BASIC THEORY OF PSYCHISM

A psychic reality exists that is independent of physical reality, AND is interrelated to it. i.e. Damage your hand and damage your hands aura. Damage your aura and your body suffers.

Human Beings are not body and mind as separate parts. They are body-emotions-mind-spirit-and more. It is impossible to say exactly where one part of your being stops and the other takes over, and all of this is interrelated with the psychic reality.

The Human body does not have an organ for the perception of psychism. It is perceived directly by the brain and presented to our minds by the subconscious working through the imagination.

The subconscious also tells us its desires and fears. 
THE BIGGEST JOB IN MAGIC IS SORTING OUT SUBCONSCIOUS FEARS/DESIRES FROM HONEST PSYCHISM.  
The answer of how to do this was written above the temple door at Delphi:

 "Man Know Thy Self".

In the development of psychism, it is noted that psychic reality is a spectrum. It covers many skills and abilities. Some people can see auras in color and some only see them as energy or white light. Most people are "color blind " somewhere. So if you do not perceive what others are perceiving, nothing is wrong with you.

Psychism is raw data and as such it must be accepted as YOU perceive it and THEN analyzed or interpreted. i.e. If you see a pink elephant then you saw a pink elephant. You can say its the D.T.'s later, but you still SAW it. If you change your facts before you work on them, then you are not maintaining the integrity of your data and any results that you get are very suspect. Besides the symbol of a pink elephant may be your subconscious trying to tell you something. As an example:  A pink elephant to you might mean happiness.

"The language of magic is the language of truth" in dealing with psychic reality it is necessary to maintain a certain skepticism but still be able to accept facts and your own perceptions. A failure to ask questions about what has happened and blindly accept anything "because its magic" results in a sucker who gets taken by every con-artist around. Failure to accept facts and your own perceptions results in a person who is in a padded cell.

In following the way of spiritual growth it is good to remember that:

Spiritual growth implies psychic development but that Psychic development does NOT imply spiritual growth.    

A simple definition of what we mean by spiritual is useful at this time as there are many conflicting ideas on this subject.

Spirituality is;
Understanding who we really are without fantasies, wish fulfillment or self depreciation. Understanding what the world really is and is like.
Understanding how we interact with the world.
And a commitment to making things better for everyone.

Simply put if we develop ourselves psychically we may be able to read auras dowse for water and even cure warts, but this does not make us any better people than we were before. If we develop ourselves spiritually then whether or not we study any psychism we will develop it as a natural by product of who we are.

  PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT HOMEWORK 

 SUBCONSCIOUS HARMONY EXERCISE
The desires of your conscious and subconscious minds are almost certainly different. This difference in goals plus the lack of communication and teamwork drastically limits what you as an individual can do psychically. This exercise is the first part of developing a working relationship with your subconscious and is an act of good faith towards your subconscious.
First: A pendulum is a small weight on a string or chain. Rings, crystals, crucifixes etc. have all been used successfully as pendulums, so choose what pleases you to use.
Second: Calibrating the pendulum is easy. Hold your pendulum in your left hand with your elbow braced, so there is no strain in keeping the pendulum suspended. Next, look at your pendulum and ask it (and your subconscious) out loud (you can whisper) to show you its "yes" Next ask it to show you its "no". If you want, you can continue  calibrating your pendulum with "maybe", "I don't know", "I don't want to tell you" and other answers. After asking it to show you its "yes", watch the pendulum.  There will be some movement right to left, towards you and away, circular etc. and this is the pendulums answer. It may be very slight at the beginning but with practice it becomes stronger and more definite. Calibration should be used at the beginning of every session with the pendulum. Third: You can now communicate with your subconscious through the pendulum. In your day to day life, there are decisions that you must make that are not consciously important. i.e. "Do I want to eat at Burger King or at McDonalds?". From time to time when one of these decisions comes up, ask your pendulum what it wants to do. Then do just that.

 WARNING 
This exercise is beneficial for integrating the conscious and subconscious minds. But decisions that are important to the conscious mind should not be given to the subconscious. Giving the subconscious a decision like "should I quit my job?"  may well get you into lots of trouble.
Also once a decision is given to the subconscious you must not back out on the deal, as it may well resent this (like a six year old who was promised a trip to the fair).

 

 CONCENTRATION EXERCISE  

In order to use your mind for psychic work it must be able to hold one thought and visualize for a sustained amount of time. Imagine a pentacle (five pointed star one point up) floating in the air.  Maintain this image in your mind for as long as you can, working up to ten minutes. This should be done at least twice a day, preferably more often, until the ten minute target has been reached. Exercises like this are used by most practicing occultists their entire lives.

 

NIGHTLY MEDITATION:
Each night before lights out, each student will review the days activities starting from the morning and going on from there. Only those events that were and still are uncomfortable emotionally should be considered. Each event and the students actions, should be checked against the following psychological reactions, with the question of "Am I doing this?" 

Rationalization:  This is the explaining of your actions with a false rationale because the real reason is an unacceptable emotion. Example:  When you help another person "as a part of your spiritual growth"  when actually you feel guilty over wronging them in the past. 

Compensation:  This is making up for some deficiency either real or imagined usually where the deficiency cannot be dealt with. Example:  The sterile couple who run a boys club and have their needs for children met that way. 

Displacement:  This is dealing with our emotions by moving them from their real cause to where they can be "safely" expressed. Example:  A person who is feeling guilty for some reason may attribute that anxiety to some easy but untrue explanation. The classic displacement is #2 gets into a fight with #1 and then takes it out on #3 who passes it on down the corporate ladder.

Reaction Formation:  This is the masking of our true feelings with their opposite, in order to protect us from the emotional pain of our own unacceptable emotions. Example:  A very dominating person may become a volunteer servant or one may act rudely to a person to hide their own love/attraction and protect themselves from being vulnerable that way. 

Projection:  Is the giving to others the motives that are valid to ourselves, especially those attitudes and emotions that we will not admit to ourselves. Example: If we hate someone ourselves it is easy to accuse them of hating us. Those who cannot accept their own negative feelings and accuse every body else of being "so negative" etc.