestalt. Caution must be exercised here, since a single mark may actually represent either a double or multiple ideogram, but may be mistaken for a single ideogram. To ascertain this, the signal line must be prompted by placing the pen on the mark and also to either side to determine if more than one "A" and "B" component is also present.

         4. Composite: "Pen leaves paper more than twice, makes identical marks," and produces one set of "A" and "B" components. Things such as orchards, antenna fields, etc., with numbers of identical components produce this type of ideogram.

      E.  Vertical/Horizontal Ideogram Orientation:

         Ideograms may be encountered (objectified) either parallel with the plane of the horizon (horizontal) or perpendicular to it (vertical). For example, the Gobi desert being predominantly flat, wave sand, would produce a motion portion of the Stage I "A" indicating a horizontal ideogram. The Empire State Building, however, would produce some sort of vertical response such as "up, angle," in the motion portion of the "A," indicating a vertical ideogram. However, a crucial point to remember is the objectification of the ideogram is completely independent either of what it looks like or its orientation on paper. It is imperative to realize that what determines the vertical/horizontal ideogram orientation is not the site's inherent manifestation of the physical world, and not how or what direction it is executed on the paper, or even the RVer's "point of view," since in Stage I there is no viewer site orientation in the dimensional plane. Simply observing how the ideogram looks on paper will not give reliable clues as to what the orientation of the ideogram might be. The ideogram objectified as "across, flat, wavy" for the Gobi Desert might on the paper be an up and down mark. The ideogram for the Empire State Building could possibly be represented as oriented across the paper.

      It is obvious then that ideograms can not be interpreted by what they "look like," but by the feeling/motion component produced immediately following the ideogram. The viewer must learn to sense the orientation of an ideogram as he executes it. If unsuccessful on the first attempt, the ideogram may be "re-prompted" by moving the pen along it at the same tempo as it was produced, with the viewer being alert to accurately obtain the missing information.

      F.  I/A/B/ Formation:

         As the monitor gives the prompting information (coordinate, etc.) the viewer writes it down on the left side of the paper, then immediately afterwards places his pen on the paper again to execute the ideogram ("I"). This presents itself as a spontaneous mark produced on the paper by the motion of hand and pen. Immediately upon execution of the ideogram, the viewer then moves his pen to the right third of the paper where he writes "A" and describes briefly the feeling/motion characteristics of the site as it is manifest in the ideogram, for example, "A    Across angle up angle across angle down, solid."

      Upon correctly decoding the feeling/motion component, the viewer then moves his pen to a position below the recorded feeling/motion responses and directly under the "A," then writes "B." He then records the appropriate "B" component response, which will be the first instantaneous analytic response following the ideogram and feeling/motion components to the signal line's impingement on his system. Sample responses may be "mountain," "water," "structure," "land," "ice," "city," "sand," "swamp," etc.