The Psychic's Biggest Block: Ego, Intellect and Interpretation!

I'm trying to finish writing my book "Was That a Ghost?" but occasionally, I take a break and go to the next book "From Fledgling to Full-Fledged Psychic." I got caught up in a chapter last night that I believe to be the most crucial chapter. If there is only one thing I can tell people who want to develop their psychic abilities it is to:

BEWARE THE EGO, INTELLECT AND INTERPRETATION!

The concept for this chapter became apparent when I was interviewing Ben from my favorite new paranormal investigative show "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" (okay, who am I kidding, it ended up being an ongoing conversation about all things paranormal, I always jump at the chance to talk to such highly educated and curious minds which is why my commenting back and forth with y'all is so extensive--you're my favorite people to knock around theories with).

I handed him a large stone and asked him to read it. He looked it over like any left-brained male and said that he saw some cliffs.

I had to stop him. "Do not intellectualize. You must look at the rock as if it dropped from the sky and you don't know its origins." He was thinking in his head (I'm guessing) "This rock reminds me of the ones in Utah on the bluffs..." No!

The object or person must have absolutely no meaning to you. You want to observe the wear on their shoes, their dialect, the condition of their teeth, but that is being a mentalist. We do not want you to be the mentalist. I have read lots of jewelry that I could have assumed a lot from it. One time it was a man's wedding band. What I got shocked my intellect and my ego (your other enemy) wanted me to not report what I read because it was ridiculous and I would sound like an idiot, but I know to go with first impressions. "A man gave you this ring. He thought it meant more to you than to him. It's been in a junk drawer a long while." In this case, I was totally right. His gay brother gave him his wedding ring and told him that it symbolized more to him. He put it in a junk drawer for 6 or 8 months and finally put it on as a symbol he was okay with his brother's confession.

Giving psychic reads isn't about being right, it's about going down the right path.

The best ways for you to avoid the interruption of intellect and ego is to read someone you don't know (no preconceived notions) When you think you know someone, you can come up with a lot of observations that are accurate, but then you know their personality, worries, situation and more. So far as tamping down your ego, you need to not look at the person and tell them not to make a sound, just let you rattle off your findings. A dream read for me is someone who has a piece of jewelry (metal and stones are easy reads) and whom I don't know and who is willing to sit behind me and stay quiet the whole time. Why not look at them or get responses? The ego pops up and you take yourself down the wrong path. You see, we're human even if we are psychics, and if someone gasps, we realize we just hit on an area that affected them, so we want to follow it more, but it might have completely hit a dead end. What we get at this point could be the intellect and ego working together to make assumptions based on what we just read. If we read that they lost their fiance in a car wreck, we might then upon hearing their reaction say "it has not been an easy thing for you to get over" (no kidding, they just started crying).

Interpretation is so critical to reads that many people who claim to be psychics are shot down because they interpreted wrongly. They got the info, they just didn't know how to translate it. They see someone having a relationship problem and assume it's their lover when it might be their brother. It takes a psychic a long while to learn to organize types in her head and relationships.

In my mind, I have a "grouping" system for comparison. I did a read recently on a piece of an object given to me by someone in my paranormal meetup group. I brought it back in with a list of things that came to mind while reading it. Apparently, my read was dead on, except I wrote "Jewish." To me, indigenous people and ceremonial and pagan practices are all very similar with ritual, customary foods and drinks, ethnic touches.

When I wrote "Jewish" it had a sense of ritual, old knowledge, and the woman I associated it with was elderly and arthritic and seemed rather quiet and proud which is how I reflect on Jewish elderly women. It ended up being a piece of HoHoKam indian pottery found in a location I described. To me indigenous and Jewish are locked in a similar vault in my mind.

Another time, I read a young man and told him his brother and he were 10 months apart and he was the more responsible elder one and he was the goof off younger one. I was right in the 10 months apart and that he was responsible and the other brother was the goof off, only he was the younger brother. I interpreted he was the elder by his personality traits.

The only way to overcome interpretation issues is to read often and lots to learn how your mind stores a "sister," "aunt," "boss," and such. They will come to you as a type in which you relate to your own experiences. When I think of a sister, I think of someone who while growing up drove me nuts more than made me happy, who was closely tied physically but not necessarily a chosen friend. To another psychic with a different life experience, a sister may be the confessor and advisor.

So, this is going to be the premise of a chapter, but at this point I'm wondering if I should just do a chapter for each of those three topics since they are so critical to being an accurate psychic and having advanced "full-fledged" skills. Let me know, I could definitely use your intelligent feedback. You are my think-tank on all such matters.