Sunday, February 27, 2011

Becoming "More" Psychic - or Just Clearing Away the Clutter?

As always, I’m on the lookout for continuing education regarding the nature of psychic abilities and functions. I am one of those people who believe you can never stop learning, especially when it comes to such a deep untapped well of potential within the makeup of our own beings. These last few weeks I decided to steer away from what other mediums have said regarding the nature of communication and psychic development and explore elsewhere. To me, psychic function can take many different courses, and mediumship is just one branch of a much larger psychical tree. However, I also feel that the other branches utilize much of the same processes within us, so as I treaded out into new territory with the hypothesis that what I would be bring back could be used for a better understanding of my own work connecting with the Other Side.

The challenge with this exploration was choosing where to go. Since I am very left-brained and analytical, I could not settle for the standard woo-woo book written by another psychic. You know the kind, where they say “just accept whatever flashes into your brain and don’t question it” without explaining how such a flash came to be in the first place. Or they just leave the explanation to the standard excuse: it’s the nature of energy. Maybe I’m just too critical, but I think it’s important to question everything, especially psychic experiences. In questioning these events – or at least examining them more closely – perhaps I could discover more information regarding how the psychic signal works, gain a better understanding of what the internal processes are, and hence become better and more valuable to the clients I serve. I’ve learned over the years that most psychics, upon discovering their abilities, often do have these questions regarding the modus operandi, but don’t necessarily dig too deep to find the answers. They just accept that they have a gift, create a basic framework mentally as to how it operates, and then leave it at that. In many cases, they pick up one or two books about psychic development and accept the authors’ point-of-view without going further. Why not? The authors are psychics, right?

True, true. Unfortunately, most books written by psychics fall into the New Age category, which in my opinion means they are typically filled with a lot of “fluff” and not necessarily anything my left-brain would be satisfied with. Sorry if that offends some of you psychic authors out there, that’s just been my experience. Even in my own book Your Magical Soul (shameless plug here) I have a chapter on psychic abilities. Yet with my ongoing search into the phenomena, what’s written there is going to change and evolve as I change and evolve. And as those of you who have read the book know, I’m going to say much more than simply “it’s the nature of energy – accept it and don’t question it.”

So in this newfound quest I had to ask: Where has there been some detailed study on psychic phenomena in the last 30 or 40 years that could really shed some light on the process? Something that would have some meat?

Lo and behold, I came across a book titled “The Seventh Sense.” What was it about?

Remote viewing.

The book is authored by Lyn Buchanan, one of the top viewers used by our government for over twenty years. Lyn is the character that George Clooney portrayed in the film “The Men Who Stare at Goats”. The book was a fascinating chronicle of how he got recruited into the remote viewing program and what he learned regarding the nature of remote viewing. The back of the book contained an appendix with some specific exercises to “uncover” the reader’s own psychic abilities. What was fascinating (and which made a lot of sense), “uncover” was the operative word.

Through the decades of performing highly detailed and catalogued remote viewing sessions, obviously the viewers, scientists, and those in the government supporting the work, wanted to learn more about the process and how to make it more reliable. Believe it or not, they discovered quite a bit towards that end. In fact, after having done test sessions for several years, the government wasn’t interested in whether the psychic ability existed – they were no longer interested in validating it because the tests came back with such amazing results. Nope, they knew it was a real ability, they just wanted to discover how it worked and how to enhance it.

After reading Lyn’s book, I came upon Joseph McMoneagle’s book “Mind Trek.” Joseph was one of the original viewers who had the prestigious operative number “001” in several of the remote viewing units throughout the years. In combining this with his other book “Remote Viewing Secrets” along with several by Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff, there’s been an amazing amount of information regarding the nature of psychic abilities for the left-brain junkie such as myself.

One of the things both Lyn and Joseph talked about was that when it comes to psychic development, it’s not about “acquiring” psychic abilities, it’s about uncovering what’s already there in your consciousness. After decades of researching the phenomena in combination with the very talented and scientifically rigorous psychic, Ingo Swann, they realized courses put out by most psychics are geared toward developing and acquiring abilities the reader feels they don’t have to begin with. Thus, most of these courses provided only negligible after-effects and in many cases failed altogether when it came to “development.”

The point-of-view that came out of the remote viewing program was that 1) Everyone is psychic (some will be more talented than others – like athletes) and 2) Developing the abilities was more about unlearning what had been previously thought about psychic abilities and uncovering your own blocks to reception than any course or regimen designed to acquire such talent. In other words, developing psychic abilities was about clearing your own clutter! Psychic ability through the remote viewing program was more about discovering where your own personal biases and mental hang-ups interfered with how information would be filtered or blocked from the conscious mind. Psychic ability, they discovered, was a process of communication between the subconscious and normal conscious brain – and that since we use our ego mind (conscious mind) and left-brain more than the subconscious, the ability to receive psychic information was more of an internal linguistics communication problem than anything else. They discovered that the right brain is where psychic information originally gets processed – that flash of insight, that feel of the remote location – and then it moved into the left-brain for identification. It was in this left-brain analytical side where things would get distorted and messed up. Psychic ability in the remote viewing program worked best when the viewer simply reported what his right brain was showing him, versus trying to identify what the overall object was or jump to conclusions through what the left-brain wanted to make it.

The right side of the brain is the creative part of our identities. It’s not confined to time or space; it handles the abstract spatial constructs and emotions, and isn’t concerned with pure identification, labels, etc. The need to identify and label comes from the left, and it’s something we do all the time. But, in order to receive information outside the normal constructs of our mind and body – you know, that part which the left brain says is how we “truly” operate – we must find ways to short-circuit the left and pay attention solely to the right. Eventually, an agreement will be made between the two hemispheres, but it was understood in the remote viewing unit that psychic functioning was a right-brain function.

The task then became in discovering what your left-brain qualities were and how to turn them down (or completely off) in order to work effectively as a viewer. It had nothing to do with acquiring psychic skills through exercises, unless those exercises were for the sole purpose of engaging the right side of the brain and creating the “language” needed to move information from the subconscious into the conscious mind.

Believe it or not, there are a few ways to do this. There are a few exercises one can do to engage their right brain, and once you do that – once you can consciously identify that change in conscious awareness – you are on the road to discovering where in your mind psychic information is originating from and be more consciously aware of it when it happens.

Drawing is one of them.

Take a photo of something you would like to draw – a face for instance. Now, when you typically look at a face, you identify the parts as you’re drawing them. “Here’s the nose, mouth, eyes.” That ultimately doesn’t work when it comes to the process – that’s all left-brain. In order to engage the right side, turn the photo upside down and draw the lines not by identification, but strictly as lines as they appear to your eyes, drawing only in proportion to one another – they’re length and separation from one another. In turning the photo upside down, it short-circuits the left-brain because it can’t immediately identify the structure of the face as it typically recognizes faces.

Lyn Buchanan wrote in his book that every new and seasoned recruit was required to read and do exercises from the book “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain.” Naturally, I immediately bought a copy and started practicing. And yes, there is quite a difference in mental awareness in shifting between the hemispheres, and it is that same “feeling” of how my senses are when I receive psychic information. I have to concur with the research of these seasoned government entrusted psychic spies – the information arrives in the right-side of the brain. How will that ultimately impact my psychic abilities, now that I’m aware of this conscious shift? I’m not sure. Only time will tell. But just knowing now where in my head the information is coming from and having exercises to tap into that hemisphere consciously (and what that FEELS like) presents interesting possibilities. It will help me to discern whether my answers to clients are coming from the information’s psychic source or if they are a product of my left-brain, and feeling which-is-which.

And that’s so much better than saying “It’s simply the nature of energy. Just accept it.”

This was only the tip of the iceberg for what the remote viewers discovered regarding psychic phenomena. Next week, I’ll share some more info and reveal that there are stages that we all go through – seasoned psychics and novices alike – that are a part of the process.

Until next time, take care, everyone!

And if you’re interested in psychic development – go do some drawing. It will help you access that part of the mind that FEELS and spatially reveals the messages of the energy that us psychics always refer to.

References:

The Seventh Sense: The Secrets of Remote Viewing as Told by a “Psychic Spy” for the U.S. Military – Lyn Buchanan

Mind Trek: Exploring Consciousness, Time, and Space Through Remote Viewing – Joseph McMoneagle (Also check out his other book Remote Viewing Secrets).

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – Betty Edwards

Friday, February 18, 2011

President's Day and Freedom

This weekend we celebrate Presidents’ Day in honor of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. These two presidents respectively brought freedom to millions everywhere. Washington helped to fight the tyranny of the British crown and create a new nation, while Lincoln is remembered as the president who freed the slaves and allowed them to pursue personal happiness instead of a ball and chain. In both cases, many lives were lost in confrontations for and against these goals. Being far and away from those periods in history, we can view them from a rather sterile position – recalling strategy, reducing the moments to particular battlefields, crunching numbers. We don’t necessarily acknowledge the emotions, the fear, the adrenaline that had to be present in every soldier. Not to mention the sense of the unknown – what the future was going to hold as a result of the battles. How many of those young men watched their friends fall beside them, never to return? Would their deaths be in vain? No one knew if they would make it off the battlefield alive – what must those soldiers have been feeling and thinking during such battles, considering their own mortality. These were precarious moments in everybody’s lives, yet they fought for a purpose, a reason, a cause.

We look back on these historical fights – the Revolutionary War and the Civil War – and though we may loathe the bloodshed, we regard them with a certain reverence because of what they have produced: Freedom. Some may even regard them as necessary wars – the battles as absolute requirements to victory, thereby insisting the demise of soldiers (on both sides of the aisle) as prerequisites to the birthing of freedom. If we from 2011 were to meet one of these soldiers from the past, we would be honoring them for their bravery, and had they been killed in battle, we would be bowing to their sacrifice. For those people who have fought in the battlefields of our freedoms, we would be remiss to not grant them an almost god-like status, for so much of our lives have depended on the giving of theirs, whether they battled for our side or for “the enemy”.

Will we pass on this reverence to those in the Middle East?

The protests and emergent fighting rising out of the Arab nations may result in similar battles as those of our forebears. If freedom from tyranny is what the people want, we must face this possibility. Will we grant the freedom fighters or even their adversaries the same respect we would give the soldiers of our Revolutionary or Civil wars? I’ve been following some of this conflict on the web and reading a lot of the personal comments posted by viewers and my perception is, probably not. It seems most people are afraid that as soon as an Arab dictatorship is toppled, it will be replaced by a much more oppressive tyrant: religion, in this case Islam. But yet, even in the past, the Crown had its fears of what a “free” New England would produce – especially from founding fathers who wanted a cornucopia of freedoms that were downright akin to anarchy in the “real” world: freedom of religion (which was really freedom from religion), separation of church and state, the right to organize, bear arms, and GASP – the freedom of SPEECH without being dictated to by a sovereign lord! Blasphemy! And likewise with the freedom of the slaves; here was another group looking to be released of a kingly “steward” in order to realize their own potentials and have a say in the manner of their own destinies.

Right now in the Middle East, we are only seeing the start of potential fury. Knowing what we do now of our two wars for freedom, if we were able to go back in time and stand amidst the stirrings of these fights from their beginnings, would we be viewing an uprising of British colonists in the 1770’s as something to be feared, or something to be praised, also knowing how many battles and lives were to be lost in the coming months? Would we also pause for concern if we were able to go back to the 1860’s and watch the first blacks in concert with neighboring whites stand up against southern slave owners, knowing that it would literally rip the country (and many families) apart?

From the window of history, freedom rarely comes peacefully. Let’s be honest with ourselves –we weren’t able to do it. So as tensions in the Middle East ramp up, if the people truly want freedom and a change in government – whether it be to a democracy or theocracy – chances are high it will be paid for in blood. Let us not knee-jerk our response to this outcome by thinking because they are from the Middle East and they follow a religion that is not “western” that they are somehow barbaric or less evolved than we are and scowl at the sight of their battles. The fight for freedom, the flame for the right to pursue the potentials inherent within any individual, knows not the bounds of religious doctrine and has no attachment to geography. Like our own wars, there are many variables that are pushing and pulling on both sides of the aisles … for those who want freedom and those who wish to stay in power.

It may be hard to let the Middle East go because of our concern for oil and how that translates into dollars. So, too, was it hard for the Crown to release us because of our goods and tax money; for the south, who would tend the orchards and keep the landowners wealthy? No, we don’t know what the outcome will be in the Middle East, but neither did our forefathers in their wars, and yet we are still here today, thriving and blossoming. The Crown didn’t die with the loss of the colonists; the south didn’t shrivel up with the freedom of the slaves. The foundation of American civilization didn’t collapse by giving women the right to vote (Yes, this was an argument during the time of women’s suffrage).

We had our time, and our ancestral family members chose to fight and die for what we have today. People back then were willing to charge into battle, not knowing if they would see the sun rise the next morning, or be left to rot in the open field. And we honor them for that bravery. It’s now their time in the East. Many on the comment boards are saying Egypt (and the rest of the Arab countries) will be another Iran, yet fail to see that they may be another United States, or perhaps something completely different. The entire region may produce something that as yet has not been seen. Nobody knows. When one is caught in the heat of battle, things get confusing; it’s not always black and white.

When we look back into history at the battles, we can view them from a rather sterile position … But when you are watching in the here and now, you are seeing those things you’ve missed from being so detached: the raw emotion, the adrenaline, the fear, the uncertainty …

But if we can honor those that came before us who were willing to pile ruined bodies on tortured fields for our freedoms in this country, should we not be willing to extend a modicum of respect for those that may end up doing the same halfway around the world, no matter what their religion and what type of land they are living in?

Are they really any different than we were when we cried out for freedom?

We honor George Washington for ordering men into battle, killing the British enemy and also losing members of our own Continental army in the name of freedom. We honor Abraham Lincoln for trying to bring equality no matter what color of skin, and willing to sacrifice lives in the name of American unity and abolishment of slavery. In both wars, it was unknown the outcome, and people still pressed forward, with untold scores dying.

There may be a George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East. (They may even be there as a newly reincarnated personality!). Do we honor their course, witnessing and blessing each encounter as we would our own from the past, or do we react with scorn, prejudice, and “evolved” thinking?

Remember … Everything is wrapped up together. Time and space. There is no real division.

‘Til next time