A few months ago I stumbled upon a blog called A State of Mind – for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is full of articles on how to develop your psychic gifts. The author, Nathaniel, has been on the path for 5 years, and writes about what worked for him in minute detail. Now he’s published a book called Psychic Development Simplified, covering everything under the sun in just enough depth to give the reader a psychic taster and a solid foundation in energy management. It's a great place to start if you're a beginner, and there are a also a few surprises for those of us who have been exploring this for a little bit longer.
This is a summary of what you can expect from the book:
- Psychic Development Simplified operates on the understanding that it takes at least a year of diligent energy work and meditation before you can open up safely to more advanced techniques. The book lays out a series of exercises that will give you a good grasp of energy management before you start trying things like psychic readings, telekinesis or mediumship. I for one turned straight to the chapter on telekinesis, only to find that I couldn’t get my psi-wheel to spin. Need to start at the bottom and work my way up, and moving things is a lot of work!
- The book approaches meditation from a mindlessness angle. Most of my meditations so far have been focused on chakras, this one poses a real challenge by telling us to empty our mind and stare at the wall (or a candle) for 30 minutes. And then he tells you that it’s OK to fail, the point is to let all of these thoughts clutter our mind so that we can observe them, and in observing them detach ourselves from this constant mental chatter. It helps the reader along the path with a series of ABC’s. It also talks about prayer, protection and a few techniques to tone down your excess energy before you start meditating.
- There is a nifty exercise called Tactile Visualization - What this allows you to do is recall sensations like the touch velvet, a cold metal table, or sand under your feet. These details make meditations a lot more fun, you’ll start sensing things with your five senses. I really enjoyed these exercises, and going down this route will also enable you to start hearing and feeling a breeze when you’re meditating on a beach. It’s awesome, even if it has no spiritual purpose, LOL. And we have to admit that on some level, having psychic powers can be a lot of fun! =)
- The energy management section teaches us how to draw on earth energy and run it through our body. You will also learn to absorb and store it, so that you can then use it in your psychic and energy work. There is also a neat trick, where you draw energy through your body, out your hands creating a ball of energy (called psi balls in the book). I’ve used these in my healing sessions, I will often program a disc to cleanse and aura and then I use my hands to move it through the client’s energy field.
All in all, Psychic Development Simplified is a great book and I definately recommend it. If you're waiting for the other shoe to drop, I did find a couple kinks in it's theory (but nothing major). In most cases I would be in favor is agreeing to disagree, but for the purpose of this review I'll throw a few challenges out there :
- The author's knowledge of the chakras and the energy body is spot on. However, I did notice that one of the aura's layers went missing in the descriptions. When talking about the energy body, the author covers the physical, etheric, mental and spiritual layers (skipping the emotional layer of the aura, which links to our sacral chakra). This is a very important part of our energy body, especially when it comes to healing as many illnesses are linked to emotions.
- There was a section that made me laugh – Shopping Centers are Evil – Not really, the author says, but he still tells us to stay away from public places because they are full of energies that can give us headaches. This is true, but it’s not practical to stay away from crowds and malls. Instead, I would suggest that you learn to desensitize your chakras and close down. If you’re a full-blown clairsentient you may need to take extra precautions, but grounding and closing down will be enough for most of us.
- The author is against channeled messages, and tells us not to channel messages unless you’ve been doing psychic work for 30 years! My entire lifetime, and then some, LOL! His view is that we don’t know who is on the other side, and that we shouldn’t put our trust in them. My view is – Trust Your Judgment! Don’t put 100% faith in spirit guides, or mediums. If it sounds like gobbledygook just flush it. But if it makes sense and sheds light on your problems, take it into account. And lastly, don’t try this at home folks, a safe professional environment is usually best =)
At the end of the day, Psychic Development Simplified’s greatest strength is that it is based on the author’s practical experience with energy management and psychic development. There is a lot in the book that I haven’t covered here, read it to get started!