ESP every day. How do you enhance your ESP? It happens to you. For some reason, out-of-the-blue, thoughts about a person you know pop into your head. The phone rings. Surprise! The person about whom you were thinking is calling you. Or, you're in the kitchen humming a song. You turn on the radio and that same song is playing. Or perhaps you're driving your car, hurtling along toward a blind corner, when suddenly you get a sense of danger and immediately slow down. Rounding the bend, you see an accident and, had you not slowed down, you would have plowed into it. Events like these happen to all of us at one time or another. Often we shrug our shoulders and think its just coincidence. But is it? Or is it evidence of a human sense, often referred to commonly as a "sixth sense" or as extrasensory perception (ESP), that we do not fully understand? Further, do we need to "understand" something to be able to effectively use it? I think not.
We don't understand a great deal about the way our brain works and yet, we think, we plan, we wonder. And even though most of us when we move an arm, wiggle a toe, or take a breath, don't have an in depth understanding of the incredible complexity involved in these functions, we manage to navigate through our days without that conscious knowledge. Likewise, a lack of understanding about how our innate ESP abilities work need not dampen our enthusiasm for using and perfecting them. We can develop and strengthen our ESP through practice, just as we can develop and strengthen any other skill or ability.
ESP is an ability to receive or send information above and beyond what may be attributable only through our five objective senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch. Hence, the term "sixth sense." Lyn Buchanan, in his book, "The Seventh Sense: The Secrets of Remote Viewing as Told by a Psychic Spy for the U.S. Military makes a case that the sixth sense is not psychic, but is a "sense of ambience." Buchanan presents compelling arguments for viewing ambience separately from the other five senses.
Buchanan notes that ambience is often experienced or felt, "sensed", in a similar manner among people in certain places or situations. For instance, ambience is walking into a room and feeling the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife, or entering a huge cathedral and sensing a reverent hush, or entering a building and feeling repelled and in danger. Some people are more aware of ambience than others; but, as with ESP, ambience can be taught. Buchanan asserts the psychic sense is a seventh sense that incorporates all the other senses with ambience.
Similar to Buchanan, Jose Silva, founder of the famed Silva Method of Mind Development and Stress Controlhad his own spin on ESP. Some people might remember the original title of Silva's work as "The Silva Mind Control Method", also the title of one of his many books. The name was changed due to misinterpretation of what was meant by "mind control" and how it was intended to be used and, so the story goes, due also to a military interest in how said mind control might be engaged for military purposes. I digress. Jose did not like the term extrasensory perception as he did not believe that ESP was "extra" and he did not believe that it could properly be termed as "perception." He coined the phrase "Effective Sensory Projection" - ESP. Part of the curriculum The Silva Method teaches is that we do not simply perceive, but that we actually project our awareness to where the information is; remote viewing, in essence.
In Silva we do not teach people to be psychic. We operate from a premise that we know they are psychic. We teach exercises and techniques to tap into that innate ability.
Although I honor the work and research done by many of these great thinkers and see merit in most of the theories about ESP, I tend not to want to separate ESP into neatly packaged, defined categories. Separation, by definition, splits wholeness, thereby interfering with or obstructing a free-flow of information within the whole. Witness the attempts by modern medicine to extract or separate mind from body; and even further, separate the body into various body parts, separate from mind; as if there were no flow of information between them.
The nature of ESP is free flow of information. For instance, to me ambience is not so much a clearly, separate sense from our five objective senses, but is more of a collective sense. For me it's cohesive and inclusive of visual, auditory, olfactory, et cetera, sensory cues, of beliefs and values, and of the environment. It's a "feeling" sense with a kick or a hint of spice or, well, you get the picture.
If you feel that you cannot use your ESP unless you can easily and fully dissectwhether you're using a sixth sense, a seventh sense, an effective sense, or ten cents (I know - bad joke), the market is flooded with some good, some not-so-good, books about ESP, remote viewing, et cetera, that you might want to peruse. I suggest, in choosing useful, interesting, enlightening, or entertaining books that you use your ESP to help you in your search.
For example, before you walk into a bookstore, have in mind that you will receive some kind of "knowing" about a book or magazine that will prove useful for you about whatever topic you have in mind. Then, let that thought go. Enter the bookstore and browse. People have reported various experiences with this exercise.
One woman related to me that, after asking her inner wisdom for help in choosing a book and, admittedly skeptical about the process, she strolled into the designated store, walked near a shelf of books, only to have a book fall off an upper shelf, drop to the floor at her feet, and open up. She had not touched the shelf, nor had she seen the book before it fell. Astonished, she picked it up and realized the opened page had information about which she had asked!
Ask. It can be that simple. Information doesn't always come in such dramatic fashion as happened to the woman noted above; it can often be subtle or partial or enigmatic. So ask again. And again, if you need to. You may have a niggling feeling about a person or a situation that makes you uneasy. Pay attention. Pay attention to seeming coincidences. Notice what is going on around you, your surroundings. When the phone rings, take a moment to "sense" who it might be. As you flip through a magazine in a doctor's office, periodically test to see if you can sense what is on the next page; what colors, objects, topic, ad, or whatever. Use a deck of playing cards and practice "seeing" what the card is before you turn it over and look at it. Most of all, relax and have fun with it.
Most people, if not all, have ESP abilities in varying degrees. The ability is often likened to other types of talents, such as, musical ability, athletic ability, artistic ability or mathematical ability. Some people are naturally gifted with some talents and easily excel in them. Others must learn and practice and work to become adequate or accomplished. But nearly everyone can learn how to play a musical instrument or ride a bike or draw a picture. The same holds true for fine-tuning and perfecting psychic abilities. Practice. Practice. Practice. Perhaps as important as practice, if not more important, is to acknowledge that you have ESP ability.
ESP generally consists of five categories:
Telepathy - a mind-to-mind communication
Clairvoyance - seeing events or objects or both through an inner sight
Psychometry - an ability to learn about an object by touching it (i.e. who it belonged to, where it's been, life events about the owner, etc.)
Precognition - seeing events before they happen
Retrocognition - seeing or viewing past events
Play around with ESP as part of your life, every day. Use it. Don't lose it.
While wandering through your wondering mind whether in a shamanic journey, a dream, a guided visualization or any other form of information gathering, consider the following:
SET AN INTENTION (ask a question, ask for a healing, etc) .
REMEMBER EVERYTHING YOU CAN :
where (home, school, forest, distant planet, backyard...?)
who (friend, family, stranger, archetypal figure, rock star...?)
what (objects, events, situations... what's happening?)
when (nighttime, 503 BCE, your six-year-old birthday party..?)
feelings (fear, happy, confused, angry...?)
TRUST YOUR ABILITY TO INTERPRET YOUR INNER GUIDANCE
KEEP A JOURNAL. Record your dreams, journeys, etc. You'll be amazed. I recently read through a journal about shamanic journeys I did nearly eight years ago and was astonished at the relevancy and immediacy my notes still held for me.
"ESP Every Day" is an article written by Sue Jamieson in April 2007 for "The Wondering Mind" newsletter on her former website, highland-shamanism.com.