Psychic Abilities.pdf

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Psychic Skills

Written by Christine Breese D.D., Ph.D. & Margaret Branch

Introduction

The extra‐ordinary powers of the mind known as “psychic abilities” are an inherent gift to all of us. Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips tell us in their book The Development Of Psychic Powers (1988) that psychic powers are our birthright. Some people more naturally express these abilities than others. For the others, psychic abilities may be developed through study and practice. It is also called “intuition” or “psychic abilities.” In more conservative circles it is called a “hunch” or “gut feeling.” The term ESP, “extra sensory perception,” was coined by the late Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine. He was a professor and head of the parapsychology laboratory at Duke University. Dr. Rhine was ridiculed by some and admired by others, and he was working with parapsychology at a time when it was considered taboo.

It is a good thing that the “6th_{sense” is gaining a revived recognition of its usefulness. Laura Day says in}

her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996), “As the end of the second millennium draws near, the limitations of logic, rationality, and the scientific method as the sole means of guiding our lives are becoming all too painfully clear. Increasingly our world is turning to modes of perception and understanding that donʹt rely on evidence presented to our senses, modes such as intuition and faith… The early Greeks [Greece being the birthplace of logic, philosophy, and the rudiments of the scientific method] recognized that rational thought is incomplete and needs the support of intuition.”

Belleruth Naparstek goes further by saying in her book Your Sixth Sense: Unlocking The Power Of Your

Intuition (1997), “We’ve entered a new stage of our human evolution, a time when the development of our

psychic capacity is essential to our survival. Without a new and stronger kind of psychic attainment, without a deeper sense of spiritual connectedness to the whole, and without a much larger sense of self than we as a species has ever attained, our planet could easily die from out‐of‐control aggression, territoriality, and greed. So it’s no coincidence that we find ourselves in a time of great interest in psychic phenomena, of widespread longing for connection to our virtual core. More and more people are looking for ways to join with the mysterious, the wider perspective, the divine, the world of spirit.” People who are by nature very devotional and feel a close connection to their spiritual natures are most prone to having spontaneous mystical experiences that transcend the limitations of time and space. Specific examples of natural states that mystics and saints have been known to reach include levitation, ecstatic trances, and the ability to live on very little or no food. In India, yogis can slow their breathing down in meditative states so that their vital signs all but disappear. They are also able to generate amazing amounts of body heat during meditation. Tibetan monks have been known to meditate in the snow without adequate clothing, and they do not become cold. Many spiritual adepts lived on little or no food, and yet live healthy and vibrant lives.

In religious history, the Catholic Church has documented accounts of saints demonstrating special powers (called siddhis in India) which are very advanced psychic abilities. Once consciousness can bend space and time, this is the ultimate psychic ability. One of these is called levitation, which is the experience of floating slightly above the ground. Levitation happened usually when priests were caught up in the deep reverence of officiating the Holy Mass. St. Francis was a saint famous for levitation. He was said to float from the ground when he was in ecstatic states of communion with God. There are also descriptions of priests and nuns who spontaneously have bled at the hands and feet. Spontaneous bleeding of this sort is known in the Catholic Church as stigmata. These locations correspond to the wound sites where the crucified Christ was nailed to the cross (although some mystics had visions pertaining to the exact location being in the wrists rather than in the palms of the hands). The occurrence of stigmata in the upper body being more correctly located in the wrists is referred to by Eileen Freeman in her book Touched By Angels (1993). Here, she writes of a contemporary saint, and she declares that “in the twentieth century, the stigmatic Therese Neumann had a comparable experience.” These feats are also seen in people who can bend spoons and forks, or move objects. This is called telekinesis.

There are others who are quite accurate in psychic tests. They have participated with in‐depth experiments in the past 50 years. Children are said to be exceptionally intuitive until they lose their abilities as they grow older. Young children are believed to be closer to the spirit world and spiritual abilities because they are not completely entrenched in the ways of human physical reality. Remote viewing is another well‐tested and

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proven psychic ability that even governments and authorities make use of. Police departments have also been known to make use of psychics, or intuitives, in solving crimes. A psychic or intuitive is someone who uses their intuition consciously, rather than unconsciously. Most people use intuition unconsciously every day. Some have learned to use it with precision and accuracy. As to the nature of psychic abilities in general, there are many schools of thought. Some believe it is by higher functioning of the human brain that psychic abilities are possible. Others believe that it is by God’s grace that these higher powers are possible in a human. However, ultimately, psychic abilities can be said to stem from the limitless nature of the larger Mind, synchronous with Universal Law. Because all of us are aspects of this one force, this larger awareness is part of our experience even while we focus our consciousness in the “limited” material plane of duality and identify with it. One way to describe our relationship to the Cosmic Unity is through what can be called the subjective or subconscious mind, which functions as the repository of memories and feelings. The subconscious perceives by intuition, and obeys the conscious mind, according to Dr. Joseph Murphy. In his book, The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind (1963) Murphy states, “The subconscious sees without the natural organs of vision... [and] has the capacity of clairvoyance and clairaudience.”

Intuition is an ability you already have and use every day. Exercising intuition makes it stronger, and making it a conscious process makes it more accessible. Laura Day says in her book Practical Intuition: How To

Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996), “Intuition is a capacity you are born with as a

human being, like the capacity for language or thinking or appreciating music. Intuition is not a power one acquires. Itʹs an integral part of every human mental, emotional, and psychical process. Each moment⎯right now⎯you receive information intuitively; youʹre simply unaware of the process. You use your intuition in practical reasoned decisions you make every day, from choices as mundane as to what to eat for dinner, what to major in, or who to marry. The trick to using your intuition more effectively is to bring the unconscious data it supplies to a place where your conscious mind can interpret it.”

“You may be wondering why, if intuition is an innate ability that you use all the time…’why,’ you might ask, ‘should we make ourselves work for what we already have?’…until now, using your intuition may have been a hit or miss proposition. The skill comes in knowing how to access and apply it effectively. Learning to understand the information you receive intuitively requires structure, Just as thinking is improved with the structure logic provides. Whatever intuitive skills youʹve retained from your childhood, you can develop them, like any other skill, with guidance and some practice… Training intuition [enables] you to use the different capacities together more effectively.”

We use our intuition all the time, but we don’t realize it. Why don’t we recognize intuition if we use it every day? Laura Day continues on this subject, “At a very young age… we learned to distrust our intuition. As we grow up we learned to judge data as real or pertinent or objective, and to weed out what is not real by society’s standards. Over the years, this mental censoring becomes an unconscious, automatic process… Another reason you donʹt recognize intuition is that it speaks a different language. Intuition is often symbolic and fragmentary. Only on rare occasions does it speak in complete sentences. Whatʹs more, intuitive information often does not make sense, especially when it involves the future. As a result, we train ourselves to dismiss it.”

If you doubt the validity of intuition, you can either allow it to prove itself or you will prove it doesn’t work yourself. Your belief in whether your intuition works are not, or the information of others works, will affect the outcome of your experience. If you are skeptical, your experience with intuition will most likely be a disappointment. If youʹre optimistic, and approach with curiosity, you will most likely receive positive results.

Most people are skeptics. Many people do not believe that intuition can find answers, and even those who wish to develop their intuition may be skeptical about their abilities. However, as with all new skills and abilities, to pretend is where it all begins. Set‐aside your rational mind and your doubts about your own abilities, and just pretend that you are able to use your intuition to find answers to anything and everything for a little while, and see what happens. You are always welcome to go back to a rational belief that you do not have these abilities, but for now give it a whirl and see what happens.

Laura Day expounds on the value of pretending in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power

Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996), “As we become older and ‘mature,’ many of us lose touch with

this important ability to pretend because of the overwhelming social pressures to be logical and sensible. Even young children are encouraged not to make things up. Whatʹs more, our ability to pretend and to create has been replaced to a large degree by technology, like videos and television and advertising, which gives our brains most

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of what they need to keep entertained. All of this is too bad, because pretending performs some very useful functions. Pretending is also a valuable ability when learning a new skill. Before we master something, it helps to pretend that weʹve already acquired the skill… even modern science is based on pretending… pretending often precedes faith. Indeed, pretending often generates faith, and, before we know it, we no longer need to pretend.” Intuition is not limited by space or time. Intuition does not require that you know anything about the subjects youʹre inquiring about. It doesnʹt even require that you understand all the impressions that you receive. This is the beauty of intuition. Even though you may know nothing about refrigerators, a refrigerator repair man may come to you and ask you why a particular refrigerator is resisting repair. You can find out through intuition, by describing feelings, pictures or words coming to you about the dysfunction of the appliance. The refrigerator repair man can then use your clues to determine the problem. You can know the answer to any question. You have access to all the answers. It is not the same as knowing everything consciously. It is a different kind of knowing.

Intuition plays a part in all your decisions. Feelings are emotional senses without explanation, and we tend to dismiss feelings as unreasonable and untrustworthy, but feelings are facts. Feelings are often what overrides the rational mind in the decision‐making process, and in fact can be a very trustworthy steering mechanism through your reality. It is not uncommon for someone to delay a trip based on a feeling, only later to find out that a disaster had been avoided, or an opportunity wouldʹve been lost if they had left. Feelings, or gut feelings, can be very accurate indicators of the right choices for you.

Why Do We Have Intuition, And Do We All Have It?

A scientific hypothesis is that intuition is first and foremost a survival tool. It gives you information instantaneously that you might need in a survival situation. The ability to be in tune to the surrounding environment was a life and death situation in primitive times. People who were more intuitive had a better chance of survival.

Laura Day says in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It

Work For You (1996), “We tend to rely on our more advanced and civilized senses, but remember that our most

reliable senses are the ones that developed first. Our sense of touch develops before our sight, our intellect last of all. Nature tells us what we can count on to survive, and we were given intuition for a reason. Most of your life questions related in some way to the future, and intuition, being foremost a survival tool, is especially adept at addressing the future. Most likely it is the sense (or collection of senses) specifically geared to gathering information that is not available in your immediate environment. For most of us, this process takes place unconsciously and with much interference from our logical minds and emotional patterning. In becoming aware of our intuitive information before itʹs fully assembled and before we have unwittingly acted on it, we bring this valuable data above our emotional consciousness to the level of our intellect. As a result, we make better reasoned decisions.”

Everyone has intuition. Even those who think they don’t, yes, they have it too. How often have you thought of your friend, and lo and behold, your phone rings and you know it is your friend? Have you ever had a dream that came true? You have at least once blurted something out and your friend said, “Hey! I was just thinking that, you read my mind!” Haven’t you ever “known” without knowing how you know something? You have had intuitive experiences galore, but you might not have realized that was what they were. Most often these experiences are dismissed without thinking much about them, or we chalk it up to coincidence.

Everyone operates in their life not even knowing how much they use their subconscious abilities. It is actually a two way street between the subconscious mind and the conscious mind. The subconscious not only communicates with the conscious mind, giving it privy information now and then from the realms of the “unknown,” or psychic hits, but it also takes direction from the conscious mind. What your conscious mind projects as a desire, your subconscious goes about creating, giving you information along the way as to its workings. Joseph Murphy explains this in his book Psychic Perception: The Magic Of Extrasensory Power (1971), “It is best that you have a healthy regard and respect for your thought. Thought is the most powerful force in the universe… Your subconscious mind could be likened to an iceberg—90% of it is below the surface. It is your subconscious mind that does the work according to the orders given it by your conscious mind. What you think with your conscious mind you produce with your subconscious.”

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In other words, your subconscious mind knows at least 90% more than your conscious mind does, if not more. Your subconscious mind works with the mathematics of the cosmos, all probabilities and all outcomes. It knows the future, it knows the past, and it knows all the possibilities for your life. It is one with the universal mind. It knows who will be standing on a particular street corner at 2:20 PM on a particular day, and will attempt to arrange that chance meeting you need to have with that stranger who will soon become one of your closest friends or business partners. The subconscious mind will nudge you to take the bus that day instead of the train, or give you the idea to take a different route home than you normally do. This is how psychic hits work. There is a constant rapport between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. If you realize that this is not such a mystery, and learn how to “hear” your subconscious when it speaks to you, your life can have some very magical unfoldings based on following the directions you are given from within yourself.

The attainment of psychic abilities is the direct attempt at learning to tune in to the subconscious and using it consciously. Although the human mind will never be able to hold all that the subconscious does, it can definitely be trained to interact with and take direction from the larger self that is directing your life. The advantages of being able to do this are limitless.

Why Hone My Psychic Skills?

One question that might come up is, “Why hone my intuitive skills if anyone can do an intuitive reading, and everyone has this ability?” Laura Day gives the answer in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The

Power Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996): “While anyone can generate intuitive information, it

takes an experienced practitioner to interpret the information in a useful way. The skill is in knowing how to ask questions, and how to interpret the intuitive responses.” The real challenge is in the interpretation. This is where the training is needed. This is why one must practice intuitive readings and then check on the accuracy in order to know that the interpretation of the symbols has been accurate. Not very many people check the accuracy of their intuition, and this is why not everyone can give a reading without any training.

Having exercised and practiced using your psychic abilities gives you an advantage that you did not have before in moving through your life. Now you can access more information when making your decisions, and use more of your senses than only five physical senses and the limited human intellect. You can use the viewpoint of the Universal Mind to make your decisions rather than the human viewpoint without extra information.

Shakti Gawain says about learning how to use your psychic abilities in her book Developing Intuition:

Practical Guidance For Daily Life (2000), “Quite simply, [it is useful] because it’s probably one of the most valuable

things you will ever do for yourself. It actually takes relatively little time, and the potential rewards are enormous. Intuition is an important resource that can greatly contribute to our success and fulfillment in life… once we know how to follow it, intuition is a very accurate guiding force in all aspects of life. Without it, we are at a great disadvantage.ʺ

Enid Hoffman puts it even more simply in Develop Your Psychic Skills (1981), “We develop our psychic skills for the same reason that we developed any other skill—because they enhance our lives.”

Some people fear that developing their psychic skills would change their lives too much, or interfere with living a normal life. While having psychic abilities can greatly enhance your life for the better, there are no true disadvantages to developing them. There are adjustments that must be made however. For instance, you may become aware of disembodied spirits that no one else can see, but whom you have a working relationship with. Another example would be that you may be quite aware of someone who has a serious illness, and yet you must say nothing unless you are asked by that person to expound on it. It is not appropriate to be telling everyone that you are seeing this or that in their energy. There can be some frustration involved when you know more than the average person about the people that you meet. However, you must be aware that you may not always be 100% right about what you are seeing, especially in the beginning. Either that or you may not be interpreting it correctly.

Eileen J. Garrett says in her book Many Voices: Autobiography Of A Medium (1968), “I am often asked if my psychic experiences ‘disturb’ my daily life. On the contrary, they enrich it… I have heard people with similar powers speak of themselves as being in the grip of something that leaves them helpless, that others find them difficult to understand… This has been true of great writers and thinkers through the ages, but I have never felt myself set apart. One simultaneously lives a separate existence, aware of a tenuous level of experience as one rubs

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shoulders with one’s fellows, while underneath there is the pattern that plays unconsciously and perpetually, a web many‐colored and delicate, but filled with the awareness of what is happening to each and all below the surface.”

Living with psychic abilities can add more layers to your experience than you ever thought possible. Imagine what it would be like not only to hear the words being spoken in a conversation, but also being aware of the energy patterns of the person’s aura you are conversing with, the emotional tones, the history, the mental processes, all of it in a deep way that you have never experienced before. Some might say it would be like living in an altered state all the time, and yet have more lucidity and clarity than any mind altering substance would facilitate.

Joseph Murphy says it quite eloquently in his book Psychic Perception: The Magic Of Extrasensory Power (1971): “For every man and woman, the cultivation of the intuitive faculty is of great significance. Intuition offers instantaneously that which the intellect or reasoning mind could accomplish only after weeks or months of monumental trial and error. When our reasoning faculties fail us in our perplexities, the intuitive faculty sings the silent song of triumph… If you will only believe, and not just pretend to believe, that Infinite Intelligence is guiding you in all your ways—in your thoughts, words, and deeds—you will be led along the right road… Your subconscious mind is one with infinite intelligence and boundless wisdom… It can provide you with the right idea and can free you from limitations of all kinds.”

What Is Intuition?

One might ask what the difference is between intuition and psychic abilities. Actually, there is no difference. The word psychic seems weird and “far out” to some people, whereas intuition is a word that is more acceptable in conservative circles. The words psychic and intuition are used interchangeably and synonymously. However, one might say that intuition is a precursor to having psychic abilities, or becoming a psychic. Developed intuition leads to psychic abilities. Intuition comes from the right hemisphere of the brain, the “primary brain.” According to Enid Hoffman in Develop Your Psychic Skills (1981), the right brain “knows,” and the left brain “guesses” and theorizes.

Shakti Gawain says in her book Developing Intuition: Practical Guidance For Daily Life (2000), “Intuition is a natural thing. We are all born with it. Young children are very intuitive, although in our culture they are often trained out of it early in life… some of us consciously develop this ability, while a majority of us learn to disregard and deny it… Fortunately, with some practice most of us can reclaim and develop our natural intuitive abilities. We can learn to be in touch with our intuition, to follow it, and to allow it to become a powerful guide in our lives… the intuitive mind… [has] access to an infinite supply of information, including information that we have not gathered directly through personal experience. It appears to be able to tap into a deep storehouse of knowledge and wisdom—the universal mind.” These three types of psychic skills are involved with intuition: Clairvoyance: clear seeing, usually having to do with images, pictures, symbols. Clairsentience: having to do with sensing, or feelings, knowing. Clairaudience: having to do with hearing, actual words that you literally hear, also celestial music or whooshing sounds.

Intuition Defined

1. Intuition is a nonlinear process. This means that intuition does not reason and it doesnʹt need to. It simply knows, instantly. Reasoning goes through a process of analysis and deduction, and then draws conclusions. Intuition does not follow these steps. It gets glimpses of bits and pieces in the form of symbols.

2. Intuition gathers information through a non‐empirical process.

Empirical means: based on experience or experiment, and sensory information through your five senses of taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell. The empirical process of gathering information is based on what has already happened. This has to do with past experiences, facts of reality, and other concrete parameters. Intuition, being non‐empirical, does not perceive information through your senses. However, information received through the intuition becomes empirical, and can be used by the reasoning mind as such.

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Intuitive impressions must be interpreted if they are to be useful. The information received through intuition is symbolic rather than literal. Intuition works with internal language. Very rarely does intuition speak with the spoken language. The symbols come in detail, more economically come words. We all know the saying, “A picture says 1,000 words.” This is true with the language of symbols.

4. Intuition responds to questions

Intuition must be set in motion by a question. The question focuses intuition in the same way that a captain or pilot needs the longitude and latitude in order to pinpoint the location of a mayday call from a stranded boat. When using intuition one is tapping in to a vast array of information. Unless a question is asked, intuition does not know what to pull first, for in every human there are millions of questions every day. Intuition must be directed as to which one of these questions to answer. Laura Day says in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996), “Intuition responds to questions, even the ones we haven’t consciously asked.”

How Do You Know If You Are Being Intuitive?

Many people who are just beginning to develop their intuition are not sure whether or not they are just protecting their own fears or hopes, have made something up, or are making a lucky guess. This is a valid question. The answer is that you donʹt really know until you have practiced for a little while and received feedback on how accurate you have been.

However, there are a few ways to know when you are in the intuitive state. These will become your signposts that let you know you are ready for the reading you are about to begin. Next time you are in an intuitive state, take notice of how you feel when you are there. There might be a sense of lightness, heaviness, changes in your perceptions like heightened hearing or heightened smell or touch, warmth, coolness, a still mind, heightened intelligence, peace, different breathing… the list is endless. Something will be different than your normal waking consciousness. This will let you know that you have entered an altered state. Write down these impressions when you experience them, for these are your signposts that will let you know when you are in an intuitive state. Another way to know if you have been using your intuition, “is the extent to which the impressions you received during the reading are confirmed by experience,” according to Laura Day in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996). She also advises, “Practice applying your intuition often. Each time you consciously access your intuition, get feedback by comparing the impressions you received with ‘reality.’ In a very short time you will learn to distinguish a genuine intuitive impression from your feelings or projections, particularly your hopes and fears.”

Intuition Proceeds In Steps, Receiving And Interpreting Information

The first step is receiving the symbols, the language of the inner self, and this is a nonlinear process. The second step is interpreting the symbols and putting them in a language that the human mind can understand. This is a linear process. The same way that a translator works, for instance one who translates German into the English language, this is how intuition works. The logical mind makes sense of the fragmented images and feelings that the intuition perceives. Assembling intuitive information is a talent in itself. The practitioner needs to find the meaning of the messages given by the unconscious, through symbols, of the inner self.

This process of learning to translate the language of the unconscious can be laborious, difficult and may take a little time at first. However, “This process becomes instantaneous once youʹre a practiced intuitive,” according to Laura Day in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It

Work For You (1996). She also sums up what intuition is with this statement: “The intuitive state is simply one in

which you gather information without relying on your senses or mental processes. Instead of blindly relying on this intuitive information, you must then assemble, verify, and interpret in a rigorous fashion. In that sense, intuition is a two‐step process, not unlike the event of first having dreams and then waking up to interpret them.” To add to what she is saying, one impression usually suggests others. Intuition works much like dominoes. The first image is shown, then the next and the next. Very rarely does intuition show the whole picture all at once.

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Psychic Skills ©2005 University Of Metaphysical Sciences You are already intuitive, you just need to practice with it and become comfortable with this ability. Even at an early stage, you will be amazed by your intuitive abilities. The trick is to go with your first impressions, and not second‐guess what youʹre getting. This is most important. However, if youʹre going to use your intuition for something like betting on horses, choosing stocks, business risks, or other financial gambles, make sure you have practiced long enough to know that your intuition is working correctly, before you invest money based on what your intuition tells you!

Types Of Psychic Abilities

First let’s clarify what specific psychic skills are called. You may have heard many of these terms, but now you will know exactly what each of them means.

Clairvoyance literally means “clear vision.” It refers to visual insights which sometimes override the field of vision in a spontaneous manner. These experiences may also be invoked through meditative states. For example, Dr. Judith Orloff is a contemporary psychiatrist who has learned over the years how to appropriately use her natural gift of clairvoyance to help clients. As she describes in her book, Second Sight (1996) regarding the ability she learned to cultivate, “It was a gradual process, but I became adept at staying attuned to many different levels at once. Intuitive impressions would often spontaneously pop up in the middle of a session. Sometimes there would only be a single image, sometimes many. I discovered that it wasn’t the number or complexity that mattered—simple, straightforward impressions can be the most potent.”

Clairvoyance also pertains to the ability to see auras. It is not unusual for a psychic to be able to see auras, if not with the physical eye, at least with the inner eye. See the UMS course on Chakras & Auras for more information on the meanings of the colors in the layers of the aura. See the UMS course on Aura Viewing (Master’s curriculum) to learn more about techniques for seeing auras.

The way in which Dr. Orloff first learned to develop and “tame” her natural gifts was through her early experience in a paranormal phenomena research laboratory. This was located at the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of California in Los Angeles, and research psychologist Dr. Thelma Moss ran it in the late 1960’s. In her initial interview with Dr. Moss, the art of psychometry was introduced to Dr. Orloff, which is a process whereby objects belonging to a person are used to help induce psychic intuitions about them. By holding in her hands the house keys of Dr. Moss, who encouraged her to shut her eyes, relax, and describe the house, young Judith learned that her interior visionary capabilities were quite advanced. This form of psychic ability is called psychometry. Her accuracy and detail in the process of describing the house convinced Dr. Moss that she could be a valuable asset in the lab.

Dr. Orloff also had the chance to work with a research project called The Mobius Group in southern California, which worked in conjunction with police departments, insurance companies and private groups needing the assistance of psychics. There, she learned how to do remote viewing, which was the modus operandi of the group. This skill may be described as a concentration on a specific objective, such as the location or other unknown information about an object or person from a distance. In her case, she passed her hands, in a light trance state, over a map, feeling the energy change and guide her to certain locations. She was also encouraged to draw what she saw in her field of interior vision. It was through this training that she later learned to “read” her subjects while holding her attention on them at other levels simultaneously, as mentioned earlier. Remote viewing is another form of clairvoyance. Remote viewing means that a person can see what is happening in another place, or observe an object from a great distance. Many documented experiments were conducted where a viewer would report on what he or she was seeing in a different physical location than where he or she was present. This was verifiable information.

Clairaudience is similar to clairvoyance in that the auditory sense is heightened, and voices or sounds can be heard psychically. Clairaudience means “clear hearing.” The sounds can be described as radio signals from varying levels of universal “air waves,” including our own Higher Nature. Voices can be to warn us of impending danger, or of spiritual guidance. This psychic skill is perhaps more commonly accessed by most people (given that we “hear ourselves think” so much of the time) as well as the ability to be clairsentient.

Clairsentience means, in essence, “to feel.” Many say that it is “clear sensing.” This can also be called empathy. Clairsentience is when we feel the feelings of others and sometimes these feelings might be so prominent that they may seem as if they are our own feelings. Very often, healers who work with people who are ill feel their physical symptoms as they open themselves up to higher frequencies in order to channel healing

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energy. This is a process of clairsentience at a concentrated level. Claircognizance is a form of this ability, which means “to know.” A person who is claircognizant “knows” without knowing how they know.

The scientific process of assessing ESP has been an interest in the West since the Society of Psychical Research was founded in 1882 in England. An American society was established a few years later, with similar groups now in other countries, and what is known today as parapsychology has come to be regarded by some as an accepted field of scientific study.

One of the most well‐known modern researchers was Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine of Duke University in North Carolina (who coined the term ESP). Hansel reported in his book ESP: A Scientific Evaluation (1966), “In 1934, [Rhine] published Extra Sensory Perception, in which he gave details of research at Duke University and claimed to have found overwhelming evidence for the existence of extrasensory perception. Further research followed, and in 1940 the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory was formed with Rhine as its director.”

Perhaps one of the best contributions to the study of telepathy, or being able to read the minds of others, came out of Duke with the invention of the Zener cards as an experimental instrument. These cards, invented by Duke’s colleague K.E. Zener, were symbols that have come to be associated with ESP testing, and they consist of a circle, a rectangle, a plus sign, wavy lines, and a five‐pointed star (known as ESP cards). In the experiments there was usually a “sender” who would pick a card, visualize the object on it, and a “receiver” in another room or behind a barrier who would be instructed to guess the object.

The process of telepathy has actual electrical impulses involved. When you have an idea or a thought, an electrical impulse is created in the brain on etheric levels. Thought waves throw off tiny particles of themselves as they travel, and they can travel great distances. Thought waves are not affected by solid objects, so thoughts disregard the physical laws of space and time. They pass through walls, cross cities, and traverse mountains. Eventually, they do lose their potency and can no longer be picked up by a “receiver.” This is much the way that a sound wave or radio wave loses its potency after it has had a chance to bounce around for a while.

The process of “receiving” through telepathy comes in through the unconscious, or subconscious, and then is filtered to the conscious mind. The sending process goes through the conscious mind. The receiving process is rooted in the etheric connections the unconscious has to the universal mind. Because the receiving process comes in through the unconscious, there are many ways the conscious mind can become aware of what the unconscious picks up. These include receiving vague images, feelings, sensations, fragmented thoughts, etc. When telepathy is utilized by a trained sender and a trained receiver, amazing results can be documented, and they have been time and time again in many labs.

Telepathy is most potent between people who have an emotional bond. It is not unusual for a mother to know when a child of hers is in danger, has been harmed, or has been injured. She knows when something is wrong. It is not unusual for lovers to know what is happening with each other even though they may be on opposite sides of the world. Stress, of course, also brings about spontaneous telepathy. When there is great need, it is not unusual for a person who has never worked on being telepathic to suddenly “know.” Precognition is the ability to know the future. Precognitive dreams are not unusual, and almost everyone has had one at some point or another in life. Knowing future events can be quite useful, but also disturbing if they are of a disastrous nature. Some people are naturals at precognition, and others can develop this with training. A premonition falls in this category of psychic experiences, but it is not quite as defined as precognition. It would be more like a hunch, a vague feeling, or sensation. Precognition is more detailed and clear compared to a premonition.

Seeing the future is a natural occurrence. Time as we know it is a human convenience. To the eternal self, our true nature, time is simultaneous. There is no past or future. There is only the eternal now. To the eternal self, everything happens at once. Eternity is not just a “long time.” It is a whole different way of perception. All other versions of time are contrivances in order to organize experiences for versions of consciousness that are not aware of themselves as Eternity. People with psychic abilities “can leave the time stream temporarily—sticking their heads outside of it, as it were—to look into the so‐called future or past,” according to Dr. Hans Holzer in his book

Are You Psychic? (1997). This is why psychic predictions are possible. Dealing with probable futures, however, is a

whole other matter.

The fact that time is an illusion may give us cause to re‐examine what we think cause and effect is. The law of cause and effect may be far more complex and sophisticated than we have previously believed. In the timeless dimensions, which is where a psychic “sticks his or her head” when perceiving the past or future, events

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themselves are stationary and may not have anything to do with cause an effect as we know it. However, this is a subject for another day! Something to think about though. The point is, the future is available to us whenever we are able to step outside of our belief in time as explained in human terms. When we are standing in the timeless dimensions, we are able to access any point in time as if it is happening now.

Everyone has had the experience of having a “time warp,” an occasion where a large amount of time passed, but it seemed to only be a short amount, or an occasion where the opposite happened. These are moments when you have stepped out of time as it is known in human terms. One factor that is almost always involved in time warps is that there is often a feeling of happiness and joy when “time flies.” Have you ever noticed that time seems to move faster when you are happy, and drags endlessly when you are depressed? Time may after all be a perception experience more than a hard and fast physical law of the universe. Even scientists are beginning to question the nature of time. They have discovered that time moves differently around large masses of matter, like black holes, and other anomalies in the universe. This is still, as yet, largely undiscovered territory. Is time itself something that will become a myth that was once believed so predominantly among the masses, much the way the masses once believed that the earth was flat?

Over the years, evidence from experimental research has been found for the following extra sensory perception processes: telepathy—awareness of thoughts without sensory means, such as verbal communication; clairvoyance—visuals of an object or event without the known five senses; and precognition—knowledge of the future without use of the five senses. These experiences are ones of perception and cognition without the activity of our usual sense organs, thus being categorized as ESP.

There is another type of easily measurable psychic skill that utilizes the mental processes but has a paranormal outcome. It is known as telekinesis (also known as psychokinesis). This unusual process is defined as the ability to influence a physical object or event by thinking about it, such as the fall of a die (dice). It also includes the movement of objects through space. This particular model was scientifically researched in Russia in the late 1960’s. More on this research can be found in Sheila Ostrander’s book Psychic Discoveries Behind The Iron

Curtain, written in 1967.

A direct experience with telekinesis is related by the psychiatrist mentioned above, Dr. Judith Orloff, when she worked in the NPI research laboratory with Dr. Moss at UCLA. At the time, a young Israeli man named Uri Geller, who was reputed to be able to bend metal objects with the force of his mind, came to the laboratory for a demonstration. He had started out by entertaining the Israeli armed forces and was discovered in a Tel Aviv nightclub by a parapsychologist who was impressed with his ability to bend people’s rings from a distance.

Geller’s successful experiment at the lab astounded the observers, for he was able to bend, without touching, many eating utensils into little balls—as well as the metal contents of a large desk. As Dr. Orloff writes in Second Sight (1966), “Uri had defied both our expectations of the physical world and our skepticism about the authenticity of performers.” (In fact, she herself found out later that he had managed to bend the house key in the pocket of her dress and she could not let herself into her front door.)

Related to the objectively observable outcome of psychic abilities such as telekinesis is the ancient art of water dowsing, also popularly known as water witching. People who can do this are among those who, legendarily, held a forked tree branch by each prong and traversed a person’s property in a systematic manner, waiting for the branch to tip downward and indicate the presence of underground streams for building wells. Rosemary Althea writes of such a contemporary person in her autobiography The Eagle And The Rose (1995) when she describes a Greek man whom she counseled about healing. She says that on his home, the island of Cyprus, he could often find water and get paid for it, but that she told him his true work was as a healer. Once she helped him get started with that path she found him to be quite successful, as “a man of uncommon humility, devotion to spirit and willingness to give to others…”

The ability to see auras is described as a psychic skill that many people naturally possess, especially children. It is in the category of clairvoyance. In this experience, the varying brilliant, transparent colors emanating from a person, called the aura, are perceptible to the naked eye. In this process, it is speculated that our electro‐magnetic energy is radiating soul‐consciousness through the vibrational levels of color corresponding to our soul pattern. This skill is related to clairvoyance, but has expanded to include the physical eyes in addition to the inner eye.

Many psychics are naturally able to observe auras, and have gotten used to it since childhood. In one incident that has been written about in the life of the famous psychic Edgar Cayce, auras played a major role. As

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Psychic Skills ©2005 University Of Metaphysical Sciences biographer Jess Stearn noted in his biography of Edgar Cayce The Sleeping Prophet (1979), apparently Cayce was able to forestall his death by instinctively refusing to step into an elevator that subsequently failed. Everyone in the elevator died. This leads us to believe that perhaps the absence of the aura is a sign of impending death. The reason he gave was that he knew something was wrong when the doors opened and he saw, momentarily, the lack of auric emanations around the people within it. Kirlian photography has been able to capture the aura in a photographic technique that was developed by a Russian research team. As husband and wife, Valentina and Semyon Kirlian began their research in 1939 and were granted government funds by Russia in 1960 to continue their work. We in the West are indebted to the scientific advances that these scientists contributed to the field of parapsychology. Their experiments are covered in more detail in the UMS Chakras & Auras course. Dr. Orloff, who worked with Kirlian photography at the U.C.L.A. research lab, describes it as a process that records the subtle energy field of all forms of life, as well as inanimate objects. She says in Second Sight (1966) that this field extends as far as a few feet or more beyond the body, and is not detectable by most people. In conclusion to this overview, a very large component of the study of psychic skills is the experience of channeling information from other dimensions, which is a study in itself. This includes the process known as mediumship, in which mediums are in communication with discarnate souls and transmit information to the living in gatherings called “séances.” A similar way to get in touch with out‐of‐body sources is through the use of the Ouija Board, which has letters and numbers on it to which a pointer can go to spell out messages. Some people have attempted automatic writing in this vein, in which they hold a pen loosely and wait for it to move of its own accord.

As to the work of psychics and readers in the art of channeling, there are many types of practitioners. They range from full‐trance operators such as the famous Edgar Cayce, who was able to see the body of those requiring medical readings while he was unconscious, to faith healers rapt in prayer. Many psychics are known as conscious intuitive consultants, and give their impressions. The art of channeling is varied and reflects the greater or lesser personality involvement of the person who is doing the channeling work. Channeling is mediumship. Sources for this information range from anonymous origins to spirit guides with names, who sometimes aid the mediums in contacting and facilitating communications from deceased family members. Psychic healing is another psychic ability. This is covered in more detail in the Master’s curriculum at UMS, but none‐the‐less it should be mentioned here. Many miraculous healings have happened through psychic healing sessions, much to the bewilderment of puzzled doctors. Psychic healing has to do with bringing through healing energies for the client, helping the client understand and resolve karmic influences that were left unaddressed, and bringing calm, balance and peace to a distorted part of the client’s energy. Often, those who posses the gift of healing have had no formal training and can do this without knowing how they even do it. However, this gift can be attained, just as all the other gifts, if a person has a true desire to do so.

The ultimate psychic abilities are great spiritual powers, or siddhis. These spiritual powers include levitation, astral projection (out of body experiences), lucid dreaming, teleportation/bi‐location and other advanced spiritual skills. These will be discussed in other UMS courses, but would also be considered psychic skills. For now, start with the smaller siddhis and move up to the more advanced ones as you are able.

Divination sources include pendulums, which will move in one direction or another when questions are asked, and many forms of the original Tarot cards that were once read by gypsies. Also included is scrying, or using water and glass for reading images to divine peoples’ fortune. Many indigenous cultures throughout the world have used “shamans” for guidance and healing in their society, special people who were gifted in understanding the mystical presence of wild animals and birds as messengers. These cultures have also used sacred herbs that altered consciousness for visioning, and this tradition is gaining much popularity today.

While some of the devices such as pendulums, cards and Ouija Boards, can be used by anyone to experiment, the path to increasing psychic capabilities should be undertaken seriously. A strong foundation in meditation and a desire to open to higher energies for the good of all life lays a good framework in which to avoid being misguided. The key to healthy psychic development is in establishing one’s purpose and integrity, and examining any motives for personal power. A clear heart and mind creates the clearest possible experience in your endeavors into the field of psychic abilities.

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Predictions

Sometimes someone comes to you with a question and you give an intuitive response, and then they come back to you with a question and now the response is different. Answers change depending on the actions that the person who is getting the reading took. This is a world of probable realities and probable futures. Probable realities are things that could happen, and nothing is written in stone. A person has choices, and every choice attracts a different probable future to it. Therefore, no prediction can be 100% sure of happening because probable realities are involved and all the person has to do is make a different choice and he or she changes his or her future. Sometimes the reading itself is what caused the person to choose a different path than the one that they were headed on at the time that they received the first reading. When a person makes a different choice after a reading, the next reading will have different results. Many people do not understand this and believe that you were wrong, but their choices and actions changed their path into the future. Predicting mass events is easier because then it takes a lot of people to make different choices to change the future, and this is less likely than one person’s ability to change his or her mind.

Laura Day says in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It

Work For You (1996), “Making a prediction is viewing the strongest possibility. Predictions tend to be accurate

because the pattern of any system, including human beings, tends toward stasis. I often hear people tell stories of predictions that scared them, such as, ‘she said I will have a car accident in July.’ I would most certainly not forget the most obvious question to ask: how can I avoid this event?” Predictions are not written in stone. There are probable futures. They may or may not happen. When an intuitive predicts something, he or she is tapping into the most probable future, not all the probable futures. This is why predictions sometimes fail, because the people involved made different decisions and different choices, which resulted in a different probable future being picked. Probable futures can also be avoided by making different choices, and part of the intuitive’s job is to help the client find what their choices are in order to avoid unwanted probable futures.

“The collective conscious works on the belief that our actions⎯individually, and collectively as a planet and a system⎯create a pattern and direction that, unless intercepted and rerouted, is determined by the motion of the past and present. For example, a person can roll a ball. It goes in the direction it was rolled and, if you know the terrain itʹs rolling over… and the speed at which it started, you can make a fair guess about where it will end up. Then think of thousands of balls rolling in all directions. If you know where all the balls started from, then youʹll know at what speed and at which point your ball will meet another ball and change direction. You also have information available to allow you to alter the direction of a ball. In fact, you have the resources to alter the direction of all balls that your ball comes into contact with, directly or indirectly, by altering just one ball. Reality is nothing more than a consensus.”

Divination Tools As Training Wheels Or Aids

You can use intuitive aids as well as straight intuition. Some people like to use tarot cards, runes, tea leaves, the pendulum… again the list is endless. There are multitudes of divination systems that can assist with intuition. For some, they are good training wheels for developing intuition but then they are discarded once the intuitive process is fully honed. The only difference with using intuition versus using divination techniques is that intuition does not use external cues to help find the answers. Divination tools may be very useful in the beginning until you begin to hone your abilities and trust them. For more information, see the UMS course on Divination Systems.

Ask Very Specific Questions

By using your intuition, you can ask anything and receive answers. When people wonder what questions they can ask, tell them to ask whatever they want, no limits, for they will be able to have audience with an all seeing universe and the vast knowledge that intuition can tap into and that will provide the answers. Through intuition you can find out about anything you want to know, including information about any person, place, or event in the past, present or future.

It is important to learn how to ask the right questions. Much information can be lost or distorted if the questions are not asked correctly. If a question is not phrased correctly, this may distort the answer. Laura Day

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gives an interesting analogy in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It

Work For You (1996), “One of the frustrating things about working with computers is that they do only what you

tell them to do. If a computer malfunctions, itʹs because your instructions were not correct. In a sense your intuition is like that. It answers precisely the question before it. If you want to get the right answer, youʹd better be sure you ask the right question.”

Laura Day goes on to describe a famous example of a question put to an intuitive in ancient Greece. “A powerful ruler, about to invade the lands of an enemy kingdom, asks the Oracle to see whether a great battle would be won. The Oracle responded in the affirmative. The Oracle was correct; a great battle was won. Unfortunately for the king, it was won by his rival. Had he known as much as you now do about asking questions, he wouldʹve asked a question along the lines of this: “Will I successfully invade my rival’s kingdom tomorrow?” Another example Day gives is: “Will it rain tomorrow?” The answer must be, “Yes: of course it will rain tomorrow⎯somewhere!” It is easy to ask nonspecific questions, so it is good to think them out ahead of time. Always ask people who are coming for a reading to take a couple of days and write their questions out ahead of time, think them out very carefully, and be very specific. There are three requirements of a good question. 1. Each question must be specific so that a precise answer is possible. 2. Each question should be simple rather than compound. 3. Each question should be directly relevant to the issue you want to know about.

Laura Day gives us some guidelines on how to construct the right question in order to get the right answers. Let us look at the pitfalls with common questions that are asked in readings.

1. Will I have enough money?

Enough is not specific. Enough means something different for every person. For some people enough

money means just enough to pay the bills. For others, enough money means being able to buy specific stocks that have been coveted. For others, enough money means great wealth. A more specific way to ask this question is, “When (or how) will I be financially secure enough to retire?” or “When will I be able to afford the kind of lifestyle I want?”

2. Will I be happy?

This is a loaded question. For instance, one could get a head injury that limits the ability to worry, thereby making room for happiness. Also, there are no time limits specified as to when this happiness will come. For instance, happiness is often achieved upon death when entering the realms of angels and spirits, letting go of the worries on earth. It is important to be very specific. Better questions to ask are as follows: ʺHow do I create happiness in my life?” or ʺWhat prevents me from being happy?” 3. Should I take the new job? The word should in this question poses problems. Whether you should or not depends on what you want. One must ask oneself what one is trying to experience by changing jobs. The following questions might be more specific: “Should I take the new job if job security is my primary goal?” “Should I take the new job if experience rather than compensation is my primary goal?” “Should I take the new job if I want to spend more time with my family?” 4. Should I become an artist?

Questions that involve choices can also pose difficulties. For instance, one must ask oneself what the goals are for becoming an artist. A person can be an artist without being a financially successful artist and completely enjoy the process. However, one who wants to be a successful artist must incorporate this into the question. “Will I be a financially successful artist?” One must also define what success means, and how is it measured. 5. Will I get married and have children? This is a double question that might have two different answers. This is a common mistake. It is up to the reader to separate the two questions and answer them separately. This question should be asked, and answered, as two single questions.