The Learning Curve

Recently I launched my psychic development workshop classes in NYC, upstate NY and NJ. I have been astounded to see the level of interest in this kind of work. I never expected so many people to sign up - and with an amazing range of diverse backgrounds. I think I have been particularly fascinated by the various reasons why people choose to enter into this field.

I was very surprised to get some students who have been practicing professional psychic mediums for decades! They seem to be looking to broaden the range of work they can do with their existing skills. In other words, they are looking for additional practical applications like psychic detective work, healing skills, medical intuitive work, mediumship, and so on - in additional to simple psychic reading skills. Other professional psychics are seeking a place where they can practice the skills they know already. They are looking for fresh faces and new willing subjects from whom they can get immediate feedback. Working in a workshop setting forces you to push your own envelope by doing new types of exercises and, at the same time, allows you to get immediate feedback from your sitter and gives you the leeway to make learning mistakes without being in the position of being a paid psychic medium expected to deliver the goods.

I have other students who lean toward the healing arts - whether it be psychotherapy, CranialSacral work, polarity work, birthing techniques, nursing, or massage. This group of people, while they do not normally consider themselves "psychics" per se, often find themselves thrown into the field of energy work quite unexpectedly. They often bump up against "uncanny" knowledge during the course of their work and then are really confused about where it came from or how it can be useful. These students quickly learn that working in the field of healing involves working with other people's energy fields or "auras," and as a result, will often involve a transfer of actual data or information without the usual channels such as language or intellectual understanding. It seems that for most of these students, the experience of bumping into the psychic realm is at once spooky but also thrilling. It often feels like it is intimately linked with one's "calling" as a healer and the student feels compelled to pursue it further.

Still other students come to my workshops because they have had very intense experiences with the psychic or paranomal world. These can be extraordinarily frightening - no matter what age they happen to you! I have know many powerful grown men - who claim to be pragmatic and skeptical - who simply will not touch this field with a ten-foot pole because it frightens them to death. Imagine what it must feel like for a young child! The intensity of these experiences is only magnified when no one around you, including your own parents, siblings, relatives and friends, can understand or empathize with your weird experience. So, not only is the experience itself extremely frightening sometimes, but when no one else understands or is too scared of even exploring it with you, you begin to suffer from extreme isolation. Many people retreat deeply into their own personal emotional cocoon. These students come to my workshops either to "turn on" if they have been shut down or ignored over a lifetime, or to "turn off" these experiences if they have become uncontrollable and disruptive. Some students come in order to learn how to "toggle" that switch so they can control these experiences.

The group of students I most wish to entice into this field, however, are those who work in strictly intellectual professions - like lawyers, accountants, clerks, sales people, physicians, entrepreneurs, professors, and so on. These people are the least likely to decide to join such a workshop because they are convinced that it is a bunch of "woo woo." Every bit of knowledge they have ever acquired and apply toward their given profession has been channeled through their brain in a logical, sequential, consecutive, intellectual format. That entire system of data acquisition is based upon a single premise - that all valid information relies upon logical premises. They have no experience and have never tried to seriously obtain any experience with any other method. So, for them, no other system could possibly be valid. Unfortunately, what they fail to realize is that psychic intuition, once fully appreciated by the brain, can activate valid information at a much more efficient and faster rate than standard logical information.

Once I trained myself in this field, I was shocked to discover that my skills as a lawyer and business entrepreneur were vastly improved. It just didn't make sense to me. But then again, nothing in this field "makes sense."