“Yes, there are also a host of paranormal events that commonly cause people to conclude they are psychic. But intuition, empathy, and their associated judgments and projections along with feeling or witnessing paranormal phenomena are not fully reliable metrics for measuring psychic potential.”

Basic psychic development demands mastering psychic attunement. An advanced psychic is one who most skillfully employs basic psychic attunement. Do you understand what psychic attunement is? This article will teach you what psychic attunement is and why it is important.

Although the focus of my work as a professional coach and  Psychic in Los Angeles is not teaching psychic development, both in private appointments and through correspondence I am frequently asked for psychic development guidance. This is a good thing.

It is very common for individuals who witness paranormal or psychic-like events to be confused or to feel the need to develop psychically in order to control their sensory experiences. I understand.

There was a time, early on, when I too questioned the reality of my own anomalous perceptions. I also reached out to individuals who advertised themselves as psychics for clarification. To be honest, though, the answers I received from the people to whom I inquired were not helpful. For this reason and others, I appreciate the opportunity to point questioning individuals in a constructive direction based on my now nearly three decades of professional experience.

How to tell if you are psychic

There are many common signs people use to rationalize that they are psychic. I say rationalize because really when looking for signs of psi-functioning what people are actually doing is seeking a reason to give themselves permission to accept ESP is real before believing they are psychic.

Reconfiguring one’s identity to that of a “psychic” is understandably scary. The common sense understanding of what being psychic is should concern people. Psychics, and in many cases rightly so, are popular objects of ridicule, suspicion, and scorn. For these reasons, the average person naturally feels unsafe coming out as a psychic. But when the signs are there and one is mindful of their intentions, developing your psychic capacity is safe and needn’t change you or your relationships with your loved ones in any way that warrants ridicule.

Psychic development is least disruptive when it coincides with the development of your character – the capacity to love yourself and accept others more fully as they are. Too often, however, psychic development is covertly a platform for self-aggrandizement under the guise of elevating one’s self spiritually – even when devotees pay lip service to all the “right ideas”.  So, before you begin psychic development, why not examine whether psychic development is relevant to your life’s goals, your intimate relations, and your vocational needs?

“In actual fact, these implicit rudimentary sensations are what commonly confuse sensitives. So much so, that when focused on, paranormal iconography stifles genuine spiritual and psychic development leading to a kind of fundamentalist religiosity.”

Signs you might have psychic potential:

Lists that chronicle the attributes of psychically sensitive people are similar. Most contain references to precognitive or weird dreams, seeing ghosts or spirits, and being especially empathetic or intuitive. With respect to being empathic or intuitive, what’s being described are feelings of being put upon by the “energy” of others. Or, the capacity to recognize emotional or behavioral patterns. These sensibilities, however, are very human but not necessarily an indicator of psi-functioning.

There are a host of other paranormal events that commonly cause people to conclude they are psychic as well. But to be clear, intuition, empathy, and their associated judgments and projections along with feeling or witnessing paranormal phenomena are not fully reliable metrics for measuring psychic potential. This is particularly true when spooky perceptions alone are the foundation for an individual’s psychic identity.

Sensing ghosts, entities, or energy are also not justifications for psychic development. In actual fact, these implicit rudimentary sensations are what commonly confuse sensitives. So much so, that when focused on, paranormal iconography stifles genuine spiritual and psychic development leading to a kind of fundamentalist religiosity. If something as fringe as ESP could have its own occult fringe, this is it.

There is nothing to fear from within or without during psychic development. To discern something psychically does not require a communicator. Therefore, to be unnerved by what you feel does not mean you are under an invisible threat. Please understand psychic development increases sensitivity which can enhance a sense of vulnerability. To conceive of yourself as a victim of that which you sense paranormally is to inflate your significance. A good psychic development process run by a qualified instructor who understands psi-functioning and its impact on the mind can help strengthen your tolerance for and understanding of your own felt experiences. What you must know is you needn’t be afraid since it is the same field of awareness upon which your thoughts blossom that also pervades the mind, body, and being of all creation. When this is understood extrasensory perception is no longer extraordinary or paranormal. It is natural.

Let’s now consider when genuine psychic ability might be present.

You might have psychic potential if:

• You see something factual very clearly in your mind’s eye while hearing someone speak to you – only no one actually said anything to you about what you specifically saw subjectively
• You habitually experience verifiable precognitive events.
• The sound of a voice reveals detailed information about the personal history and identity of the individual speaking without other contextual details
• You can communicate historically accurate facts that can be objectively verified by remotely feeling the atmosphere of a location.

The reason I deliberately stated, “you might have psychic potential if”,  is genuine psychic development, the kind that yields a professional level ability to serve others, takes years of practice and personal commitment. Your belief in ESP does not alone determine you are psychic. We must raise the bar.

Raising the bar means going beyond common sense rationalizations of psychic ability that result from conflating intuition and empathy with religious and paranormal beliefs that serve only to diagnose a psychic persona rather than meaningfully serving the wellbeing of others.

The body as an instrument can detect and experience anomalous sensations that the ego-mind can then distort to confirm any belief needed by the ego to sustain itself. This means seeing a ghost or having a fantastic dream while common among psychic people does not mean you are psychic. A greater indicator of psychic ability is your response to anomalous perceptions. How being receptive to such an event does or does not lead to subsequent psi-functioning that is objectively verifiable and free of grandiosity or fear.

I know focusing on serves and how one responds to psychic-like experiences as an indicator of psychic ability contradicts the popular notion, that all people are psychic. But to assert “all are psychic” unchecked, as too many psychic development teachers who religiously advocate for the reality of ESP do, is in this author’s view inaccurate and problematic.  The reason I am not a fan of the platitude everyone is psychic is the implication is that there is not much work that needs doing. You are born psychic. And once you recognize it all you need to do is get going calling attention to yourself without regard to how you might influence others. I am exaggerating the self-centered aspect of my concern to highlight a point. Nevertheless, this mindset, big or small, is present among people who identify as psychic because at the core of this problem is the assumption that “all are psychic and especially me”.  Since many genuinely believe this, it needs to be challenged to ensure the quality of service.

Accepting a psychic identity for yourself is far more than just believing all people are psychic and then lecturing on angels or the afterlife based on your paranormal perceptions. Proper psychic development requires understanding psi-functioning in terms of how it functions within your mind and body as well as how it impacts others.  Learning to use ESP in service to others is not about advocating mystical beliefs. It is about skillfully dealing with the complexities of another’s wounds and having the capacity to interface directly with another’s psyche. If you do not understand the significant impact you can have interacting with the mind of another as if it is your own, you are not capable of working with the patterns of information that flow interdependently between sentient beings you are not fit to accept the responsibility for how your actions as a psychic subjectively impact your client’s experience of self.

To be psychic requires patient training and self-discipline. This cannot be overstated enough. More importantly, until you can accept ESP as the function of consciousness rather than a symbol of personal exceptionalism, being psychic is nothing more than operating as a mouthpiece for the ego – spewing out mental concepts to demonstrate delusional significance. But, if you are serious about meaningfully understanding your psychic potential and serving others consider the following.

Being Extrasensory is not Psychic. But all Psychics are Extrasensory

The hard truth is every sentient being is extrasensory – meaning our minds are continuously informed via the nervous system, like other animals, about the physical and non-physical environment. The mind is not the cause of extrasensory phenomena any more than the mind is the source of spiritual identity.

Mental mediumship and the perception of psychic phenomena occur within the context of the mind.  The mind then is the result of an innate capacity to separately collect and perceive information without asserting one’s conscious will. This is why when people first meditate they often are intimidated by the random and busy nature of their thoughts – as if thoughts are things happening “at” them. The mind is felt this way because you are not your mind and the mind by nature is discursive.

In search of the origin of psychic potential, we must first note the awareness that observes the mind. Most people miss the observing awareness because they are stuck in a confused identity created by relationship to the chaos of the mind. This means that since psi-functioning happens within the mind, and the mind is the birthplace of the ego, there are two ways to experience psychic perception. The first way is by personally believing I am my mind and I am special because the extrasensory contents of my mind are me. The second way of experiencing psychic perception is impersonal – the mind is a thing and I am eternal awareness observing the mental contents of this thing. The second mindset allows for spiritual evolution because awareness is not tethered to the mind and its fixation on a psychic ego identity.

Students of extrasensory perception must learn that observing awareness only seems implicit when it is actually explicit – meaning it is not part of the mind.

So, when it comes to psychic perception, a more accurate way to describe people’s innate psychic potential is to say all sentient beings are extrasensory but all people are not psychic. It is the ability to create inner objectivity – meaning to observe the mind as it functions without identifying with it or its contents is imperative.

Psychic attunement is a serious responsibility

To be psychic means possessing the ability to assert your will.  A psychic can deliberately perceive information that is commonly unconscious and or practically beyond the range of the physical senses in a manner that is – here is the important part –  factual, and meaningfully in service to others.

Another willful level of perception is reciprocation where the psychic asks questions and then listens to inner silence for the reply. This should not be attempted until the sensitive is first fluent in how their awareness reliable recognizes and relays information. Unless a young psychic is efficient with extrasensory perception attempting a reciprocating interface with inner silence will lead to mental rationalizations rather than fact-based objectively verifiable details.

A person who just habitually and spontaneously picks up information from other people and their surroundings, therefore, is not psychic. Such a person is extrasensory and perhaps can be trained if the ego is malleable toward humility and self-containment. But, until the intruding and overbearing ego-mind that senses the private personal spaces of others as relevant to its own needs is brought under control, to call that persona psychic is to aggrandize dysfunction that minimizes mentally violating the boundaries of others.

Be aware that the vigilant mind that spontaneously “knows” can lead to mature psi functioning when discipline, respect, and compassion are installed. But, the excitement of gleaning information does not mean you are psychic.

To mentally invade the psyche or aura of an unsuspecting person disrespects the sanctity of their autonomy. I know calling out who and who is not psychic is inflammatory. However, it is wise to be discerning. Violating boundaries results in trauma. As a psychic, you have the responsibility to safeguard your client’s boundaries which includes that information their psyche has compartmentalized. Failure to understand and lovingly negotiate boundaries can retraumatize your client and you the seer. Long-term undisciplined psi-functioning can contribute to stress-related illness that results from taxation due to reactivating trauma and on the nervous system that is functioning in other than ordinary ways.

A psychic person who invests time developing their expertise is a craftsman. An ethical and professionally trained psychic skillfully enters the psyche of another. You can call it aura, akasha, energy anatomy, or field of experience, it does not matter. The fact is a professional seer psychically accesses another with great care. They do not accidentally run roughshod over someone else’s psychological privacy offering as an excuse, “Sorry, I’m psychic”.

“The most common form of psychic development is to go more deeply into the personality and conflate psychic development with self-improvement and call it spiritual.”

Harnessing Psychic Ability

Harnessing stable harmonious psychic ability requires disentangling awareness from the stream of concepts and comparisons – the actual contents of your mind. The goal is the ability to sit still and observe mental phenomena including the deluded projections that bind us to the personality as defined by conceptual reality.

Follow my instruction and psychic phenomena will reveal themselves but they will feel relatively insignificant compared to how your life begins feeling more spacious, openhearted, and connected. Alternatively, the more common and easier psychic development path is also available.

The most common form of psychic development is to go more deeply into the personality and conflate psychic development with self-improvement and call it spiritual. Along this path, we redecorate our past and re-imagine our future by reinterpreting psychological and sensory experiences using mystical beliefs. In essence, it is like building a new facade over an existing structure. In this case, the old personality is covered over yet emboldened by functioning as a new identity while it covertly calls the shots from deep within.

Most psychic devotees do not make a conscious choice about which path to follow. Truthfully, one could argue that most students of psi functioning believe they are on a spiritual path when they are doing the more common work of serving their egoic personality. It is only through passing through the dark night of the soul that perhaps, later in life, the psychic practitioner comes to question the value of extrasensory perception in terms of how it may have built up the ego rather than dissolving it.

A frequent problem with psychic pursuits is believing you are on a spiritual path when you are not. You know this is the case when you suffer among other things, disillusionment. Avoiding disillusionment and psychic practice that is not aligned with your genuine spiritual goals and values requires discipline. Such structure, at least in the beginning, is best supplied by either a trusted mentor or a classroom that functions as a container for safe and properly motivated – meaning ego -oftening service-oriented – psychic development.

How to recognize a good psychic development program

1. A good psychic development class will teach you the art of attunement. This is the ability to deliberately shift your attention from observing “normal” thoughts to the underlying extrasensory flow that is rightly and normally in the background of the mind. Willful attunement protects your nervous system and prevents you from seeing psychic information spontaneously.
2.  A good psychic development class also instills the ability to recognize when you need to passively witness psychic information and how to proactively engage with the nonphysical and then observe the results.

Once you individuate as a more mature seer how you function psychically and how you uniquely serve will be your own. Suffice it to say each person’s psychic technique much like their subjective experience is unique. This being said, there are valuable fundamentals at the beginning – basic psychic procedures that are true and helpful for most people nearly all of the time. Follow these protocols as they are laid down by your instructor.

Psychic development instruction by an experienced teacher passes down hard-earned insight from one generation to the next. Sadly, the phenomenon “those that can’t do, teach” is rampant in the psychic world. Too many people are busy making money teaching psychic development in order to experience being an authority when they have not spent actual years serving clients day in and day out. Look for a teacher who lives and practices the work. Here’s a hint, they are rare as most of the best psychics live in obscurity and do not teach.

Be extremely discerning when seeking out a teacher. You can easily find psychics who will train you. But, the reason you must be discerning is they may only know how to trigger psychic processing. The inexperienced often have no actual skill helping you deal with your mind once it changes due to it processing sensory information in paranormal ways. Be warned. Long-term psychic development is not a game.

The first steps toward becoming psychic

We have established that a trained responsible psychic does not accidentally cross psychological boundaries and rationalize it as spiritual for the thrill of experiencing ESP. Instead, a psychic is deliberate and skillful in his or her methods and the outcome they strive for in service to their client. Therefore, the first step toward mastering extrasensory perception is learning to locate, create and honor secure boundaries. Do this and you will ensure well-being for yourself and those you serve.

Here is one final bit of advice concerning basic psychic development.

During psychic study focus on understanding the actual sensory functioning of the mind rather than acquiring mystical beliefs that seem to explain or validate your identity as a psychic. Direct observation of the mechanics of your mind – how you process information without focusing on the contents of the mind – is not easy. But it is far more effective than learning uplifting self-validating psychic ideas. Invest your time. Go slowly. And, you will achieve the best outcome from your psychic development.

I know it’s not very sexy to suggest psychic development requires not allowing your mind to spontaneously glean extrasensory details. Trust me. By going slow, observing, and disciplining your awareness you will develop both your character and psychically attuned focus – while also learning to willfully direct extrasensory perception. Above all, remember too that it is only by training your mind to recognize and uphold boundaries that you can then learn to soften them, safely pass through and restore them.  This is the art of psychic attunement. Master this and you are on your way to providing safe, self-less, and meaningful spiritual assistance. ☼