What Is Psychic Ability?
Psychic ability has been a controversial subject throughout history. Sometimes called "psi," from the first letter of the Greek word for "psyche," a psychic occurrence is any form of communication that comes from a non-sensory source that cannot be explained by current scientific knowledge. A psychic ability is the ability to repeatedly enter into a state of consciousness that allows this occurrence to happen.
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Types of Psychic Abilities
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Psychic abilities are still a mystery to investigators. Researchers classify psychic abilities into many types. Among the most well-known and studied are astral travel or "out of body" experiences, clairvoyance and mediumship. Others include phenomena like automatic writing, divination (fortune telling), precognition (the ability to predict the future) and telepathy (the ability to communicate via thought alone). Often, a psychic who has one ability also has other related abilities.
Out of Body Experiences (OBE)
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Astral travel is the ability to leave one's body. One frequently reported psychic occurrence is known as "astral travel" or an "out of body experience" (OBE). In an OBE, a person experiences the sensation of leaving his body and traveling in his subtle or astral body to a distant location. There have been many recorded instances that show that the information individuals received while out of the body was accurate and could not have been acquired by any other known means.
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Clairvoyance
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Clairvoyance is the ability to see things psychically. Clairvoyance is the ability to see distant events psychically. This ability is also called "remote viewing." Remote viewing came to public attention in the 1990s when the CIA released documents surrounding its remote viewing experiments at Stanford Research Institute and elsewhere through the 1970s and 1980s. According to H.E. Puthoff, the founder and first director of the program, the program "yielded considerable scientific evidence for the reality of the phenomenon," according to a 1996 article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration..
Intuition
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Intuition seems to come from "out of the blue." Intuition is an inexplicable "hunch" that an event is going to occur. Because intuition often proves to be false or statistically insignificant, many people dismiss it as "imagination." Others, though, feel that intuition is a genuine awakening of psychic ability and can be developed with practice. Methods for improving intuition include meditation and other techniques designed to quiet the active mind and "listen" inwardly for intuitive guidance.
Mediumship
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Mediumship has historically been associated with witchcraft. A psychic medium is also known as a "channeler." A medium often seems to go into a trance. At others times, her voice is involuntarily taken over by the voice of a disincarnate being or entity. Many psychologists feel that this is a pathological condition similar or identical to multiple personality disorder, but other researchers believe that genuine instances of mediumship do occur.
One of history's most famous mediums was the well documented case of Catherine Elise Muller. Although he went to great lengths to discredit her in his 1900 book, "From India to the Planet Mars," Professor Théodore Flournoy of the University of Geneva nonetheless admitted that her knowledge of ancient events in India was inexplicable. Many researchers believe that psychic mediumship is an inherited ability.
Can Psychic Abilities be Learned?
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There is no consensus regarding psychic abilities. There is no common consensus that psychic abilities can or cannot be taught or learned. Some researchers suggest that psychic abilities seem to be primarily inherited and that often psychic abilities diminish with age. Others, like Robert Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute and author of "Journeys Out of the Body" (published by the Monroe Institute) and other books about his own experiences in astral travel, believe that entering a dream-like "theta" state of consciousness is the key to acquiring psychic abilities. Still others believe that psychic powers can be dangerous and are a hindrance to spiritual development.
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