PsiOnline.org

by Devil's Advocate

The first very simple question is, "What is Visualization?" It seems relatively simple. It's forming a picture of what you want to do. The problem is when visualization gets mistaken for programming. The two are not the same. Visualization is the first step in programming. It is not, in and of itself, programming.

The primary purpose of visualization is to fix the idea of what you are attempting to accomplish in your own head, in terms you can easily and simply understand. The human mind is limited by what it can grasp. Now, I am not speaking in the terms of 'we only limit ourselves!' There are limits to everything. Try to actually conceptualize infinity. Intellectually it is easy to say 'it goes on forever', but the actual concept of infinity (the reality of endlessness) is not easy to fully conceptualize.

In the same manner, it is not easy to fully conceptualize psionics, especially for the beginner. Several things get in the way. The intangibility of the medium is the first roadblock. You can't touch telepathy. You can't see empathy. A shield is not something you can box up and give to your mother for Christmas. Telekinesis can be explained away by too many natural phenomena. These things make it difficult for the mind to grasp how what is occurring, works. Visualization, from a practical stand point, is designed to help over come this roadblock.

When a psion visualizes a psionic effect, they are creating a mental metaphor for what they are doing. Let us use a shield as an example. When a psion visualizes a wall between themselves and the outside world, they take the known tangible concept of 'a wall' and apply the same /concept/ to an utterly different mechanism. A wall is a known concept, a known blocking surface. Walls keep the wind and weather out of houses. Walls keep things out of gardens that are not supposed to be there. The visualization of a wall fixes the concept of a barrier into the psion's mind. It is this concept that is then translated into the actual programming process. No classic wall is created, but the concept of blocking something otherwise intangible was applied to a construct and to psionic energy (which form the shield). This is the basic building block for concept programming.

In more complicated settings visualization helps the mind grasp things that are either normally outside the realm of human experience, or are simply too complicated to easily map out step-by-step and still follow. Still using the shield example, you want a shield that will do more than one thing. You want it to block off only unwanted incoming projection and ambient noise. You want one that will redirect unwanted constructs away from you. You want one that constructs can't latch onto unless you want them to, and one that will 'give' a little if something pushes to hard against it, and anything it just can't block it lets through for other shields to deal with. Now, each individual concept is relatively simple to comprehend and follow and program. The whole is harder to juggle in its entirety. You choose the visualization of a finely made silk privacy curtain. It is very tightly woven. There are no loose threads to catch on and it gives rather than trying to resist while redirecting things and people away from you just by being there. This makes the entirety of the concept easier to grasp and easier to keep in mind as a whole as you program the shield. Then you can focus on what parts of that visualization you want to emphasize in the programming, such as a very 'tight weave' to the threads of the shield. (Note: Thread constructs are not a basic set of constructs. They take a great deal of practice to get right. This is not a beginner's shield, but it is a good example.)

Visualization is a useful tool for both beginners and advanced psions. It allows complicated programming to be done quickly, by concept rather than step by step. This has applications beyond constructs. Visualization in telepathy and empathy can achieve the same affect. We do not know the exact mechanisms either empathy or telepathy use to project and receive thought or emotion. This makes it very difficult for the mind to grasp telepathy enough to actually perform it other than on an inefficient reflexive level. Conscious control of the ability of telepathy requires some level of comprehension. The most common visualizations for telepathy are essentially of a 'signal' being sent out from the physical region of the head in a 'direction' to the individual in question. You do not have to know how the signal is getting there, the concept of the 'signal' is real enough and comprehensible enough to your mind that it works.

Psionics is, by definition, almost purely mental. It is what your mind comprehends that happens. Visualization is simply the tool your mind uses to wrap what it doesn't know in terms of what it does. This can lead to many useful additions as the 'concept' is larger than the visualization. For example, a shield that is visualized as faceted may disperse incoming energy, even if it wasn't specifically told to do so. The concept of faceting involves the diffusion and refraction of light. Even if the psion doesn't understand the mechanics behind it, he or she has probably seen a faceted gemstone and the concept is still there. Visualization and concept programming are intrinsically linked, and a clear visualization can save a great deal of effort to a concept programmer, but visualization is not the program, it is simply your mind organizing itself in terms it can understand, so it can act on that organization.