Thoughts on Psychic Abilities

(From the Wednesdays in Chicago Spiritism Classes June 21, 2017)

Note: The interview below was with Kurt Leland, an author who has written several books. His website is www.KurtLeland.com. There are additional insights from James Van Praagh’s website http://www.vanpraagh.com/. James is a medium who has authored ten books, and he also offers classes, appears frequently on television, and at his own events.

QUESTION: A lot of people are interested in developing their psychic powers. What advice would you give them?
KURT LELAND (KL): When we hear a term such as psychic powers, we tend to think of them as something other than normal, from an unknown realm or level of being - or something to be afraid of or acquired by force or practice. Typically such abilities might be called telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance (seeing auras), second sight (perceiving spirits), remote viewing, astral travel, or even a "magical influence" over people and events. I think of psychic powers as the natural coexistence of living within and evolving our human bodies. My advice to people who want to develop so-called psychic powers is not to target specific name-brand abilities, but rather to develop your existing abilities and see what shows up. 

JAMES VAN PRAAGH (JVP): In Greek, the word psychic means “of the soul”, and that is the secret to enhancing your intuition. To access the voice of your soul, you must turn down the noise and static of everyday life – even if it’s just for a few minutes a day. You can do this by meditating, journaling, or by taking a quiet, mindful walk. Practice this every day and you will find your connection to your own “inner knowing” and to the Spirit world growing stronger. All mediums are psychic, but all psychics have not necessarily developed to the point where they can communicate with the Spirit world as a medium. Spirits vibrate at a much higher frequency than the living. In order to bridge the gap and make a connection, a medium must raise his or her own vibration higher and, in turn, Spirit has to lower its vibration so the two can meet. 

QUESTION: Why would you say people today feel so distant from those unseen, subtle levels or abilities?
KL: They are locked in their mental material bodies, as a result of family and social conditioning, and materialism leads to skepticism. An overdeveloped mental body is like an overdeveloped physical body – the focus is becoming one thing (muscle-bound), which reduces the flexibility or ability to see anything else. A mind that is only focused on increasing size and strength (with mathematical, linguistic, and reasoning abilities) is also reduced in flexibility or receptivity. 

The mental body becomes like a fearful teenager hiding in his or her bedroom, with thoughts speeded up through stimulation by social media, electronic devices, and computer games, and dominated only by a series of likes and dislikes. This results in anxiety, indecisiveness, and black-and-white thinking. To the mental body isolated in this way, the physical body seems bent on betraying us, there’s no soul, or inner spirit to guide us, and the whole purpose of life seems to be managing our anxiety. 
Think of the body as needing three distinctive things: 
- The physical body needs experiences that are based on the senses – exercise, healthy food, beautiful surroundings, bare feet on the grass or beach, maybe a satisfying sex life. 
- The emotional body needs authentic heart-to-heart connections with others. 
- The mental body needs the experience of a community of others who share our beliefs and values, which helps us to define our usefulness and purpose. 
Acting in a humanitarian manner, feeling, thinking, and serving is when our spiritual powers begin to unfold, as we are using our physical, emotional and mental bodies all at once. We start seeing with our inner senses, providing new ways of looking at the world we normally experience in just one category. 

QUESTION: Whom would you advise not to undergo psychic development?
KL: Anyone who is anxious, depressed, or prone to exaggerated states of enthusiasm or elation or to the point of obsessive or addictive behavior. These states strain in the relationship between our body and the consciousness that we call ourselves. Those issues need to be overcome before psychic development can be pursued safely. 

The problem with anxieties and fears is that they attract what we are afraid of, resulting in interactions with undesirable spirits. Undesirable interactions may also occur with depression. The problem with enthusiasm or elation is that it makes everything we experience seem more glamorous than it really is, resulting in self-deception or deception by prankish or malevolent entities. We need to learn how to maintain a balanced, clear-headed perspective as we investigate the possibilities of our own abilities. 

JVP: There are different levels of consciousness and other dimensions of life that exist beyond the physical one. Think of the vastness of the universe – and it will make sense that spirits don’t necessarily communicate as you would expect them to. Spirit communication is like speaking a foreign language. Words might not have a common meaning but images and emotions are universal. I receive these psychic images from spirit as images or emotions, and it’s my job to interpret these messages. 

QUESTION: Why do mediums sometimes get the wrong message? 
JVP: Because the spirits communicate in symbols, mediums can’t always interpret symbols correctly. For example, a spirit might be touching her throat – which could have something to do with a necklace or the fact that she had lost her voice, or that she had a medical issue involving her throat. 

QUESTION: Why is so much of society today dead set against believing in the existence of the psychic realms? 
KL: Religious teachings in many cultures indicate that such things are distractions on the spiritual path and possibly the product of malevolent beings such as the Christian devil. Scientific materialism has persuaded us that psychic realms, spiritual paths, malevolent beings, and the devil are nothing but superstitions. 

The scientific view that the physical body is a machine that gradually wears out and needs to be ‘fixed’ by an ever-expanding medicine chest of only partially effective remedies. The metaphysical view that the body is a conscious entity that needs care, that it could be our friend, and that we might have ways of learning from it.. As humans, we have the potential to rise from lowest physical level to the highest spiritual range, as we explore and develop our multidimensional humanity – and our ability to respond appropriately to each other and to other realms and beings for the mutual benefit of all.