In the study of psionics, the mind is the psion's most important tool. It is used to program and direct energy, send and receive information, and to analyze the results of one's practices. Without our brains, we'd be unable to perform any type of psionic activity. While the human brain is an excellent tool, it has to be in excellent psychological condition for a psion to use it to its full potential.

While this may sound simple enough, merely avoiding psychological disorders isn't quite enough for psionicists; they must take extra steps. Undue amounts of stress, strong negative emotions, and troublesome subconscious programming can hold a psion back from his or her true potential. In order to obtain maximum benefit from one's practices, the mind must be well cared for.

In this article, I will outline the basic parts of psychology that affect one's psionic performance, explain how and why they affect performance, and what to do to psychologically "tune-up" your mind for psionics.

First, you must understand how we get from thinking about what we want to do with psi, to the psi actually doing it. We already know that psi is controlled by the mind. However, the human mind is composed of two seperate parts, both of which are needed in order for any type of consciously-controlled psionic activity to occur.

The first part of the mind, the conscious mind, is something that most people are familiar with. The conscious part of your mind is the part that's currently thinking about this information as you read it. It's the part of your mind you control; the part where you think, solve mathematical problems, and visualize. It's the part that you define as your self.

The second part is the subconscious mind. The name of the subconscious is actually misleading, as it is not in any way subservient to the conscious mind. The subconscious is the part of your mind that does things automatically, without your conscious mind having to think about it. Things like controlling your heartbeat, breathing, and digestion are controlled by your mind, among other important things. The subconscious is also the part of the mind that has the ability to control psi, something the conscious mind cannot do.

So, in order to make psi do something, the conscious mind must first decide what it wants to do. Then, via intent, the order is relayed to the subconscious, which actually does the work. The diagram below shows this system in action:

Conscious Mind

“Let's make a psiball!”

:::sends message to subconscious

Subconscious Mind

“Okay, sounds like a plan!”

:::programs psi

Psi

“Yay, I'm a psiball!”

It's simple enough, really. At least, it is when the system works. Unfortunately, our subconscious mind, in an attempt to be “helpful” often hinders psionic work.

The subconscious is constantly calculating and gathering information. When we get a “gut feeling” about something, or “instinct” tells us to do something, it's our subconscious trying to clue us in to something that we missed. Often, one's subconscious mind can solve a mystery or problem long before the conscious can do the same. Since this is so, our subconscious minds have evolved into sort of a protective mechanism, that prevents us from going into harm's way.

Fear, for example, is a product of the subconscious mind. The subconscious picks up things about the world around us, basic things like what can harm us, how the world works, etc. and stores them. Then, when the conscious mind does something that contradicts the subconscious's idea of what is normal and safe, the subconscious kicks in by giving us a fear or a gut feeling, in an attempt to stop the conscious mind from doing what the subconscious deems dangerous or foolish.

The problem with psi, here, is that we live in a skeptical society. It's normal to think that psi, magick, and the like are mere fairy tales, and not a part of reality. However, on the other hand, we have loads of horror movies in which unknown, occult powers terrorize or kill people. Over time, our subconscious minds, which cannot tell the difference between television and reality, pick up this information and come to believe that either paranormal abilities are not real, or that they are dangerous. Sometimes, a combination of these is affected: the subconscious can believe that, say, psychokinesis is perfectly possible and safe, but believe that telepathy has unseen horrors. A subconscious mind's conclusions depend solely on the types of media and experiences one has been exposed to.

When the subconscious thinks that an ability is impossible, or could lead to harm, it shuts the ability off either partially or completely. Due to this, many people have trouble with particular skills, or psionics in general. These misconceptions by the subconscious mind are called “psychological blocks”, and are a psion's worst enemy. When psychological blocks come into play, the psi process ends up looking more like this:

Conscious mind

“Let's make a psiball!”

:::sends message to subconscious

Subconscious mind

“YOU FOOL, DIDN'T YOU SEE “THE EXORCIST”??? THAT KIND OF PARANORMAL STUFF KILLS PEOPLE!!! NO WAY!!!”

:::does nothing

This is a major problem for a psion. Luckily, blocks are by no means permanent and can be removed. If you're having trouble with a specific skill, it could very well be the result of a block, and you need to find the cause of it and deal with it. Ideally, beginners in particular should deal with any blocks they have before beginning training.

To begin, one must find the source of one's block. There are a few ways to do this, but the simplest, particularly for beginners, is to simply ask oneself questions. Let's say you have a block about telepathy. You must ask yourself two basic questions:

Do I believe telepathy is possible?

Do I fear telepathy for some reason?

The important thing here is to go with your honest, first response to the question, not a secondary, analytical one. For example, you may consciously know from research and reading that telepathy is possible and safe, but the second you ask your question you may immediately feel fear of telepathy. This first feeling is your subconscious talking. If you wait to answer the question, your conscious mind will take over with its knowledge that, no, telepathy is not dangerous at all. You have to ignore the conscious in this case; it's the subconscious that's the problem.

Once you've answered these two questions, if you got a “yes” for either one, you need to ask yourself follow-up questions. Why do you fear telepathy? Is it because you're afraid someone could read your innermost thoughts and secrets? Do you believe psychokinesis is impossible simply because your parents bombarded you with the idea that such things were utter idiocy your entire youth? Find the cause of the problem; until you know it, you can do nothing to fix it.

Oftentimes, there will be more than one cause. For example, a person may fear psychokinesis for religious reasons (the “I'll go to hell for it!” syndrome) and because they fear they'll be unable to control the power. Others, particularly those with low self-esteem, may not believe that they, themselves can actually do it. As a result of this, they also fear trying to do it because they don't wish to try and fail.

After discovering the reasons for your subconscious fears and disbelief, you can begin to break down these psychological blocks. There are a number of methods for doing this, and while some psions use solely one method, others use a combination of them. The most important thing to do it to try a variety of methods, and use the one that works best for you. If more than one method is effective, then by all means use more than one. It takes time to break a psychological block, anywhere from a few days to several weeks, depending on how deeply the block is seated in your subconscious mind.

The first method is research. Psychological blocks are created by heavy exposure to certain ideas and beliefs; thus, logically, they can be undone by heavy exposure to other ideas. Read information on the skill you have a block about. Read about how it works, why it works, find scientific studies demonstrating its existance. Find a forum or chatroom and talk to more experienced psions about the technique and its dangers, ask them about your concerns, and they'll most likely explain to you how things work and put your mind at ease.

The important thing is to study, study, and do more study. Watch TV specials about the skill you're learning, see movies demonstrating it (no horror/thriller movies though; we don't want to undo the work we're doing by supporting your fears), see if you can get other psions to demonstrate their skills for you, or better yet on you, so that your subconscious mind can see that there is no danger. Over time, your subconscious will change its beliefs and allow you to perform the techniques.

A second method is the affirmation. An affirmation is a simple phrase that says something specific, such as “Psychokinesis is possible.” This phrase is repeated over and over, and the subconscious picks up on that. Repeat the phrase throughout the day in your mind, say it out loud several times when you get up in the morning, or go to bed at night. Pick a random tune and repeatedly sing it in the shower. Put a post-it on your computer monitor with the phrase written on it. Just repeat it until your subconscious decides that it is, in fact, true.

The third method is through deep meditation or self-hypnosis. In both of these states, one can influence the subconscious much more easily than in a regular state of mind, allowing one to more quickly overcome a psychological block. Some people can even speak with their subconscious directly in these states, and quite literally explain to it why there's no problem with what they're trying to learn. I'm not going to explain methods of meditation or self-hypnosis here, since they are beyond the scope of this article, but there are many excellent articles all over the Internet on such things. Look in the “Links” section of this site for a few of them.

While tearing down psychological blocks is key for someone who wants to excel in the field of psionics, it is also important to control the conscious mind. This might sound easy to most people, who simply say “It's my mind, I can control it just fine!”. That, however, is not true. There are many things that interfere with our conscious mind. The subconscious is one, but there is another.

This other factor is emotion. Emotion can cause you to do stupid things sometimes, things you regret doing later. At the time, you didn't have full conscious control of what you were doing. Your emotion was driving you, and influencing your actions. You didn't think logically about what you were doing; you simply did what your emotions told you to. This is a major problem for a psion, because it shows that emotion takes away a part of one's conscious thinking ability.

For this reason, it is vitally important that one never practice psionics while angry, upset, or otherwise emotionally charged. Even positive emotions like happiness can interfere with psionics. It is important that one is as devoid of emotion as possible during practice sessions, because this allows one to have maximum control over one's abilities. In addition, practicing in a calm, emotionless state regularly will give you the ability to quickly reach that state whenever you need to, allowing you to stop emotions in their tracks, or to calm yourself to use your maximum psionic ability whenever you need it.

The most common way of doing this is via centering, or a form of meditation. Centering is a pretty simple thing; one simply needs to focus on one particular thing completely for a while to remove all emotion. This is why people with anger management issues are often told to count to ten when they are angry; concentrating on counting will help them to forge their anger and become calm once again. As a matter of fact, counting is the simplest method for centering. Another useful method is to do controlled breathing, and focus on your breath length for a while. As always, find what works best for you.

Excessive amounts of stress can also hinder one's psionic performance. Make sure to relax regularly and manage the things that cause you stress. If absolutely necessary, quit psionic training for a while, especially if your stress problem is the result of a lack of progress in psionics or a lack of time. The time off from psionic training can have a significant positive effect on your stress levels.

There are, of course, several other factors involved in the usage of psi, but this article is meant to cover only the basics. If you take the time to find the others, you can fine-tune your mind to be even more efficient. Just keep in mind that while it is often neglected, psychology is one of the most important influencing factors in psionics, and practice with that in mind.