Ethical Guidelines
The International Remote Viewing Association is the largest and most respected international organization promoting the responsible practice of, education and training in, and research into the art, science, and phenomenon of Remote Viewing. We believe in and support the principles of verifiable truth, integrity, honesty, transparency, and responsibility in dealing with clients, persons subject to remote viewing as targets, the scientific community, the news media, law enforcement, and the general public. It is the purpose of these Ethical Guidelines to provide our members with a clear understanding of their responsibilities as active members of the Association and operational remote viewers. These Guidelines are also intended to protect the public and the Association from the unethical practice of remote viewing, wherever and in whatever nation remote viewers train, practice, and operate worldwide.
Standards of Professional Conduct for Operational Remote Viewers, RV Project Managers, Clients & Researchers – updated 2023
The following standards accompany IRVA’s Principles of Community
The following standards apply to remote viewers, project managers, analysts, monitors / interviewers, trainers, judges, project assistants, statisticians, researchers, and clients.
- A professional or operational remote viewer is a person who attempts to utilize their intuitive abilities to accomplish some practical or pragmatic intentional objective for a client, whether on a free or payable-fee basis. Such remote viewing activity shall not be deemed to include any remote viewing conducted exclusively for purposes of training, practice, general education.
- A client shall be construed to include any individual person, group, or legal entity, whether public or private, that solicits, engages, or retains the services of one or more remote viewers or remote viewing organizations, whether on a free or payable-fee basis. A client can be in the private, governmental, academic or research sectors.
- A remote viewing project manager organizes, manages, recruits remote viewers and solicits their services whether for themselves or for a client or third party. It is the responsibility of the project manager to always protect the interests (financial or otherwise) and well-being of the remote viewer. Project managers may also include researchers, and instructors who are using remote viewer’s work for anything other than educational purposes.
- All parties involved in remote viewing related activities shall adhere to all applicable laws, statutes, and regulations of the state or province in which they are working, as well as of their nations of work and residence, in carrying out any operational or other remote-viewing activity on behalf of clients or themselves, and, in particular, concerning any living human person or persons as targets.
- All parties shall provide honest, accurate, remote viewing based reports to clients to the best of his or her ability, using and acting in conformance with remote viewing protocols generally accepted as facilitating the reception of truthful, reliable, and accurate remote viewing originated information.
- All parties shall safeguard all confidential information provided by clients and exercise the utmost care to prevent any unauthorized disclosure of such information.
- All parties shall maintain confidentiality with clients to protect the privacy interests of all persons involved in the remote viewing activity, unless duly and properly authorized otherwise. The targeting of persons and the collection of personal information about them shall only be done for lawful purposes. And, except when in aid of a bona fide law-enforcement investigation, any personal information so collected shall not be disclosed to any third party without the knowing permission, secured beforehand, of the particular person or persons so targeted, identified, or about whom personal information has been collected. No remote viewer shall make a disclosure of information to any person not authorized by the client or by applicable laws, statutes, or regulations.
- All parties shall disclose any conflict, whether legal, moral, or personal, that would prevent the remote viewer from performing an objective, fair, accurate, and scientifically sound remote viewing session. When soliciting work, remote viewers and project managers shall always conduct themselves in an ethical manner and shall refrain from misrepresenting the nature, character, accuracy potential, or reliability potential of remote viewing and its various protocols and processes beyond what is verifiably known or reasonably posited by documented experience or reputable scientific research.
- A remote viewer, project manager or researcher shall never undertake a remote viewing assignment that is or might reasonably be construed as being contrary to the protection of the national or internal security interests of that state, province, or nation in which he or she is resident.
- Researchers engaged in remote viewing research must comply with ethical standards of social science research, and engage in oversight activities where applicable under federal and state law that governs research on human subjects. Although there is often the need to establish blinding conditions, researchers must disclose to remote viewers in advance of the project whether the project will result in the financial benefit of anyone including the researchers themselves, or anyone funding the project or receiving the information.
- Remote viewers also have a right to know who is funding the project and for what purposes in advance of starting the project. This is the only way they can be considered to be offering informed consent. If it is determined that such information would jeopardize the need for blinding protocols, an independent review board should be consulted to determine whether hiding this information would result in any kind of conflict for the viewers and the viewers should be informed as to the reason behind the anonymity. As soon as possible after the viewers have completed their session work full disclosure should be provided.
- If there is any potential for emotionally triggering content for a remote viewing project (operational or research) that would potentially be upsetting to the average person, the remote viewer(s) should be informed of this in advance.
- NDAs – It is recommended before signing any NDA, or legal document giving up rights to remote viewing transcripts, that the viewer consult with an attorney to ensure that what they are being asked is ethical and written in a manner that serves their personal interests, now and in the future. Viewers should keep in mind that in the future they may wish to share transcripts, videos, statistics, experiences, and methods learned (the latter of which cannot be trademarked).
Ethics for remote viewing instructors
In addition to the guidelines above and IRVA’s Principles of Community, remote viewing students should not be subjected to authoritarian practices in order to obtain a remote viewing education. They should be free to keep the rights to their own remote viewing transcripts, which are essentially creative works of art and writing. While it is appropriate to give guidelines regarding milestones of when the viewer may be ready for more professional level work, or to be instructors themselves, every viewer is going to start a course at a different level of experience and training. Viewers should not be forced into signing agreements in exchange for such training that would restrict their future activities, whether these involve practice, teaching, writing or speaking.
At the same time students should be respectful of teachers and comply with copyright and plagiarism laws regarding the sharing of course materials.
Please direct any questions or comments regarding the above to irvaservices@irva.org