Psychic techniques
Division/classification
Generally speaking, psychic experiences which deal with receiving information from an outside source, either living or passed on can be classified into the following categories: psychometry, telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, automatic writing and channeling. Two more psychic techniques, assumption and projection, deal with transferring the personality to a remote location.
Psychometry is the art of receiving information about someone by touching an object commonly carried by that person such as a key chain or jewelry. The scope of this paper does not include explaining how psychometry, or any other psychic art is performed, but they do work. I once held someone’s keys, closed my eyes and waited for images to appear. Nothing happened. I was miffed and stopped trying to get an image. Then my hands started to itch and suddenly in my mind’s eye, I saw boxes being stacked up to form a wall. The man whose keys I was holding was a mason. Another time, I held a woman’s ring, closed my eyes and immediately my throat closed up, my chest caught fire and I couldn’t breathe. I snapped myself out of it and found that the woman had serious respiratory problems. Her ring was extremely hot when I handed it back to her. These two people were complete strangers I partnered with at a psychic workshop. Psychometry does work, though it may not work all the time, or work for everyone.
Telepathy is more loosely defined. In general, telepathy is a method of receiving information about someone. Telepathy is different from psychometry in that an object is not used. The information pertains to past, present or future events. The way it is transmitted can be visual, as with clairvoyance, or auditory, as with clairaudience. I’ve have seen and heard things that “weren’t there.” Some of my friends can claim the same thing. Jeanne d’Arc heard voices, my friend Frances has heard voices and I have heard voices. Usually, it is simply a voice calling our name, and it’s a little unsettling to say the least.
Children have a special gift of telepathy that is often repressed by adults. For example, I’ve heard of children who have seen angels and what adults commonly refer to as ghosts. Sometimes, telepathy is as simple as knowing what a person is going to say before that person says it, or thinking a thought that is expressed by someone else, out loud, word-for-word. Many people commonly have this experience, myself included. Telepathy can mean knowing who is calling you on the telephone or what is in the mail. Telepathy is an art that can be practiced and improved, but it is usually shunned due to fear of the unknown.
I practice a different form of telepathy, that of “throwing my voice” psychically to animals. I once watched a dog trotting down the sidewalk about two blocks in front of me. I stopped walking, concentrated on the dog, and mentally called out “Here, Boy! C’mon, Boy!” At first the dog continued to trot away but then he stopped. He turned back towards me and his ears perked up and twitched, as though he were listening to something. He started to trot towards me. When he came within four feet, he stopped with the funniest expression on his face as though to say, “Hey! Who are you? Do I know you?” It was comical. I try to throw my voice to cats and deer. The deer experiments are usually more successful than the cat experiments.
Automatic writing is being able to write down information while in an altered state, or what used to be called a trance. I have tried this but can’t do it. Automatic writing may be a fairly new phenomenon. The Ouija board and planchette have accomplished the same effect in the past, except much more slowly.
Channeling is similar to automatic writing. A person receives messages from another source while in a trance and then passes them on either verbally or in writing. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between channeling and automatic writing as far as the end product goes. Some say that the book, Conversation With God by Neale Donald Walsh was channeled, but whether it was channeled from God is hard to say.
There are two other ancient and less mainstream psychic powers, namely assumption and projection. With assumption, a person temporarily influences the thoughts and ideas of another person. With projection, a person’s image is projected to others at a remote location. I use the term “ancient” because some say that even Jesus, the Christ, displayed these talents in biblical times.
In his book, “Exploring the Human Aura,” Nicholas Regush suggests that telepathy, precognition and even reincarnation can all be explained as results of the human aura. Regush explains that the human aura is part of a universal information matrix and its basic function is gathering non-sensory information. Hence, the success of psychic endeavors. Others describe the aura as an electromagnetic envelope around the human body that can be recorded with scientific instruments. The Soviet Kirlian process makes the aura visible on film. Yet most scientists and para-psychologists do not agree on what exactly the aura is, much less what it does.
Regush also argues that the tendency to believe in the inevitability of certain psychic predictions can be a fearful and haunting experience for certain individuals. Acceptance of a prediction can act like a “hex,” fixating an individual at a certain level of reality. Moreover, there have been a great many hoaxes played by those claiming psychic abilities upon those who are easily led into belief.
The Science Channel, on the other hand, recently ran a program about two Stanford graduates who were experimenting with telepathy and what is called remote viewing. The CIA became interested because they wanted to know what the Soviets were up to and so they funded the graduates’ work for twenty years. Eventually, the CIA stopped funding them and the grad students dabbled in the commodities market. Once again they met with success in eleven out of eleven tries. When asked why they didn’t continue and become billionaires, they answered that their remote viewing talents gave them peace of mind, and somehow making money on their talent didn’t seem quite right and so they stopped. They are still active in their research at Stanford.
This essay is by no means a conclusive discourse on the variety of psychic phenomena present in the world. Other fascinating abilities exist including everything from telekinesis, raising objects, to raising the dead. That, at least, is one psychic gift no one is practicing at the moment.