psychic development

[shadowofwind]

A recent thought related to psychic development.... People who I have known who dreamed lucidly and had notably strong psychic powers have also tended to accept the products of their imaginations uncritically as 'truths', even when those were verifiably false. I used to suppose that this self-gullibility was because the strength of the intuitions overpowered one's intellectual sobriety. Or I supposed that since most people are prone to egotism and dishonesty, any randomly selected psychics are likely to be that way also, without this being correlated to their psychic power. Now I'm thinking that the lack of critical self awareness is actually part of what produces the psychic power to start with. Astral and other transcendent intuitions have a strongly creative element, in a way that common sensate perceptions do not. If you want everything to be scientifically objective, that tends to shut down your psychic power. But if you just accept stuff uncritically, very often you delude yourself. It seems like the way forward must involve better understanding the place of the creative element, accepting the ambiguity and fallibility of one's intuitions while also continuing to respect and nurture them. In other words, we must accept that our paranormal perceptions are to some degree 'made up', while continuing to work to make them match the objective information we do have as well as possible. Even normal perceptions had to go through that kind of process. Seeing and hearing, for example, are as much trained as innate. As infants we have a jumble of sight and sound information, and we have to learn to assemble those into coherent images and stories. Part of that process is hard-wired, as a result of natural selection and genetics, but only part of it. With paranormal intuitions its like that too, but its harder, because more of it is voluntary and malleable, and we're in a more primitive state of development in those areas.

[Baron Samedi]

I disagree 100%. I would never trust a "psychic" who was self-deluded, egotistical or unaware of self.

[shadowofwind]

I am to at least some degree psychic, self deluded, egotistical, and unaware of self. You are psychic, to at least some degree. You are implying that you have completely transcended egotism and other self delusion, and are aware of self to the full depth and extent possible?

[Baron Samedi]

I am to at least some degree psychic, self deluded, egotistical, and unaware of self. You are psychic, to at least some degree. You are implying that you have completely transcended egotism and other self delusion, and are aware of self to the full depth and extent possible? No. But, I value self-awareness and truth than any perceived power, gift or skill I may or may not have.

[shadowofwind]

I take your point to be that they way to address the distortions in our perceptions is to cultivate honesty and self knowledge. That's very close to what I was trying to say, the heart being like a lens.

[Baron Samedi]

I take your point to be that they way to address the distortions in our perceptions is to cultivate honesty and self knowledge. That's very close to what I was trying to say, the heart being like a lens. I look at it as more like removing lenses. Think of it this way. I once knew an extremely obese homeless psychic living in her car. I found out that twenty years ago, she would charge $300 for a reading because she is that good. Unfortunately she cannot stop destroying her body and mind. Therefore, I would not want to get a reading from her, because I do not want to be like her at all. My pyschic mentor is a genuinely happy and obviously healthy person holistically.

[shadowofwind]

It would seem then that your 100% disagreement hinges on being blessed with a trustworthy mentor. That is not a luxury that everyone has. I agree with you about your stated priority of values.

[saltyseedog]

I disagree with disagreeing. I like to look at things as they are and if they work. Not forming opinions about what I think works. Now I would say the foundation of all what you would call "psychic abilities" is being self aware. For being self aware is a psychic ability in its own. for what you call the self, I would call the soul. the ability to look within and feel your soul is a psychic ability. Now to look outside of yourself and see or feel the souls of others. You also could call that a psychic ability. These are very very simple easy things to do. all it requires is stillness. for in stillness you can feel the presence of your soul. You can feel the presence or essence of everything. so I would say that you must be self aware to be what you would call "psychic" I don't like that word very much though. But for most people thats whats needed for them to understand what I'm talking about.

[shadowofwind]

A few months ago someone on this site said that if you look deeply inside yourself, you need to do it with love, otherwise the answers you get are twisted and misleading. In the same kind of way, a viciousness in my emotional nature has begun producing obviously undesirable effects in the world around me. Nothing new with this, everyone has this problem, whether the connections between desire and events are obvious or not, but its become increasingly obvious that aspect of myself is in need of transformation. I think that WakingNomad's criticism has some validity in that regard. For me one helpful clue seems to be that unhealthy patterns that are apparent between people in the world reflect similar patterns between different aspects of my psyche. It seems that simply recognizing the nature of those relationships in myself goes a long way towards resolving them.

[saltyseedog]

You need to be accepting of who you are and your self. Most people are filled with hate whether they know that or not. Thats ok. Just be accepting of that. Only when you can accept yourself can you transform it into something good. and from that inner goodness it will turn to outer goodness. And all will be good Na but your good shadowofwind you are on the path of self transformation. I feel it. It will take time. But it will be good times so don't worry.

[Baron Samedi]

I take your point to be that they way to address the distortions in our perceptions is to cultivate honesty and self knowledge. That's very close to what I was trying to say, the heart being like a lens. I look at it as more like removing lenses. Think of it this way. I once knew an extremely obese homeless psychic living in her car. I found out that twenty years ago, she would charge $300 for a reading because she is that good. Unfortunately she cannot stop destroying her body and mind. Therefore, I would not want to get a reading from her, because I do not want to be like her at all. My pyschic mentor is a genuinely happy and obviously healthy person holistically. No. But, I value self-awareness and truth than any perceived power, gift or skill I may or may not have. It would seem then that your 100% disagreement hinges on being blessed with a trustworthy mentor. That is not a luxury that everyone has. I agree with you about your stated priority of values. Apparently you misunderstand me. So, let me be more specific. A recent thought related to psychic development.... People who I have known who dreamed lucidly and had notably strong psychic powers have also tended to accept the products of their imaginations uncritically as 'truths', even when those were verifiably false. I used to suppose that this self-gullibility was because the strength of the intuitions overpowered one's intellectual sobriety. Or I supposed that since most people are prone to egotism and dishonesty, any randomly selected psychics are likely to be that way also, without this being correlated to their psychic power. I missed that you are basing your hypothesis around your anecdotal evidence: People who I have known who dreamed lucidly and had notably strong psychic powers have also tended to accept the products of their imaginations uncritically as 'truths', even when those were verifiably false. Now I'm thinking that the lack of critical self awareness is actually part of what produces the psychic power to start with. We are all psychics. We are all intuitive. We all have psychic power. Therefore, psychic power does not need to be produced. A lack of critical self-awareness is detrimental to the development of any skill. Astral and other transcendent intuitions have a strongly creative element, in a way that common sensate perceptions do not. I would say intuitions have right-brained element. But physical perceptions actually do have a creative element. An orange sits on a rock on a mountain. One person sees food. Another person sees an abomination. Another person sees an offering. Another person sees an orange ball. The information we receive is empirical, but our perceptions are subjective, therefore, do have a creative element. If you want everything to be scientifically objective, that tends to shut down your psychic power. I disagree. I would say if you constantly doubt yourself, you will limit yourself. This goes for any skill. But if you just accept stuff uncritically, very often you delude yourself. This is a good definition of delusion. It seems like the way forward must involve better understanding the place of the creative element, accepting the ambiguity and fallibility of one's intuitions while also continuing to respect and nurture them. In other words, we must accept that our paranormal perceptions are to some degree 'made up', while continuing to work to make them match the objective information we do have as well as possible. All perceptions are to some degree "made up" no matter what source we receive the information from. With paranormal intuitions its like that too, but its harder, because more of it is voluntary and malleable, and we're in a more primitive state of development in those areas. If you mean "We" to be the industrialized world, then yes. If you mean "We" to mean humanity, then no. *** So, let me speak of universal truths regarding perception, ego, psychic development, and skill. Psychic development What people consider "psychic powers" are skills that can be developed. Skill We are born with innate gifts that we can develop, just like a talent for singing, running, math, or painting. No matter what level our gift is, this can always be improved through learning and practice. Ego Our ego, or selfhood may push us to greater skills because we want attention, love, admiration, curiosity, accomplishment, fascination, or revenge to name a few. delusion Self-deluded arrogance is a leaky vessel that will only take you halfway across the Ocean of Mastery. Then, the vessel will sink into the depths. Look at 'movie stars'. Some of these people can become very arrogant, or maybe always have been. This arrogance works as a shield from others' opinions and energy, because arrogance makes one focus on themselves. It shields us from what we perceive as criticism. In other words, the arrogant person thinks, "I don't care what they say. I am right." This self-assuredness pushes them forward instead of using time and energy to ponder. The downfall of the arrogant person is their blindness to their incorrectness. An arrogant person cannot improve when they need a mentor to guide them past a plateau in their skill. Therefore to develop in any skill we must carefully consider the ideas of people more skilled than us. Think of these two people: Charlie Sheen. Johnny Depp. Who is the better actor? Which is self-deluded and which is humble? (Watch interviews of these men, and you will see the answer to the second question.) Let me give you the example of a fighter. A boy grows up fighting. He is aggressive, and picks a lot of fights. Most of the other children only fight back out of self-defense or as a reaction to his antagonism. This boy accumulates what he perceives to be a lot of experience fighting. He continues this on into high school, and "realizes" he is a great fighter. Now, because of his arrogant self-deluded attitude, his belief in himself, he can intimidate some people without fighting. He decides he is going to compete in MMA, so he goes to a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu class, and gets his ass beat. He realizes he is not really a great fighter, but if he was to be honest with himself, he was really more of a bully. He decides he will humbly accept instruction from the teacher so he can truly become a fighter. Getting back to psychic development and critical thinking. Critical thinking, being objective as possible is absolutely key to psychic development. Ask the founder of the Stargate program. His home number is online.

[kenietz]

Hm, i think Shadowofwind wanted to say that in order to develop certain powers\skills, one sort of has to lose one's mind for a while. To detach from the common dream called reality. If we are too attached i mean follow the rules strictly or try to think scientifically then is not possible to develop the powers or gets extremely difficult\slow. But i agree that once one discovers\starts to develop powers, one must get more sober about it and observe oneself very well, be more critical.

[kenietz]

Hi again, i was thinking about the topic and it reminded me a bit of the 'controlled folly' from Castaneda's books. Here are some excerpts from 'Don Juan's Teachings': "My acts are sincere but they are only the acts of an actor because everything I do is controlled folly. Everything I do in regard to myself and my fellow men is folly, because nothing matters." "We need to look with our eyes to laugh. When our eyes see , everything is so equal that nothing is funny. My laughter, as well as everything I do is real but it also is controlled folly because it is useless; it changes nothing and yet I still do it. One must always choose the path with heart in order to be at one's best, perhaps so one can always laugh." "In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern." That is power and ultimate objectivity

[Sageous]

Okay, I give up. I’ve been trying to follow this conversation, but now I think I’ve totally lost the premise… First, I thought Shadowofwind was subtly saying that people who think that they have psychic powers are actually delusional. But then both Shadowofwind and WakingNomad seemed to agree that everyone has psychic powers. But then WakingNomad offers up the universal truths (whose universe, I wonder?) regarding perception, again implying that we might be making up our psychic abilities. Then there was some self-analysis, and references to other psychics, both again implying that psychic powers are real. Etc, etc, etc. And finally Carlos Castaneda gets quoted (people still quote him? Really?), and the quote actually made sense! About the only post that I got was Saltyseedog’s, which, if you read it closely, is anathema to the conversation. Very nice sentiment, though, Mr. Seedog. Help me out guys…are you saying, really, that you both (Shadowofwind and WakingNomad) have psychic powers? What are those powers, and if you have them, why aren’t you out in the world exercising them, instead of wasting time on the web? Plus, you both seem to have confirmed that everybody has psychic powers. How is it that I’ve met many thousands of people in my life and not one of them exhibited any “psychic” abilities? Sure, lots of them said they have them, and a few of those even believed that they have powers, though none were able to manifest, well, anything beyond normal human ability. Am I missing something? Maybe one of you could clarify for me what exactly you mean by psychic powers? Maybe I’m working off the wrong premise? Please let me know.

[Sageous]

^ Just a quick P.S. to my last post: Don’t get me wrong, guys, I’m all for “psychic powers.” Hell, that’s what one of my novels is all about (LD-based reality-shifting, in its case), and another is nothing but shared dreams. I even wrote a book about thought energy and its ability to change reality, and construct souls. But that’s all wishful thinking at this point; regrettably fiction. I thought I should make that clear before I was hit with being too scientific or closed minded. I welcome psychic powers, and seek them every day! But just because I want something to be real doesn’t make it real, and I will have trouble accepting psychic powers until I actually see them for myself. Given people’s propensity to announce that they are psychic while offering no real proof, I don’t think that’s a bad position to hold. I also think that, if you two apparently intelligent people hold the same position, you shouldn’t discuss psychic powers as if they were commonplace. People reading these threads tend to believe what you tell them. That said, if I got this thread all wrong, please let me know, and I’ll shut up.

[shadowofwind]

Sageous: Much of the stuff that WakingNomad quotes me as saying I did not say. Apparently he dropped a tag somewhere. Yes some people have imperfectly developed psychic powers, and all people have them in a form that can't be as obviously identified as such. A lot of what is regarded as 'random' because it lies outside of commonly held models of how the world works is not actually random. My original point, which I did not state clearly, was to address the apparent dichotomy between not believing in supernatural stuff, vs making up all kinds of conjectures and calling them truths. Generally speaking, a lot of people who post on this site fall partway into one camp or the other, and there are a lot of arguments about this. It has been something that I'm trying to sort out also. So I was just trying to share one insight that I had this week on this topic, not intending that observation to comprehensively cover the entire subject. Lots of other valid things can be said about it also. I'm not completely sure what WakingNomad has been trying to say. I think he makes some good points, but also think that he's been responding as if he understands my statements without actually understanding them very well first. kenietz: That wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I agree that a person could take that approach. For myself, I try to be firm in judgment to the extent that my understanding warrants it, while leaving my judgments more relaxed when things are more ambiguous. My awareness of supernatural stuff waxes and wanes, largely as a function of other people's desires in relation to me. Where there's an intersection of will, I get fairly strong paranormal experiences and intuitions. I don't get very much just on my own. Sageous again: This is why I came to this site, to try to get some more clues about some things I've been confused about, and to also troll for food for additional experiences. You make a good point though, that my time might be better spent doing something else.

[shadowofwind]

A couple of other comments: I'm extremely busy this month, so I've just been posting a couple of minutes here or there, and have not chosen my words very well at times. Aside from being confusing, I've probably also stirred up controversy where its unnecessary and unhelpful. My point here is that I'm not accusing anyone of being obtuse for taking issue with or not understanding what I've been saying. Thanks SaltySeeDog. I mentioned that I'm somewhat dependent on other people for inspiration. I sort of understand the reason for this, and think that to some extent its natural and desirable. To some extent its also an effect of my uneven spiritual development, and is part of why I want to do more to redeem the uglier side of my will. WakingNomad: Yes, I learn a lot from anecdotal evidence. For me what starts as anecdotal patterns tends to develop into an understanding of deeper principles. And the anecdotes in my life tend to be amazingly well fit to what I need to learn. I had the examples of a few psychically and mentally powerful people in mind, not people who post here, when I started this thread. Its inevitable that other people with different experiences are going to learn things in a different order than I do. I've learned a couple of things from you already just in this thread. I have no doubt that you know lots of stuff that I would benefit from knowing, in the event that you become interested in reaching outside of your worldview enough to see more of where I'm really coming from, so that you can speak more directly to who I actually am. I'm also fine with it if you don't though. In my experience, communicating effectively on these topics requires a bit of mind reading. Its not necessarily that our thoughts don't have a true reflection in sound, its that we are limited to a ridged and skewed language, and our words have ambiguous interpretations. Plus our flaws always worm in and make themselves felt, which further distracts from the truth of what we are trying to say. Sometimes its productive to address those flaws head on, and argue and disagree a little bit. But sometimes its also helpful to try to look past the apparent contradictions and see the sincere desire and knowledge beyond it.

[shadowofwind]

I also think that, if you two apparently intelligent people hold the same position, you shouldn’t discuss psychic powers as if they were commonplace. Sageous, I think your comment here deserves more of a response, unfortunately I've got to sleep sometime. Yes, I've been talking as if psychic powers are real, because I have some objective evidence that they are. That being the case, I believe similar statements by a few other people on this site who seem to be coming from that type of standpoint also. That's the context that I originally posted in. I'm perfectly happy to talk more on this subject later when I get time. I'll have a lot more time again in about two months. Also, I'm willing to say a bit more in private messages, because some of my 'evidence' is personal and involves other people, or is otherwise sensitive. I'm actually a lot more comfortable talking in a 'spiritual growth' context than a 'paranormal experience' context. But this is a forum that's geared towards paranormal dream experiences, so that's what I try to share here. I most often don't think in terms of 'psychic powers', I think in terms of self-knowledge and redemption. To a large extent I was trying to connect my thoughts in those areas to other recent threads on 'super powers' and whatnot.

[Sageous]

Thank you for the clarifications, Shadowofwind! Very nice! Now get some sleep...