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The inner quiet affects your psychic development. That is, as you get better at calming your mind, your abilities at visualization and concentration (which will become crucial later on) get better. And, consequently, as your abilities at visualization and concentration get better, your effort to quickly achieve the inner quiet becomes almost minimal. Your mind learns to quickly accept the quiet state as it learns to make the most of it.

All this mention of the importance of visualization and concentration shouldn't get you worried. Unlike other psychic training routines, the one you'll be following is much more subtle, effective, and natural, if I do say so myself. But I'll let you be the judge, as you come to discover that you'll be learning by doing some pretty impressive and useful things.

The first of these "things" is autosuggestion. How's this for a shortcut to awakening some of your mystical faculties? You're about to, in a way, hypnotize yourself into contacting the unused parts of your mind!

Applying energy to thought is one of the secrets to making magick, or manifestations, work. The rule also applies to autosuggestion (and suggestion, as we'll see later on), if in a slightly different way. With the rite given later, you'll be able to both enter a deeper mind state, and forcefully accelerate the development of those mental tools you'll be calling on repeatedly.

Here's a quick trick that will eventually improve your abilities and help you raise emotion-driven energy that you'll need to draw on for all types of magick.



Quick Energy Raising



Think for a moment about something you like doing, or instead remember a decently fond memory. Sense how your body responds to this positive stimulus, either as a tingling or a calming sensation.

Now think about what you'd consider your favorite thing, or person, or pastime, or cherished memory. See how your body responds even more to this mental stimulus.

Then quickly switch to an unpleasant thought, shutting down for an instant the feelings you were generating. But before you have a chance to wallow in how empty your body feels....

Immediately recall that best thought! Go with whatever increase in physical excitement that you feel as a result. Tense your muscles slightly to help build the sensation.

With time and repetition, you'll be able to summon such energy instantly, without relying on the associated memories.



Note that you should practice the preceding technique as often as possible, but not within the context of your other training. While you're still dependent on dredging up strong memories to achieve the energy raising, you'll find the process makes it hard to achieve a no-mind state. Instead of mixing the quick energy-raising with your other training, try doing it at idle moments, such as when waiting for a traffic light to change color or for a train to arrive at a platform.

After you've conditioned yourself to generate this energy instantly without the memory links, you can move on to applying this on-demand energy to autosuggestion and the awakening of your powers. It's a shortcut to power whose principles have been widely used in occultism, although never in this way.

The power of thought is immense and can accomplish much good, or harm, depending on who is wielding it. Negativity, in particular, has a nasty way of lingering in a place. Those with even slight psychic sensitivity find it uncomfortable to walk through a room where there was an argument, for instance.

To ensure your own psychic experiences and training sessions are distraction free, you'll want to quickly clear your surroundings of any counteractive energy that might have built up in a room. Indeed, this is how you'll use banishings for now. With a little practice, however, the banishing technique revealed here can be modified to rid a space or person of focused, harmful energies.

To perform a simple "training" banishing, you'll need nothing but the power of your mind.



The Banishing



Stand in the center of the space you wish to cleanse and take three deep breaths.

Close your eyes and imagine that you are standing between two spheres of energy: one is above you, one below. The one above you is pulsing and silver. The sphere below you is the earth; see it in its entirety as a black sphere, to avoid distraction.

Sense how the crackling, silver light from above seeks to rain down upon the earth, where it is absorbed by the black sphere. Feel this charged potential slipping around you, almost like a pulsing drizzle, and see the energy falling as brief sparks.

Keep your eyes closed, imagine that you are growing in height. You are moving up to meet the silver sphere, although your feet are firmly grounded on the absorbing sphere below you.

Raise both arms and touch the crackling energy above you. Take one deep breath and feel the silver light enter your hands.

Open your eyes and exhale as you lower your arms. Feel the energy move through you, following the descending height of your hands. Finish your exhalation with your hands in front of your chest. Form two cresents, thumbs up and fingers down, that face each other. Each finger should be touching its opposite counterpart. Were someone to stand in front of you, it would look as if you were holding a small invisible ball against your chest, with curled fingers underneath.

Inhale again, feeling more energy come down through your head and body to chest level. Exhale, imagining the energy coalescing inside your chest as a tiny silver sphere.

Inhale, letting your hands move apart. Feel more energy come down to the sphere at your chest.

Exhale, moving your hands down lower and imagining that the power is passing down through your legs and into your feet.

Slowly inhale and exhale three more times. With each inhalation, feel the power course down through your body. With each exhalation, imagine the sphere in your chest growing brighter, as it is drawing on some of the energy passing all the way through you.

For your next three slow breath cycles, imagine the sphere growing to fill the room, bisecting the floor at its equator. That is, when you've finished expanding the ball you should imagine that half the sphere is underneath you and the room, while the other half is like a dome over you. Pull energy down with each inhalation; imagine the silver sphere expanding with each exhalation. You decide how large an area you want to clear of negativity, and scale each of the three expansions accordingly. For instance, to banish negativity from a nine-foot circle, grow the sphere to three, then six, then nine feet on the first, second, then third exhalations.

Close your eyes and reinforce your visualization, breathing normally. Feel the room pulsing with the energy you drew down. You are surrounded by a silver sphere in which no negativity can exist.

Remain in the giant energy sphere for as long as you wish. There's no need to "close" this cleansed space when you decide to leave the room. The sphere is made of borrowed energy that will naturally dissipate on its own, leaving behind all its positive effects. Notice I never asked you to imagine yourself shrinking back to normal size. This subtle alteration to your way of thinking reinforces your domination over any lesser and less desirable energies that once resided around you.



Practice this simple banishing often. Once you've gotten the hang of it, it should take only two or three minutes to effectively perform. I recommend doing it before you go to sleep, and before you perform any kind of psychic training.

The center has been called spirit, essence, soul, consciousness. It is the deep you that seeks to know and understand not only who you are, but why you are here. It is the whole of you as opposed to the sum of your parts, it is the gateway to all knowledge.

You are aware that you have five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. The aspect of you that is termed the center is the sixth (seventh, eighth, ninth, etc.) sense, or inner sight/sensation. It can best be accessed by considering the other five senses as the perimeter of a circle and all things perceived there flow inward, literally, to the center. The center is also a doorway through which influences not instigated by the conscious mind or from some other source can enter, be assessed, and assimilated into the understanding.

To activate your center consciously (most are already aware of it, but this awareness may not be conscious) it is necessary to consider the center as a watcher. It will use all of your five senses to assess not only how you react to others, but how others react to you. It is actively telepathic when you are clear of undisciplined attitudes and "Pavlov's dog" mentality. It will take note of what you are spending your time thinking about and will pass, consciously, just exactly what is valid in terms of what you say, think, and do. It will assess and reassess your reactions to circumstances.



Exercise



Be aware, before commencing the following, that disciplines are ineffective unless a routine is established because the unconscious is attunded to patterns and will respond easily once the pattern of a conscious routine is rhythmic. Therefore, until each technique is mastered, you will continue with the routine; proficiency is achieved when the pattern is integrated deeply and the technique transforms itself from practice to second nature (at which time the awareness will have become assimilated into who you are and will become an addition to your sixth sense).

Set aside one hour each day and consciously recognize everything you think, say, do, and feel. Imagine that you have an extra set of senses that acts as a camera and recorder, and work at storing all input received during this hour.

Later in the day, claim some quiet time to yourself, recall all the things that you recorded during you designated time, and write them down in an order such as: what I saw; what I heard; what I smelled; what I touched; what I tasted; what I thought about; how I was feeling.

This nonjudgmental, external consciousness is called the Nemet and is like a beastie that sits on your shoulder. When you have continued with this exercise for several days, you will find that you are automatically doing it all or most of the time. You will be triggering the power of awareness, which will, as a matter of progression, actively trigger latent telepathic and intuitive faculties.

Remember that the center (and its ally, the Nemet) is totally nonjudgmental. It is an observer and a conscious purveyor of how you react and respond within a manifest environment. It will be you task, through your innate understanding of whatever the watcher has relayed to you. You may then eliminate or add as you see fit. Take it slowly, as I have seen too many idealists, perfectionists, and impatient people turned into tortured souls, downright bigots, or self-righteous bores through lack of leeway and scope and the ability, like the willow, to bend not only to circumstances, but to ideas and principles that may have been set for you and not by you!