Six Ways to Increase Your Psychic Awareness

Perhaps you already know that you have psychic skills. Or maybe you're just hoping that your ability to know who is calling on the telephone is more than mere coincidence. The truth is that you are psychic. New scientific research from leading international universities proves what many of us have known for a long time: that psychic abilities are a natural and normal human skill. Like any skill, you can practice and learn ways to increase your enjoyment and use of your natural psychic abilities.

Within the past decade, scientists around the world (including sceptical researchers who initially sought to disprove psychic phenomena) have verified the existence of ESP and telepathy. Cornell University scientists used airtight methodology in 11 successive experiments that concluded that telepathy is a real skill that everyone naturally possesses. During 1996, university laboratories in Nevada and Japan discovered that subjects' blood pressure and heart rate decreased or accelerated the moment another subject thought either loving or hateful thoughts about them. Scientists believe this may explain why people may call us soon after we think of them. The term, "sixth sense" isn't just a coined expression but a scientifically verified fact.

Even more, researchers have pinpointed specific factors which anyone can use to increase his or her access to psychic wisdom. By making simple adjustments to our home or office environment, and our ordinary lifestyle, we automatically receive more intuitive guidance. By incorporating these findings into my everyday life, my own psychic ability has felt more like a well-trained horse than a wild beast. I can now hold the reins and steer it at will. Today I'm in the habit of using my psychic power for practical details, such as, "What time will I arrive at my appointment?" and "Which street should I turn on to get to my destination?" My psychic guidance steers me to empty parking spaces, friendly bank tellers, and shopping bargains. On deeper matters, I receive psychic counsel about helping my clients, getting closer to God, and the best foods to eat for optimum health. In short, psychic awareness has great practical uses for daily living.

Here's how to increase your own psychic awareness

1.Know your psychic channels of communication. We often think of "psychic skills" as being the ability to see mental pictures, or "clairvoyance." However, seeing is only one means of receiving psychic information. Some people are clairsentient, meaning they get psychic guidance through their feelings. Psychic guidance can also come as clairaudience, which means "clear hearing" of a voice inside or outside your mind. Claircognizance is the ability to know entire chunks of information about various subjects, without knowing how you know. We naturally possess a primary channel of receiving psychic guidance, and one lesser or secondary channel of psychic communication.

3.Meditate daily. Studies show a definite relationship between meditating and psychic abilities. Scientists have observed that meditation synchronizes the wave patterns of the left and right brain hemispheres. This synchronization apparently allows a free flow of information from the "psychic" right brain into the left brain's verbal centres. Research also shows that a synchronization occurs between the brain patterns of one who meditates and the person she or he is thinking about. You don't need to spend a great deal of time meditating to achieve benefits from its practice. A mere fifteen minutes devoted to meditating first thing in the morning, and then five minutes before going to sleep, can greatly influence your intuitive, psychic, and healing capabilities. Remember that time is an earthly idea.

3. Chakra Cleansing and Balancing. After you have attuned yourself with your morning meditation, the next step in opening your channels of psychic and spiritual healing is to do a meditation specifically designed to cleanse and balance the energy centres of your body known as chakras. There are many wonderful books, audiotapes, and classes that can help you learn how to balance and clean your chakras. This step will immediately increase your psychic communication abilities and boost your energy.

4. Mental Attunement. Mental attunement involves centering your awareness upon your higher self's connection to the source of knowledge and love. If we allow our mind to slip into the ego-self, our psychic readings become inconsistent and unreliable. Even worse, we become unhappy and afraid. We certainly have every reason to want to live in our higher self. Here are some ways that are helpful:

a. See yourself, and everyone you meet, as one with God, and your thoughts and actions will automatically align with love.

b. Avoid identifying with others' egos. Any time we declare the ego as a real state of being, we give power and life to the illusion.

c. Honour your true self. You are a wonderful person who deserves health, happiness, and prosperity - know that! If you spend too much time doing something that is not part of your sacred mission, your inner guide will nudge you. It's important to honour this nudging.

d. Watch out for the "special power" ego trap. As you begin doing psychic readings, be sure to guard your thoughts so that you don't fall into the trap of believing you have special powers. This sort of belief will trigger your ego-self to take over, and your psychic abilities will automatically reduce as a result.

5. Create an atmosphere that amplifies your psychic abilities. Your room environment can contribute or detract from your psychic abilities. Scientific studies conducted at leading universities find that people give more accurate psychic readings in distraction-free rooms that are dimly lit and have soft background music. I also find that I give better readings when I'm well rested, am dressed comfortably, and have fragrant flowers such as stargazers or tuber roses in the room.

6. Pray. A 1995 study by William MacDonald of Ohio State University found that people who regularly pray are more likely to have telepathic experiences than people who don't pray. MacDonald explained these findings by saying, "In one sense, the results aren't surprising. You can think of prayer as a type of mind-to-mind communication between a person and God. So prayer and telepathy are related concepts." How to Receive Psychic Guidance Now, it's time to put your psychic mind into action. There are two main ways to access psychic information: by asking a question, or by deciding to allow the information spontaneously to flow into your awareness.

In the first method, you allow your mind to become as blank and relaxed as possible. I visualize my mind as a giant ornate bowl, empty and ready for the infinite universal wisdom to fill it. Then I mentally ask a question. For example, "What time will I arrive at my destination?" or, "What issue does my client who has the 3:00 appointment today want help with?" You can specifically "address" your question to God, your guardian angel, or another loving guide. Or, you can just put the question in your bowl and trust that the highest wisdom applicable will come. You will receive the answer in your mind or body as a picture, feeling, knowingness, or audible words. The second method is similar, but instead of asking to know something, you decide or give yourself permission to know some information. So, after visualizing your mind as an open bowl, relax and make a mental statement. For instance, if you were driving somewhere and wanted to receive directions intuitively, you would affirmatively state, "I now know exactly which roads to take to get to my destination." You will immediately receive guidance by either hearing the names of the roads to take, or feeling yourself pulled right or left at the crucial intersections.

Practice Makes Perfect Here are some specific exercises to increase your confidence in your ability to tap into psychic guidance: Parking Spaces: In a parking lot, allow your mind and body to relax and become as open as possible. Relax with deep breaths. Feel your way to an empty parking space and allow your intuition to guide you. Or, ask your angels or spiritual guide to find an empty parking space, and request that they give you signs or directions to lead you there. While Driving: Ask psychic questions about what moves the driver ahead of you is about to make, which road to turn on to reach your destination, or what time you will arrive. You will either hear the answer, see it in your mind's eye, get a feeling about the answer, or else simply know the answer.

Appointments: If you have an appointment to meet someone new, ask to receive psychic impressions about that person. You can also ask what time the person will arrive at your appointment, or whether they are running late or ahead of schedule. The Telephone: Whenever the telephone rings, allow the psychic impression of who is calling to enter your mind before you answer the call. Ask, "Is this a man or a woman calling?" and, "Who is calling?" With practice, you will become very tuned in to your incoming callers. The Television Set: Turn on a television program with which you are unfamiliar. Turn your back away from the television monitor, so you cannot see the screen or its reflection. Listen to the actors and actresses talking, and visualize what they look like. Turn around from time to time to check your accuracy. Keep a Coincidence Journal: Write down every instance, minor and major, in which a coincidence plays a role. This list helps you to focus your mind on coincidences. The more you pay attention to coincidences, the more of them will come your way.

As you adopt these methods into your daily routines, you will immediately find yourself receiving psychic information about your relationships, job, health, and future. I recommend that you keep a journal of all the transmissions you receive. This journal will help you to develop a trust in the validity of your psychic impressions. You will also be able to notice any recurrent themes within your incoming transmissions. If you ever feel overwhelmed by all the psychic data streaming into your consciousness, you can turn down its volume any time you want. To do so, simply decide that you choose to be less aware of the psychic frequencies. Use the power of your intentions to adjust the psychic volume to a comfortable and - most importantly - enjoyable level.

- Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.