There is a disease in the psionic “movement”. I’m sure this disease exists in nearly all groups of people, but it is particularly potent in the OEC. The disease is: apathetic inactivity.
You can group psions into two groups: those who do things, and those who don’t. I’m not being specific, because it really doesn’t have to get specific. The question we need to ask ourselves, as individuals, is: Do I do anything to add to the collective knowledge of psionics? Do I do anything?
I’m talking about psionics here. Not websites. Not chat rooms. Not forums. Not blogs. Psionics. Psychic abilities.
Top 10 ways to do something:
1. Have a training regiment for a psionic ability. And actually DO it.
2. Come up with ideas on how psionics might work. And actually TEST your ideas with experiments.
3. Read a book about psychic abilities. And actually READ it.
4. Read scientific documents about real research being done with psychic abilities. And actually put effort towards UNDERSTANDING the material.
5. Practice. But do so in a way that you can actually MEASURE your progress, so you can figure out if something is actually working or not.
6. Share your experiences with others. And be HONEST, and reasonably critical of yourself. Encourage others to be critical of your experiences.
7. Create VERIFIABLE scenarios. Avoid situations where there can always be “a way out”.
8. Buy or participate in a professional psychic training program. Then REPORT your results after following the instructions completely.
9. Go to a large public LIBRARY, perhaps taking a trip to a University, and look up the past experiments by parapsychologists.
10. TRY NEW THINGS. Be pro-active.
I hate seeing so many smart people sit around and do nothing. I hate seeing inactivity when there is so much that could be accomplished. It’s not like psionics is closed book - it’s about the most open thing you can find. Were not talking about Newtonian Physics, where everything has basically been figured out. Were talking about a field where any individual can come by and revolutionize the entire paradigm!
I also hate seeing people fake doing things, or coming up with lame excuses, or being passive aggressive. Do not create a website unless you actually have something of value to share. Do not lie about your ability - period. Do not talk about practicing - actually PRACTICE. Do not write a 10-page post on your theory of psionics. In fact - don’t write one page, unless you plan on actually TESTING it some way in the near future. Theories are a dime a dozen. Results, evidence, documentation of experiments - including failed ones - are the nuggets of gold.
I don’t miss PsiPog. I do miss the core of people who actually did things - they are more rare than I gave them credit. But PsiPog as a whole suffered from the same disease as every other OEC… stagnation. Either you’re moving forward, or you’re standing still. Do something for psionics.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I always thought I was one of those people who never actually did anything, and I could do a lot more, but with your list, it looks like I’m doing some little things.
I have read some books on psychic abilities, and actually READ them. Then I judged whether they were actually telling the truth or not, and some of them were, and some of them weren’t. I even read some New Age books…I don’t just dislike them because I think they are BS, I also dislike them because they are sooo….sappy.
I have done a few of my own experiments, though I failed each time. One of my experiments was testing whether practising psychic abilities consumed energy that made you grow tired, hungry, fatigued, etc. Of course, I didn’t actually succeed in doing the abilities and I didn’t see any change in my original state. If I had done the abilities successfully, though, I believe I would have seen a difference.
I do practise, but not as much as I used to, because I haven’t seen any results yet. But I still practice.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Now thats what I was preaching about two topics ago!
Bravo! =D
November 15th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Well, I’ve been wondering for quite a while, what to do about developing my “psychic” abilites (I have a dislike for that word, hence the quotation marks, because of the stigma attached to it). Anyway, I’ve been able to perform telekenisis along with other “psi” related abilities quite consistantly and to my own satisfaction for quite some time now proving to myself that this shit really does exsist. But lately, I’ve been in a “now what” state. What do I do with it? Learn to move bigger things other than the stupid paper on pin thingy? What, like be able to levitate the remote and bring it to me so I don’t have to get my sorry ass off the couch?
What’s next?
Well, I’ll back track a little and say there’s been a resurgence, if you will, on certain sites on the net about the Zeitgeist Movie. So, I finally decided to check it out myself.
DAMN!! That’s a lot to think about! What if it’s true? What could that mean for us all? What if it’s not? What does that mean for those who completely believe what’s said in the movie?
So back to this “psi” stuff. So what if you can do it? So what if you test and re-test and prove without a doubt it can be done and scientifically measured? SO WHAT??!! What’s next?
I’ve never been able to stick with doing something unless I have a real motivation to continue (I’m sure there’s a word for that, but anyway…). What if you really are concerned with the state of the world AND you could actually do something about it? Wouldn’t it be handy if you could through chatting with your subconcious/higher self (whatever u want to call it), telepathy, and other “psychic” means be able to not only learn the ultimate truths about what’s going on “out there” and what “they” are up to but to ALSO be able to DO SOMETHING about it via the same abilities?
May seem a little far fetched to some, even stupid to others…
Me? I know have a meaningfull reason to spend all that damn time and effort learning and practicing. It’s not enough for me to just be able to do it and prove I can do it (pointless!), but to do something with it….now that means something!
November 15th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I do all of them exept for 8 and 9.
November 15th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Frankly…
These days its easier to watch a movie or play a computer game after you come back from school or work. Practising psi can be really bothersome when one would prefer to rest. But If we work days and rest evenings and sleep nights, there wont be much practise to be had now will there?
November 15th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I’m in the progress of mastering the OBE by means of meditation and visualization techniques. Admittedly, I haven’t been trying too hard which explains my lack of results but it is something. I have read quite a bit about the experiments done in parapsychology and they’re damned interesting.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
It seems I’m preaching to the choir at this point. Which is a good thing, imho. Venturing outside the small group of regulars on ALW is quite a different story though. And yes, Antisankari, this is exactly what you were talking about :-). In fact, your post helped to focus my mind while I was writing this post. I had been discussing the topic with some others in private as well.
Re-reading it, I may have come off a bit strong :-P. But so be it.
Mari - “To what end?” - I may post on this topic in the future.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
I would like to share a bit more of my thoughts. Dont know where else to dump these…
As it is, our modern culture is mostly driven by stress. Stress is the ultimate motivator of the mankind. Stress has many causes but a single cure. Solving the problem causing stress will ones agony. Failing to do that will usually lead to a even greater distress.
Lets have an example: You are on a math course and you just aren’t paying much attention to the teaching. Fine. Days pass, but sooner or later there is going to be an examn.
This is where your knowledge makes it or breaks it. If you haven’t really learned anything before the examn, you are going to fail it! Period.
Now how does this relate to psionics?
If you end up with a failed examn, there are other external consequenses that will usually hurt. If for example you fail in math, you can’t take anothet course before completing this one. This in turn delays your studies and could potentially make you eventually abandon your studying. Your friends might think that you are dumb, lazy or both. Your ego might take a hit too.
There are concrete and painful consequenses. These things when combined together, create this feeling called the stress. The nearer the examn day gets, the more anxious you feel. The pressure builds up and eventually you cant even sleep or eat, let alone play computer games without your persistent feeling of anxiety.
But guess what? As soon as you start practising for the examn, the feelings start to lessen. You are feeling better just because you are actually DOING something that is directly responsible of your stress.
And more often than not, we are able to study for hours after hours without feeling bored. If we begin to tire, our motivation to fight it is immense.
The closer the examn creept, the harder our anxiety became.
By the former statements, we can now assume that stress is the ultimate father of achievement.
We can also claim that the stress is formed from several components, that include but are not limited to: a time limit, a specific task, the difference of what is demanded from us and our actual abilities, the direct consequenses of failure.
If we must master thing X before date Y to avoid consequense Z then we are most likely motivated.
Now how about psionics then?
In our own personal studies, we are the headmaster and a student. Bot h at the same time. As a rule of thumb, our immediate surroundings are either completely ignorant or downright hostile towards our practises, so we are receiving no support from our peers or parents. And the people we meet online tend to feel rather distanced and abstract.
Now lets say we try to learn for example to perform telekinesis.
We promise to ourselves to practise 2 hours each day to eventually get better.
Under optimal conditions, we may or may not follow through. If in school you felt tired and decided not to attend your class, you reap what you sow when the examn comes.
But what about real life? There is no examn coming. If you skip your exercises, nobody cares! Actually your surroundings will REWARD you for not practising psionics. They are doing this by approving things that are generally accepted, but not actually useful for psionic practise.
For example. All of my friends pay online games. That’s ok. Society and family accepts that as long as they handle their other duties well. As we all know computer games tend to be cartloads of fun. Even a weeeeee bit addictive.
After a long and hard day you will come home. You have two options. You could either sit down and stare a pencil for 2 hours or you could play your favourite game and gain pleasure while having fun with your friends.
Now at this point, the procrastination-goblin strikes and you decide to “reschedule” your training session a few hours later. Whats the harm in that? There are no consequenses for doing that, so you might as well take a little rest. Play a game. Have fun!
Like we all know, the goblin has just eaten your day…
Two hours pass like nothing while having some cyber-fun and soon you are 15 minutes overdue your “rescheduled” practise time. You feel a bit disappointed, but as the hour is already “missed”, you might make it another fun hour aswell! Why not? You could start after 45 minutes felling fresh and rested! Yeah!
But what have we here? Are you STILL playing the game? Its about time to start your practise session… Sure, lets get to it… Humm humm… This is boring as hell! But what is this? There is this series/movie coming from a tv! I must see that! After that I can have a short practise session before I go to bed. Thats right! yeah. Ill be extra refreshed then.
The movie passes and so does the small arm of your mickey-mouse klock. Its getting late and you are getting tired aswell. But hey, its not like we had a rush or anything? Of course we can “rererererereschedule” our practise session for tomorrow! We are then much more refreshed… Right! Today was a bad day afterall… Tomorrow it will be alot better!
Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Months become years…
Really, its just a helluva lot more pleasurable to talk about things in chat than actually DOING them in real life. Often we will substitute our practise sessions for a “social researching”.
After all, its nice to talk about how hard it is to practise in a chat room. Right?
Without a deadline, without a price for failure, we are in war with our very own nature. We are trying to defeat our bodies and minds in a game that they have played for thousands of years.
Unless we find a way to “trick” ourselves a decent and firm base motivation, we are on a road leading to the bitter defeat.
And once we are old, how nice is it to look back and remember what could have been? What could have been done.
What we missed… Forever…
November 15th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Sorry for typos… I trust your good-will to see through them.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
I miss Psi-pog and I have the old forum still saved in my favorites. Every so often I read through the old posts looking for ideas and new things to try, like programing a construct. I would have never thought of doing that by myself.
The thing I liked about Psi-pog was that a lot of the members were kids and their ideas were fresh. There were a lot of discussions on new ways to do things. Someone would have success with it and everyone could try it and people could share whether that technique worked or not.
I haven’t found another site like it and I have been searching. Every site I’ve found is stale with old information and no new ideas. People asking questions and no one even trying to offer a solution, because they can’t prove it. So there is no exchange of ideas at all.
Sean, I think you had something great with that site. Despite the fluff and things that couldn’t be scientifically proven there was a great feeling of ‘it can be done’.
I think this whole emphasis on prove it just stops the flow. I think that spending time practising with a psi wheel is great as long as the enthusiam lasts, but once your bored with that then it won’t work for you anymore. You need to try something else.
I read once that to be able to succeed at psi is like trying to grasp water. The harder you try to hold it the more it slips through your fingers. So how can you consistantly prove it?
I don’t know. I don’t need to prove it to myself, I already know it’s possible. I just want to do more and I notice that with every new little success the next one is easier because the belief is stronger.
If anyone here knows of a good psi site could you post a link to it please (I mean if that’s ok with you Sean). Where did all the psi pog members go to anyway?
November 16th, 2007 at 12:31 am
I missed the large community, which I searched for else where. After a while I got bored, there really wasn’t much out there that was new and exciting besides OBE. Then I started thinking up about the stuff people dont like to talk about. Eventually I started my own blog to talk about.
November 17th, 2007 at 12:21 am
NeoPsychic, can you give me a link to your blog?
November 19th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I think it’s easy for you to write what you’ve written, and there is certainly a truth in it, but the situation is different for everybody.
Firstly, I have none to talk about “psychic” abilities, nor in the internet (you don’t find many information if it’s not in English) nor in real life.
Secondly, I’m getting demotivated. I’m working on OBE’s every evening without result, I read a book about it, but it’s just too weird. And I can’t get another one if I’m not going to drive to distant bookshop. Still the literature is very limited in my language and it’s mostly limited to plain stupid books.
I’m working with psi-balls, but they are non-sense to me, as I consider what I feel as being simply cramped muscles. Where is the evidence.
You see, for someone, who is into psy, and for someone who’s life was changed by it, thinking and curiosity is attracted to more research, etc.
But to me, there is no reason to spend time on it any more. Yes I know, I’m pessimistic, but I feel just plainly disappointed.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
This is pretty amazing. Just recently on Astralsociety.com was the issue of stagnation brought up, but we were only talking about our forum. This blog post will help broaden the picture a bit and maybe help some people understand just what is wrong with our community. Well, maybe not what’s “wrong”, but what “could be better”.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I have been very, very guilty of this in the past, and it is just now starting to rear its ugly head.
I began my studies honestly interested in psionics, really wanting to practice, and forcing a schedule on myself. I did this because I knew in the end that I would get the results I was after.
I started to get too involved in the online community aspect and let my practices decline. Real life had a large impact too. In high school my schedule got worse and worse for me. I continued to practice, but not as much as I should have. There was a period of time where I didn’t practice at all.
I still, however, ran PsiOnline.org with the same mentality as I had when I was actually active in my practices. However, this eventually got pushed aside by real life (and by server crashes/lockouts), and my community nearly died because of it. In fact, it has still not completely recovered.
I have a friend who has taken a rather “fundamentalist” route. Maybe fundamentalist isn’t the proper term, but its about as close I can get to explaining it in a short period of time. Psionics for him became a brain-washing religious/spiritual experience. Despite the way he approached it, he still practiced, he DID something. He progressed at a quick page, and I was regressing. It was at this point that I realized that I had become that lazy guy I had always ranted about.
I was doing, nothing.
My skills were not as sharp as they used to be, my community was boring and people were leaving, all because I was too lazy. And now I’m paying the price for it. I think back on the time I wasted NOT practicing and now I see all the potential that I had wasted.
I’ve been practicing again, picking up where I left off and even redoing some of the basics to clear the rust out of the pipes. I’m wondering now if PsiOnline.org will ever fully recover, or if I will for that matter. I just have to wait and see.
I think the community aspect can really take away from what is important. Not just the day to day chit chat, but things like pointless intersite politics and bickering. It all takes away from what we’re supposed to be about.
~ Stony
November 28th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I will definately check out PsiOnline.org and Astralsociety.com and I will post whatever insights I may have instead of being safely silent
The way I practice is to try and do things in an everyday sort of way. Like getting all green lights when I drive and getting the elevator to be there immediately when I press the button. That might be TK.
I try to ‘read’ people when I’m with them, not constant- just long enough to get a feel for them.
And I try and usually succeed in influenceing people any time I feel like it.
My point is I never sit and try to roll a pen anymore, instead I’ll try to change the weather because it’s too hot or cold, I’ll bust a cloud just to see if I can I’ll make physical pain go away and try to get cuts to heal faster. I don’t sit and try to do something for more than a minute or two although I might repeat the process later.
and I just want to add as a final, hopefully helpful note that I found intention manifestion to be a break through for me. Just beleiving and knowing it will happen and then letting it has made a huge difference in what I’ve been able to do. I think it’s because all psi is really just a manipulation of energy (and energy is everything).
December 1st, 2007 at 5:33 am
Stony after reading your post i realized, that is exactly what i am doing right now. I am begining to regress and so i thank you for makeing me realize that. Now….work up the enthuziasum…and.
Time for training!!
December 11th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
This sucks.
I sleep late and find time for EVERYTHING else than psionics.
Incredible.
As if it were number n+1 on my priority list.
Occasionaly doing psi feels as motivating as throwing up just to see whether the lunch I just ate REALLY is in my stomach and didn’t teleport to dimension X all the sudden when I wasn’t paying attention. Something thats way too uncomfortable thing to do just to get a predictable result (that at the moment doesn’t seem all that important either!)
>=(
September 6th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Instead of regretting on what you should have done, just work toward what you want to be like.
Easy said? Not really, what is the point of regretting? You don’t gain anything from it. The best thing about it could be that others get to see your mistakes and try not to make it themselves. Push yourself a little harder, keep pushing mile after mile, eventually you will pass your limit, and become a better person.
“…The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor what you desire to appear.”-Socrates
You must work hard towards what you are supposed to be doing, and it is not easy to do so just keep working towards it. We are all lazy, but we are have the ability to conquer that, use the ability, do it because you are the master of your body, knowing that your body is only a vessel for success.
When you really come out and say “I can’t do it”, don’t think of anything, just do it.
Well I just rely on my sub-conscious to do whatever I don’t feel like doing ^_^, yes I am lazy just like most people, but I don’t let myself down because I DO what needs to be done. Of course we fail sometimes, that makes us human, and that will contribute to our mental improvements, or so I believed ^_^
Best luck on your website Stony.