I was recently asked to clarify the uses of the techniques I teach in this blog, and so I shall do the best I can. There are many potential uses for psychic development and energy manipulation, so I'll just explain a few.
Playing The Pretend Game opens up your mind to new experiences and thoughts. You may find yourself coming up with answers to questions that have plagued you all your life. Your creativity will likely increase, causing you to not only come up with normal creative ideas associated with arts and crafts, but with problems as well. Maybe that ugly brown dress actually looks good with an orange scarf and a black belt, or perhaps the baby will stop crying if you do the Numa Numa dance in front of it. You never know what your creative mind will come up with if you give it the chance to speak.
In addition to this, both the Pretend Game and the process of meditation allow you to connect more closely with Spirit. When you do this, you are never alone, for you have constant spiritual companionship.
In truth, you were never alone from the start, though this may be the first time you're actually aware of it. Some people find it creepy to learn that spirits are constantly around them, but I would advise you to just get used to it. Spirits operate on different rules than do the living, and therefore do not find it odd to follow a loved one around, so we shouldn't either. They do not put us in any sort of danger by doing so like some of our living friends might if they were to do the same thing, and it's rather comforting to realize we are never abandoned by those on the other side who love us. It's worth getting accustomed to.
As for grounding and shielding, these are methods of improving quality of life by putting you back in the here and now so you can deal with the world properly, and protecting yourself from the negativity in this realm and in the realm of Spirit. I don't pretend everything is oh-so-happy in the spirit realm as some do and that nothing unpleasant will ever befall you, but I do say you can protect yourself so nothing actually harms you. There are dangers in both the physical realm and the realm of Spirit, and it's only logical that as you lock your physical doors to keep out intruders, so would you lock your spiritual doors to keep out intruders.
Please don't take this to mean the spirit realm is such an unsafe place, because it isn't. Some people will throw out the baby with the bath water the instant they learn there are undesirable things in the realm of spirit, but this is silly. In my experience, the physical realm is much more dangerous than the spirit realm, and I would rather deal with spiritual problems than physical ones any day.
The key to handling spiritual problems is to keep a guard on your emotions, because they are what controls the situation. Should you encounter a mischievous spirit, it can only control the situation if you fear it, so don't. There is nothing to be afraid of! Stand firm, be confident, put up your shield, and tell it in no uncertain terms to leave. If it won't, ask your spirit guides to make it leave. If you remain confident and firm, the spirit will have no power over you.
As for basic energy manipulation techniques, these are the building blocks of magick and the energy healing practices. Practice these basic tips, then the more advanced ones I'll give you in the future, and before long, you could have your own magickal or healing practice.
I hope this has helped to clear some things up, as I will be posting more concepts in the near future. If anything I ever say is confusing, write to me and let me know. I will be happy to clarify as best I can.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
The Why and How of Meditation
While we're on the subject of beginner's strategies for breaking into the spiritual realm, we must discuss meditation at some point, preferably sooner rather than later. Why? Meditation is the one thing that will open the spiritual realm and allow your abilities to grow. If you won't do it, then you might as well give up your metaphysical dream, as meditation is the key to unlocking it.
Now, I realize some of the beginners reading this are probably saying, “Aw, come on, meditation? You mean I have to sit cross-legged on the floor and chant some weird stuff for hours on end?” Uh, no. There are many different forms of meditation, and there is no reason one need take such a dedicated approach unless they are, well, dedicated. For the rest of us, simple meditation exercises work just fine.
Here's an example of a simple meditation approach: sit in a comfortable place and position, whatever that happens to be. Crossed legs are not required. You can lie down if you're sure you won't fall asleep. The position does not matter so long as you are comfortable.
Make sure you are sufficiently warm. Once you're good at meditation, your body temperature will drop a bit while you are in the trance state, and this can make meditation a bit uncomfortable if you aren't prepared for it. An extra sweater or a blanket should do.
Now, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and slowly release it. Take another deep breath, and slowly release it. Take yet another deep breath, and slowly release it. Allow yourself to relax more and more as you breathe. Focus only on your breathing and nothing else. Nothing else matters at the moment. All your outside problems can stay outside during your meditation session. You will get back to them in a few minutes, so give yourself permission to take care of you for the time being. If a foreign thought creeps in, shrug it off and go back to concentrating on your breathing.
You may notice after a while that your body begins to rock in a circular motion. This is common, though not everybody does this. If you reach this state, rest assured that you are going into a good trance and flow with it. By this point, whether you're rocking or not, it should be feeling quite good.
Shortly after this point, you may enter a dream-like state where images or voices flash through your mind for a split second before they vanish again. This is normal as well, though not everyone will reach this state, especially not right away. A trance is a state similar to sleep, and therefore you are likely to have dreams while remaining conscious if you go deep enough into one. If you are fortunate enough to reach this state of meditation, go with it, and pay as much attention to what you are experiencing as you can. If you wake up, shrug it off and continue meditating. You might go right back into the dream state. I tend to go back and forth frequently.
After a period of time, whenever you decide you've spent enough time meditating, slowly will yourself to wake up and open your eyes. Focus on something in front of you for a few moments before trying to move, as you may be ungrounded if you went deep, and you need to give yourself time to readjust before standing up.
When you feel ready, stand up, stretch, and move your body. You should feel relaxed, refreshed, and be eager to do it again in the near future. If so, wonderful! Even if you didn't experience everything I indicated here, just the feeling of relaxation and refreshment indicates you've done this correctly. If you didn't, try again later, and do your best to relax.
So how often should you meditate? As often as you want, really. I would say the ideal would be once a day, but some do it more and some do it less. Some only meditate when they really need it, though as a beginner, you should pick a schedule and stick with it until you're good at it, or that metaphysical door won't unlock any time soon.
You may notice a side benefit of meditating often, that of your dreams becoming more vivid than before. I will discuss dreams more in the future, but for now, if you get an interesting dream, pay attention to it. Write it down to help you remember it or tell a friend. It's possible the dream is trying to tell you something about your life, and now that the dreams are vivid, you actually have a chance of paying attention to whatever they have to say.
So, now you've been meditating on a regular schedule and you're getting good at it, but you'd like to spice it up a bit and make it different. No problem. There are a zillion ways to meditate, though it's best to learn the most basic way first so you don't turn props into crutches. Once you've mastered the basic way, feel free to experiment. Finding new ways to meditate can be fun.
There are other things you can do, but I trust you have enough of an imagination to think up some on your own. If you don't have one, get one. You need it for metaphysical experiences.
So, I hope this helped to clarify meditation a bit for you, and that you will have many wonderful meditation experiences. All the best to those who try this. I'm sure you will succeed, if not the first time, then some time soon. Just remember to keep trying, and have fun doing it.
See you in the next article!
Now, I realize some of the beginners reading this are probably saying, “Aw, come on, meditation? You mean I have to sit cross-legged on the floor and chant some weird stuff for hours on end?” Uh, no. There are many different forms of meditation, and there is no reason one need take such a dedicated approach unless they are, well, dedicated. For the rest of us, simple meditation exercises work just fine.
Here's an example of a simple meditation approach: sit in a comfortable place and position, whatever that happens to be. Crossed legs are not required. You can lie down if you're sure you won't fall asleep. The position does not matter so long as you are comfortable.
Make sure you are sufficiently warm. Once you're good at meditation, your body temperature will drop a bit while you are in the trance state, and this can make meditation a bit uncomfortable if you aren't prepared for it. An extra sweater or a blanket should do.
Now, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and slowly release it. Take another deep breath, and slowly release it. Take yet another deep breath, and slowly release it. Allow yourself to relax more and more as you breathe. Focus only on your breathing and nothing else. Nothing else matters at the moment. All your outside problems can stay outside during your meditation session. You will get back to them in a few minutes, so give yourself permission to take care of you for the time being. If a foreign thought creeps in, shrug it off and go back to concentrating on your breathing.
You may notice after a while that your body begins to rock in a circular motion. This is common, though not everybody does this. If you reach this state, rest assured that you are going into a good trance and flow with it. By this point, whether you're rocking or not, it should be feeling quite good.
Shortly after this point, you may enter a dream-like state where images or voices flash through your mind for a split second before they vanish again. This is normal as well, though not everyone will reach this state, especially not right away. A trance is a state similar to sleep, and therefore you are likely to have dreams while remaining conscious if you go deep enough into one. If you are fortunate enough to reach this state of meditation, go with it, and pay as much attention to what you are experiencing as you can. If you wake up, shrug it off and continue meditating. You might go right back into the dream state. I tend to go back and forth frequently.
After a period of time, whenever you decide you've spent enough time meditating, slowly will yourself to wake up and open your eyes. Focus on something in front of you for a few moments before trying to move, as you may be ungrounded if you went deep, and you need to give yourself time to readjust before standing up.
When you feel ready, stand up, stretch, and move your body. You should feel relaxed, refreshed, and be eager to do it again in the near future. If so, wonderful! Even if you didn't experience everything I indicated here, just the feeling of relaxation and refreshment indicates you've done this correctly. If you didn't, try again later, and do your best to relax.
So how often should you meditate? As often as you want, really. I would say the ideal would be once a day, but some do it more and some do it less. Some only meditate when they really need it, though as a beginner, you should pick a schedule and stick with it until you're good at it, or that metaphysical door won't unlock any time soon.
You may notice a side benefit of meditating often, that of your dreams becoming more vivid than before. I will discuss dreams more in the future, but for now, if you get an interesting dream, pay attention to it. Write it down to help you remember it or tell a friend. It's possible the dream is trying to tell you something about your life, and now that the dreams are vivid, you actually have a chance of paying attention to whatever they have to say.
So, now you've been meditating on a regular schedule and you're getting good at it, but you'd like to spice it up a bit and make it different. No problem. There are a zillion ways to meditate, though it's best to learn the most basic way first so you don't turn props into crutches. Once you've mastered the basic way, feel free to experiment. Finding new ways to meditate can be fun.
- Play some soft music in the background while you're meditating. Certain kinds of instrumental New Age music are especially good, as they cater it specifically toward meditation. Go to your local library and look through their New Age music CDs. If you find any you like, you can buy them later at the book store or wherever you regularly buy music. Using your library first will save you a lot of money here.
- Find a health food store or metaphysical store that sells essential oils and buy a vial or two of some scent you find has a calming effect on you. I personally enjoy sage oil, some people like lavender, and there are other good candidates for meditation if you simply ask the sellers what they recommend. Whatever you choose, sprinkle a few drops in the area where you will meditate, whether that be on your chair, your clothes, your pillow, or even in your bath water.
- Light a stick or cone of incense in the room you will be meditating in, and let the smoke relax you as you breathe in the scent. Don't inhale it directly, as that might make you choke. Put the incense in a place where it isn't so close so as to make you choke, isn't so far away you can't smell it, and not near anything flammable. Also make sure to have something underneath it to catch the ashes, or you'll have a little coating of gray dust all over your nice table.
- Have a change in scenery. Go to a park or some other soothing place and let the sounds of nature relax you. The sounds of wind playing with the leaves, the birds chirping, and the brook rippling over rocks can be more soothing than the most beautiful music created by man.
There are other things you can do, but I trust you have enough of an imagination to think up some on your own. If you don't have one, get one. You need it for metaphysical experiences.
So, I hope this helped to clarify meditation a bit for you, and that you will have many wonderful meditation experiences. All the best to those who try this. I'm sure you will succeed, if not the first time, then some time soon. Just remember to keep trying, and have fun doing it.
See you in the next article!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Psychic Self-Defense
So, you've learned to play The Pretend Game, you've gotten in contact with your spirit guide, and you've found a new fascination with metaphysical concepts. “This is easy,” you say, “Why didn't I think of this before?”
Whoa, slow down for a second.
Yes, it's easy once you get the hang of it, but just the one article doesn't tell you everything you need to know, and it definitely doesn't warn you about any of the potential pitfalls you might stumble across on your way.
Unfortunately, very few books or blogs cover how to protect yourself or put yourself back together if you fall apart, and they definitely don't mention it early on if they cover it at all. This is a mistake, as anyone who tries the techniques offered in the blog could run into trouble at some point, and without knowing how to take care of the problem, one might throw his or her hands up in frustration.
It may be a little unconventional, but I'm going to teach this stuff up front. I'm not one of those “fluffy bunny” people who teach that nothing ever goes wrong, though I'm not one of the doomsayers either. As with just about any other subject you can study, I believe there are practical applications of metaphysics in day-to-day life, and some which should be approached with caution.
Now let's get down to business. I'm going to explain here about psychic self defense, this article covering grounding, shielding, and basic energy manipulation. This won't cover everything there is to know about defending yourself, but it will tell you the most important things for a beginner in metaphysics to know. Let's get started.
Grounding
Grounding, the way I see it, is similar to reeling a kite in (without crashing it). Your spirit stays firmly inside your body where it belongs, ensuring greater safety and ability on your part.
Being ungrounded is like sitting on top of your car and steering it by pulling strings that come out of the sunroof. It's imprecise, and someone could just climb into your car and take over the steering wheel, and there'd be nothing you could do about it unless you were to push that person out and take back your rightful place behind the steering wheel instead of on the top of the car.
So many people out there are driving from the roofs of their cars, unaware they could have a much more fulfilling life experience if they would just get down into their car, sit behind the steering wheel, and drive it properly. Learning to ground does this for you.
Before I get to the exercises, I'd like to explain just how big a difference this one simple process can make in a person's life by telling my experience with it. As a child, I'd always had a hard time keeping up with the other kids, and I hated P.E. class or anything that required any kind of physical demonstration. It had taken me years to get off of training wheels and months after that to learn how to ride a bike, finally succeeding when I was ten years old.
This behavior didn't go unnoticed by my family, but they weren't sure what to do about it. Finally, when I was about nine or ten, my coordination problems got so severe that I began to have random dizzy spells, which caused my parents to get even more concerned, so they took me to the doctor.
I went through a number of tests which took several hours a day for several days, but at the end of the tests, the doctor was just as confused as my parents. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with me, even though I clearly had a problem.
I went back to school and tried to live my life normally, even though my dizzy spells grew worse with each passing year. I looked into everything I could think of as a source of blame: potassium deficiency, minor brain damage from all the drugs administered to my mom at my birth, having my tonsils removed at a young age, even dyslexia, but nothing helped the situation, even though they all claimed to be causes of dizzy spells and poor coordination.
In my early twenties, I moved out of my parents' house and began to study things I had not been permitted to in my childhood. Long story short, I found a copy of a book called Psychic Protection by William Bloom, and it turned my world upside down. For the first time, I was able to go through the day without sudden dizzy spells hitting me at inopportune moments. Just like that, I went from the girl who couldn't twirl once while dancing to a song without toppling over to the girl who goes chasing after a purse thief and manages to get her purse back.
All from learning how to ground myself.
How how does one do it, you ask? It's not as difficult as I've probably made it seem from all my talk. I was merely trying to drive the importance of this simple task into your mind so you wouldn't dismiss it as nothing since it's “so easy”. Yes, it's easy, but it works.
Borrowing the idea from the previous article, in order to interact with the spiritual realm, you must “pretend”, use your imagination. There are so many different ways one can ground themselves, and you can find a lot of other websites and blogs that will tell you various complicated ways to do so, but you don't need to do anything complicated. Just pick the way that feels most comfortable to you and that you're willing to do regularly.
Some simple ways to ground:
There are many more ways to ground yourself. Just use your imagination and come up with creative ways to do it until you find the best way or ways for yourself. Everyone is different, so experiment until you find something you're comfortable with.
Shielding
Just as important as grounding is shielding. This is like locking your car so no one tries to break in, but those with a key can still get in. The nice thing about shielding is that since you create the shield, you can make it do whatever you need it to do.
Again, as with grounding and communicating with your spirit guides, imagination is key. Picture the shield around you and it will be there. Picture it vividly and it will be strong. You can visualize it however you wish--I picture mine as a bubble of light surrounding my body—and you can designate it for any purpose a shield can logically have.
So do you want to keep other spirits from messing with your body? Designate your shield for that. Want to keep other people's negative emotions out? Designate it for that. Want to allow certain people into your aura (like your spirit guide) and keep everyone else out? Designate it for that. Want to do all three? Designate it for that. Your shield is only limited by your imagination. It isn't hard. If you can daydream, you can shield, and really should shield, particularly if you're going to tap into metaphysics.
A favorite shielding technique of mine is to picture myself being surrounded by love. You can decide what love looks like for yourself, whether it's made out of light, or particles, or has a certain shape or substance or color, but as long as it means “love” to you, it counts. This may seem cliché, but it really makes a lot of sense. If you surround yourself with a strong shield of love, no one who doesn't love you, living or in the spirit realm, will be able to stand being close to you. They'll feel an instant repulsion and leave the first chance they get.
Love is light the light, and hatred is like the darkness, and when you flip on the light switch, the light fills the room, driving the darkness away. Hate and love cannot exist together in the same place, for one fills every container it possibly can, while the other is empty, like a vacuum. Since nature abhors a vacuum, hate that comes into contact with love will soon cease to exist if it doesn't leave first, so it usually leaves. This is what King Solomon meant when he spoke of loving your enemies as “heaping coals of fire on their head”. In the presence of love, hatred cannot exist.
Basic Energy Manipulation
This could get quite detailed, but I will not go into such detail today, as it would get a bit too complex for a beginner's article. I'll have more complicated articles on this subject at some point in the future.
All the other things I have discussed thus far do manipulate energy to some extent, and so does every form of magick, but deliberately manipulating energy is a special art form in and of itself, and deserves to be looked at. As it is similar to the preceding two subsections, I figured it was suitable to place in this article.
Before we go on, let me clarify that “magick” with a k is generally more accepted in metaphysical circles than “magic” without one, as it differentiates actual magical practice from the art of illusion. Common sense dictated I spell it the normal way in the title to help people get here, but in this blog, the form “magick” will be used most often.
Find yourself a quiet, dark room and place your hands about six inches (about fifteen centimeters) in front of your face, palms facing toward each other. Once again using your imagination, picture and feel energy moving through your body. It might help to imagine pulling it from the ground, up through your feet, into your body, then into your arms and hands, as this helps one to feel more energized rather than tired from having spent their own energy, but do what feels right to you.
Channel the energy through your hands and out your fingertips. Open your mind and heart, and imagine you're forming a ball of energy between your hands, and that you can see it forming. It doesn't matter if you don't see it with your eyes, so long as you can see it with your mind.
A variation of this exercise is to touch your fingertips together, run the energy between both hands, and then to pull the hands apart suddenly. If your heart and mind art sufficiently open, you may be able to see a little light from your aura lingering in the spot your hands had been, especially if you're practicing in a room where the lights are out.
Back to the energy ball, once you've created it, what do you do with it? The most common thing to do is to simply absorb it back the way it came, and you do that however feels right to you. I press my hands over it so I feel like I'm squishing the ball, therefore forcing the energy to go somewhere, then I pull the energy back into my hands and drain it into the ground. (It might be tempting to keep that extra energy, but unless you're energy deprived, I recommend against it. It may unground you.)
If you created the ball out of positive energy and love, you could even send it off to a friend as a sort of love note. Picture the ball of energy floating up and out through the ceiling and entering the house of the person you're sending it to. It doesn't matter where they live, as Spirit knows no difference in time and space, so they could be living on the other side of the world and it'd get there in the same amount of time. You don't even need to know if the friend is where you imagine them to be at the moment, as merely picturing your friend connects you to their energy, and your message will get there regardless.
A variation of this is to imagine a cord of energy connected between your heart and your friend's heart, and you're sending loving energy to your friend. This can be quite draining, so if you do this, make sure to draw up energy from the earth or out of the sky or wherever feels comfortable to you so you don't exhaust yourself. Also make sure to sever the connection as soon as you've sent them enough energy or it could keep running for quite some time and drain you anyway. Energy is very obedient; it does what you tell it to, but it doesn't think for you. You must tell it every little thing: start, stop, come, go, flow, retreat. Remember to exercise your will, because the energy itself doesn't have it. It is like water that flows wherever there is the least resistance, and you must change its course if you want it to change.
Is this the limit of what you can do with energy? No, not in the least. If you really want something, send out some positive energy in the direction of the thing you want to come into your life. It's even stronger if you imagine that thing sending positive energy back at you.
My brother gave me a great exercise the other day: pretend the energy you're sending out is an e-mail, and you send it to the thing you want. You wait a bit, and you get a response from what you want, so you send a response back to it. The catch is that you have to copy and paste their response into your new response, and their response includes your original e-mail, so you're basically sending out three letters in one. Once you send it out, wait for their response again. Now you have the equivalent of four letters in one e-mail. Copy and paste that whole thing into another e-mail and send again. Back and forth, back and forth, again and again and again. The letter gets huge, as does the energy it represents. You feel so joyous about this thing you want and resonate with it to the degree that you know you will be able to have it sometime in the near future. And you will.
One can do many more things with energy, many of which I will cover soon, but this article has covered the basics of psychic self-defense and I don't want it to get too heady for a beginner's article. There are still more ways to deal with the negative influences you might encounter in your life, but that is beyond the scope of a beginner. You need to fortify the fortress before you send out the warriors to drive out the invaders.
Don't let your own body be your weak spot. Make it your strength.
Whoa, slow down for a second.
Yes, it's easy once you get the hang of it, but just the one article doesn't tell you everything you need to know, and it definitely doesn't warn you about any of the potential pitfalls you might stumble across on your way.
Unfortunately, very few books or blogs cover how to protect yourself or put yourself back together if you fall apart, and they definitely don't mention it early on if they cover it at all. This is a mistake, as anyone who tries the techniques offered in the blog could run into trouble at some point, and without knowing how to take care of the problem, one might throw his or her hands up in frustration.
It may be a little unconventional, but I'm going to teach this stuff up front. I'm not one of those “fluffy bunny” people who teach that nothing ever goes wrong, though I'm not one of the doomsayers either. As with just about any other subject you can study, I believe there are practical applications of metaphysics in day-to-day life, and some which should be approached with caution.
Now let's get down to business. I'm going to explain here about psychic self defense, this article covering grounding, shielding, and basic energy manipulation. This won't cover everything there is to know about defending yourself, but it will tell you the most important things for a beginner in metaphysics to know. Let's get started.
Grounding
Grounding, the way I see it, is similar to reeling a kite in (without crashing it). Your spirit stays firmly inside your body where it belongs, ensuring greater safety and ability on your part.
Being ungrounded is like sitting on top of your car and steering it by pulling strings that come out of the sunroof. It's imprecise, and someone could just climb into your car and take over the steering wheel, and there'd be nothing you could do about it unless you were to push that person out and take back your rightful place behind the steering wheel instead of on the top of the car.
So many people out there are driving from the roofs of their cars, unaware they could have a much more fulfilling life experience if they would just get down into their car, sit behind the steering wheel, and drive it properly. Learning to ground does this for you.
Before I get to the exercises, I'd like to explain just how big a difference this one simple process can make in a person's life by telling my experience with it. As a child, I'd always had a hard time keeping up with the other kids, and I hated P.E. class or anything that required any kind of physical demonstration. It had taken me years to get off of training wheels and months after that to learn how to ride a bike, finally succeeding when I was ten years old.
This behavior didn't go unnoticed by my family, but they weren't sure what to do about it. Finally, when I was about nine or ten, my coordination problems got so severe that I began to have random dizzy spells, which caused my parents to get even more concerned, so they took me to the doctor.
I went through a number of tests which took several hours a day for several days, but at the end of the tests, the doctor was just as confused as my parents. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with me, even though I clearly had a problem.
I went back to school and tried to live my life normally, even though my dizzy spells grew worse with each passing year. I looked into everything I could think of as a source of blame: potassium deficiency, minor brain damage from all the drugs administered to my mom at my birth, having my tonsils removed at a young age, even dyslexia, but nothing helped the situation, even though they all claimed to be causes of dizzy spells and poor coordination.
In my early twenties, I moved out of my parents' house and began to study things I had not been permitted to in my childhood. Long story short, I found a copy of a book called Psychic Protection by William Bloom, and it turned my world upside down. For the first time, I was able to go through the day without sudden dizzy spells hitting me at inopportune moments. Just like that, I went from the girl who couldn't twirl once while dancing to a song without toppling over to the girl who goes chasing after a purse thief and manages to get her purse back.
All from learning how to ground myself.
How how does one do it, you ask? It's not as difficult as I've probably made it seem from all my talk. I was merely trying to drive the importance of this simple task into your mind so you wouldn't dismiss it as nothing since it's “so easy”. Yes, it's easy, but it works.
Borrowing the idea from the previous article, in order to interact with the spiritual realm, you must “pretend”, use your imagination. There are so many different ways one can ground themselves, and you can find a lot of other websites and blogs that will tell you various complicated ways to do so, but you don't need to do anything complicated. Just pick the way that feels most comfortable to you and that you're willing to do regularly.
Some simple ways to ground:
- Imagine your spirit is a kite, and your body holds the string, and your body is reeling your spirit back down into your body.
- Picture a strong cord or pole going from the top of your head down into the ground, holding you firmly to it.
- Hum the musical scale to yourself. When I did this, I sang it backwards and pictured my spirit integrating with my body more with each note until I reached the final “Do” where I was perfectly integrated. The musical scale backwards is: Do, Ti, La, So, Fa, Mi, Re, Do.
- When you wake up in the morning, imagine securing a net around yourself or tying your spirit to your body with strong spiritual rope. When you go to bed that night, untie the rope or release the net. I got some incredible dreams while doing this, since it gave my spirit the freedom to fly off all it wanted during the nighttime. I'll cover astral projection in a future article.
- Bless a stone of your choice and wear it as a pendant or carry it with you in a pocket or purse and use it for the purpose of grounding. Again, imagination is key here, and there is no wrong way to do this. I did this once and first imagined it being cleaned of whatever energies it had accumulated before it came into my possession, then mentally asked its permission to use it as a grounding stone. That might sound silly to some of you, but asking permission of things opens up your mind and heart in ways you couldn't otherwise. You can use any stone to do this, but the most common choices are clear quartz crystal and brown or black stones. The stone I used? A tiger's eye.
There are many more ways to ground yourself. Just use your imagination and come up with creative ways to do it until you find the best way or ways for yourself. Everyone is different, so experiment until you find something you're comfortable with.
Shielding
Just as important as grounding is shielding. This is like locking your car so no one tries to break in, but those with a key can still get in. The nice thing about shielding is that since you create the shield, you can make it do whatever you need it to do.
Again, as with grounding and communicating with your spirit guides, imagination is key. Picture the shield around you and it will be there. Picture it vividly and it will be strong. You can visualize it however you wish--I picture mine as a bubble of light surrounding my body—and you can designate it for any purpose a shield can logically have.
So do you want to keep other spirits from messing with your body? Designate your shield for that. Want to keep other people's negative emotions out? Designate it for that. Want to allow certain people into your aura (like your spirit guide) and keep everyone else out? Designate it for that. Want to do all three? Designate it for that. Your shield is only limited by your imagination. It isn't hard. If you can daydream, you can shield, and really should shield, particularly if you're going to tap into metaphysics.
A favorite shielding technique of mine is to picture myself being surrounded by love. You can decide what love looks like for yourself, whether it's made out of light, or particles, or has a certain shape or substance or color, but as long as it means “love” to you, it counts. This may seem cliché, but it really makes a lot of sense. If you surround yourself with a strong shield of love, no one who doesn't love you, living or in the spirit realm, will be able to stand being close to you. They'll feel an instant repulsion and leave the first chance they get.
Love is light the light, and hatred is like the darkness, and when you flip on the light switch, the light fills the room, driving the darkness away. Hate and love cannot exist together in the same place, for one fills every container it possibly can, while the other is empty, like a vacuum. Since nature abhors a vacuum, hate that comes into contact with love will soon cease to exist if it doesn't leave first, so it usually leaves. This is what King Solomon meant when he spoke of loving your enemies as “heaping coals of fire on their head”. In the presence of love, hatred cannot exist.
Basic Energy Manipulation
This could get quite detailed, but I will not go into such detail today, as it would get a bit too complex for a beginner's article. I'll have more complicated articles on this subject at some point in the future.
All the other things I have discussed thus far do manipulate energy to some extent, and so does every form of magick, but deliberately manipulating energy is a special art form in and of itself, and deserves to be looked at. As it is similar to the preceding two subsections, I figured it was suitable to place in this article.
Before we go on, let me clarify that “magick” with a k is generally more accepted in metaphysical circles than “magic” without one, as it differentiates actual magical practice from the art of illusion. Common sense dictated I spell it the normal way in the title to help people get here, but in this blog, the form “magick” will be used most often.
Find yourself a quiet, dark room and place your hands about six inches (about fifteen centimeters) in front of your face, palms facing toward each other. Once again using your imagination, picture and feel energy moving through your body. It might help to imagine pulling it from the ground, up through your feet, into your body, then into your arms and hands, as this helps one to feel more energized rather than tired from having spent their own energy, but do what feels right to you.
Channel the energy through your hands and out your fingertips. Open your mind and heart, and imagine you're forming a ball of energy between your hands, and that you can see it forming. It doesn't matter if you don't see it with your eyes, so long as you can see it with your mind.
A variation of this exercise is to touch your fingertips together, run the energy between both hands, and then to pull the hands apart suddenly. If your heart and mind art sufficiently open, you may be able to see a little light from your aura lingering in the spot your hands had been, especially if you're practicing in a room where the lights are out.
Back to the energy ball, once you've created it, what do you do with it? The most common thing to do is to simply absorb it back the way it came, and you do that however feels right to you. I press my hands over it so I feel like I'm squishing the ball, therefore forcing the energy to go somewhere, then I pull the energy back into my hands and drain it into the ground. (It might be tempting to keep that extra energy, but unless you're energy deprived, I recommend against it. It may unground you.)
If you created the ball out of positive energy and love, you could even send it off to a friend as a sort of love note. Picture the ball of energy floating up and out through the ceiling and entering the house of the person you're sending it to. It doesn't matter where they live, as Spirit knows no difference in time and space, so they could be living on the other side of the world and it'd get there in the same amount of time. You don't even need to know if the friend is where you imagine them to be at the moment, as merely picturing your friend connects you to their energy, and your message will get there regardless.
A variation of this is to imagine a cord of energy connected between your heart and your friend's heart, and you're sending loving energy to your friend. This can be quite draining, so if you do this, make sure to draw up energy from the earth or out of the sky or wherever feels comfortable to you so you don't exhaust yourself. Also make sure to sever the connection as soon as you've sent them enough energy or it could keep running for quite some time and drain you anyway. Energy is very obedient; it does what you tell it to, but it doesn't think for you. You must tell it every little thing: start, stop, come, go, flow, retreat. Remember to exercise your will, because the energy itself doesn't have it. It is like water that flows wherever there is the least resistance, and you must change its course if you want it to change.
Is this the limit of what you can do with energy? No, not in the least. If you really want something, send out some positive energy in the direction of the thing you want to come into your life. It's even stronger if you imagine that thing sending positive energy back at you.
My brother gave me a great exercise the other day: pretend the energy you're sending out is an e-mail, and you send it to the thing you want. You wait a bit, and you get a response from what you want, so you send a response back to it. The catch is that you have to copy and paste their response into your new response, and their response includes your original e-mail, so you're basically sending out three letters in one. Once you send it out, wait for their response again. Now you have the equivalent of four letters in one e-mail. Copy and paste that whole thing into another e-mail and send again. Back and forth, back and forth, again and again and again. The letter gets huge, as does the energy it represents. You feel so joyous about this thing you want and resonate with it to the degree that you know you will be able to have it sometime in the near future. And you will.
One can do many more things with energy, many of which I will cover soon, but this article has covered the basics of psychic self-defense and I don't want it to get too heady for a beginner's article. There are still more ways to deal with the negative influences you might encounter in your life, but that is beyond the scope of a beginner. You need to fortify the fortress before you send out the warriors to drive out the invaders.
Don't let your own body be your weak spot. Make it your strength.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Playing the "Pretend" Game
I'm often approached by people who know about the research and practice I put into my metaphysical studies and ask me these questions that have left me speechless for some time.
“How do I communicate with my spirit guide?”
“How do I develop psychic ability?”
“How to I perform magic?”
How, how, how... You got it. The most common question I ever get is “how?” The tricky thing about that question is that metaphysical subjects don't follow a scientific process. There is no one way to do something, and in fact, everyone does things differently, so until very recently, I was never sure how to answer the ominous “how?”
Now I know.
It may not be as scientific as you had wished for if you have a logical mind, but if you're at all interested in metaphysical studies, logic will have to be set aside for the time being and intuition must be embraced. This is a study of emotions and the mind, and such things have no logical basis.
Do you remember your favorite game to play as a child? Were you like me and absolutely loved to play the game “pretend”? Whether you were a mighty warrior, an evil mastermind, a beautiful princess, or simply a mother playing house with your baby doll, chances are this was your favorite game.
Think back to those days. Relive the joy you felt as you became something new, something exciting, something you weren't yet, but hoped to be some day. You were good at playing that game, and it was fun.
Now I'm going to tell you to play The Pretend Game all over again. Yes, you still get an excuse to play it as an adult, and it's just as fun as it ever was. Playing “pretend” unlocks doors and opens new paths to worlds previously unknown. Don't believe me? Try it first before passing judgment.
Suppose you want to contact your spirit guide (I'll explain more about spirit guides in another article). How do you do it? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and picture in your mind a being of radiant beauty and love standing beside you. What do they look like? Are they male or female, or are they even in human form? Mentally ask them for their name, and simply “pretend” to get a response back. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
Continue in your pretend game, asking them any questions you want, and pretending to hear their responses. It doesn't matter what you ask, so long as it interests you.
After you practice this for some weeks or months, you may gradually notice a change come over the whole “pretend” game you've been playing, and the responses from your “imaginary” spirit guide start feeling different from your own thoughts. Even stranger, they may start telling you things you couldn't possibly have known, which you can confirm with actual facts.
So were you really making them up? No. This was your spirit guide you were picturing all along. Our connection to the spiritual realm and the subconscious mind is through the right side of the brain. Our source of creativity and imagination is also through the right side of the brain. See the connection here? It should be a no-brainer. Sorry, bad pun. :P
The spiritual realm reaches us through our imaginations if we will but open up. Don't be afraid that you are “making stuff up”. Everything we think is valid, and everything we think has meaning. Some of our thoughts might be cloaked in symbols and not meant to be taken literally, but they are still worthwhile. There is no such thing as a stupid thought. If it goes on inside your head, it has some meaningful purpose.
Experiment around with your own mind, and get back in touch with your thoughts and imagination. This is the first step on the road to communication with spirit guides, developing psychic ability, and experiencing magic. Do this, and you will be well on your way to whatever it is you are wanting out of the spiritual realm.
“How do I communicate with my spirit guide?”
“How do I develop psychic ability?”
“How to I perform magic?”
How, how, how... You got it. The most common question I ever get is “how?” The tricky thing about that question is that metaphysical subjects don't follow a scientific process. There is no one way to do something, and in fact, everyone does things differently, so until very recently, I was never sure how to answer the ominous “how?”
Now I know.
It may not be as scientific as you had wished for if you have a logical mind, but if you're at all interested in metaphysical studies, logic will have to be set aside for the time being and intuition must be embraced. This is a study of emotions and the mind, and such things have no logical basis.
Do you remember your favorite game to play as a child? Were you like me and absolutely loved to play the game “pretend”? Whether you were a mighty warrior, an evil mastermind, a beautiful princess, or simply a mother playing house with your baby doll, chances are this was your favorite game.
Think back to those days. Relive the joy you felt as you became something new, something exciting, something you weren't yet, but hoped to be some day. You were good at playing that game, and it was fun.
Now I'm going to tell you to play The Pretend Game all over again. Yes, you still get an excuse to play it as an adult, and it's just as fun as it ever was. Playing “pretend” unlocks doors and opens new paths to worlds previously unknown. Don't believe me? Try it first before passing judgment.
Suppose you want to contact your spirit guide (I'll explain more about spirit guides in another article). How do you do it? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and picture in your mind a being of radiant beauty and love standing beside you. What do they look like? Are they male or female, or are they even in human form? Mentally ask them for their name, and simply “pretend” to get a response back. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?
Continue in your pretend game, asking them any questions you want, and pretending to hear their responses. It doesn't matter what you ask, so long as it interests you.
After you practice this for some weeks or months, you may gradually notice a change come over the whole “pretend” game you've been playing, and the responses from your “imaginary” spirit guide start feeling different from your own thoughts. Even stranger, they may start telling you things you couldn't possibly have known, which you can confirm with actual facts.
So were you really making them up? No. This was your spirit guide you were picturing all along. Our connection to the spiritual realm and the subconscious mind is through the right side of the brain. Our source of creativity and imagination is also through the right side of the brain. See the connection here? It should be a no-brainer. Sorry, bad pun. :P
The spiritual realm reaches us through our imaginations if we will but open up. Don't be afraid that you are “making stuff up”. Everything we think is valid, and everything we think has meaning. Some of our thoughts might be cloaked in symbols and not meant to be taken literally, but they are still worthwhile. There is no such thing as a stupid thought. If it goes on inside your head, it has some meaningful purpose.
Experiment around with your own mind, and get back in touch with your thoughts and imagination. This is the first step on the road to communication with spirit guides, developing psychic ability, and experiencing magic. Do this, and you will be well on your way to whatever it is you are wanting out of the spiritual realm.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)