Then about a week after recovering, something else happened that gave me a real fright, and showed me that I was still trying too hard to get everything done, so I took a break and concentrated on getting better and taking more care.

Holiday

Now I have three weeks off from my teaching job, so you should see more articles on here as I have more free time. 

I have begun my holiday unwinding and spending some time on my little terrace garden. I moved into my new apartment in inner city Christchurch three months ago (it’s the beginning of spring here in the southern hemisphere). I moved in on a cold and dreary winter’s day and my terrace looked like this:

Now, three months later, it looks like this:

yes, the plants need potting and the sun needs to shine more (we are on the second day of spring here).  I aim to make it into a little inner city oasis and hope the birds will come to visit as I fill it with more plants and little trees.

Seeing as this blog has nothing of much substance to offer this week (apart from my very bad gardening photos), here is some great reading from other people’s blogs:

Learning How to Merge by Alex Wu

This brilliant blog post is from Alex Wu, up and coming blogger and intuitive counsellor.  Merging onto a motorway is his metaphor for building up the momentum to find a new relationship or create some other change in your life, and he talks about how to do this.

What to do during Mercury Retrograde by Slade Roberson

Are you feeling like life has suddenly slowed down in the last 10 days or so, much to your frustration?  I am not an astrology buff, but I have to say I notice it every time Mercury goes into retrograde and it annoys me, until I learn how to best utilize this period of time.

New Age, The Prejudice-Talk Nobody Seems to Question by Rose Rosetree

Do you find yourself apologizing for your new-age-ness, or making fun of it?

I think it’s good to be able to laugh at yourself and not take yourself too seriously. But on the other hand, ‘New-Age’ does often get a very bad rap, rather unfairly because it’s based on some very nice principles like trusting yourself and being in your power. This blog post is a defense of ‘new-age-ness’ from Rose Rosetree.

The Manifesto of Encouragement by Danielle LaPorte

Gorgeously uplifting.

My Newsletter

I am sending out my pretty, brand-new newsletter in the next few days with stuff that you won’t find on the blog. In it, I might also tell the story of my little fright that taught me to take more care. You can sign up here.

Until next time,

Anna

In short, an empath is someone who feels what other people are feeling.  This doesn’t mean you can get an idea for how other people feel just some of the time.  Being an empath means you were born with the ability to enter someone else’s aura and explore another person’s feelings and experience of life, on an intimate level. Much of the time this is done unconsciously. On the upside, you know what it feels like to be another person, so you’re often great at relating to others. Empathy is also a psychic gift and you can use it to read other people.

On the downside…well, there are lots of downsides until you learn to get empathy under control.  One of them is that you are like a sponge (who is often wet and full of other peoples’ emotions – the conscious one and the unconscious ones.) 

It gets tiring.  That’s why I wrote this article.  Plenty of people are empaths without knowing it.  When that is the case for you, you always have the feeling that you’re ‘weird’ – that you have sensitivity issues that other people don’t have.  But you’re not always sure what they are. Let’s see if you can relate to the following…

Signs that you’re an ‘unskilled’ empath include:

• Feeling the world’s suffering on a large scale and wishing you could do something to help. Ironically, this makes you less equipped to help, because you feel overwhelmed.
• Finding it difficult to watch the news or distressing images because you feel the pain of the person/people you’re watching – as if you’re them
• Finding it difficult to fully be present to yourself and your own feelings when conversing with other people. This is because you’re busy exploring their aura and responses to life – not your own.
• Shyness – empathy can make you somewhat self-conscious as you’re very aware of the effect your words have on another person and what they’re thinking and feeling in response.
• A tendency to say yes to the requests and demands of other people – almost as a reflex; without thinking about whether you actually want to. When you’re so immersed in another person’s experience of life and what they need – how can you say no? It’s only afterwards that you realize you forgot yourself and your own needs.
• A general tendency to put your needs last, or serve others at your own expense.
• A liking for distance in relationships, and for solitude.  This occurs because as an empath, intimacy and closeness is your default.  But when you don’t know how to stop yourself from exploring other peoples’ auras, you need some space on your own, where you aren’t around other people.
• Feeling an affinity with the animal kingdom.  When you’re an animal empath, you can get a feel for how other species experience life and you are able to relate to animals on a deep level.  Some people are plant empaths, so the same is possible for plants.
• Feeling responsible for how other people feel – and going out of your way to help them to feel better (even when it doesn’t serve you.)  After all – you feel their emotions so keenly.
• A tendency to let relationships and friendships get too heavy (and too close) – too fast.
• A strange tendency to feel aches and pains, but only around certain people.
• Finding yourself often in a counselling role, where people dump their emotions on you, and being very drained by it.
• An emotional over-identification with characters in novels, films and plays. It doesn’t matter that they’re not real – you can still feel how they felt.
• A tendency to forget to have fun and lighten up.

Empaths are usually deeply spiritual people, simply because the gift of empathy allows you to experience oneness. This in turn gives you an expanded perspective on other people and on life.

If you related to many of the above signs, then did you know you can control whose emotions you feel and explore? Instead of automatically exploring the aura of most of the people you meet, you can turn your empathy on only when you need it. That makes life a lot lighter.

You might like to read my other articles on turning empathy off:

Is Overactive Empathy Ruining Your Life?

How to Turn off Overactive Empathy

3 Quick Ways to Get Control of Overactive Empathy

Did you relate to the symptoms and signs above?

I know quite a few psychics who have already written about coming out of the psychic closet. 

• Erin Pavlina wrote an article on it here: Coming out of the Broom Closet
• Professional intuitive Slade Roberson also wrote about it in his article: The Psychic Closet.

Maybe I am just cowardly, but in spite of doing readings professionally for people, I’m still not keen on stepping out into the world with a t-shirt that has a big ‘P’ on it for Psychic.

Why?

Because without wanting to sound arse-y or defensive: the parts of me I choose to reveal (and to whom) – that’s my business.

Who am I?

I’m a linguist, a psychic, a languages teacher, a creative/writer, a sister and a daughter.  I’m also mad about cats and food. I’m a traveller who is beginning to settle down. I don’t think I’ve ever let go of the role of student.

Which one of these roles defines me?

Which of these do I want to put on my t-shirt that I wear when I’m out in the world?

It depends on who’s asking.

If you’re interested in psychic abilities, then you can Google something I’ve written about (like developing psychic ability) and find me that way.  Otherwise you won’t know about my spiritual side. And why would you? If you don’t inquire about my spiritual beliefs I am not going to shove it down your throat that I’m a spiritual person who believes in ghosts.

I’ve done that before.

A couple of years ago, I was in a room full of Catholics, most of them having attended the very stuffy University I went to (I used to share a flat with a couple of catholic girls who went to the same University as me, and they were having a house party) and when people asked me what I do for a living, I answered ‘I’m a psychic.’  It was a big waste of my energy, emotions and time.

I got into an argument with a Catholic PhD nuclear physicist who wanted me to see that I was on the wrong path and doing people harm.  I’m a very polite person, but I’ve reached the point now where I really do not care what intolerant people think of what I do.

I just told him it was perfectly OK that he didn’t believe in what I do. This seemed to bamboozle him further and he repeated his thoughts several times, each time more vigorously, as if he thought I might be persuaded by his logic. 

Although I maintained my composure on the outside when I was talking to him, the reality was that it did affect me and I came away from that exchange angry and drained that my beliefs and sanity was up for scrutiny. And the verdict was in: I was both stupid and crazy. I could easily have scrutinized his beliefs too and pointed out the potholes that I see in Christian literature and beliefs, but I was too polite for that, at the time.

Since then, I protect myself from those experiences, and use both intuition and past experiences to guide me. I have found that people in the medical profession can be particularly closed off to the spiritual side of life (although I’ve met some who are open).  I’m also not interested in revealing what I do to those who I know have hardcore Christian beliefs.  Being intuitive helps with this.  I can feel when people are tolerant and open to the spiritual side of life and I also can feel when they are not.

So, I select who I reveal myself to, in order to minimize drains on my energy.  I also do not get into arguments or discussions about my work.

Part of my purpose is to share what I do here on my blog and to connect with like-minded people.

It is not to convert others to my way of life or thinking.

Nor is it to check that it is OK with the people around me that I can be psychic.

“What Do You Do?”

I have also had the experience of being ‘out there’ 100% as a full-time psychic when I moved to Brisbane in November 2009. When people asked me what I did for a living in this new place, I told them straight. But I was not at all happy with the way people treated me.  People either saw me as an oracle who was a go-to person for spiritual wisdom, or they wanted to trust me but were afraid that I was a potential fraudster.  Calling myself a full-time psychic changed the way people viewed me and I could not control that. So I decided to take another approach.

But isn’t this true of anything we might call ourselves?

Yes. If I go around calling myself any one of the roles that are above and being defined solely by that, I can guarantee that people will form ideas – some good and some unfavourable- about who I am. I believe that defining yourself by one label can be limiting.

So, if you’re in the same position and thinking of coming out of the psychic closet, here are some things to think about:

• Do I want to ‘come out’ to everyone?  Will it be a drain on my energy and emotions?
• Am I wanting to come out of the psychic/spiritual closet as an excuse to eliminate incompatible people from my life? (do you have any in mind? )
• Why do I want to reveal myself more? In which life area is it important to me, to do this? (if it is in career, maybe it’s about stepping more into a spiritual life purpose rather than putting yourself out there for everyone and his dog to see.)
• Am I trying to justify myself to someone?

Declaring yourself as a psychic to all and sundry (anyone you meet, including those who think you’re of the devil) is energetically a bit like getting naked and going out onto the common and waving a sign about it.  Kudos to you if you can do it. For me that attracts unwanted attention (in this context, I’m talking about the wider world. It’s obvious that I’m already online and waving my sign for those who are interested.)

Friends and Family

I definitely recommend revealing yourself – as much as possible – to those who are close to you.  My close friends and family have known me as someone who is interested in psychic development for so long that it probably wasn’t surprising to them when I chose this path.  As for new friends, revealing that part of me to them (and gauging their reaction) might be part of my friend selection process although it hasn’t been conscious until this moment as I write this.

I don’t need my friends to believe in what I do (my best friend from university doesn’t), but I do need them to be tolerant people.  And I prefer talking with those who do some research before writing something off out of hand.  I also get on better with people who don’t feel they have ALL the knowledge and data that there is to be had in our solar system.  If you believe adamantly that there is no life other than Earth in the Universe and that life here is an accident, then we might have a laugh together (and we might like each other), but on a deeper level, perhaps we wouldn’t see eye to eye nor would I ever feel understood fully by you, and vice versa. Telling people you’re a professional psychic does weed out the more intolerant (or just incompatible) people from your circle.  That is an energy-saver.

But on the other hand, for those who might never fully know you (such as acquaintances or strangers), I believe it can be draining to walk around with the psychic label. Doing that does not help me express my life purpose.  It just gets me into discussions and exchanges that take my energy away from being a psychic with my clients, and being a writer here on my blog.

I prefer that my energy and personality speaks louder than any of the labels above.

At the end of the day, my path of psychic development has healed me from my past. I am much calmer, happier, and I am living my spirit.  Of course I’m not fearless but I’m more confident these days that I can face what life throws at me. I can more easily feel who people are when I speak to them – on the soul level, which helps me to be more tolerant towards others even when they are directing a lot of negative energy towards me (or others.) It might sound like I am saying I am a saint here. I know I am not perfect or ‘enlightened’ (whatever that means to you) but I feel like I’ve come a long way from the girl I was in my teens, and since my Christian days.

But these are my experiences, and my path. I wanted to share it here in case some can relate to it.  I’m also interested in hearing about alternative approaches.

Psychic developers, spiritual people and professional intuitives – who do you reveal yourself to?  And how do you do it? Are you trying to come out of the psychic/spiritual closet? How far do you want to come out of it?

On it, you can listen to psychic-medium Alex Wu and me talking about how to find clues to your soul gifts and life purpose. I would say this podcast is really for people who have no clue (or people who are unsure) about what they want to do with their life.

In the 35 minute podcast we cover the following topics:

• What life purpose really is (it’s a lot more practical than it sounds!)

• Ways to find out what yours is

• Common myths about life purpose that keep you stuck (11:24)

• One ‘secret’, little-known way to find your life purpose (18:22)

The more you use your soul gifts, the happier you feel. So if you feel like you’re not happy in your career, then why not give it a listen. Even if you’ve heard of life purpose a million times (It is sort of an annoying new-age buzzword, isn’t it), I can promise that there will be some information in here that is new to you.

The first 10 minutes is really an introduction to life purpose for those who are new to the topic.

Listen on this website:

Download and listen to the file on your computer:

Download the Life Purpose podcast

Table of Contents

• Alex’s website: Intuitive Wu.com
• The documentary we referred to in the podcast (where a guy tries one job per week for a whole year)

I hope you enjoy it!

If you have any comments or questions, just leave me a reply.

Ahh, I love ethics and the moral highground Plus maybe there is a useful lesson in here for me, you or anyone who cares to listen!

If not, you can just come back another time when I’m done with sitting on my soap box!

Anyway…

I got two emails this week from people which further inspired me to write about this topic.

Person #1: disgruntled

I had one annoyed reader tell me earlier on this week that it was wrong of me to get people to read the internationally revered and adored poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

I was sorry the reader was so offended but I am still OK about encouraging readers to delve into Lorca’s story.

My reason for this is that Lorca’s story is in the public domain.  Check out Wikipedia for anything you’d like to know about him.  He’s also deceased, God rest his soul.  If Lorca comes to me in a dream and tells me to take my damn experiment off my blog, I might oblige him But in the mean time, I bet Lorca doesn’t mind us picking up on his emotional life from his photo. You can also delve into his psyche through his poetry. That’s what his literary critics do as their full time day job, using his poetry (I had tutorials with some of those people when I was at University – so they definitely exist!)

I plan on doing another experiment of the same kind soon. I will make sure that the person read for is not someone who can stumble upon the experiment and feel violated.

Reading For Those You Have No Business Reading For

Perhaps inspired by my experiment, I had someone else email me with a well-meaning reading that they’d done on me, without me asking for it.  It was depressingly negative. But it was also 100% inaccurate. (Interestingly, this person also did an accurate reading of Lorca.) Maybe the person who did it never read my posts beforehand, but it’s possible some of the impressions could have been gauged from blog posts like this one that I wrote a while back in Australia, when I was intensely homesick and sleepless, chasing cockroaches (I have a phobia of them) around my apartment in 30 degree heat and 90% humidity. And I knew this reader meant no harm, and was just trying to verify their skills.

A few times I’ve had people send me unsolicited readings where they’ve sent me their account of my innermost, unrevealed feelings and my first reaction was that of being intruded upon, even if they were wrong, and even though I do reveal a lot on this blog. (Person #1 might say it was instant karma for getting people to read Lorca )

My point is: don’t read for living people without their permission, if you have no reason to do so. Here’s the main reason why: you’ll probably get it wrong.

Spirit will give you the information that you need, and probably no more.

You’ll sense when it serves you to steer well clear of someone, because that serves you.  You can get accurate information about topics that relate to you and your own business.  If you really need to know if your new babysitter is trustworthy, you can have that information – I would even say you have a right to know that information.

But if you read another person ‘just because’, or if you want to know if someone you know is having an affair, as an example, you could get misinformation. The exception to that (to some degree) could be deceased people who lived in the public domain and whose stories are already out there in autobiographies and on Wikipedia.

Because of my own experiences trying to read those I had no business reading, and from my experiences being read in an unsolicited way, I believe we need to get peoples’ permission to read them, unless we need the information for our own personal safety and benefit.

*Anna climbs off soapbox*

What do you think?

Note: If you’d like an opportunity to verify and practise using your intuition, go and read that article before you read this one: How Can You Measure Your Progress in Psychic Development? – Try This Experiment!

Thanks to everyone who took part in this psychic experiment.  I was interested to read what you ‘picked up’. In total, there were a few dozen people who left comments, sent emails and posted in a forum about it.  I have to say, a lot of what was wrote was spot on, if not close to the mark.

So, who is he?

The man in the photo is Federico Garcia Lorca.

Lorca was a famous Spanish poet and playwright who lived from 1898-1936. He is one of my favourite writers.

Here are some of the intuitive hits many of you had…

Click on the subheadings below to go straight to the theme or hit:

• Lorca’s artistic temperament
• His early death and a tragic murder
• Symbols of his life and art: Blood, darkness, passion and fire
• Lorca’s non-comformist side
• Suffering and depression
• Sex and Homosexuality

Lorca’s career and artistic temperament

Many of you picked up an artistic temperament, which was correct.  Lorca was an immensely talented artist, poet and playwright. He was also a lecturer and musician (he was a pianist and guitarist).  He was experimental in much of his art.  As I mentioned, he is famous and revered (especially) in the Spanish-speaking world. I expect my Spanish readers would have recognized him instantly.

Lorca’s early death and a tragic murder

As most of you picked up, his death was a tragic and violent one – he was murdered at the age of 38.  He was executed by the right-wing Nationalists at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.  He was thought to have been shot.  The writer Ian Gibson in his book The Assassination of Garcia Lorca states that he was shot with three others at a place known as the ‘Fuente Grande’, near Granada.

His burial place has never been found.

Eerily, he even foretold his own death in one of his works:

“Then I realised I had been murdered. They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches…but they did not find me. They never found me? No. They never found me.”

Why was he killed?

During the Civil War, the right-wing nationalists kidnapped and murdered many of those who were on the left wing. Lorca was thought to be on the left wing although some actually maintain that he was apolitical. He was also homosexual, which was a possible motive for his murder. Many historians are undecided as to the primary motive.

Death was also one of his artistic preoccupations and features prominently as a theme in many of his poems.

Themes and Symbols of his life and work: blood, darkness, passion and fire

Blood

A lot of people picked up on ‘blood’ – this could be a reference to Lorca’s murder it or could be a reference to one of his most famous plays Bodas de Sangre (‘Blood Wedding’).  Blood was also a symbol that popped up frequently throughout much of his art.

Darkness

Many people sense darkness when they tuned into Lorca.  The darkness you picked up on could also refer to Lorca’s own personal suffering (see below).

Darkness was also a major theme of his art, witness his Sonetos del Amor Oscuro (Sonnets of Dark Love) as just one example of this. Lorca was also said to be highly superstitious, and the dark forces present in his works were not mere dramatic ploys, they appear to be very present in his psyche. If you haven’t already, read some of his poems and you will see what I mean!

Fire & Passion

Some people picked up on fire.  Fire usually translates to passion.  This could be in reference to Lorca’s own passionate nature; the passion of Lorca’s works, or the passion of the characters.

I think you can see the dark passion if you tune into his eyes.

I don’t know any other poet who does tormented passion quite like Lorca – there is great emotional intensity in his poetry, although it’s almost ‘veiled’ and there is a hint of repression in it too.

Take a look at this one:

Gacela of Unforseen Love

No one understood the perfume
of the dark magnolia of your womb.
Nobody knew that you tormented
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand Persian little horses fell asleep
in the plaza with moon of your forehead,
while through four nights I embraced
your waist, enemy of the snow.

Between plaster and jasmine, your glance
was a pale branch of seeds.
I sought in my heart to give you
the ivory letters that say “siempre”,

“siempre”, “siempre” : garden of my agony,
your body elusive always,
that blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth already lightless for my death.

(If you want to read the Spanish you can do so here.)

Lorca’s non-comformist side

His plays were experimental – so much so that his very first play was laughed at, when it came out.  Some of his works were avant-garde.

Suffering and depression

Towards his late twenties/early thirties, García Lorca suffered from depression. His depressed state was apparently made worse by his anguish over his homosexuality.  From 1925 to 1928 he was emotionally involved with the painter Salvador Dalí although Dali was said to have rejected his romantic advances, much to Lorca’s anguish.

His later collection of poetry ‘Poeta en Nueva York’ (Poet in New York) evokes the loneliness, isolation and alienation that he was suffering at that time.  I personally found it a depressing read, which reflects where Lorca was at when he wrote it.  It is said that Lorca had two faces: a public one, which was the successful author and the private one, which reflected the passionate and perhaps emotionally tormented side.

Sex

A few of you picked up on sexual deviancy.  Lorca’s art expressed a passionate and sometimes odd sexual intensity and sensuality that perhaps remained unexpressed in other areas of life. I feel this creates a vibe of repressed emotion and sexual tension in his work and in his energy. He was homosexual – at a time in Europe when homosexuality was definitely not something you would want to be open about.  Sexual drives and homosexuality were general themes in his poetry, as was incest.

Feedback

I think that in the emails and comments I got, almost everyone got at least one accurate ‘hit’ and some were spot on or  close to the mark in everything they said.  It was interesting that almost everyone got a bad feeling about his death and many picked up on his artistic talents and emotional intensity. I think you’ll agree this was a fascinating character to tune into.

More tips for tuning in:

How did you get your information?

It seems some people got clairvoyant visions, some got feelings and some got impressions.

Tips for Decoding Visions

Visions can be like dreams – they need interpreting. When you get a clairvoyant vision, if you don’t sense what it relates to, do remember to ask your claircognizance what it means.  For example, you may see fire or blood (an accurate symbol in this case) but unless you know what it relates to, it can go unverified.  Many picked up ‘crime’ but a few didn’t see that the crime had been against Lorca, instead of perpetrated by him. So, clairvoyance has to work in conjunction with another gift, like clairsentience or claircognizance, in order to work well, so remember to dig deeper for more detail, even if you’re unsure of what you’re getting.

Tips for Decoding Feelings

If you get a feeling, like a creepy, dark or eerie feeling when looking at the photo, ask your intuition why – and attempt to get some clarity around it.  What does it relate to?  There is always another layer of information and more clarity and specificity to be had.  A feeling or vision is often the top layer but you can go deeper and find out exactly what the feeling or vision refers to.

Usually you need to be in a meditative state in order to get that extra information.  Doing deep breathing will put you there, as will binaural beats.  For more information on how to get into a meditative state, read this article: The Alpha State – Why is it Essential to Psychic Development?

How Long Should it Take to Read Someone?

Sometimes it can take 15 minutes or longer to really go deeper and get specific information. I can guarantee that the more time you spend going deeper into reading someone, the better the information will be.  If you got very specific information that was wrong, it may have been because you went too fast and took a very specific surface impression. What usually happens with intuitive information is that you follow a trail of breadcrumbs and it can take 10-15 mins to do. You might get information that is very general or vague initially, such as his line of work, then if you go deeper, you get more detail. But it’s unusual to get detailed and specific information right off the bat, unless you are highly skilled and experienced. Usually you get vague info, then you go deeper and get more detail. That’s how it happens for me and for other intuitives I know of.  It’s also why I like to prepare for my sessions for at least 10 minutes

How did you do? Leave me a reply if you have any questions or comments.

To all who participated…thanks for taking part in this experiment.  I hope you had fun doing it, I know I did. If readers request it, I may do another of these experiments later on.

Anna

More sources of information about Lorca:

http://starobor.com/page19.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/fglorca.htm

For Lorca’s poetry in the original language, please see this website: http://www.analitica.com/Bitblio/lorca/romancero.asp

One of them wrote:

“What is the feedback loop for psychic development?

A musican can practice and listen to her music to know she’s improving, a sports person can train and perform better, even a bodybuilder can see his muscle growth.  A psychic/intuitive can do visualization exercises but how are they to know they are actually improving – what’s their feedback loop?”

I can understand the need for this question.  After all, when you are gathering intuitive insights on your OWN path, it’s coming through the filter of your mind, so you can never really know if it’s your higher self speaking – or if you’re just talking to yourself and reframing stuff you already know.

Plus, I do know from personal experience that it’s easy to doubt your intuition. Probably the only reason why I have come to trust mine is because I get continual feedback from clients. And when you get specific information from deceased people that turns out to be true, that pushes you over the edge into trusting.

So, here are some ways to verify your intuitive insights:

• Have a go at reading another person
• Ask spirit for signs
• Keep an ongoing record/journal of all your psychic experiences and impressions. Then come back to it later on to verify it.

In this post, I am going to focus on the first suggestion. This is because I believe the best way to find out if your intuition is actually real is to read for someone else or read another person for character and then get it verified. This is why I dedicate an entire chapter of my psychic awakening course to reading other people.

I also decided to do an experiment here on my blog…

Check out this dude:

Meditate for a few minutes (if you’re not sure what meditation is, there is a quick ‘how-to’ near the end of this article), then ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of person is he? What is his character like?
• Do you like him? Why/why not?
• What do you think his emotional life was like?
• What do you think his life was like?
• What kind of things happened to him?
• What was his death like?

I do know who this person is and will be able to verify many of the impressions you get.

Some tips for getting intuitive insights about other people:

• Get into the alpha state and clear your mind as much as possible before you tune into another person – again, the best way to do this is to meditate.
• When you look at a photo, you often instantly form a judgment about someone’s character.  Often this is unconscious and subtle.  They happen very fast too – so fast that they happen before you have thoughts.  They are basically the unconscious judgments and assumptions that we habitually put to one side.
• Don’t worry if you do not get concrete facts – some people are good at getting information about character and some people are good at picking up information about events.
• This is an old photo, but to eliminate this sense of distance you could imagine yourself in a room with this person – talking to them.  How do you feel about them?
• Remember to ask specific questions and wait for an impression or answer to come to you.

If you often get information through dreams, print off the photo and keep it with you at night.  If you don’t get anything initially, carry the photo with you and see if information comes to you throughout the day.  Sometimes impressions take a while to form.

If you like you can leave a comment on this post, with your insights.  Or you can email me via the contact form with your insights in private. If you’re really shy you could just jot down your insights, put them to one side and check back here later.  I will be publishing some information about the person in the photograph next week so that you will be able to verify what you got.

PS – If you do the experiment go into it with some playfulness! You have nothing to lose… After all, one experiment is obviously not representative of what you are able to do. But it could teach you more about what your gifts are.

PPS – If you recognize the man in the photo (which you might), there is no point reading the person and please do NOT leave a comment saying who it is as that obviously ruins the exercise for people. Thanks.

Edit 1/8/2010: You can find out who this man was by reading this article: Results of the Psychic Experiment

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Free downloads for Subscribers: Chapter one of the Psychic Awakening course
Readings: Career and life purpose readings – I can tell you your ideal career
Psychic Awakening course: Anna’s intensive 13 week course
Chakras Kit: Learn to read your own energy body and balance your being ]]> http://www.psychicbutsane.com/questions-sent-in-by-readers/measure-your-progress-psychic-development/feed 19 http://www.psychicbutsane.com/questions-sent-in-by-readers/measure-your-progress-psychic-development http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PsychicButSane/~3/-yuoiG9bIuY/does-developing-psychic-abilities-send-you-to-hell-anna%e2%80%99s-journey-to-hell-and-back http://www.psychicbutsane.com/developing-psychic-abilities-spirit-world/does-developing-psychic-abilities-send-you-to-hell-anna%e2%80%99s-journey-to-hell-and-back#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:06:06 +0000 Anna http://www.psychicbutsane.com/?p=4298 I started going to Church in 1995, at age 11.  I loved Church, I loved Jesus, I loved (some of) the Bible.  Looking back, my interest in religion was as simple as it comes.  I wasn’t interested in the ideas, or the chanting where we were pledging allegiance to God.  I just loved basking in the energy of  love and devotion to spirit that I felt in a Church.

I thought some of the other people who went to Church were a bit weird, and I mostly spent my time in the back pew and in typical anti-social style I would slip out at the end of the service so I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

By 2003, I was at university in the UK and still identified as a Christian.

In 2003, I also met a kindly girl called Catherine.

Catherine

Catherine invited me to come along with her to her bible study group.  Being open to anything and in the habit of saying yes to most requests that were put to me, I went along.

I found it was a group comprised only of girls.  Many of them seemed emotionally and spiritually troubled – there were eating disorders and mental illnesses among them.  There was a lot of crying and sobbing during the study sessions.  I remember one session where we were told that we must come to terms with the fact that most of our friends and some of our family would go to hell after death because they hadn’t accepted Jesus as their saviour.  This produced a lot of crying and distress among the girls, me included.

Most of the girls who were very extreme were engaged to be married (or already married) to other boys in this Church.

Their Church

At one point, I was invited along to their Church and I went.  This was even stranger than the bible study group and I had never experienced anything like it.  There was singing, dancing, flag waving.  There was a lot of mass hysteria and high emotion during services.  People spoke in tongues and fell down with the holy spirit.  When someone got a message from God, everyone listened.

It was difficult to hear the sound of my own reactions over what was going on in that place.  I couldn’t take it all in.  Was this normal?

I went a total of about three times.  The third time I was sitting apart from my friends.  I remember catching the eyes of a woman who was wearing a veil on her hair. I thought she was a Muslim.  I had no idea what she was doing there.  I remember seeing desperation in her eyes, as if she had lost someone, and I saw my own feelings reflected right back at me.

I couldn’t take anymore.  I hightailed it out of there and then I remember walking along a canal path, crying bitter tears. I felt so, so lost.   I didn’t know the angry, jealous God these people told me about.  The God that was a tyrant – who gave and then took away; who punished sins and exterminated forever those who didn’t believe.

When I got back to my student room, Catherine rang me.  I blurted out words without thinking. I told her that I couldn’t come to her Church anymore.  I told her that I was taking a break from religion.

There was a silence on the other end of the phone.

That’s when I saw an even darker side


Catherine told me that the reason I didn’t want to go to their Church was because I was under psychic attack from the devil.  She’d seen it happen to people before.

I hung up and rang my grandmother.  I was very distressed by this point.  I didn’t know how to control the intense pain and negative emotions I was feeling.  I told my grandmother what Catherine had said to me and told her about how I felt.

She told me I wasn’t under psychic attack from anything and asked me to come home for a holiday.  I took some leave from University and went home for a while.

My Decision

When I came back to University, I decided not to have anything to do with this church again.

They harassed me by letter.  I met with them and they told me of God’s pain and anger towards me that I had let him down like this.  I had several Christian friends attempt to bring me back onto the righteous path.  I was warned that I was heading down the wrong road, and I could expect to see the negative results of this soon.

I knew that those results could not be as bad as what I had experienced in that church.

A few months passed and I felt happy again.  I never saw any negative results from leaving the church and at no point did I feel like I had turned my back on God.

Instead I had turned my back on their angry God.  A few years later, I was still getting harassing letters from Catherine, who feared for my soul.  But in time I got over my anger towards her church and began to feel sorry that they were leading such fearful lives.

Later on, I read books such as Conversations with God and redefined my idea of what God was.  I felt that there must be a source of all things.  You could call it anything – God, goddess, the mother and father, the universe, the creator.  I found hidden under all of this religion stuff, MY simple truth: that all souls were a piece of this source energy, on a journey of remembering who they are.  I rediscovered that the universe is kind; that God is kindness. I found that by honouring the voice of the God(dess) within me, I was kind to myself and to others. Kinder than I had ever been.

Later on, when I developed my psychic abilities, I found that developing psychically felt more in tune with my spirit than religion had been. At least with my intuition, I was able to assess for myself and hear what my own spirit had to say about things.  I didn’t have to swallow what other people told me.

Psychic Abilities vs. Religion

I know that religion can hold the essence of divine love because I’ve felt it. But I also think that religion can be powerfully unkind and this is evident in what I experienced in that church and in what I read in newspapers.  I won’t participate in organized religion – organized anything, where people are told what to believe and swallow it, even when it hurts.  I do not feel  that men can be priests, but not women. Nor do I feel that God wants us to take an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth.  Does the powerful creative force of the universe want us to hide child abuse or discourage the use of contraceptives? I don’t think so.

But I would never ask you to agree with me.

Instead, I am all for developing and practising the capacity to see what sits right in your soul (if you have not already), and hold true to it. In spite of what any religion or belief system tells us.

To me, that’s what intuitive development is.  Everyone has their own unique path back to God/Source/Goddess and their own truth.

So, my personal answer to ‘does developing psychic abilities send you to hell’ is no. I do believe in hell – but only the kind you can experience by attending an evangelical church!! )

What do you think? Can you relate to my experiences?

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Free downloads for Subscribers: Chapter one of the Psychic Awakening course
Readings: Career and life purpose readings – I can tell you your ideal career
Psychic Awakening course: Anna’s intensive 13 week course
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If you want to develop your psychic abilities, you could read some books, do some courses or read my articles on the different clairs, like clairvoyance, claircognizance or clairaudience, for example.

But maybe you’re not sure if you want to invest any time in it yet. Or perhaps you feel like doing some psychic development exercises for fun…

Here are two easy peasy psychic development exercises you can start off with. You don’t have to do hours of practice in order to see results.

Exercise #1: telepathic messages – get someone to call you

You know those times when you just ‘know’ who is calling you on the phone? Or when you call someone and they say “Oh wow, I was just about to call you – we must be psychic!”

My grandmother and I do that a lot.  I ring my grandmother perhaps once a month, or maybe less at the moment (being rather busy).  When I rang her last time, she told me that she kept thinking about me earlier on, on the day I rang. That sometimes happens.

I bet you’ve had experiences like that too.

How does this work?

It’s because you are thinking – consciously or subconsciously – of calling that person.  You’re sending out energetic signals of your intention.  It may not actually result in you calling them, but you think about it, and that is enough for those energetic signals to reach that person.  If they’re sensitive they will pick up on these signals and start thinking about you for no reason. And maybe they’ll call you. All of this is usually unconscious – not done purposely but you can also make it conscious. 

Here are some steps to do this:

1. Decide on somebody you’d like to get back in touch with, or someone that you do not speak to on a regular basis.  This is preferably someone with whom you have a rapport and some kind of ongoing friendship.

(Note that it’s not a good idea to use this exercise to attempt to get back with an ex who doesn’t want to hear from you or someone from your past who you know doesn’t want to be reminded of your past together.  So do ask yourself if you want to get in touch with the person and if they are likely to want to get in touch with you.)

2. Begin by doing a breathing exercise – breathe in to the count of four, hold your breath to the count of four and exhale to the count of eight.  Repeat two more times.

3. Close your eyes and see a movie screen in your mind’s eye (the mind’s eye is what you see when you try to visualize something – for example, visualize the face of a loved one – and it shows up in your mind’s eye.)

4. Then do the following exercise (which is from the book Psychic Development for Beginners by William Hewitt)

Visualize yourself standing in a big park, on a large green lawn, holding seven balloons, of the colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and indigo. Let the balloons go one by one, beginning with the red balloon. Watch them float up to the blue sky until they disappear before you release the next one.

(If you’re not used to visualizing, then this exercise could be quite difficult for you at first. You may find it hard to concentrate or it may be difficult for you to visualize vividly or in colour. It all depends on how developed your imagination muscles are.)

5. Then get rid of the balloons.  Now see a cinema screen in your mind’s eye.  In one corner of the screen, see a telephone.  In the other corner, see your friend.  See your friend picking up the telephone happily and asking you how you are.  See yourself enjoying a conversation with your friend.

6. Do this once a day for five days, at the same time and see what transpires.

Exercise #2: Knowing the time

One way to start developing your psychic ability is to start guessing the time.  Discard your watch as much as is practical and when you need to know the time, close your eyes and ask yourself what the time is.  See if a time pops into your head and if it is accurate.  It’s best to go with the first thought that comes into your head (it’s not good to even think about this – you need to trust the very first thought you have almost before your conscious mind starts operating.) It can be uncanny how accurate this can be – right down to the minute.

Even though you may feel unaware of time passing, at certain points in your day, your higher self can tap into the time and calendar anyway and let you know the time.

Another way to develop an awareness of your inner clock is to set an intention to wake up at a certain time.  It is perhaps best to do this on weekends when you don’t necessarily need to get up.

Here’s what to do:

1. Choose the time you want to wake up (Note: depending on your personality, you might want to choose a time that is reasonable for you – for example, if you never get up before 8am but intend to get up at 6am for the sake of this exercise, you might sabotage yourself if you’re very tired and you like sleeping in.  If your true desires do not align with your intention, your higher self might automatically substitute the real time you want to get up.)

2. Then tell your higher self that you want to get up at that time and ask for your higher self to wake you up at this time.  For example – 8am.  To strengthen the intention, you might want to give your reason why.

3. Don’t set your alarm.

4. See what time you wake up.

Did you do these exercises? Did they work for you?! Leave a comment to share your experiences!

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Free downloads for Subscribers: Chapter one of the Psychic Awakening course
Readings: Career and life purpose readings – I can tell you your ideal career
Psychic Awakening course: Anna’s intensive 13 week course
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To summarize what’s in this post, I talk about:

• Balancing my new full-time job with this business
• Free resources for psychic development
• Affiliate program details

Job

Quite a few of my professional intuitive friends have wanted to know how it is going with my website now that I have a full-time job (- for the past two years I worked full-time on this website, writing articles and courses and giving readings but I got a full-time job about a month ago).

For those who don’t have an interest in my life or in balancing a self-employed job with a full time outside job, sorry for the waffling in the next few paragraphs and you can just skip to the end for any other odds and ends that might interest you.

No time….



To tell the truth, having a job and a business means that life is a lot more hectic and I am always very tired at the end of the day.  But I feel very balanced and happy about it.  Being busy and cheating the clock to get as much done as possible feels good. I prefer the faster pace of my life now and I’m enjoying the job too.

In terms of income (I give readings and sell some courses on here) it has not decreased or disappeared because I’m not working on my website full-time – although I’m short on time, I spend the bulk of my time fulfilling reading requests – doing and implementing, instead of thinking (I used to spend a lot of time over-thinking things!)

Although I have to say, it can be a bit frustrating because there are a few projects I have wanted to start in the past month that have remained on the ‘to-do’ list. I seem to have enough time for several readings, a full time job and a couple of blog posts a week, but no more than that.  If I had one or two extra days per week it would be fantastic!

I guess I could hire a personal assistant and a cleaner and that might give me an extra day a week for writing but I’m not sure if I can afford that right now (I just moved into a new flat and bought a car.)

Maybe later on.

Overall, I’m happy, but I expect to transition to a part-time job as soon as I can, so that I will have more time for this website.

I also wanted to say that my response times to emails and blog comments can be a bit slower these days, so don’t be offended if I don’t acknowledge your email for a few days or longer, if it’s not an urgent one. I get more email than I can deal with and have to catch up with the non-urgent emails at weekends.

Problems getting free resources

A few people have told me that they haven’t received the free resources when they signed up to my RSS feed (when you subscribe to my RSS feed, you get a free copy of chapter five of my Psychic Awakening course.)  There is sometimes a delay with receiving the materials as you get the link to them at the end of new posts on your RSS feed.  At times you may have to wait a few days since I don’t blog every day.  If you have any problems with subscribing or getting the resources, just let me know and I can send them to you.

New Website Feedback

I’ve had some wonderful feedback from people about my new website – thanks to everyone who has emailed me to give their feedback.  The new website has definitely changed the way people are using the site – how long people spend on the site (longer) and how many people visit the site and then click away again immediately (the bounce rate) – this has decreased, which means that the site is doing its job.  It just shows that when you send out a clear message in terms of what the website is about, it helps!

Affiliate program

I didn’t properly announce when I opened my affiliate program a few months ago for the psychic awakening course.  I’m announcing it now. If you are a psychic and don’t have your own course or you have a blog about psychic development, you may be interested in recommending it.  I pay out 35% commission when you sell a copy (that’s about $87 US).  I’ve had really great feedback from the people who have done it so far and would love to get it out to more people.  Just get in touch via this page if you’re interested in recommending it to your clients/readers.

If you’ve got any questions or comments just leave me a reply.

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Free downloads for Subscribers: Chapter one of the Psychic Awakening course
Readings: Career and life purpose readings – I can tell you your ideal career
Psychic Awakening course: Anna’s intensive 13 week course
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