Theresa Cheung - The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World - The Ultimate A–Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal

It takes time for the subconscious to be able to communicate with the conscious mind, and the best way to do this is to simply start thinking about the psychic world. All these thoughts have a positive effect on developing your gift. Knowledge will help, as you need some understanding of how things work. Adopt the policy you would take with a new hobby. Get involved in it, buy books and magazines, read at least three or four entries from this Encyclopedia every day and look for more information on the Internet or, better still, from clubs, societies and organizations devoted to the study of the paranormal.

The second step is to set aside a time every day for your psychic development. Find a place where you won’t be disturbed and where you can read, study, calm your mind and have a go at the exercises. Like a difficult sport or musical instrument, psychic ability requires diligent practice. Unlike sports or music, however, your progress can be hard to measure because of the elusive nature of psychic phenomena (it’s difficult to know how or when it’s going to work). So the frustration level can be high, but the key to success is to not give up.

Finally, don’t let frustration or failures make you stop. Be realistic. You can’t expect to practise for a few days and then be able to see a ghost, predict when Uncle Joe is going to call or who is going to win the lottery. Psychic abilities, even for those who have developed them to a high degree, can be unpredictable and erratic. The trick is to learn to recognize when or if they are working - and that comes with time, practice and experience.

There are things that occur in the world -and which have occurred since the beginning of recorded time - for which there are no lasting explanations, and clearly psychic phenomena fall into this category of unexplained mysteries. Sceptics may argue their case, and theories may come and go, but all the while the psychic phenomena that these arguments and theories are supposed to debunk or explain carry on as mysteriously as ever.

Mysteries have always happened and will continue to happen. Belief in psychic phenomena has always been widespread all over the world and these beliefs have always had a very real influence on people’s lives. Whether you believe in the psychic world, would like to believe in it but aren’t sure, or think it’s a lot of fascinating but ultimately unscientific nonsense, there is one thing that has to be accepted: we live in a mysterious world.

The universe is a puzzle, our consciousness is an enigma and even our existence in the world is an unexplained mystery. Mysteries are things we live with every day and simply have to accept, regardless of how irrational and incomprehensible they are.

If you are willing to accept that mysteries surround you, if you are willing to open your mind to new possibilities, the psychic world is out there waiting for you to discover it.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

(Albert Einstein)

A complete self-study spiritual thought system that was channelledthrough Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1972. It consists of a Text, Manual for Teachers and Workbook for Students and teaches that all humans share a capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion and peace. Rather than trying to change the world, it teaches, you must change yourself and your view of the world. Miracles are defined as a shift in perception from fear to love. It also emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum, of which there are ‘many thousands’. Consequently, even though its language is that of traditional Christianity, the course expresses a non-sectarian, non-denominational spirituality.

A Course in Miracles was dictated by a clear inner voice to Helen Schucman, a psychologist at Presbyterian Hospital in New York and an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Schucman was born to a Jewish family in the early 1900s and was an atheist. For years she experienced mental images that came to her like photographs, and in the 1960s the images became so intense and meaningful that Schucman feared she was going mad.

In September 1965 a voice began dictating the course to Schucman with the opening words, ‘This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.’ Schucman was frightened and reluctant but felt compelled to write. She shared her experiences with her supervisor at work, William Thetford, who thought she might be having psychic visions.

In the days, weeks, months and years that followed, the voice, which never identified itself, dictated the course to Schucman, and by September 1972 the entire work was completed and arranged into chapters by Schucman and Thetford. The voice predicted that a woman would come along who would know what to do with it, and that woman turned out to be Judith Skutch, president of the Foundation for ParaSensory Investigation. Skutch and her husband, Robert, changed the name of their foundation to the Foundation of Inner Peace and dedicated it to publishing and distributing the course.

Information about the course spread quickly via word of mouth, and study groups independent of the foundation formed around the world and continue to flourish today. Schucman and Thetford chose to remain anonymous advisors to the foundation. The voice continued to speak to Schucman, who wrote down a collection of poems published by the foundation as The Gifts of God. As Schucman had wished, her identity was not revealed until after her death in 1981.

A Course in Miracles was first published in 1975. There are currently over one and a half million copies of the course in circulation worldwide.

The art of foretelling the future by observing patterns of dust. The way the dust is blown, distributed or disturbed is read very much like tea leaves. The origins and precise method of this ancient type of divinationare unknown. Sometimes the diviner uses the ashes of the recently deceased.

Healing that results from the sending of healing thoughts, visualization, prayersor energy towards some distant person or persons. It is based on the belief that all beings are interconnected by a universal life forceor energy and that healing thoughts send out subtle energetic charges into this web of interconnection and out to the person being thought about.

Many psychics, spiritual healers, reikipractitioners and medical intuitivesclaim to be able to direct energy and perform absent healing. Typically healers will speak the name of the sick person or they will focus on a photograph of the person, or a candle or doll that represents the person. The healing energies are then directed to where they are needed.

How absent healing is accomplished, if it can be accomplished, remains an unproven mystery but there is compelling evidence to suggest that emotional and sometimes physical healing can take place from a distance. Aside from countless personal accounts from those who have benefited from absent healing, American doctor Larry Dossey conducted several double blind trials to test the effectiveness of absent healing in the early 1990s. At the end of the trials the groups that had been the object of prayer showed greater improvement in health than the control groups.