Practical Psychic: A Survival Guide - Softcover

Friedlander, John; Pearson, Cynthia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0877287287 ISBN 13: 9780877287285

Verlag: Red Wheel/Weiser, 1994

Inhaltsangabe

Human beings have always longed for more power over their lives. The allure of becoming psychic is a reflection of this wish one that has persisted through centuries and across cultures. It is the premise of this book that mankind's wish has already been granted.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Friedlander graduated from Duke University and Harvard Law School, and studied with Lewis Bostwick at the Berkley Psychic Institute in California. He is a popular speaker and seminar leader in psychic awareness. John and his wife currently live in Saline, MI.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

THE PRACTICAL psychic

By John Friedlander, Cynthia Pearson

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

Copyright © 1991 John Friedlander and Cynthia Pearson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-87728-728-5

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Becoming a Practical Psychic
2. Balance and Harmony
3. Balancing the Deep Self with the Conscious Self
4. The Practical Fantasizer
5. Significance of Feeling Tones
6. The Power of Beliefs in Theory
7. On Changing Beliefs
8. The Power of Beliefs in Practice
9. Impulses: The Path Rising Up to Meet Your Feet .
10. Aphorisms for the Practical Psychic
11. Using Conventional Psychic Abilities
12. Manifesting What You Want: A Chakra-by-Chakra Meditation
13. Seasons: A Program of Manifestation
14. Do-Be-Do-Be-Do: Doing and Being
Appendix I: Knowing Seth and Jane: John's Personal Account
Appendix II: On Conscious Beliefs
Appendix III: Probabilities, Simultaneous Time and Changing Your Past
Recommended Reading for the Practical Psychic
About the Authors

CHAPTER 1

Becominga PracticalPsychic

HUMAN BEINGS HAVE always longed for more power over their lives. The allure ofbecoming psychic is a reflection of this wish—one that has persisted through centuriesand across cultures. It is the premise of this book that mankind's wish has already beengranted.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy learns that she has had the power to return homeall along, but she didn't know it. When she learns the technique of clicking her heelstogether, she's immediately on her way.

We provide you with techniques to get you where you want to go, too. The techniqueswon't be much harder than clicking your heels together. You needn't possess specialtalents or abilities; you needn't be clairvoyant or telepathic or precognitive. To become apractical psychic, you can be as ordinary as a Kansas farm girl. Everyone reading thisbook can use the techniques successfully.

The Practical Psychic

The reason you can become a practical psychic is because you create your own reality.Reality creation occurs in an interaction with a greater dimension, which may be calledGod, or All That Is. Actually, it occurs in a discrete portion of All That Is which has beencalled the higher self, the oversoul, the ground of your being, the entity, the God of yourheart, and other names. We will use the term "deep self."

The deep self seems different from what you ordinarily think of as yourself, and yet yourconsciousness and reality rise out of it, much as a plant rises out of the earth. At times,you can even experience the entirety of the deep self in a union that many religiousmystics have described as a union with God.

Your deep self creates your reality, but does so in a way that reflects your ordinaryconsciousness. Since the creation of your reality relies upon the interaction of your deepself with your ordinary consciousness, the most effective way to improve your reality is toimprove the quality of that interaction.

You, the ordinary you, are already involved in that interaction without being aware of it.

The Conventional Psychic Vs. the Practical Psychic

Usually the term "psychic" refers to someone who has developed paranormal abilities andcan consciously make use of them. We call this being a conventional psychic, and Johnhas been one for most of his adult life. His experiences led him to recognize that abilitiessuch as telepathy and clairvoyance were simply efficient techniques for acquiringinformation. What is far more important, he discovered, is improving the instructions yousend to the deep self. This is relatively easy to do because the primary tools for improvingthose instructions can be accessed with your conscious mind.

Becoming a practical psychic means developing the ability to work consciously anddeliberately with the deep self. This book teaches techniques to do that. It providescommon sense ways of organizing those techniques within the experience of youreveryday life. Conventional psychic talents and abilities are helpful but not required. Infact, people with no psychic gifts sometimes succeed where some conventional psychicsfail.

The One and Only You

The relationship between you and your deep self is and will be absolutely unique. Theinstructions and guidance offered here are not like a recipe with which, upon followingeach direction precisely, you produce exactly the same dish that the author hasconcocted. On the contrary, the whole point of becoming a practical psychic is to skillfullycook up your own reality.

William Blake said, "I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another man's" The mostimportant premise of the practical psychic is that each reader and student is embarked onhis or her own journey of the soul. Therefore, everything else—practices, exercises,programs, systems—must be in service to each individual path. As you read and beginusing the exercises here, understand that they are meant to guide you into your ownunique experience.

The Three Steps of the Practical Psychic

According to a great musician, "First you learn how to play notes, then you learn how toplay sounds, and then you learn how to play jazz." There is a similar progression for thepractical psychic. The exercises you will learn in this book are meant to make it simple foryou to work with the deep self. These are the notes you learn to play.

Built into the exercises is the intention that each of you be able to make them work in yourpersonal life. In order to avoid creating an opposition between the material and thespiritual, we encourage you to look to your own life and values to seek and judge what isworking for you. This integration and application of psychic techniques into your own lifeare the sounds you will learn.

Finally, there are deeper lessons built into this approach. It is designed to enhance yourengagement—your love, courage and sense of play—in your life. The engagementrequired to put the pieces together brings you into touch with a vibrant, creative spiritualitythat flows naturally, like your own spontaneous jazz.

CHAPTER 2

BalanceandHarmony

THE FOUNDATION OF THE practical psychic approach is understanding the importanceof balance and harmony. You may recall Walt Disney's cartoon version of The Sorcerer'sApprentice. In it, Mickey Mouse plays the title character, a novice who decides toexpropriate some of his master's supernatural powers to perform his janitorial duties.Figuring that what worked for the sorcerer should work just as well for him, poor Mickeysuffers disastrous results.

The sorcerer's apprentice made the mistake of thinking that mere power could solve hisproblems. He did not understand that the sorcerer had spent the time needed to learn notonly the power of magic, but the balance and harmony necessary to use it. The apprenticeused magic as if it were a mechanical operation instead of a mystical approach to living. Inorder for techniques to be effective, they need to be meaningfully integrated into your life.

The Magic of Reconciling Opposites

Many of us study yoga when we first become interested in consciousness and spirituality.The first thing you learn in yoga is that every time you bend or stretch in one direction, youmust bend or stretch in the other.

A practical psychic integrates opposites in this fashion. For example, when youunderstand that you create your own reality, you might think you can have anything. In asense, you can, and it's very important to understand the mind-boggling levels of freedomyou do have. Your effectiveness as a practical psychic will be severely limited if you arenot able to invoke this enormous freedom.

Yet you have to balance this power with a willingness to appreciate whatever manages tohappen. The purpose of your experience is to have it. You must be open and receptive tolife on its own terms. Appreciate the experience you have, and accept the practical limitson your ability to control life, even as you understand the possibility at every point tochange your life for the better. It is precisely such an ability to dynamically balanceopposites like these that leads to becoming a practical psychic.

The balance of opposites is not a static one, but a mobile and flexible balance responsiveto changing situations. If you are sailing on the ocean and you want to make good time,you will want to raise every sail. If, however, you are caught in a terrible squall, your beststrategy will be to lower your sails and ride out the storm. It is the ability to live your life inan everchanging harmony and balance that fills your reality with magic, meaning andgrace.

A Psychic Exercise

There are several purposes served in the following exercise, each having to do withenlarging your sense of the possibilities available to you. It has been said that we are"binary thinkers." We tend to break things down into pairs of opposites and seek tounderstand our world in terms of polarities. Whether the dualities are good vs. evil, warand peace, heaven or hell, the effect is the same—we end up limited to "either/or"conclusions.

Let's take an example near and dear to our hearts. This book is called The PracticalPsychic. Obviously, we think that being practical is really important, but if we allowedpracticality to become an overriding virtue, we would limit ourselves. Someone obsessedwith practicality might lose the ability to be playful or adventurous. At times, beingdownright silly is not only fun, it is creative!

Whenever you allow any virtue to become obsessively important, that very virtue begins tocrowd out the free play and exploration of your consciousness. By cultivating a recognitionthat every virtue has seeming opposites that can also be virtues, you will be moving a longway toward one of the most important qualities of being a practical psychic—nonjudgmentalness. The development of nonjudgmentalness really frees up your power tobe loving, and to flow.

Exercise 1

Opposing Virtues

Think of virtues that are of primary importance to you, virtues that seem essential. Thenthink of some opposites that are favorable, and some synonyms that are unfavorable.Note that the so-called opposites are not really exclusive of one another. You can be bothadventurous and practical, for example. However, too great a concern with any one virtuecan lead you to ignore other balancing virtues.

The Central Challenge

The central challenge is to apply any psychic approach in balance and harmony. Learningmagical techniques is not hard, but simply learning the techniques is not the mainobjective of the practical psychic. Learning to apply them with grace and common senseis.

Every chapter in this book deals directly or indirectly with balance and harmony. You willbe using the power of the deep self, but you must balance and harmonize that power withstrong, coordinated conscious efforts, taking practical, worldly steps to reach your goals.You will be learning how to balance making things happen with allowing and trusting themto happen. You will learn balance for—among other things—choice and cooperation,striving and surrendering, taking chances and staying safe.

We like to tell students about John's experience growing up in Georgia. He was a highschool football player, a strapping young man, when he went to work one summer as aditch digger and general laborer. On the job was a potbellied old man who astoundedJohn by digging three times faster than he could. The old man couldn't have had John'sstrength or stamina, but he did have experience. His integrated know-how was in everyway superior to John's raw power. The old man knew when and how to conserve hispower; he knew when and how to make subtle adjustments. This is an example of the kindof practical balance and harmony we want to establish.

The first harmony you need to develop is that of the deep self and the conscious self.

CHAPTER 3

Balancing theDeep Self withthe Conscious Self

MANY SPIRITUAL SEEKERS are convinced that they are here on earth to rise abovetheir "low" vibrations, or follow the commands of "higher consciousness," as if the verypurpose of being human were to rise above their humanness. This is the "Life is a TrickQuestion" approach. It assumes that life experience is something to escape from. It alsoassumes that life is some sort of cosmic prank. Such an approach is both negative andmisleading, for it neglects the special place in creation occupied by each of its parts, oneof which is you.

Jesus said that not even one sparrow falls without God's attention and caring. A sparrowis important not because it will one day evolve into a superior being, but because it isunique and wonderful, in and of itself. At least as much is true of a human being. You mayevolve through many incarnations, but your life also has importance and meaning rightnow. It had importance and meaning yesterday, and it will again tomorrow, no matter howdesolate the circumstances in which you may find yourself.

Now the practical significance of the "non-trickiness" of your life is enormous, though notimmediately obvious. It means that you, at each moment, have a simple, accessible tool tomake your life more meaningful and pleasant. That tool is, believe it or not, your consciousmind.

To fully appreciate the power of your conscious mind, you should understand that yourdeep self's separate purposes are best served by its manifesting a personal reality for youthat reflects your conscious self with all its strengths, conflicts and absurdities.

The Deep Self

Following the lead of Jane Roberts, we call the entirety of creation and God and whatever,"All That Is." The portion of All That Is that creates your daily world we call the deep self.Like the producer of a movie, your deep self assembles all the actors and raw materialsyou need to bring about the events in your life. It works just outside the boundaries ofspace and time, placing events into the fabric of your days seamlessly, so that in spaceand time, you are the creator of your experience according to the laws and limitations ofour world.

Your deep self follows a self-imposed law. The events it drops into your life follow thedirections of your conscious self. Unfortunately, one is not usually aware of the magicalrelationship between the conscious mind and the deep self, and often unaware of thedifficulties caused by hidden or transparent beliefs. Those beliefs can lead to your givingpoor directions to the deep self. Learning to be a practical psychic means learning how togive good directions to your deep self.

The Deep Self is Conscious and Lively

Because of our society's programming about human psychology, you might be inclined tothink of the deep self as unconscious. Actually, at its deepest portions, the deep selfbecomes like God, with a sharper, clearer, more complete consciousness than we everachieve in our separated selves. It is the wellspring that all mystics seek to join. At lessdeep levels the deep self can be viewed as personal guides, masters, angels or whatever,very conscious.

Just as All That Is breaks itself up into portions to create you, the other people in theworld, and the world itself; so it breaks itself up at other dimensions to create autonomouspersonalities with different or even superhuman powers. These guides and "masters" areno more and no less separated from All That Is than you are. They have their ownpurposes, which may be incomprehensible at times. Still, you can generally understandwhat your deep self wants in relation to you.

The Deep Self is Unified with You

Mystics throughout the ages have taught that you have inner connections with everythingthat exists—physical or non-physical—and with every event that happens to you. Thisfundamental union extends to the deep self that forms your human reality; that deep self isyou. This is why we call it the deep self.

Just as you are unified with All That Is—including the deep self—so from the perspectiveof the deep self, it is unified with you. Furthermore, just as you have much to gain from it,it profits from relating to you.

The Deep Self Uses Your Experience

There is a mostly hidden mystical tradition that people's lives, emotions, thoughts anddeeds provide "food" for God. You might say you are "God's Little Acre." The particularportion of God that you provide for is your deep self.

This tradition can seem to reduce humankind to a lowly function, but it is really an attemptto describe the mystical union of humans and All That Is. You, along with other people andthings, are inside of God in general and inside various deep selves in particular. Yourdeep self is nourished by the crops of your experiences. It is important to cultivate yourown choices. If you don't, your deep self goes hungry.

The Deep Self's Purpose Requires Your Independence

When you have a child, you expect that this child will grow to be a healthy adult. But if youwere to say about childhood, as some long-faced New Agers say about life, that thepurpose of childhood is adulthood, and that childhood is a trap to be escaped from byconcentrating on maturity, both you and your child would miss the joy of experiencingchildhood. Your children's experiences are their own, yet you may derive joy and insightfrom their presence and example. Your deep self is like an infinitely loving and wiseparent, only in this case you continue to reside inside the deep self's larger being.

A child's success depends on the child's development of a strong, independent identity.Wise and loving parents encourage that development, even as they feel the child is afulfillment of their own purposes. Similarly, your deep self—for purposes of its ownexplorations—gives birth to you, fully understanding that you must develop yourindependence.

A toddler cannot understand the amused joy of a grandparent who watches as the childruns with innocent energy and abandon. You may not understand the joy that your deepself takes in your experiences either, but it is there. Furthermore, a grandparent couldnever experience a grandchild's vitality if the child spent his or her youth obsessed withescaping from childhood. Just as it would defeat the delight of the grandparent tosuppress the child's exuberance, so would it defeat the purpose of the deep self tosuppress your self-discovery.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE PRACTICAL psychic by John Friedlander, Cynthia Pearson. Copyright © 1991 John Friedlander and Cynthia Pearson. Excerpted by permission of Samuel Weiser, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Red Wheel/Weiser
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0877287287
• ISBN 13: 9780877287285
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar