The Jewish Prophet Daniel is best known for his interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in the biblical book that bears his name. The story is of a highly advanced display of extrasensory perception that changed history. The king had a disturbing dream and ordered it to be interpreted without disclosing any context or contents of the dream. This was done to ensure that the answer could only come from a divine power, forcing the seer to first accurately perceive all the contents of the dream itself, with no hints of any kind, and only then provide the interpretation.
Daniel then accurately described the king’s dream in precise detail as he had seen in a vision. He was able to derive the meaning of it through pure intuitive insight that he had prayed for. The king was able to put full trust in Daniel’s interpretation only because he had first accurately described his dream. This proved that all his information came from a divine source and not his own imagination.
This is the same criteria that US military intelligence unit chose for their infamous “psychic spy” Remote Viewing operation at Fort Meade, Maryland.from 1979 to 1996. It became known as “Project STARGATE” after its existence was leaked to the public in 1996. This highly classified and controversial military intelligence unit enjoyed a surprisingly high degree of success, often succeeding at the most impossible tasks that no technology could replicate. The success was due, in large part, to it’s strict requirements that all unit personnel must operate under the same conditions as some of history’s most famous seers, like the Oracle of Delphi.
The Role of Inner Development
This method of using psychic information that can be verified to judge the reliability of what cannot be verified, as a sort of litmus test, is the foundation for a modern use of intuitive ability which will be discussed shortly.
In conclusion, the development of the inner faculties is an overlooked but crucial part of ancient theurgical practices. It is a key component of “inner astrology”, which is used to behold astral forces directly in the quest for the World of Forms. The image of the winged horse and chariot as a means of visionary ascent has roots older than the Hellenistic world and seems to transcend the boundaries of time, location and culture.
The study of the stars was combined with the inner spiritual and mental development required to begin activating the Eye of the Soul. Together this converged into an experience of soul travel that has often changed the course of human history.
Tools and Techniques for Ancient Divination
Talismanic images and statues of gods created and consecrated with astrological elections were important aids in rituals and helped induce powerful oracles. In most grimoires, from late antiquity to a few centuries ago, divination through visions was a critical part of rituals. It ensured that the spirit had been contacted, was responding to the ritual, and could convey important information if needed. Many astrological talismans from the Hellenistic period through the Renaissance were constructed for this express purpose.
Traditional astrologers who sought information for practical reasons also benefited from the use of visions to augment the information gleaned from their astrological calculations. One well known example is Michel de Nostradamus who pondered astrological charts seated at a table in his private study with a scrying mirror next to him, using both divination techniques together. This extended to the use of dreams as a means of direct contact, augmented using astrological talismans for inducing spiritual dreams.
It is assumed by many that ESP is an extremely rare gift bestowed at birth and if a person isn’t born with it then they have no chance to ever develop it at all. It is true that certain rare individuals are born with talent but in recent decades, some researchers concluded that everyone is born with intuition with the potential to develop it as a skill. Skills are developed through practice and learning to use intuition is no different. This use of ESP under specific conditions, called “remote viewing”, was performed by the Oracle of Delphi over 2,500 years ago.
Modern Science, Ancient Science and Spycraft – Remote Viewing
“When it is smooth and pure, and the soul is in a state of quiet, it can receive true visions and reveal the future. Thus, dreams and symbols arise as communications from the divine.” — Timaeus 71e–72b,
The common saying that history repeats itself contains a lot of truth. For most of human history, rulers regularly employed diviners and seers who had an established track record of success. Very often, kings and queens chose experienced occultists to serve as the head of their intelligence services. This is mocked today and the popular notion of gullible monarchs making decisions solely on a charlatan gazing into a crystal ball is false.
The Intelligence Framework and the Spymaster
Intelligence practices in the Roman Empire were little different than modern times. The Roman military developed elite and highly trained military intelligence units called “Speculatores”. The person in charge of intelligence, or spymaster, was charged with providing accurate information to the king or queen’s most important information needs, such as the intentions of rival kingdoms, potential for war to happen, the possibility of food shortages, internal saboteurs, threats to the royal family’s security and so on. The spymaster was responsible for keeping the head of state informed.
Most “spy work” was conducted by constantly gathering information from a wide range of conventional sources. These conventional sources were traveling merchants, professional scouts, captured prisoners, informants, paid spies or simply listening to rumors in taverns. Other intelligence was collected by consulting experts in a specific trade if their knowledge was relevant.
The spymasters were forced to sift through a great deal of incomplete and false information and then piece it together like a high-stakes puzzle which never ended. The nature of intelligence work is never a complete picture and requires considerable analysis and reasoning balanced with informed guesswork and hunches. The use of divination as an additional tool often provided information that proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle or gave hints that prompted the spymaster to view their information in a new light.
Very rarely did a king or queen put 100% trust in divination and disregard everything else that contradicted it. History tells of some who put their trust in highly accurate diviners over everything else and were well-rewarded for it…and others who came to fully rely on divination for everything, and it led to catastrophic results.
A fundamental rule of intelligence work is that one source of information is never trusted by itself. It must have at least one other separate source of information to validate it. This was true in ancient times and it is true today. For example, even people telling the truth are biased and focus on different details. When ten different people tell truthfully of what they saw, there will be ten different stories because there were ten different perspectives.
The points on which they all agree are validated as reliable intelligence, but there will always be other puzzle pieces missing. If nothing else, skilled diviners excelled at noticing small details and hidden patterns. Their divination skills could supplement the process of looking for the bigger picture.
Scientific Methodology and the Protocol of Remote Viewing
Although extrasensory perception is relegated to the category of superstition and pseudo-science in modern times, serious efforts were made to study and utilize it as a modern intelligence gathering tool. In the 1970s, elements of the US intelligence community secretly funded Stanford Research Institute to evaluate ESP and identify what, if any, extrasensory faculties exist.
Anything that was found to perform successfully and repeatably under strict laboratory conditions was to be tested further and evaluated for its potential. ESP can be extremely difficult to evaluate objectively because anyone can close their eyes and voice the thoughts that cross their minds. Sooner or later lucky guesses will occur, and confirmation bias adds to the problem.
This occurs when a few successes are only given attention and ignoring or explaining away an overwhelming amount that missed the mark. The intelligence services wanted a method that could work with a certain degree of reliability.
A form of ESP was found to meet these conditions and was termed “Remote Viewing”. This was differentiated from other forms of psychic functioning by its strict protocol of being conducted under totally blind conditions. The viewer was only given a neutral cue such as location, person, or object and nothing else.
The viewer entered a relaxed trance that bordered on a light sleep and described their impressions, which were then compiled and sketched. Only when the viewer was finished was the actual target revealed via a photograph or traveling to the location in person. The lowest measurement of overall accuracy was 20% and the highest was around 65%.
This was highly significant because the experiments were designed to ensure that 0% accuracy was the only possible outcome. Anything exceeding that in a significant way could only have been done through ESP.
After extensive practice using this protocol, it was found that the skill improved, and remote viewing was able to produce higher levels of detail. Every human being was found to be capable of learning it like any other skill. Everyone has individual strengths and weaknesses, but it is a natural human function.
The findings were deemed sufficient to select a small number of military intelligence personnel for a small and highly classified unit at Fort Meade, Maryland. After a period of training using the blind conditions established by SRI researchers, remote viewing was implemented in support of real-world intelligence operations and achieved some notable success.
The Oracle of Delphi and the Scientific Test
In Herodotus’ Histories (Book 1.46–1.91), King Croesus of Lydia famously tested the accuracy of several oracles before he was willing to trust them. To eliminate the possibility of a lucky guess or obtaining this information any other way, Croesus devised the same method that was used in remote viewing research.
He sent envoys to several oracles throughout the region, instructing them all to ask their respective oracle the same question at a prearranged, secret time: what is Croesus, King of Lydia, doing at that precise moment?
Only the Oracle at Delphi accurately answered it. She described in detail how Croesus was in a cave cooking a lamb and a tortoise in a bronze pot with a bronze lid. This was a highly specific, unusual and secret event known only to Croesus himself. His test mirrors the principles of remote viewing: the target was unknown to any intermediaries, conditions were tightly controlled, and nothing could have possibly influenced the correct answer. What happened next also illustrates an important principle.
At some point after the oracle proved herself, King Croesus asked whether he should go to war against the Persian Empire. The oracle answered that if he did so, he would destroy a great empire. He didn’t try to discern which empire it would be. Croesus attacked Persia and suffered a catastrophic defeat that caused his own empire to fall.
The Critical Importance of Discernment and Bias Confirmation
Herodotus presents this not as a failure of the oracle, but a lack of discernment, arrogance and bias confirmation on the part of the king. The oracle’s words were true, but Croesus interpreted them as what he wanted to hear, was already overconfident in his chances, and he paid a terrible price for this error.
US military and intelligence units quietly and successfully employed the services of the Fort Meade unit of remote viewers for assistance in real-world operations, with the Coast Guard and DEA being the most frequent and supportive. The few who have commented on its successes almost always said that its biggest weakness was human error and bias. Even when they received high quality accurate information through remote viewing, the tendency to view it through existing biases and prejudices was difficult to overcome.
Returning to the Source: The Eye of the Soul
Across prophets, oracles, theurgists, and modern intelligence work, one truth remains constant. Perception only becomes trustworthy when the soul is steady, clear, and free of distortions. Whether it is Daniel describing a hidden dream, the Pythia answering a blind test, or a remote viewer working under controlled conditions, each example points toward the same inner discipline. This applies not only to divination practices, but any endeavor to learn more. Bias is the enemy of sound judgement and has proven true on countless occasions.
This marks the end of the series, but the larger path of cultivating discernment and activating the soul’s deeper sight continues. To explore the full framework behind these practices and see how they all connect, return to the origin point where the entire discussion began, The Eye of the Soul: Cultivating Divine Vision and Intuition