Training ESP -- Spiritualist Approaches

Spiritualism [From Chapter Three of Psi Development Systems]

Beginning with the Fox Sisters in 1848, the spiritualist movement spread rapidly throughout Europe and America. Even in China, spiritualist movements such as the Society of the Way (Tao Yuan) were formed that regularly incorporated both the use of planchettes for automatic writing and spirit photography (de Bary et al, 1960). The wide variety of psi phenomena associated with this movement led to the foundation of numerous scientific investigations of alleged psi manifestations, including, most importantly, the founding of the Society for Psychical Research in Britain in 1882. Undoubtedly certain social conditions contributed to the rise and decline of spiritualism during the century following the spectacular appearance of the Fox sisters. How these conditions may have interacted with the actual training of psi abilities is uncertain. It is certainly true today that psi phenomena of the classic spiritualistic variety -- as exhibited by such talents as D. D. Home, Florence Cook, Eusapia Palladino, Leonora Piper or Gladys Osborne Leonard -- are rare in the accounts of parapsychology journals. Perhaps this is the result of the new interests of parapsychologists, and not necessarily a lack of talent among today's spiritualists. In any case, one might consider the hypothesis that the spiritualist training techniques are most effective under certain social conditions not yet explicitly understood.

In 1920, Hereward Carrington, a psychical researcher, published a book entitled Your Psychic Powers and How to Develop Them. The book was written from a spiritualistic point of view for private circulation among a number of societies in the New York area. Carrington maintained that the book did not represent his own personal views in all respects but rather the teachings regarded as factual by those committed to spiritualism. The book started out by assuring the reader that everybody is more or less mediumistic or psychic and that we "need only to cultivate our powers in order to develop them, and bring them to maturity." However, each particular psychic skill is to be developed differently. For all students, the basic advice consisted of maintaining good health and avoiding stimulants and "unhealthy introspection."

Carrington then continued for 41 chapters on topics relating not to psychic development directly but to the concepts and symbols of spiritualism. This part of the text emphasized orienting oneself in terms of "astral currents," "auras," "chakras," "voices,'‘ "vibrations," "guardian spirits," and "reincarnation." Many of these concepts are derived from the theosophical movement.



For the specific development of clairvoyance, Carrington recommended the following exercise: "Seat yourself in a comfortable chair in a semi-darkened room. Mentally construct (i.e., imagine) before you a tube, open at both ends. One end of this tube fits over your eyes, and the other end extends indefinitely outward into space. Imagine that this tube is hollow and that you can see through it perfectly. Turn this tube in the direction of the house of a friend of yours; mentally go into a room and see if you can discover in it any one present - and if so, who he is and what he looks like. Note what you see carefully You will be able to verify the next day how far your vision is correct."

In continuing this exercise, one imagines the face of a friend at the end of the tube about a hundred yards away. Gradually one imagines the tube growing shorter until the face is only three feet distant and can be visualized clearly with every feature distinguishable. Once this was accomplished and practiced persistently, Carrington guaranteed that one could successfully influence the other person. Concentration was the key to this exercise since "it polarizes a channel through the astral atmosphere toward the desired point, and this channel facilitates psychic communication in both directions.... There are a great many currents, playing to and fro, which tend to disintegrate your own currents." Therefore as a backup exercise it was essential to train the mind to think of a particular object for several minutes without relaxing or allowing any other thought to enter consciousness. This could be done in conjunction with breathing exercises. Another backup exercise was simply visualizing images until they came clearly and in detail. This could be accomplished by asking oneself simple questions like, "What was the color of Mother Hubbard's dog?" or "Was Helen of Troy tall, or small and slender?" In terms of distinguishing true, clairvoyant images from memory pictures and hallucinations,

Carrington had no simple advice other than to practice in situations providing immediate feedback.

Another source of spiritualistic teachings on psychic development was J. Hewatt McKenzie's book, Spirit Intercourse: Its Theory and Practice. McKenzie was the founder of the British College of Psychic Science and was responsible for the training of many mediums including Eileen Garrett (a charismatic figure who founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York). McKenzie emphasized leading a quiet and harmonious life, free from the excesses of alcohol and elaborate food: "The student, while developing, should keep only the company of the noble and good. His reading should consist largely of literature which has stood the test of time, keeping at a distance all printed matter of a poor or ephemeral nature. He should not sit in crowded assemblies amongst all kinds and conditions of peoples, but resort as far as possible to contact with nature. These strict instructions may seem unnatural, selfish and unsociable, and so they would be if ended in themselves and made permanent, but some are only temporary and necessary during the student's apprenticeship for the first year or two, until he has developed sensitiveness to the subtle forces of life."

McKenzie particularly emphasized the dangers of associating with unharmonious individuals during the phase when one's psychic abilities first open up and are not yet under full control: "At first the student may find himself particularly sensitive to the influence of those with whom he comes daily in contact, and this indicates that care should be taken, until such time as he has learned fully to control his being by the development of his mental and spiritual powers, otherwise he is likely to be overborne by opposing influences. Students should therefore treat themselves very much as a young and growing plant is treated, sheltered from the frosts and blasts of the violent wind for a time, but which, once it is firmly rooted and has begun to grow, expand and flourish, may be transplanted or allowed to stand the full blasts of the outer atmosphere."

In addition to the moral guidelines, McKenzie prescribed a regimen of diet and exercise in order to maintain health, self-control, prayer, concentration, meditation, and breathing exercises. A sanctum of soft lighting and spiritually inspiring music Was thought to be useful. One aspect of psi training, somewhat unique to the spiritualistic movement, was the "developing circle" which is described by McKenzie as follows: "in the developing circle, men and women will be found speaking in ‘unknown tongues,' some prophesying, some by the spirit working miracles of healing, others demonstrating clairvoyance or describing visions, all more or less showing signs of agitation or twitching, muttering, and groaning, and generally ‘acting the fool' (according to the judgment of the uninitiated).'

McKenzie described such a scene as comparable to the manure from which good vegetables were grown. As the sensitives develop, the quaking and shivering subsides. Eventually these individuals learn how to be controlled by a spirit, who will then be able to provide information of a psychic nature. McKenzie described the spirit control as "the sweetest of influences and under the entire sway of the medium's own personality."

During her training with McKenzie, Eileen Garrett sat in trance sessions once a week for five years-although she her self was not committed to McKenzie's spiritualistic views. She described her training as being aimed toward the development of the spirit who controlled her during trance, rather than training of her own psychic abilities. McKenzie felt that Garrett's own clairvoyant abilities needed no training in order to be used. Specifically how the spirit control was trained is quite vague. A few hints are given in the following passage: "First he explained the danger of blurring or interfering with my own clear functioning, if I sat for experiments with other mediums he said that this was equally true if I sat with development groups or opened up any other aspects of mediumship than trance, at this time. In order to keep my subconscious free from other people's ideas and influence, he insisted that I avoid all reading on psychic and occult subjects. He gave special attention to the methods by which the control must give his evidence, asking him to bring through types of information that might be as far removed as possible from the conscious knowledge of the investigator" (Garrett 1939/1975).

Gladys Osborne Leonard was perhaps the most successful trance medium in the history of psychical research. Her integrity was never called into question. For over forty years her mediumship was the subject of exhaustive study by members of the Society for Psychical Research. During that time she provided a great deal of evidence supporting the survival hypothesis and, even more strongly, the ESP hypothesis. In her own mediumistic training, she showed enormous persistence. sitting for 26 seance sessions before she obtained any results or any contact with her spirit control. In her book My Life in Two Worlds, she provided some basic advice for those wishing to develop their own "mediumistic" abilities.



Her first point was that general prescriptions cannot be given that cover all people under all circumstances. Rather, all exercises for development depend upon the particular individuals, "their health, mentality and general conditions and surroundings." She suggested that individuals who wished to develop their psychic abilities should visit a reliable and experienced psychic in order to determine the direction in which their particular abilities might best be developed-for example, healing, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc. She also added that it was better to work in a developing circle than alone.

Nevertheless, one item Leonard did recommend for everyone was thought control: "I mean the deliberate shutting out of pessimistic, jealous, envious, cruel, or any other undesirable kind of thought that is apt to fly into our minds. We must not hold these thoughts. It may be difficult at first to prevent them from entering, but directly we realize them, we must literally throw them out again at once.... One must not shut out all thoughts of caution or discretion, or try to become impervious to a sense of danger. Catching a thought ray of danger, and holding it gently at the back of one's mind, being careful not to let it unduly shadow any of one's actions with which it obviously has nothing to do, until such time as we have bridged the difficult span which it was given to warn us of, is a very different thing from being victims and slaves to any chance thought that we allow to enter our minds and have never learned to turn out again."

Leonard added that it was possible to develop psychic Powers without this particular training, but that it would eventually be needed, and that it was safest to develop it fight away.

Carrington, H. Your psychic powers and how to develop them. New York: Astrol Company, 1949. (Originally published, 1920.)

de Bary, WT., Chan, W., and Watson, B. (Eds.). Sources of Chinese Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.

Garrett, E.J. My life as a search for the meaning of mediumship. New York: Arno Press, 1975. (Originally published, 1939.)

Leonard, G.O. My life in two worlds. London: Cassell, 1931.

McKenzie, J.H. Spirit intercourse: Its theory and practice. New York: Mitchell Kennerly, 1917.