Advanced Skills

Empathy is the ability to know someone else's emotions psychically, during normal conversation and at a distance. Body language and tone of voice are not empathy, only psychic perceptions. Empathy is a limited type of telepathy, which is easier for most people to learn. It is the most common of all psychic abilities.

Many people use empathy without realizing it, especially with close friends and family members. This often occurs as a feeling that a friend is hurt or in trouble. The receiver may also feel stressed because a friend is stressed.

With practice, you can improve your empathic ability. You can begin using it on cue instead of just spontaneously. You can learn to receive detailed emotions and complex situations.

Create an empathic connection by focusing your thoughts on your chosen target.

Create a constant stream of energy connecting you to him or her. Let the connection grow and strengthen, like a web or joined hands holding you together.

Emotions flow through the connection in both directions. The target will feel some of your emotions, and you will feel some of the target's emotions.

Be open to receive images, sounds, and feelings through the link. You may feel the emotions as if they were your own, or they may seem like a movie. They may appear as emotional images or as hunches.

As you receive information, watch for related details and subtle feelings. Watch how the target reacts to his or her emotions. Ask questions to navigate through related emotions. Notice how the feelings change in response to your questions.

To be certain you aren't reading body language, practice when you can not see or hear the target person. Practice at times when you wouldn't otherwise know what mood the person is in. Then ask the person later what his or her mood was at that time, to see if you received feelings accurately.

Controlled, useful empathic navigation can take a while to learn, but it is necessary. The telepathy section explains techniques for navigation in more detail.

Closing the link is just as important as opening it. When you are ready to close the link, visualize it gently drawing apart and closing cleanly.

If you try to remove it too quickly, it may hurt like a suddenly broken relationship. You may even feel it physically near the heart, where empathy connects. Be gentle with empathic links because they represent your relationship with that person. You will both feel what happens to it.

Q: I don’t feel anything when I try to connect. Am I doing it? What’s happening?

A: Ground and center. Make sure you are relaxed, not scared, and not feeling defensive. If you are tense or scared, you won’t connect well with people. If you feel defensive, you will hold your energy in and stop it from flowing to the target. Make sure you are comfortable feeling close to the target. Make sure the target is comfortable feeling close to you. Gently add energy and strengthen the connection.

Q: I can connect, but I am not receiving anything.

A: Ask a question and then listen for an answer. If the connection is still quiet, strengthen it and increase the energy flow. Be sure to stay calm and relaxed.

Q: Receiving too many emotions is overwhelming me. How do I filter some out?

A: Ground and center very well. If afterward you still need a filter, create a shield around yourself to block all empathy. Then when you choose to receive empathically, tell the shield exactly what to let through. When you are done, tell it to block everything again.

Telepathy is the psychic transfer of thoughts, concepts, images, sounds, and feelings. Empathy is a form of telepathy.

Theoretically, telepathy can carry any information. In practice, it is more limited.

The most accurate reception comes from full concepts involving all five physical senses and emotions. Thoughts involving fewer senses reduce accuracy. For detailed, accurate telepathy, focus on an entire situation instead of a single object, word, or number.

Create a telepathic link the same way as an empathic link.

Focus your thoughts on the target person. Create a clear image of him or her in your mind. Create a picture of a situation involving him or her, and imagine the sounds, smells, emotions, and surrounding atmosphere.

Create an energy link between yourself and the target.

It will have two parts: an emotional link between your hearts and an intellectual or conceptual link between your minds. The emotional part is important because connecting requires trust. Emotions and thoughts will go both directions through the links.

Strengthen both links until you feel strongly connected.

Telepathy should always be done with compassion for the other person's thoughts and feelings. You may learn personal information. If you betray this trust, future connections will be more difficult.

The target will not always consciously know that you are connecting, but will still respond subconsciously. He or she may block you out if upset with you. The receiver cannot force accurate telepathy. It only works when the sender and receiver both allow it.

As you explore someone telepathically, you will notice many levels of thought. These levels exist in yourself and in the people you connect to. Some levels are more conscious than others.

The easiest level to reach is that of surface thoughts, the daily conscious thinking that people do in response to the environment. This level of thought is usually the least useful for telepathic communication, but it is the easiest to receive.

Sometimes those thoughts are obvious without telepathy. You see a child's eyes light up and know that he or she is excited and curious about something. Pets show their interest by pointing their eyes and ears. Remember that the communication is telepathic only if you know the thoughts without body language cues.

Surface thoughts are easy to read because they are broadcast psychically. You may be talking with a friend, and suddenly both say the same thing at the same time. Or, one person may say something and the other respond, "Hey, I was about to say that!"

This happens because one of the people is "thinking loudly," almost verbalizing his or her surface thoughts by thinking about them openly. These thoughts are the easiest for other people to receive spontaneously. If you don't want anyone receiving these thoughts, you will want to shield them.

Surface thoughts can be shielded with careful practice. They usually don't need to be shielded because few people will receive them clearly. However, if you associate with many psychic people, you may find that they notice more than you want them to.

Some private thoughts will be unreadable by telepathy regardless. This is human nature; deeply private thoughts stay private. Thoughts about other people may seem to be private but are easily read through telepathy. They are also frequently conveyed through body language, and noticeable even without telepathy.

A person can learn to stop other people from reading any of his or her thoughts. This is usually not worth the effort for a long time, since most people aren't strongly telepathy anyway. However, it can be useful to keep a surprise secret.

Notice as you are reading or thinking how many of the words you are pronouncing in your mind. Any words that you pronounce mentally (even if you don't speak them) are loud thoughts.

You are likely to telepathically broadcast loud thoughts. If you think in pictures and ideas, or keep your mind quiet as you do pronounce words, you will broadcast less.

Observe your thoughts as you read and throughout the day. You will be able to tell the difference between your loud thoughts and your quiet ones. By changing your loud thoughts to quiet thoughts, you can make them less likely to be broadcast.

Exploring a person's thoughts is like wandering a maze of his or her life. Past and present experiences are mixed with thoughts, daydreams, feelings, and pictures. Navigating through the maze for one specific idea can be confusing, but it will get easier with practice.

Thoughts and memories are related by similarity. Start by telepathically asking for a starting point relevant to the information you want.

Some images will appear. Watch for details in them. Focus on ideas related to the information you want. When new images appear, they will bring more information.

Focus in closer until you get to the level of details you need. If certain information you want isn't presented, ask a question about it. ("Show me more about your notebook. What have you written in it?") Follow the ideas that associate usefully with other ideas. You will eventually find a path to the information you want.

There are two ways to make use of a telepathic link, passively and actively. You can watch passively by letting the other person direct where you look and what you see. Or, once you are seeing through his or her eyes, you can watch actively by telepathically suggesting where they should look and what they should do.

The passive way will give you better realistic information about the person's interests. The active way will let you look in more detail at something that was glanced over but not examined. Use passive links just as you would normal receptive telepathy. Use active links as a combination of receptive telepathy and suggestive telepathy.

Telepathy can be used to suggest, not just to receive. This has only a minimal effect until the sender is very strong, and even then, it is suggestion only, not a controlling force. It is used mainly to ask questions of the target, to get specific useful answers.

Telepathic suggestions can not be used to make people do things that they would strongly object to. They can be used to ask for simple actions. The easiest types of suggestions are things like, "Scratch your ear," "Drop the pencil," and "Look behind you." Simple, instant, physical commands are much easier than complex commands.

To send a suggestion, create a normal telepathic link, and then think of information traveling from your mind to the target's, instead of vice versa. Formulate your suggestion very clearly. Involve a picture, sound, and concept with it, not just the words of the sentence.

Some people are able to tell when they are being telepathically influenced, and sometimes even recognize who is doing it. Work with a friend who has verbally given you permission to try to influence him or her telepathically. Then you can be sure you aren't offending anyone by doing so.

Disconnect the same way you would for empathy. Close the link gently and cleanly.

Q: I'm generally having trouble connecting getting information. What's up?

A: Check all the questions in the section on Empathy first. Make sure you're grounded, centered, well connected, and that the other person isn't shielding from you. If you can receive empathically from the person, but not telepathically, then continue with these questions.

Q: Ok, I'm empathically connected, and I can receive emotions clearly. I'm not receiving any images or words though, and I can't direct what I receive.

A: You'll need to practice navigation the person's thoughts. Start by asking, "Why do you feel that way? Tell me or show me," and then listen for an answer. Communicate just like speaking, and gradually visualize the person in his or her surroundings. Then you can look around him or her and see things for yourself. You can also view his or her memories like a video this way.

Q: I can receive but the images make no sense. How can I tell what they mean?

A: They may be literal, or they may be symbolic. Practice will make you more familiar with what to expect. This is just a case of needing more experience; keep trying. Write down everything you do see, even when it doesn't make sense, and afterward compare the results to see if there was a pattern.

Astral projection means projecting your awareness to the astral plane.

The astral plane is a world made of energy that can be shaped by thought and emotion. In the astral plane, a person can create objects and communicate with other beings, both humans and spirits.

Remote Viewing is a form of projection, just like astral projection. The difference is that it takes you to a physical location instead of an astral one.

Astral projection and out of body experiences are not the same.

Leaving the body and astral projection are different forms of travel. The astral plane is one of many places a person can go when out of body or when projecting. Astral projection can happen while still in body and awake.

This book focuses on interacting with the astral plane through visualization. This works while you are awake and not out of body. It will not cover out of body experiences.

Astral projection requires feelings like daydreaming and being creative because they trigger psychic perceptions. You may feel at first that you are imagining what you see. That's ok. In time, you will change from imagining it to perceiving it accurately.

The level of danger is less than normal physical life. You might run into someone who will get angry with you for no apparent reason. However, as long as you don't go looking for trouble, such occurrences are unlikely. Even if someone doesn't like you, they're unlikely to do anything more than give you a minor headache.

Contrary to some common myths, you can not die from leaving your body or from projection. You can not be trapped out of your body. Demons will not take over your body while you're gone. If you get anxious or stressed, you'll just wake up naturally, like from a nighttime dream.

Choose an astral place that you would like to visit. Create a place if you think it does not already exist. If you want to visit a friend's astral home, hold the image of your friend, emotionally or visually, in your mind.

Relax and daydream. Think of the place you would like to visit. If other thoughts interfere, notice them, let them go, and return to the picture.

Continue until it becomes very clear. You will use this place as an anchor point to return to later. Become aware of seeing, feeling, and hearing the place, including as many senses as possible.

Stay open to any information that enters your mind, no matter how odd or unrelated it may seem. Some astral places are relatively normal. Others are extremely odd and may change frequently. As you examine each image, use it to find other images. Over time, you will get images more quickly and see more.

Once maintaining the picture is easy, change it somewhat. Add a tree, or move things around; whatever you imagine will change it in that way. Pick up an object and resize it, change its color, change its density, and then return it to normal.

Reshape that area of the astral plane. Practice until you are very comfortable doing this. Learn to change your shape. Walk, fly, swim, and examine the details of many objects.

The next step in astral projection is traveling to places other people have created. You succeed at this when you don't let your preconceptions change your views of them. In some areas, the things people have created maintain themselves so others can not change them. In other areas, your thoughts can change what is actually there.

Astral projection is useful for practicing perceptive and creative psychic abilities, especially telepathy. It also works as an energy source to assist healing. It lets you explore concepts that don't fit into the regular world, such as four or five dimensional space.

Exploring other people's astral creations and creating your own can be quite fun. Whatever you can imagine, you can play with on the astral plane.

Soul joining is also possible. Because you can change shape astrally, you can become fog-like. If several people do this, it is possible for them to overlap their soul energy, and eventually their souls.

This can be a very intimate experience emotionally and nearly always creates a strong telepathic connection. It's difficult to remain in the astral plane when doing this if you aren't already good at projecting. For people who are very comfortable projecting and comfortable with each other, it can be a very joyous experience.

Q: I can't keep a clear picture of the astral plane in my mind. It's blurry and not very detailed.

A: You may need to work with an ability other than sight. Try listening and feeling your way around, rather than giving it a visual shape. Also, make sure you aren't being distracted by the physical world around you.

Q: I can get to the astral plane and see it, but I can't move around. I feel like I'm glued down.

A: Sometimes it takes practice to be able to move naturally. Try a second projection. Leave your astral body where it's at, as a shell, and project to a different place in the astral plane. Let the shell just sit there stuck the first few times, and eventually, you will find that movement comes naturally. This can be especially helpful if astrally you can fly but have difficulty walking.

Q: I can't see anything others create. I can only see my own things.

A: This could happen for two reasons. One possibility is that your own expectations are interfering. If so, practice the suggestions given at the beginning of this book for avoiding expectations. The other possibility is that you are not used to viewing other people's energy. Practice with psiballs with friends, and with aura vision, to help improve your ability to see other people's energy. Other energies feel a bit different, but they are all variations of the energy you can already see.

Q: When I'm trying to actually leave my body, rather than just see the astral plane while awake, I get almost out. But then my heart beat speeds up and I wake back up again.

A: A fast heart rate shows anxiety. Are you nervous about what you are doing? The anxiety could come from many things. If you are afraid of the astral plane, research it more and deal with your fears before trying to project again.

If you aren't afraid of projecting, but still have a lot of anxiety, consider some other possibilities. How will your beliefs change if you succeed? Are you worried about anything that would happen to you, emotionally or mentally, after you succeed? Are you ready for the new experience? How will you handle it? What does it mean to you to succeed? If you are not ready, what would make you ready?

Q: I want to explore the astral plane but I'm afraid it might be dangerous or unhealthy. Something keeps pushing me back in.

A: Your own fears are pushing you back in. Emotions can take form when you are in the astral plane, and you may perceive them as actual blocks to your progress. The only way to defeat fears is to face them, either by experiencing what you are afraid of, or by researching it until you know there is nothing to be afraid of.

The astral plane is less dangerous than the physical world because you can always relocate if a situation isn't good. At worst, you can simply leave the astral plane (with a full shutdown if you wish).

Your fears will not decrease over time unless you continue to learn about astral projection. Keep reading about it, talk with others about their experiences, and practice things yourself. Do it a little at a time so that you are totally comfortable before going ahead.

Like in the Star Wars Jedi training cave, the only threats are your own fears. Face the fears, and they will show that they are illusions.

If you want to feel more prepared for whatever occurs, read the section on maintaining shielding. Some of the ways of dealing with psychic battle (which is uncommon, but occasionally happens) are discussed in that section.

An aura is an energy field around something. It contains information about the health of a creature, its emotional and mental state, and many other things. Color, texture, shape, size, and motion of the aura all provide information about the creature or item.

Relax your body, mind, and eyes. Choose an object or person to look at that won't make you nervous. Look gently at the object, focusing your eyes slightly behind it.

Look with your third eye, the psychically sensitive area of your forehead. Close your eyes and feel your focus shift up slightly, so that you seem to be looking out of your forehead. Open your eyes, and your focus shifts back down to normal sight. Open and close your eyes a few times to learn how it feels. Avoid rolling your eyes upward; that will just give you a headache.

Once you are confident of the focus shift, do it gently with your eyes open. Look out of your eyes and your forehead at the same time. This shift of focus awakens psychic vision, which is used to see auras. To see the aura, look gently just past the object, using your eyes to see and keeping your focus lifted to the third eye. When you begin to see lines of color around the object, you need to find out if it's an after-image or an actual aura.

After-images are a biological effect of your eyes, caused by eyestrain. Look at the circle image for at least 30 seconds, and then look at the empty space next to it or a blank wall. The opposite-color image you will see is an after-image.

To prevent after-images, blink often and don't look at one object too long. As you improve, you will see the aura within a few seconds, before after-images appear. When you first see color or lines around an object, look away to make sure it's not an after-image.

To eliminate after-images, close your eyes for a minute or two. When you stop seeing the image on the inside of your eyes, the after-image is gone and you can go back to seeing the aura.

Auras have many shapes, sizes, colors, and textures. There is no standard interpretation because different people perceive differently.

The best way to discover the meanings of colors and other attributes is to experiment. Read about traditional meanings and use them to decide what the colors mean to you. For instance, someone who is decisive about his personal space may have a clear edge on his aura, a solid, dense energy, and sharp, clear lines.

The aura can affect and be affected by a person's health. If you are interested in learning energy healing, through chakra and aura work, read Hands of Light and Light Emerging by Barbara Ann Brennan. They are very detailed and well written, and they focus entirely on healing methods.

Stay relaxed and calm as you practice. Practice often, but don't tire yourself. Often, the moment you relax and quit trying, you will suddenly see the aura quite clearly. If things aren't working, take a break, do something fun, and try again later when you can be more relaxed and patient.

Aura vision may be easier when you are sleepy because you won't have the energy to force anything. If you have a difficult time letting things happen without forcing them, try once or twice when you are tired or sleepy.

Dim lighting can be helpful so you don't strain your eyes. Put a solid colored background behind the object. Gray, white, brown, and dark colors work well because they are not visually distracting.

The aura has multiple layers, like an onion, but with each layer reaching from the very center of the person outward. Close to the body, all of the layers overlap. Each layer out reaches farther away from the body and becomes less dense, lighter, subtler, and more difficult to see.

First, practice seeing the inner layers. As you improve, let your awareness expand, growing lighter and softer. Reach outward with your aura to feel the aura you are looking at. Feel your vision shifting more strongly toward the third eye and clairvoyance. Remain relaxed and feeling light as your vision expands to include the outer layers.

Q: I can't feel the shift in focus.

A: Relax and keep trying, but gently. If you still have difficulty after a lot of practice, try learning some other psychic skill first to awaken your abilities. This will make aura vision easier to learn.

Q: I can feel a shift in focus but I still can't see anything.

A: Try looking at different energy levels. You may be below or above what you are trying to see. Do this by varying the amount of energy you have in yourself, adding more or letting some go to adjust to different levels. It may feel like getting lighter or heavier. The more you practice, the easier this becomes.

Psychokinesis, less often called telekinesis, is the ability to move or affect matter with your mind. This includes all forms of affecting dice rolls, levitation, teleportation, etc.

Research has shown that psychokinesis does exist in some people. For details of scientific experiments, refer to the Journal of Parapsychology, in most large libraries. Most studies are done using random number generators, to get measurable effects. There are a few rare cases of objects levitating, vanishing, and other large occurrences, but these are notoriously hard to repeat and study.

This section investigates the causes, beliefs, and reality surrounding psychokinesis. It doesn't claim you can learn psychokinesis overnight, or even at all. If you have not learned any other ability yet, don't start with psychokinesis. Encourage your belief and experience by learning another first. Other abilities, especially ones such as empathy, are more easily accepted and learned. Then psychokinesis will be much easier.

Affecting random numbers is called micro psychokinesis. It works on small events, and its results are only noticeable after collecting a large amount of data. This is the more common kind of psychokinesis.

A student practicing usually obtains better results with micro psychokinesis, because it's more easily caused, counted, studied, and believed. This doesn't lend itself to flamboyant demonstrations, but it is scientifically valid and quite real.

Macro psychokinesis, which means making objects move or fly, is less common and more difficult to study in a research lab. It takes much longer to learn.

The steps for doing psychokinesis are quite straightforward.

1. Remove all disbelief. "Do or do not. There is no try."
2. Choose the goal you want. This could be a dice roll, a hand of cards, or whatever.
3. Visualize that goal very strongly, being very confident that it can and will happen exactly as you want it to. "My will be done!"
4. Shuffle the cards, roll the dice, or do whatever is necessary to pick the event.
5. Check your results. Keep practicing.

Pay attention to your mood, distractions, day dreaming, beliefs, doubts, questions, and ideas. Practice with your eyes open or closed. Experiment with getting results immediately or later. Learn how each affects your results. Try working with objects that are already moving; it may be easier.

If you think a doubt interfered with getting your goal, then try again, and focus more on being confident. When you can clearly, confidently, and repeatedly visualize the goal you want, you will get better results. Encourage yourself. Celebrate your progress. Relax and rest.

Good results help overcome the rest of your doubts. The more you overcome the doubts, the easier it'll be to continue improving. This is one reason that practicing lots of micro psychokinesis will tend to help more than attempting macro psychokinesis. You can get good results a little at a time.

Psychokinesis forces matter to match your thoughts. Therefore, thoughts of disbelief won't work, only thoughts of belief will. Because it is so important, most of the necessary learning relates to believing. Faith can move mountains (well, dice at least).

Psychokinesis does exist. Normal people do it. People who've gained control of the ability have no reason to believe that it doesn't exist. They've experienced it, and know that it exists. Society's disbelief no longer matters to them. Society's disbelief won't matter to you, either, once you've seen it with your own eyes and done it yourself.

You can overcome doubts by identifying them precisely, and then one by one challenging the incorrect beliefs. Once you make the challenge statements, repeat them to break the old habit and create a new supportive one.

Stating a new idea once or a few times isn't enough to change your inner beliefs. This usually takes a few months of repetition. There's no quick way to reprogram a thought habit.

If you haven't read the section at the beginning about beliefs, do so now. If you read it but don't remember much, reread it. Pay attention to the fears and challenge statements.

Any belief you have which you want to change, you can, by finding a logical challenge statement that directly contradicts the incorrect belief. This works for any area of life. When you choose what to believe based on a rational view of reality, your inner beliefs will gradually change to match the new view.

The methods just discussed can reprogram your habits to support a more realistic view of the world. It takes time, but it is necessary for success.

People learning psychokinesis may find they explain away good results as chance, if they are doubtful, or accept the slightest variations as proof if they are overly enthusiastic. Both these trends should be kept in mind when looking over results. Statistical methods exist to show the probability that psychokinesis was involved. The methods are detailed in the statistics and measurement section below.

Someone with intense doubts may score a statistically valid score, but in the wrong direction for the experiment, or significantly less than chance. Similarly, a person who is confident, focused, concentrating comfortably, and enthusiastic may be able to produce consistent good scores.

In this way, success tends to create more success, and failure tends to create more failure. Each is a reinforcement of a belief. Challenge statements may be needed to overcome a trend of failure before it becomes too much of a habit. This can be frustrating, but success doesn't happen overnight. It happens by learning from failure.

Doubt: Reread this section. Other: You should have experience with previous skills by now; use that knowledge to figure it out.