Introduction

Ah, yes...., This is another one of those categories that people tend to overlook, that is crucial to being a successful psionic practitioner(a psion).
 

Engage in Self Study.

Psionics is a very introspective field.  Different things work for different people, and there is a lot of “misguided” information out there.  As a psionic practitioner, you’ll be expected to do your own research, to formulate your own conclusions regarding the research of others and what it means to your practice, and formulate your own methods to attain personal goals.

Do:

> Double-check information given by other psionic practitioners.
> Do your own research, formulate your own conclusions based on the progress recorded in your psychic journal and external research done by others and within the field of parapsychology.
> Try many different methods and record your outcomes.
> Realize there is more than one “right” answer, but some answers may be better for you than others.
> Make a psychic journal.

Dont:

> Read one article or one course and take it as "gospel"
> Limit yourself to content mentioned on this website and related websites. Seek out some books and varied perspectives.
> Forget to record your experiences in your psychic journal.

Maintaining Focus

As a psionic practitioner, it is expected that you will maintain an equilibrium regarding your psionic practice, as well as your mental and physical health and priorities.  This means that you should practice at least once or twice a day, but also focus on maintaining your health in other areas, such as your diet and physical exercise.

Focus On:

1. Objects or Goals for Extended Periods of Time
This is important because Psionics is something that takes a lot of time and dedication.  Some of our beginner exercises help you to become a more focused individual.
2. Self-Improvement Rather than Ego
It has always been popular within psionics web communities to “boast” about abilities that one “claims” to have(whether or not he/she actually has the abilities he/she claims to have is a different story).  This is often done to gain “reputation points” amongst the other members of psionics web sites.

How to Spot People That Do Not Care About Self Improvement:

> Cares more about having a lot of students than teaching them well.
> This person cares more about appearing to be an authority figure than actually improving him/herself. 
> After all, those reputation points count for something, right?

Successful Psionic Practitioners Have the Time to Complete the Exercises

If you have the time to eat, the time to sleep, the time to shower, and the time to use the bathroom, you should have the time to practice psionics.  It should be something that becomes part of your daily routine.  However, for the unfortunate few that actually absolutely cannot make the time to practice, they will have difficulty becoming successful with Psionics.  However, a lot of the time, this is an excuse that is used by individuals who are not motivated or do not wish to put in the time necessary to become successful.

Introduction

If you think you have made a success, check your previous results and see whether your success may be considered a “chance occurrence” (Probability P > .05).  If you are practicing psychokinesis (telekinesis), check your environment thoroughly for anything that could have moved the object.  If you are reading an article and it seems like it may be inaccurate, see what others’ opinions about the article are by visiting the forums or other websites.

Example

It is common for people who are practicing esp to finally be excited when something is predicted right.  However, if you read your journal and study it, you might note that, actually, chance predicts this one success after many failures as noted in your journal.

Resources

Psychokinesis

How to be able to tell if something is blowing on an object with little friction (such as a pinwheel or a rotating piece of tinfoil):

(Video By: Saintbob)

Extra-Sensory Perception

This is an area where it is particularly important to consider statistics (using your journal). We have provided a statistics course to help you understand how to determine whether your practice using esp was actually psychic. Alternatively, you can use this program to help determine whether your practice using esp was actually psychic.

How to Practice

Practice practice practice. What a pain in the ass, right?

I know everyone out there wants to do cool things without putting any effort into it, but that's just not very realistic. So, you have to make a decision: do you want to sit around and dream of doing cool things, or do you want to do something about it and build a plan for success?

Most people will find this stuff pretty obvious. I'm sorry this is a boring "state-the-obvious" type of article, but I'll try to go quickly. It gets a little better at the end, I promise.

Common Sense

To practice, you need an exercise. You need something to practice. On PsiPog, a lot of articles outline exercises in steps. Let's take an example exercise from NI's Telekinesis Training Manual. He outlines three steps, clearly marked in the article:

Step 1. Prepare Yourself
Step 2. Become One
Step 3. Move It

All you do is get some time alone, and do each step. First, you "Prepare Yourself". NI says in the article that you should do a little meditation. So sit down, calm your breathing, and do what he says in the article. He gives you a few ideas - read through the article and see what he says.

After you feel you successfully completed Step 1, move on to the next one. "Become One", then after that, "Move It". The point being: do what the article says. It has an exercise; it has steps for success - now DO IT!

A lot of people are confused at the point of an exercise. An exercise is not a procedure for immediate success. It is not the ONLY way to learn. It is not written in stone. Think of this like any other skill. Now, you might read an exercise on how to play a song on the piano, but it takes practice to actually do it successfully. Practice means that you do the exercise over and over again, and slowly get better.

Modifying an Exercise

Psionics is not understood very well. Nobody has all the answers. The exercises you read on PsiPog (Metalforever's Note: and Psionics Online) are not passed down from generation to generation from an ancient civilization or anything like that - they are made by people just like you. We took the basic idea, experimented, shared ideas, and came up with some things for other people to try.

For this reason, there really is no "right" or "wrong" way established. If you accomplish your goal, then you're doing it "right". For example, it took me over a year to get results in telekinesis, and I wrote an article on what I thought. NI read the article, and practiced, and it took him less time to get better than me. He wrote an article. Now I meet people who do things in a week or two that took me months of effort. Then those people teach ME about new things to try. We're learning collectively from everyone's experiences.

This is why it's important to modify exercises that you read on PsiPog (Metalforevers Note: and Psionics Online). If something doesn't make sense to you, or you think you have a better idea - try it! It might not work, but it might work better. If it works better, think about writing an article and sharing the new information.

Don't be afraid to try out new ideas that pop in your head. What do you have to lose?

Getting Better Without Practice

When you first start a new skill, it's important to sit down and take your time with it, and get used to it. Try the exercises, modify the exercises, and give it a shot and see if you can get any results. After a while of doing this, you'll start to develop a better "feel" for what's going on. If you're like me, you might slightly obsess over it too :-P.

I believe that it's important to sit down and practice on a regular basis. But I also believe that you should incorporate your practice into your daily life if you really want your skills to be useful. What does this mean? This means that while you're standing in line at the grocery store, looking at those stupid magazines on the shelf, you can actually be trying to improve your skills.

Let's talk about empathy, as an example. Do you know how many times I've sat down and practiced empathy? Maybe... a dozen times? But do you know how many people I've read empathetically? Probably in the thousands. Pay attention, because this is important if you want to be skilled: you need to find ways to incorporate your skills into your daily life. While waiting on the bus, I would go person to person, and read each one empathetically. While sitting in class, I would read random students. While walking down the sidewalk, I read every stranger that walks by me. Every conversation I have has some empathy related to it in some way. Every new person I meet. The goal isn't to become great over night - the goal is to gradual become better in realistic situations.

There comes a point where the skill isn't something foreign to you, but it's just another part of you. You'll practice without thinking about it, and over time it adds up.

You have to put forth some effort to change your daily habits, and it can be challenging at times. Figure out what you want; figure out the person you want to be. Then change yourself and your habits to accomplish your goal.

Conclusion

I know that practicing is sort of a lame topic, but I think it's important to discuss. If psionics is just a fad for you, and you'll forget it in a month, you really don't have to think about this stuff. But if you plan on doing this for a long period of time, you'll need to set up some realistic goals, and work towards them. Start with the exercises outlined on PsiPog (Mealforevers Note: and Psionics Online), modify them and work them into your daily life, and in time you'll be skilled.

- Sean (aka Peebrain)

What is and isn’t Doable

It's reasonable to expect to be able to significantly change your life through psionics, only perhaps not in the ways you dream of, or expect.  What you see in films and on television is by and large not probable, and often not possible, but there is still a great deal of change available to the dedicated psionic practitioner.  Perhaps the intentions of others will become transparent to you, perhaps you will be able to gain access to your house or car when you've lost your keys, maybe you'll just inspire a general luck in your life.  Similarly it is possible to have negative changes to your life.  Heightened sensitivity brings heightened vulnerability, and many people become deluded over the years.  Remain a healthy skeptic, and always strive to improve the quality of your life with psionics, not complicate and worsen it, and you will find yourself pleased with your practice.

That said you aren't remotely likely to be lobbing fireballs at your obnoxious boss, though you might manage to make his day unpleasant.  Here is a list of things that are reasonable goals for the aspiring psion.

Reasonable Expectations

Development of Conscious / Unconscious Awareness

One thing many people notice after practicing sensory abilities, regardless of type (energy, empathy, telepathy, etc.) is the development of an unconscious and/or conscious awareness of the surroundings and the people around you.  This is rarely so precise as to be like eyes in the back of your head, rather as you become more sensitive and attuned to the signals that were often already present, you learn to notice details you didn't know you knew.  Things like the number of people around you, the relationships of those people, the warmth or coolness under the ground, or the hollowness of a building may simply seem more evident.  It's not x-ray vision, but on rare occasions you may be accused of having it.

More Accurate "Guessing"

As an extension of the previous point, being able to more accurately guess at things unknown using additional sensory inputs is both useful and relatively common.  Examples may include the number of bricks tall a wall is, at a glance, the temperature, the speed of the wind, the time, the number of widgets in a container, etc.  The added awareness of things in general often give you an edge over dumb luck when you have to estimate in a pinch.

Influencing the Course of Events

It is entirely possible to influence the course of events otherwise outside of your regular control, either by influencing the human components or inanimate components.  Arguments, debates, votes, etc. can go your way by understanding or influencing the emotions or thoughts of the other people involved (empathy and telepathy).  Influencing probability with micro PK can dramatically alter the outcome of events, and a little macro PK in the right context can be as effective.

Ability to Project Thoughts or Emotion

In perceiving and projecting thoughts or emotion you will become more able to persuade peers, this goes along with the last point but bears repeating.

Without even relying on psionic skills you will likely find yourself able to intimidate almost anyone with ideas far outside of their comfort zones.  A lot of people will be floored by topics you will find yourself very comfortable with.  Psionic practitioners are already usually the sort comfortable with unusual subjects, the personal security psionics adds is merely reinforcing this tendency.

Telepathic / Empathic Communication

Most practitioners of empathy and/or telepathy find they can communicate with the people significant to them, wordlessly.  Lovers and marital partners along with parents and siblings and close friends may find you finishing their sentences much more often, knowing when they’re hiding something from you, etc.

Unreasonable Expectations

1. Do not expect to make anyone a living puppet/doll, that’s not only a sick desire, but an extremely improbable if not impossible one.  People can be influenced, and even that is morally gray, but complete manipulation is a power fantasy, not a reality.
2. Don’t expect to be able to upgrade psi balls into fireballs... While psionics abilities can become very significant over time, we are never masters of the physical world, generating matter is not possible via psionics (or any method not involving absurd futuristic machinery).
3. Do not anticipate being invulnerable to any given danger: bullets, germs, heat, etc. Things like Micro PK can influence chance, sensitivity can provide early warning of dangers, but nothing can protect you all the time from all things.  A bullet can kill the most skilled healer, a germ can down the greatest telepath ever born.  You will always be human.
4. Don’t expect to be able to create physical life.  Hopefully this one is pretty self-evident, but I assure you, someone reading this is sorely disappointed.  Influencing biology of something living is very much doable; creating such a system is very much so not.
5. Not only is killing morally and legally unforgivable, it is virtually, if not entirely, impossible using psionics.  There are no secret techniques that kill people with PK.  No one happy to be alive can be TPS’d into killing themselves.  It’s wrong to try, but even if you do, you will fail. (Metalforever's Note: We do not advocate this in any way, shape, or form)
6. It’s one thing to influence events, it’s another to have complete control of them.  There is no way to be completely in control of anything using psionics.  You can influence almost anything, but you are not and will not become God.

Final Thoughts

As always, remember to practice daily to avoid losing ground on your goals.  I invite you to try anything here that your moral compass allows for, don't be afraid to aim for the stars, just don't be shocked if you only make it to your roof.  We are all imperfect human beings, psionic practitioners should be especially careful to keep this in mind.  Be well, do well.

Introduction

You have read the articles, been to the seminars and classes, introduced yourself to the community, now what? This article will probably never reach those whom it would benefit most, though including it is fundamental, because practice is something that most Psionic Practitioners need most. Gone are the days that an article is read, the methods are practiced, and success is had. Today, most psions think going to classes and practicing once a week should lead them to success in this field, and that is simply not the case. The importance of maintaining a solid practice schedule is probably one of the most crucial aspects in your success, and as such, needs to be looked at in a critical manor.

About Schedules

What is a schedule, in relation to Psionics? How may I maintain one? These are just a few of the questions you may be asking yourself when it comes to Psionic practice. A schedule, in relation to Psionics, can be defined as a concrete way of practicing that you set up for yourself. This does not mean using concrete times. When using concrete times, you may find that you missed said time because of unexpected events, or you have that paper for school that is not yet completed. A bad example of setting up a schedule is “I will practice Psionics starting tomorrow for one full hour, with breaks in between”. Why is this bad? First of all, tomorrow never comes. You get to tomorrow, and then you most likely will end up not practicing, and moving the start of practice until the next available day. Another reason this is a bad way of scheduling, is because you never mention HOW you will go about practicing for that day. Its best to break down what you want to do in mini steps that make it easier to accomplish your goal. An example of doing this is:

Goal: I wish to practice (insert branch of Psionics here) for one hour today.

Steps

1. I will occupy my siblings/children at this current time with another activity so that I may practice in peace.

2. I will finish my balancing my checkbook/doing my homework now, so that I may practice when the time comes.

3. I will not get on IRC chat or Instant Messenger so that I practice Psionics as much as I need to.

4. I will turn off my computer so I do not get on chat or the Internet anyway.

This is just one example of being able to set a goal and schedule for Psionic practice, and in a way to easily be able to maintain it. This way of practicing is easier because you are preparing steps so that you may use said steps to accomplish said goals with ease, instead of just trying to practice while someone is messaging you, telling you to do chores or have that ten page report due tomorrow.

How You May Benefit From Practicing on a Daily Schedule

Like most other skills, Psionics has a bit of a learning curve before you actually get going. Practicing on a daily schedule will assure that you get past that learning curve a bit faster that what you probably would without one. Once you get going, it is easier to maintain a practice schedule, and you may even have fun doing so. Maintaining a practice schedule is beneficial if you are stuck on that psiwheel, or you do not quite have that skill/technique nailed down that you so desire to succeed with.

Closing

Maintaining a schedule is not only an important aspect of practice, but it is probably THE most important aspect in achieving success with your desired skill. Breaking up your goal in “mini-steps” makes it easier to accomplish your main goal because you may see the goal as smaller, easier to accomplish tasks. When practice and a solid schedule is maintained, it is much easier to accomplish your Psionic goal of choice. You may have all of the intention in the world, but without actually sitting down to accomplish your goals, you may never quite get to that point you so desire.

-metalforever

January 31st, 2008

Whether we are discussing religion, psychic phenomena, or general mysticism, it’s the question that always seems to be asked, and debated. Does belief matter? This is indeed a good question, but what exactly does it mean? That question alone is a lot harder to answer than meets the eye.

Belief is defined in a general sense as any cognitive thought held as true. This essentially goes to say that belief can work either way in a metaphysical context.

An example would be precognition. Person A believes that it exists without a doubt. Person B believes that in no way, shape, or form is it possible to predict future events.

You take these two people and place them in a room with a trained remote viewer who is blindly viewing a target set two weeks into the future of these two individuals. After the session each person is handed an envelop with the results of the viewing, and after the two weeks, open it. They both find that the results of the experiment suggest that the viewer accurately viewed significant events that occurred within those two weeks. Person A would take this as concrete proof, needing no further evidence. Person B would probably suggest a statistical probability, perhaps an eary coincidence, but nothing more.

Perhaps not the best example for those completely new to all of this, but don’t let it confuse you. The example had nothing to do with precognition, remote viewing, or even psychic phenomena. It goes to say that if you believe something, belief is never a question. If however you don’t believe something, then the question on its relevance can be raised. The real question is whether or not their belief had any affect on the future events that were set to transpire. Or if by some means a firm belief or lack there of would have had an affect on the viewer, or the prediction.

After years of roaming around the online communities as well as other related sites, and reading all of the constant and repeated questions, comments, and concerns, it’s been painfully obvious how little “belief” has to do with the progression of someone pursuing psionics.

While I was pursuing Technical Remote Viewing, the course I had stressed heavily that, even a complete skeptic would succeed if they followed the outlined protocol as taught. This to me means that whatever the underlying mechanisms of the practice are, as long as the desired goal is pursued in a certain way, nothing will stray you away from the outcome. Now, the exact mechanics of all areas of psionics, or psi itself is still unknown by scientific means but based on observations I think that finding a common understanding of how to gain results isn’t too difficult (or so we wished).

To find a plausible answer to work from I think starting from a smaller field is a must; psionics being far too large of a category. Psychokinesis is probably the one field we can use that requires very little explanation as far as results are concerned. An object is either manipulated, be that physical movement or an alteration of probability, or no results are seen.

Because this specific skill set, if you want to call it that, is so seemingly *out there,* the subject of belief comes up all the time. Within the online energy communities you see a large amount of people who pursue such things. Everyone has their own reasons behind it, but we can place these people into three categories.

People who want to prove it exists for themselves.

People who want to prove it doesn’t exist.

People who believe it exists already but want to develop it.

The trend however seems to suggest that all of these individuals see the same general results if they practice in the same general ways. The major difference lies in the results they themselves see. Those who believe in it, or who are seeking to believe in it notice a lot more “results” than those seeking to disprove it. These are the individuals who push the envelop a bit more, because as opposed to a slight flicker of a psi-wheel suggesting results, they will first rule out any possible outside source of the movement, including themselves. Most likely seeking a container to cover it in, or even moving onto an electronic measuring device like a Geiger Counter.

In low level results these three groups of people are just about neck and neck, but the thought processes are significantly different. In rare instances you find someone who pushes past all the levels and experiences a level of results more easily readable. These seem to be the people who take in what others say, but never take it for themselves. The people who hold experience over the fine print, but also have a certain level of skepticism so they don’t waste time chasing a methodology that in reality isn’t even working. Coincidentally, from what I have seen these are also the people who already believe in the phenomena. Perhaps because they experienced a level of results earlier on that motivated them to continue.

From here I think it’s becoming more obvious that belief in essence does have an affect on the phenomena of psionics, yet not always in such a direct manor. I personally do not feel that believing or not believing in psychokinesis will either hinder or aid someones progression in the field. I do however feel that someone who believes in it is more likely to continue to pursue it, which in turn may have a positive affect on future progression. The issue lies more so within the unknown mechanics.

For instance, something like Astral Projection I feel as though requires a certain amount of belief in the field to pursue a conscious projection. This does not mean that someone with no belief at all cannot experience a spontaneous one, though. It just means that, that same individual will not believe the experience was genuine and would most likely write it off as a dream or something similar.

So when it comes to Psionics I would conclude that Belief does not matter, though it is a significant factor. This is just psionics though, if we are discussing something like religion and healing practices based from this I think it is the most important aspect of it. Taking a reiki healer and asking them to heal an ailing individual who has no belief in the art at all may generate substantial results, but it’s not surprising if they don’t. Things like healing work two ways, the more the individual believes the more successful the healer, due to biofeedback on the person being healeds’ part. So when it comes to the actual practice, it’s hard to dictate how successful the healer is at any given time on their own, especially if like the PK people I touched on earlier, this individual didn’t take the road of eliminating any possible variables. Then again though, would it even matter if people are being healed?

This entire post was not meant to really be an in depth scientific post proving anything one way or the other. It’s more like me just talking out loud. I think this is a subject I enjoy discussing and one that needs to be discussed more often. Unfortunately at the time of writing this it’s midterms week and I don’t have the time to get that in depth into everything as I would like. So I do apologize if anything is somewhat incoherent. I am planning on writing a much more in depth look into this field the week after next, and when it’s up I’ll leave a link at the end of this one for anyone finding this post later on.

Just some food for thought… When I was playing a game of shapes and colors in a chat room online between 6-8 years ago I was experiencing large amounts of success. I made a statement openly “I seem to be a better sender than I am a receiver lately.” Someone replied “I wonder… Are you as good a sender with someone who isn’t a good receiver?” It was something along those lines, the point still remains. It’s the type of question everyone who is in this field of research or self discovery should ask themselves. Occasionally questioning yourself is entertaining and really helps overall progression by ruling out possible events or situations that resulted in success that could have been due to other outside means.

Introduction

When developing any skill, it's important to have some way of measuring how well you're doing. If you rely on your own sense of how good you are, usually it's really skewed (and most of the time you don't give yourself enough credit). For example, sometimes when I go jogging I feel like shit, but at the end of the run it turns out I ran a faster time than before. My own sense told me I did terrible, but in reality I was improving.

With psionic skills it's trickier to verify and measure them. If you can take a step back, and just think about what you're doing, it's not that hard to find tests and ways to measure it though - it just requires a little bit of creativity sometimes .

Psi Balls

One of the most common questions we receive is, "I just tried to make a psi ball, and I'm not sure if I made one. How can I tell?" The first sign that you've made a psi ball is that you can feel it in your hands. Usually a tingle or magnetic feeling, or you can feel some heat or coolness. For some people, that's all they need to convince themselves that they've made a psi ball. But c'mon now, is that really a reliable way to measure and verify it? It's a good first sign, but if you want to get serious, you'll need some extra tests to see what's going on.

When I first started making psi balls, I would feel hotness between my hands. I immediately thought, "Ok, that's cool, but it's probably just in my head." The first test I performed was seeing if my mom could feel it. She had never practiced anything psychic before, but she said she could feel it in my hands. It's a simple idea, but for some reason people overlook it: if you experience something weird, see if others experience the same thing. If they do, it's a good sign that you aren't crazy (or at least, you aren't the ONLY crazy person :P).

After a while, my parents started looking at me strange when I asked them to feel the invisible ball in my hands :P. Since I felt hotness, I figured I would try making a digital thermometer we had heat up. That's an easy way to measure how hot something is - a thermometer (duh :P). I first surrounded my hands around the thermometer and made the temperature rise. Once my dad saw that, he said it might just be from the heat coming off my hands - so my new solution was to make the psi ball across the room, and throw it on the thermometer. When I first started doing it, it would raise the thermometer a tenth of a degree. After a week or so of practice, I could raise it two tenths at once.

Since psi balls are the most common skill people want to verify, I'll expand on some more ideas that you can try.

If you are good enough to make different kinds of psi balls, then you can find new ways to verify them. People in the chat room like to play a game called "Pass the Construct". You create a construct with a random shape and texture, then pass it to someone else and see if they can feel the same shape and texture. This can be done over the internet, and is actually fun :) . For example, you can make a list of four shapes, and four textures. Cube, Sphere, Pyramid, Cylinder; Hot, Cold, Tingle, Sticky. Create a random construct (like a sticky pyramid), then send it to your partner. Probability says you should get one in 16 correct from random guessing - so if you can do better than that, it's a good sign you are doing everything correctly.

You can create tons of games in this manor to test your skills. Be aware though - if you aren't getting them, it could be for a lot of reasons. Perhaps you aren't creating the construct strong enough, perhaps you are missing when you throw it at them, perhaps the person receiving them is screwing it up somehow... There are a lot of rooms for mistakes. If you practice regularly with the same group of friends, you should start to notice more hits.

For the really curious, you can keep track of how good you do in a journal to see how much you are improving over time. Do the thermometer test and see how much higher you can raise the temperature, then do a series of 20 "Pass the Construct" and record how much you got right. Do this every day for a month, and see how much you've improved.

Shields

Psi balls and constructs are pretty easy to test since they're so limitless on what they can do. Shielding is a little more difficult though because they are created with a specific purpose.

After you practice and verify constructs for a while, you start to get a "feel" for them. You can use this same "feel" to verify your shields (which is what most psions do). It's very practical and doesn't take long once you get the hang of it. But what if you haven't developed this feel? Or perhaps you're just curious as to how good your shields really are?

One way I use to see if my shields are up is to just stick my hand straight out and see if I can feel them. Just like how you can feel your psi balls in your hand, you can usually feel your shield around your body. If you're not afraid of a few strange looks, you can even ask random people to see if they can feel them too.

The only real way to test to see if the programming is correct is to test it out with a partner. For example, if you were trying to make a Mirror Shield (something that reflects constructs), you'll have to get a buddy to toss a construct at you and see if the shield actually reflects it.

Don't be afraid to be creative though - you don't have to shield yourself. Try shielding a wall with a Mirror Shield, then toss a construct at it when you're done, and see if it bounces back and hits you. Don't hurt yourself, but have some fun too :) .

Another common way to test a shield is to have a friend scan you and see if they can read the programming. This makes for another fun game you can do over the internet - create a random shield, and see if your friend can read it correctly. If they can, you have just verified both your shield making skills, and their scanning ability :) . Just like "Pass the Construct", create a list of ten or so random shields. If you have a list of ten shields, they should get it right once out of ten tries according to chance - try and see if you can get it right five or more times.

Precognition

If you ask around, a lot of people have had strange experiences where they've predicted an event, or had a dream that came true. While these individual experiences are freaky, if you decide to try and practice them regularly, you'll need a way to measure how you're doing.

With precognitive dreams, I highly recommend keeping a journal of when you had the dream, what was in the dream, and what you think the dream meant. What does the dream predict? Write it all down right after you had the dream. If something in the future happens that reminds you of the dream, check out your journal and see what you wrote. You might notice some symbolism you wouldn't have remembered otherwise, and that can help you to decipher future dreams.

It's always a good idea to write down all your predictions and see which ones actually come true. Sometimes people have hundreds of predictions, then when ONE comes true they claim themselves a prophet - but think about it. If you predict things left and right, chances are one of them are going to come true sooner or later. If you write it all down, it can force you to be honest with yourself. Are you really predicting events, or are you just remembering the things you got right? On the other hand, perhaps you are predicting more than you thought.

You can also play statistical games with precognition too. For example, pick a random event that happens every day. Rainsong once suggested predicting what e-mails you would get the next day. Or if you get a lot of phone calls, try to predict who will call at what time. Inspect your life and look for opportunities to predict events, and then record your results.

Out of Body Experiences

The way OBEs are described, it seems like it would be easy to verify them, but in reality it's actually very hard (but not impossible :P ). If you can float around outside your body... you could pass all sorts of tests. Charles Tart had an easy test - stick a five-digit number out of sight, and have the person leave their body and read the number. "Miss Z" did this successfully in 1968. (See this article, or search Google).

Other tests include visiting friends and watching what they do (with their permission!), then later ask them if you were correct. Robert Monroe reported pinching someone while out of body, then later asking the person if she felt anything. She not only felt something at that time, but also had a large bruise to prove it (in the same spot he pinched). (See "Journeys Out of the Body", by Robert Monroe).

In the same book, Monroe reported feeling objects under his floorboards; if you wanted to test yourself, have a friend seal a random object in a box. Then leave your body, stick your hand through it, and see if you can guess the object based on how it feels.

Psychokinesis and the Pinwheel

It's pretty easy to verify if you're doing psychokinesis or not - if you are trying to move an object, and the object moves, you did it! Right?

For larger objects that's true, but one common exercise that falls under scrutiny is the pinwheel. It's so sensitive to random disturbances that it's not always clear whether you are moving it, or something else is.

The first thing you need to do before you even start a practice session is to check for the obvious disturbances. Are the windows open? Is the AC on? Does your desk shake when a big truck goes by outside? If someone walks by far away, could it cause your pinwheel to move? Do a thorough investigation of your environment and make sure you know what's going on. The last thing you want to do is correctly move the pinwheel, but not be sure of it because you didn't check things out before you started.

Some people put containers over their pinwheel to reduce disturbances. I personally spend about 10 minutes prior to practicing just seeing what effects my pinwheel, and what doesn't. If I adjust my body too quickly, it causes wind... so I have to be aware of how much I'm moving my body while practicing. Usually I stick my shirt over my mouth and nose so I don't breathe on it.

You can't remove all disturbances, but you can minimize them quite a bit. Spend some time on removing as many as you can.

Even after you safeguard everything, it's still possible for the pinwheel to move on it's own. Random things happen that you can't protect against, and you might not even be aware of what's going on. But that doesn't mean it's hopeless! There are still ways to make sure YOU are the one moving the pinwheel.

If you can control the pinwheel, try spinning it in random directions, and stopping it abruptly. For example, say before you start that you're going to spin it clockwise for 30 seconds, stop it for 10 seconds, then spin it counter-clockwise for 30 more seconds. If you actually pull it off, then it's very unlikely random disturbances moved the pinwheel the same way you wanted it to move.

Conclusion

It's important to test your skills to make sure you are actually doing something psionic. Once you can prove it to yourself, it makes practicing a lot easier and more fun. It's also very satisfying to see how you've progressed over time. If you have some strange skill, find a way to test it! Find a way to measure it and be creative.

- Sean (aka Peebrain)

What is a Psychic Journal?

Psychic journals are notebooks or other forms of detailed logs, such as a blog, whose purpose is to be a detailed re-account of your thoughts an experiences with psionics and related phenomena. 

Psychic Journals can be used for the recording of:

> Experiments Done with Psionics
> Daily Practice Activities
> Mental State When Practicing

How are Psychic Journals Useful?

They:

> Provide a way for you to mark your progress(or lack thereof).  
> Assist you in finding problem areas
> Allow you to be unbiased and unforgiving regarding the pitfalls of your practice session.  
> In the future, when you are more experienced, they help you relay new ideas to experienced practitioners, and help you to be able to educate new psionic practitioners in a way that is effective.  
> Make it impossible for you to be “overly positive” regarding your progress, and help you to identify whether you have had a “successful” experience or not.

Psychic journals are your best friend.

How Psychic Journals Can Help You Solve Problems

Consider this scenario:

Let us consider “Harry”, and individual who has been successful with practicing psychic / psionic phenomena, however, with a “spotty” success rate.  Harry has been practicing Macro-Psychokinesis (Macro-PK), an ability whereby an individual purportedly moves concrete objects with his/her mind, such as a pen or pencil.  Harry has successfully moved his pencil with telekinesis (psychokinesis), however,  he only manages to succeed in two out of seven practice sessions.  Harry cannot figure out what is wrong.   By using a psychic / psionic log, Harry can successfully map out what he is trying every day when practicing telekinesis, while simultaneously mapping reoccuring behaviors, progress, and what he has tried.   By mapping out everything about his practice by using a psychic / psionic log, Harry is more likely to figure out why he has only achieved a “spotty” success rate with telekinesis, rather than a concrete(>85%), every day success rate.

Confidence

If nothing else, psychic journals are useful as a method of recording one’s progress for confidence reasons.  Confidence is an important concept when practicing psychic / psionic-based skills (this concept will be discussed in further detail later on).  Therefore, it would be beneficial for those with confidence issues to keep a log for psychic and psionic-based successes.

Where Not Taking Notes Goes Horribly Wrong

Consider the following interesting scenario:

A person(lets call her Jane) feels that she was successful in clairvoyance after predicting a car accident.  However, if Jane considers what was written in her journal, she may notice that this “success” was the first one in many years.  Lets assume Jane has been trying to predict the next days events every single day for these many years.  If this was her first success, we may conclude that this success is a chance event, rather than a success (she isnt really psychic. :().

One may argue against this, however, especially if he/she is inclined readily to believe in psychic / psionic phenomena.  However, if one considers that Jane guessed what the next days events hold in store every day, may it be viable to assume that, eventually, Jane gets the next days events correct, therefore providing the *illusion* that an act of precognition did genuinely occur?  This is especially so if one considers the monotonous nature of many peoples lives in general.  Jane would most likely have only considered this possibility had she kept a psychic journal.

When and Where Should You Record Your Progress?

Progress should be recorded on *at least* a daily basis. Every time you practice, even if your progress is “monotonous”, you should record your thoughts and feelings into your journal.  

How to Take Great Notes

As a psionic practitioner, you should vow to take notes that will help you later on.  To do so, you want to take notes in a concise way that gives you insight into the possible reasons for success or failure.  To take great notes that may help you later on, please consider:

>  Results of your practice should be recorded right after the practice has occurred.

This has a benefit of helping you maintain an unbiased record, devoid of follies such as rosy retrospection, or forgetting to note all of the ways in which you were unsuccessful.  Your journal should be the true marker of your progress. Recording into your journal right after practice helps you maintain an unbiased viewpoint.

> Make note of the mental and physical condition of yourself before and during practice. 

This is beneficial to you because in doing so, you may better be able to identify the mental changes associated with success, or what may have caused a practice “failure” (i.e. falling asleep during practice, not maintaining focus).  Were you tired during practice? Did your mental state change at all?  What difficulties were you faced with, cognitively?

Lets take the upcoming exercises in meditation as an example.  In this case, be sure to make note of any pains in your practice, how many times you wavered from your focus, what your attention waver, whether you skipped practice, whether you fell asleep in practice, and your mental state during the practice.  This sort of detail would be considered “sufficient” for this part of your log for the day.

> Record the time you practiced and the length of your practice.

Again, we will return to our meditation example. When practicing the upcoming exercises, you will most likely be met with interesting pitfalls, such as subconsciously moving your body in an attempt to be in a slightly more comfortable position, “breaks” in your concentration, or times when it would be pointless to consider the meditation due to “failure” or being overly fatigued.  

You should record which times you practice and how this correlate, if at all, with the relative “success rate” of the session.  Also make note of how the lengths of your meditations are increasing with further practice.

Please also note that you should be integrating Psionics into your daily life, so recording the times you practiced might not be applicable.

> Make note of your environment.

Your environment may help you to determine why your practice was a “success” or “failure”.  Did you practice in your usual location?  Was there any background noise? How did it affect your cognitive state?  Are you better able to concentrate with music on (do not let this become a crutch)?

A Few Final Thoughts

Yeah, recording everything in your journal might be annoying.  Yes, it might be time consuming.  Should you still do it?  Absolutely. The benefits are immeasurable down the road, especially when you are trying to pinpoint what exactly is going wrong, exactly what is going right, or how far you are actually progressing.  A properly kept journal allows you to be unbiased in how you are assessing your skill level, and allows you to explain what goes on mentally during your practices.  

-metalforever, 2012

This quiz will assist you in determining whether you have properly learned the material in the "How to be a Psionic Practitioner" course.