Why Hone My Psychic Skills?
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
One question that might come up is, “Why hone my intuitive skills if anyone can do an intuitive reading, and everyone has this ability?” Laura Day gives the answer in her book Practical Intuition: How To Harness The Power Of Your Instincts And Make It Work For You (1996): “While anyone can generate a intuitive information, it takes an experienced practitioner to interpret the information in a useful way. The skill is in knowing how to ask questions, and how to interpret the intuitive responses.” The real challenge is in the interpretation. This is where the training is needed. This is why one must practice intuitive readings and then check on the accuracy in order to know that the interpretation of the symbols has been accurate. Not very many people check the accuracy of their intuition, and this is why not everyone can give a reading without any training.
Having exercised and practiced using your psychic abilities gives you an advantage that you did not have before in moving through your life. Now you can access more information when making your decisions, and use more of your senses than only five physical senses and the limited human intellect. You can use the viewpoint of the Universal Mind to make your decisions rather than the human viewpoint without extra information.
Shakti Gawain says about learning how to use your psychic abilities in her book Developing Intuition: Practical Guidance For Daily Life (2000), “Quite simply, [it is useful] because it’s probably one of the most valuable things you will ever do for yourself. It actually takes relatively little time, and the potential rewards are enormous. Intuition is an important resource that can greatly contribute to our success and fulfillment in life… once we know how to follow it, intuition is a very accurate guiding force in all aspects of life. Without it, we are at a great disadvantage."
Enid Hoffman puts it even more simply in Develop Your Psychic Skills (1981), “We develop our psychic skills for the same reason that we developed any other skill—because they enhance our lives.”
Some people fear that developing their psychic skills would change their lives too much, or interfere with living a normal life. While having psychic abilities can greatly enhance your life for the better, there are no true disadvantages to developing them. There are adjustments that must be made however. For instance, you may become aware of disembodied spirits that no one else can see, but whom you have a working relationship with. Another example would be that you may be quite aware of someone who has a serious illness, and yet you must say nothing unless you are asked by that person to expound on it. It is not appropriate to be telling everyone that you are seeing this or that in their energy. There can be some frustration involved when you know more than the average person about the people that you meet. However, you must be aware that you may not always be 100% right about what you are seeing, especially in the beginning. Either that or you may not be interpreting it correctly.
Eileen J. Garrett says in her book Many Voices: Autobiography Of A Medium (1968), “I am often asked if my psychic experience ‘disturb’ my daily life. On the contrary, they enrich it… I have heard people with similar powers speak of themselves as being in the grip of something that leaves them helpless, that others find them difficult to understand… This has been true of great writers and thinkers through the ages, but I have never felt myself set apart. One simultaneously lives a separate existence, aware of a tenuous level of experience as one rubs shoulders with one’s fellows, while underneath there is the pattern that plays unconsciously and perpetually, a web many-colored and delicate, but filled with the awareness of what is happening to each and all below the surface.”
Living with psychic abilities can add more layers to your experience than you ever thought possible. Imagine what it would be like not only to hear the words being spoken in a conversation, but also being aware of the energy patterns of the person’s aura you are conversing with, the emotional tones, the history, the mental processes, all of it in a deep way that you have never experienced before. Some might say it would be like living in an altered state all the time, and yet have more lucidity and clarity than any mind altering substance would facilitate.
Joseph Murphy says it quite eloquently in his book Psychic Perception: The Magic Of Extrasensory Power (1971): “For every man and woman, the cultivation of the intuitive faculty is of great significance. Intuition offers instantaneously that which the intellect or reasoning mind could accomplish only after weeks or months of monumental trial and error. When our reasoning faculties fail us in our perplexities, the intuitive faculty sings the silent song of triumph… If you will only believe, and not just pretend to believe, that Infinite Intelligence is guiding you in all your ways—in your thoughts, words, and deeds—you will be led along the right road… Your subconscious mind is one with infinite intelligence and boundless wisdom… It can provide you with the right idea and can free you from limitations of all kinds.”