PsiOnline.org

by InnerFire

I've finally pooled enough data to do at least an add-on if not a sequel to the first troubleshooting article. I hope this continues to be useful for people. This will try and follow the same format and general feel of the first article.

What More is There to Know?

First off slap yourself for asking this question, there's *always* more to know. This guide will cover more on what wasn't in the first article. Some topics may be just information that was not included in the first article, but in general more advanced and complicated topics will be covered herein. Considering that, it would be advisable to find and read the first article if you haven't yet. For those who are still having issues performing various activities, the first section contains more information on overcoming some mental roadblocks. For those of you looking for more help on general advancement, the second section contains information on how to better manage your energy, how to use some techniques better, and includes a set of basic guidelines on how to progress in most areas of psionics. The third section contains additional information about special situations, states, etcetera.

I. Trusting Yourself

A New Prelude

The mind is a funny thing. A problem can either be more complicated than it seems or a lot more basic than it seems. This section will go over a lot of situations like that, and also some more common problems. If the information in this section and the information in the last article does not help you, direct your attention to the "How to Ask for Help" section in the third part of this article. So I don't have to put a note in every section here, remember that some of the topics contained pertain to rare or uncommon problems, so you should remember to consider more likely problems first. Hey, and after reading through this far you thought I was going to cheat you out of a random show quote that was oddly applicable... Hell no! It just turned out to be so big and profound that it gets its own section this time.

Truth

"Sunny days make you happy, rainy days make you sad. But you can have fun on a rainy day too." "Your truth can be changed simply by the way you accept it, that's how fragile the truth for a human is"

This particular tidbit is from the last episode of Evangelion, (one of my favorite animes), and I find it particularly useful in many parts of life, not just for psionics. While it is likely that there are *some* absolutes, a great deal of things in life function based on how you perceive or think about them. Without any thought you trust that you're capable of walking when you get out of bed in the morning. It is second nature to you. Now that's a bit of an extreme example, but consider this: especially in athletics, when you go into a situation all psyched and ready to destroy, you can do more. However, when you go into a situation where you think that you can't or don't want to accomplish your goal, you feel like you can't do nearly as much. You are in fact making your own truth, and because of your profound acceptance of it (you usually don't stop to consider these kinds of feelings so your mind lets them in easily), your body changes to match what you accept..

At this point you are probably thinking something like "well if that's true why can't I just levitate that object sitting next to me into the air, I think it's 'truth' that I can do it" or something similar. Unfortunately it is not that easy. Even if you rule out the necessary focus and energy needed to do such an action, as you say or think that statement another part of you doesn't accept it. Although for some things you can do it easily and without much thought, 100% acceptance of an idea is incredibly hard to pull off (as most of the times when it is done easily, it is done on a subconscious level). There is good news however, you rarely need to believe 100% in something. The more you believe in it the easier the action becomes to do, but this does not mean you always *need* a great deal of belief. The next thing is pretty good news too, even if it doesn't count for much, in performing an action you are accepting that it could be possible. If you didn't have any acceptance of the idea, you would not even consider trying it. The point where an action is possible is determined by a possessing a certain amount of trust that the action possible, then of course whether you have the ability to do it. For most situations this is not an issue, since for physical activity you are fairly certain of about most actions being possible or not possible, there are lots of fun medical diagrams demonstrating the proper muscles and such needed to accomplish different activities. What's more theres always people telling you and showing you that it is possible, your friends, relatives, coaches... Psionics typically doesn't have that.

So where's the point in that paragraph? Well, the point is that while belief is not the absolute cure for everything, it does matter. Not in the cliche application you see in most movies when someone starts talking about belief, but in the sense that if you don't want to do the action or think you can't do it, you will not be able to do it even if you are fully capable of doing that action. However, you can change this. Just by knowing this concept you can change the situation, since usually the thing telling you that you can't do it is the result of your own perception. You simply must think of that fact, maybe even think of the quote at the beginning of this section. (Before psionics you might want to try this with some regular real world thing, so you can see whether the idea works for you)

Again don't think of this as an end all cure, if that was true there wouldn't be any sections after this one. Besides just the difficulty of convincing yourself enough, theres other issues that will hinder your ability to gain that necessarily belief. Like I said before, if you don't think you can do it, you have no hope of doing it no matter how good you are. Now having no belief at all is rather rare, or even so little that it would a problem that you could not get over given time, the problem is when a belief problem combines with other problems, then you will have to learn to control this to your favor. This also has some application with emotional issues which we'll talk about more in part three.

Note: My 'don't get people hurt' sense is tingling so its time to give some kind of warning. Be careful what truth you challenge. In the end I can only say so much, but remember that although belief is really important, you still need the necessary ability ability to do the action after you got belief squared away. Also warning signs (i.e. feeling pain in some form) are typically not what you want to dispute. Although you might be able to get more performance in the short run, in the psychic realm of activity you are much more likely to hurt yourself. Now you might surprise me with what's possible, I just want to say 'be careful', for when you challenge something you accept the consequences. When you jump off a cliff to challenge the notion that you cannot fly, you take the risk of hitting the bottom. Take careful consideration of what you go after with the ideas I placed in this section.

Underlying Issues

In most situations it is common sense to go after the source of a problem instead of just repeatedly fighting the effects. You will sometimes have to do this in psionics as well. If a mental block you have seems incredibly resilient there may be some deeper cause for it. If deep down you have some problem with the activity you wish to do, you are going to have trouble doing it. This is where self examination comes in, make sure you have no problems with whatever you're doing. I obviously can't predict every single issue but just to give you an idea some stuff would be:

1. Not wanting your parents/friends/gerbil to find out, thus you should never get to the level where there is something to find out
2. Being scared of what you might be able to do if you continue to advance
3. Deep down not wanting to do that skill in the first place for some reason
4. Having some religious conflict with what you're doing

Mine was incredibly specific but I did have this problem myself. From experience I can say that although treating the underlying issue doesn't instantly fix everything, it certainly does help.

The Good and Bad of Imposing Limits

At the basic level, putting reasonable limits on yourself is a good thing. Control keeps you from going too far and suffering injury. And we all know that hurting yourself is bad. However, you have to remember that sometimes a limit can start to mean to you that it is the highest level you can ever achieve. Going back to the section 'Truth', if you limit yourself enough enough that way, that limit will become your truth and it will become a wall you will have great difficulty getting over. Limits are good as a safety measure, but you should never set them so rigid that you come to believe that it's impossible for you to do anything beyond your limit. Also remember to over a period of time carefully allow yourself to do more, because after a while you should be stronger and able to practice *slightly* longer.

The opposite of that idea applies as well. You can do just as much damage by not setting a limit or setting it too high. A lot of people use the muscle analogy and think that the longer they practice the better they will be. Because of this they strain themselves severely. First off, it is very rarely that simple, there are a lot more factors than just hammering as long as you can to psychic progression. Sometimes you have to stop and take a break, so your mind can process what you have done. Also you must remember to take the muscle analogy the rest of the way, if you practice too hard you'll injure yourself. When you seriously overstrain yourself you get what is called a burnout. If you hit this you'll know it because you'll typically become very tired and be incapable of doing any significant psychic activity until you recover. Note that this is not always only temporary damage, if you manage to overwork yourself enough, you can cause permanent damage. So don't think you can work really hard, wait through the burnout, and then keep going. It will not work. For our readers that worry a lot relax, you have to overwork yourself to a pretty boneheaded level to manage hurt yourself that way. Unfortunately there are some people that do just that.

*Responsible* Forcing

Heads up as there will be a lot of cautions in this paragraph as you can seriously hurt yourself if you do this incorrectly

First before I say anything else note the RESPONSIBLE tag. Ideally nothing or almost nothing should be reckless, angry, or done with frustration, your actions should be controlled. However, sometimes there is a time to apply additional focus. Extra focus at the base level increases the amount of force you're applying on something and thus you can get better output. Also it strengthens your resolve and can help resolve some minor subconscious issues. This should never be too intense, it should be above a relaxed state but below frustrated or agitated. If you get a headache you should cease this IMMEDIATELY. In some areas, especially TK, although this can be helpful, the added strain it puts can be rather dangerous.

Relax (Again)

I know this topic was covered in the last article, but this is just something so important that it can't be overstated. So many people overlook taking time to relax. If you start to get frustrated, trying to struggle through is the worst thing you can do. Your frustration will cause you to do less, which will add more frustration. Eventually you'll follow that loop down to the point where you don't think you can do anything (also you'll probably feel like crap at that point). Take a second, stop, relax, maybe meditate a little, then go back with a fresh mind. Getting frustrated only serves to heighten any problem you might be having, so it should be avoided at all costs. Don't make your break too long however, or you might label it as giving up. And that is bad because it will leave you with a little lingering frustration when you try again, since you will remember failing the last time.

Coincidental Reinforcement II

Last time I touched on what Coincidental Reinforcement was, but not so much on how to respond to it. Throwing aside the issues about it messing up your energy consumption (since that was sufficiently discussed in the last article), there are some general rules on how to deal with it:

1) It's a lot harder than it sounds, but try to avoid frustration. Refer to the Relax section about that. Coincidental Reinforcement tends to largely correspond to your frustration, so a good way to control it is to avoid getting frustrated.

2) As an alternative to just relaxing (which you might not always be able to do), find a way to bend the 'screwed up' results to fit what you want. You feel frustrated and make the problem worse *because* you see it as a problem. If you try to make it no longer a problem, things will become much better. In my experience this was a big problem in micro-tk. When I was rolling a dice, another number would get forced instead of my intended number. I figured out that it was a response because I was expecting not to have a successful test, and once chance had laid the seed that another number might come up a lot more, the effect kicked in to fulfill my expectation. This died down though after I started taking the Coincidental Reinforcement results when they were really high and counting them as a significant result and walking away happy with the test. Now this problem still can happen but its a lot less common now that I did that. Also the plus with this is even if the problem continues like it did a little for me, you're no longer letting it get to you :)

3) This one will probably not work for some people but it is worth mentioning, Coincidental Reinforcement also comes from the idea that you're expecting it to happen but think you can't stop it from happening. However, if you start experiencing this problem often, you should be able to look at it and see that you do have some level of control, after all at the base level you are expecting something to happen and it happens like you partially wanted. Ignoring the fact that its routed through your subconscious you are in a way controlling things (you can even sometimes purposely start the Coincidental Reinforcement process, and that definitely is controlled). You have to realize that your lack of control is an illusion. Although not being able to stop something is not *good* control, it is not no control at all. If you had no control over the situation you would not be able to anything at all, the fact that you can effect it shows you have some control.

Finishing on a High Note

One of the best ways to avoid frustration is to always try to end your practice with a success (when applicable). It sends an entirely different message to your subconscious then ending with a neutral result or a failure. The last two situations leave you with the expectation that the next test will be just as messed up, and you focus on the negatives. However if you end with a success you end up expecting to do the same or better in your next practice. This is also easy to do, either don't stop (provided that you still feel able to go on; generally spending too much time trying to do something can cause strain) or stop when whatever you were trying to do works. So thus with a little maneuvering you limit frustration and potentially boost your rate of success in the next practice instead of lowering it.

Pulling it All Together

A lot of the stuff in this section is easily said but hard to actually accomplish. From deep down believing what you think you believe to just relaxing, following this advice is going to take some work. *But* if you really work at it you will get a level of control that will carry you through almost anything. At this point if you're still having a problem, I have no clue what is going to fix it, either you're not doing something properly or you are the lucky person that has whatever isn't 'almost anything'. Either way I wish you luck, and for the second case, that's what the asking people for help section is for in part 3.

II. Making Things Work

Opening

A lot of places have articles or documents where you can learn the basics of a technique, or maybe some more advanced applications of it, like after you learn how to make a psiball you can look up an article on how to make a shield or something, but there are so many gaps in between and also so much left out in how to get better with each technique. This I believe is the other part of making things work. In the last article I touched on the basics, understanding energy, practicing, realizing bad times/conditions, this time the focus is more how to progress instead of how to avoid "lack of progression".

Visualizations

Visualization plays a big part in psionics. At the minimal interpretation it just helps you apply your focus better, but however it works it appears to play big role, especially in energy manipulation. For example in building a construct, if you just blandly form a psiball with no special structure or 'feel' put into it, and I go ahead and use one of my designs picturing a slightly complex structure to compose the construct, mine is likely to be much stronger. Since the difference is so easy to see, energy manipulation is a great example to study the effects of visualization, and so I'll focus on that example. However, remember that a good deal of what's said in this section probably extends to other skill areas as well.

There are a couple things to consider in approaching this topic. As you can see from the example mentioned above, you really don't want to apply minimal visualization. That's probably causing minimal focus and thus very poor energy applied and poor energy efficiency. (We'll talk more about those two terms later in the energy section, for now just get the general gist that energy applied is how much you use, and efficiency is how well you use it). However, you also don't want to go overboard, if you try to do an insanely complex visualization or design it is more likely to screw up (if you can't focus enough to properly form the visualization, the construct will be malformed and unstable). You want to find a middle point, something that's *slightly* complex, but not above your ability to do. It should be a little difficult the first couple times you do something like that, and that's a good thing. Besides just lending a more solid 'structure' to your construct (higher energy efficiency), to pull off the visualization you're forced to sit down and focus better. You direct more attention to your construct because you have to in order to properly make it (higher focus leads to being able to devote more of your energy to the task).

Although slightly complicated is good, the most important thing is your visualization has to have meaning for *you*. Since the visualization is the mechanism your subconscious works with, the more meaning or affection you have for the visualization, the better it will work (this goes back to believing it will work). Energy manipulation demonstrates that idea well. When you choose some material for the structure of your construct it has to be something that *you* think will work well. For strength and support it should be something you think is strong. I don't know why but I like reinforced glass (the glass you see with the metal wiring running through it). That might work for you too, or cheese might work for you, I don't know why, maybe you've encountered a rare form of cheese that can stop bullets or something, its what *you* think will fit the purpose. The same idea applies for any other purpose, flexibility, heat resisting, frog catching, etc.

Your Own Way

A lot of articles and people give the impression that theres a way to do something and that way works. They leave it at that. That way might work great, but theres a great deal of ways to do something in most cases. The best way to progress and make things work is to find your own way to do them. Play around, experiment, look for new stuff, or take someone else's idea and see if you can make it better. There is nothing to lose, at the very least you're going to get some good practices in. I said before that there are gaps and missing stuff in the articles and site information, one way to solve that is to try and fill them yourself.

This example relates a lot to sensitivity,which as a passive skill is hard to directly practice. Although there might be a guide or two about it (I think PsiPog has one), the best way to work on your sensitivity is to find your own ways to develop and use it. The skill will develop naturally for most people, so you don't have to really hammer at it to get it to advance, it just needs some form of guidance and practice. This means that you can find your own way to guide it without too much trouble.

Note: This is not permission to be reckless. (This is another 'don't get people hurt warning', whether you listen or not, saying these makes me feel better :) ) If you have any qualms about something you want to attempt, talk to someone experienced about it and see what they think. They might even give you some tips with what you want to do. Experimentation should always be careful and well planned.

Energy II

Last time we talked about how to be aware of energy/energy consumption, and how it plays a role in psionics. In this section we have an equally important idea to talk about, energy efficiency. Although energy consumption relates to the expenditure of an activity, energy efficiency relates to how well the energy is being used, how much is being wasted, etc. A lack in energy efficiency can make it seem like an activity takes more energy than it requires.

A perfect example of this is one of my early attempts at healing (whether this works well is not part of the example so don't nitpick). Part of it involved directing a flow of energy to where I was trying to heal, which I think worked on a small scale. The problem was just holding my hand over the target area and sending the energy left me considerably tired afterwards. It took me a while to realize the problem, just projecting the energy at something meant that it was also spilling every which way thus wasting a good amount. Thus, a lack of efficiency in my process made it take more energy than it should, giving it a seemingly higher energy consumption. Now there are a couple ways to fix this: use better focus to actually target the energy being projected where I want so it wouldn't spill, or the one I chose, put it in a construct (for a contained delivery system). Confirming my theory, the construct packaged variation of what I was doing used a lot less energy and got a comparable effect.

So thus you can make activities consume less energy by making the process more efficient. To help with how to more commonly think 'efficiency' lets go back to the Visualization section with our energy manipulation example. A lot of energy used poorly is outclassed by a little energy used well. Your first step is to look into visualizations that seem to work better with the same amount of energy, this may be more difficult with other areas but for energy manipulation you can just follow what's said in the visualization section. You want to pick a structure to mold your energy into that's resilient as opposed to just doing whatever. Its like using triangles as your building units when making a bridge, its the best use of material. The general idea of how to apply this outside of energy manipulation is just really to think it through, usually the more controlled and/or contained the process is the better (unless it has to *not* be one of these things). To help you learn how to do that there are a couple flags for when you risk wasting energy either directly or through inefficiency:
1)Any process where you don't have full control over an amount of energy being directed to something, if you're not holding onto it, some energy can leak away
2)Not properly shelling a construct, this is why new people's psiballs eventually fade away, they don't keep the energy that composes them inside themselves, slowly but surely it leaks out
3)Anything that uses an extremely complex mechanism that's probably beyond your ability to handle will be prone to inefficiency, either you won't create it properly and it will be the result of faulty construction, or your lack of control over it will leave the creation unstable and the programming will likely degrade and mutate and bring about the same result A lot of it just comes down to being smart with your planning and execution of techniques. Side note, while I cannot *confirm* this it seems that in a lot of cases the first time a new technique is executed it can take more energy to pull off. Considering this, don't jump to conclusions about energy use the first time you use a technique. It is better to take a couple tries and then consider the use again (average the couple trials together). This does not mean throw out the expenditure the first time, as that you should still use to consider any future tries (to properly handle safety concerns and such). Just remember, because of this effect you should save the *final* judgment for later. Also, this does not just apply to the first time you're starting a new area like telekinesis but just anything that's just sufficiently different from any technique you have tried before. Like a shield design different than anything you've attempted before is likely to use more energy on the first try.

Pulling it All Together

If you think this part seems kinda similar from section to section, then you're probably right. The same mindset helps work through all the issues here. You use your own way to find the fitting visualization which if you do correctly leads to a greater energy efficiency. Theres really not much more to say on progression, as the 'Your Own Way' section says, there is a point where you just have to figure things out for yourself.

III. More Extenuating Circumstances

Emotions

In the last article we talked about more permanent and long term mental states that could complicate things, this time we'll touch something more people can understand, how everyday emotional changes factor into psionics. Happiness and Sadness are the two common elements that can effect your actions. Now both have some effects that should be able to guess pretty easily. Happiness typically increases your confidence, energy is easier to access and move, and such. Sadness does the opposite, it lessens confidence, energy is harder to move, you get the point. Now there is one distinction most people miss, sadness when it takes on more of a light depression can have its advantage to be yoked as well. After a certain point you *can* (I'm going off experience so this might be different for others) get to a state where you are more largely apathetic. The beauty of this is that at this state your subconscious is going to put up much less of a fight (the effects from any mental blocks you have will likely be reduced). So if you can still get over the reduced ability to pool energy this can be helpful. This also can happen from being tired or a combination of the two. Note practicing while tired means a LITTLE tired, if you're exhausted it is most likely a bad idea to be trying anything. Also note that generally happiness is more valuable to work with (is it just me or does that sound really cheesy? But seriously it is), so you want to do stuff to keep that going. Go back to the 'Finishing on A High Note' section as that's a big part of getting excited/confident/etc. Keeping that state is more tricky, if you instantly get depressed at your first mistake, that's going to make any bonuses rather useless. Part of maintaining your focus during practices is learning how to take a punch, if you screw up, get over it, it's not the end of the world. If you continue to hang on every small problem it will mess up your future attempts (you start to believe that things *are* most certainly going badly even if they weren't, which screws things up, reread the truth section for help on this). Remember the one bonus from sadness is more of a last resort thing, you shouldn't *need* to use this. Don't purposely try to depress yourself to try it out, you can always get the similar effect from just waiting until you are a *little* tired.

Special Subconscious Actions

Along the way we've touched on but not really fully discussed some of the strange things the subconscious can do to either help or hurt your progress. If yoked right the subconscious is a powerful part of yourself that can be very useful, if let run crazy it can be very annoying. The best way to avoid a problem starts with understanding, so even if there isn't a known solution in this section hopefully you can at least take the first step in understanding the problem.

First we have Coincidental Reinforcement, which of the various subconscious actions is the one I've mentioned the most. In reality it is just a blanket term for when you think something is going to happen, you transfer that feeling to the subconscious, and your subconscious fulfills your expectation. While almost any subconscious action could be described this way, it is made special because for some reason you believe that a one-shot action is a constant, which starts a cycle that heightens the effect each time. This ties in a lot to the 'Truth' section, its just a simple case of your mind making something you believe real. The way to avoid this has already been discussed.

Another really fun one is sensitivity effects. This is where you expect to feel something and with nothing there to actually feel (or just not what you want to feel), by various means you change something about your surroundings or yourself to provide the feeling you were expecting. A lot of times this is labeled as Analytical Overlay, where it is the case in parenthesis in that you make yourself perceive what you want to be there instead of what might *actually* be there. However it is not always that. Anyone that's seen a new person come into a chat and complain about someone attacking them is almost always (90-99%) suffering from some form of subconscious sensitivity effect. They don't actually want to feel like they're being attack obviously, but their mind is fearing so strongly that they're receiving some form of attack that their subconscious either makes one for them or makes them feel like they are being attacked. This is how you can give yourself a headache.

Note: The subconscious is the medium from where you do a lot or all psychic actions. That means that it has access to all your abilities. A lot of us know about gheists where telekinesis is randomly and unintentionally used and from my personal experience I know that the subconscious can make constructs on its own (although the 'constructs' usually are just fragments) It applies to other areas areas as well. So don't think all it can do is just mess with the way you're feeling. The subconscious can muck with almost any ability.

On a side note be aware that it usually heightens the problem if you personify the subconscious as another being that's out to get you (which you could get that impression from reading these past paragraphs). That feeds more belief (Truth section again) and gives it more power with which to screw you up more. Also if you see your subconscious as a different person you immediately lose a lot of control over it. Its like comparing the amount of influence you might have over a close friend vs your control over yourself, they don't even begin to compare. Keep the subconscious as a part of yourself, avoid seeing it as a separate thing/person.

People and How to Ask for Help

It is inevitable that there will be a question that does not have an answer in this article or in other sites or articles. This means that you get to go through an experience that can either be incredibly rewarding, incredibly frustrating, or both: asking someone else for help. First off you have to find a person to ask, which can be a task in itself. While I can't make people randomly appear to help you, I have two pointers for what you should be looking for:
1.Before you even consider skill level you want to find someone that you are pretty sure is trustworthy, so you avoid getting told total crap.
2.The next step is to find someone whose skill level is appropriate to answer your question. This should consider who is under-qualified *and* who is overqualified. Most people get that the person has to be knowledgeable in what you're asking (or why else would they be any better than what you could think up on your own?), but the other part is making sure you're not killing someone's time with something really basic. This mainly applies to community leaders, while they're usually the best and brightest, they're really busy. Although they're usually happy to answer your questions, remember that they usually have have things to attend to, so if there is another suitable person you can ask you should probably ask them.

Now that you've found your person here is some things that will help you act in a way that won't annoy people:
1.Remember a lot of communities get a great deal of traffic that tend to ask really basic questions. The first thing most of these guys will do is try and point you to an article. Now if you're asking someone in one of the communities you frequent you should have already read most of the articles, but if that's not the case you should read the articles there, if nothing else you'll be able to say that you have read them and you avoid losing time there.
2.While you shouldn't blindly accept everything thrown at you, when you respond to suggestions that they give remember that YOU are asking for help, so tread very lightly about correcting or disagreeing with people. If you do this a lot in the wrong way they'll get annoyed because it seems like you're asking for help but thinking you're smarter than they are.
3.Avoid melodramatics. Don't overstate your problem, most people will be able to see through this anyway, so it is not going to help you.
4.Be patient. Especially if you are talking to a community leader these people are often very busy, so it may take them some time to answer.
5.If you think you are being looked down on, thought to be just melodramatic, or something similar the worst thing you can do is to show that you're pissed off, that will just make things worse. Keep your cool and try your best to correct the misunderstanding. If you start acting disagreeable, from their perspective it will only confirm what they were thinking about you.
That is all I can pull together, if you follow this stuff you'll at least be on the right track.

Pulling it All Together

This was a wildcard section so it's less fitting to have a conclusion, but I just want to take the time to emphasize there is some very good stuff to consider here. The main idea to look at is when you have a problem that just doesn't seem to add up, look at yourself, then turn to others for help.

Closing

Like before I really hope that you'll find some use out of this, there is really not much more I can think of adding so there is probably not going to be another article like this unless I get a lot more knowledge to impart. If you are really stumped you have the 'how to ask for help section' and my best wishes. Good luck.