#psychism

Eric Wargo, Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future (A Sacred Planet Book) (Rochester: Inner Traditions – Bear & Company, 2021), 304–308, Kindle.

thanks in advance should you answer this.

Hi!

This is a big answer, because it mostly depends on where you're going.

Psychism isn't the same thing as spirit work. I've written on both topics (these links are to my masterposts) and I think there might be some stuff there that can help you regarding communication.

But the downfall of all of these online guides (mine, or anyone's) is that most of them are about how to develop a specific skill and I'm not too familiar with any on the topic of how to find and develop your natural strengths.

Oh, and also the important cousin to all these topics, a lot of witches exaggerate, change, or misleadingly talk about exactly how they "see and commune" with the spirit world. (Or, as @friend-crow would likely point out... some people really do just get on the internet and lie.)

If the point of your post is that you received spiritual input that helped you correctly manifest a spell, you might say "my fairy husband told me to use thyme, and it worked!", which conveys the point.

However, this can conceal the reality of what really occurred, which could be something more like, "over the past few days I kept feeling like he wanted offerings of French food, and then I kept hearing commercials and songs about time, and then I got a strong urge to listen to Simon and Garfunkel, and then I realized he meant thyme the herb, and when I cast the spell it felt really good and manifestation was strong, and I attribute these choices and successes to my fairy husband."

So I think it's wise to pick apart some of the assertions from "more accomplished witches," especially when they are talking about what was communicated and not how it was accomplished; and especially putting an asterisk next to any experiences which are likely being shared because they are exceptional and exciting.

But even if communication is very clear and strong, there is often a price to be paid (either up front or on credit), like:

You spend more than an hour a day practicing (I mean... a lot of practice; often being immersed in the spirit world)

You have been cursed with Second Sight and can't shut the spirits out

You regularly perform powerful rituals of communication

You've built your life to welcome and house the spirits long-term, and over the years have developed very strong abilities of communication

You have become bound to spirits or gods in some form or another, making you an Oracle, and all the consequences that come with that

Beyond becoming bound to/initiated under spirits for whom you operate as an oracle, also building relationships with gods of communication and witchcraft, or especially any entities that let you See and Hear Things.

You've developed, built, and practiced with tools and rituals that facilitate clear communication

There are a lot of paths you can take, is my point, and you're probably best off exploring any of them you feel most comfortable with. Oathing up isn't for everyone, for example. I vouch for an eclectic approach. Give lots of different things a try, and lamps will light themselves along the path of experience until the fog slowly fades from the map.

If you'd like a list of specifics, here you go. Don't say I didn't warn you. (The warning is, if you See and Hear Things, you are also Seeing and Hearing Things. You know?)

Work with Lunar powers, perhaps including relevant Moon deities, who are associated with divination, clear-sight, and spirits.

Hekate, I bet, probably works well to unlocking the roads to spirit work. I don't know her myself but it seems like a vibe.

Enchant a holey stone to assist you with spirit communication.

Perform regular rituals, perhaps on the full moon or cross-quarter days, to open channels of communication and strengthen your abilities.

Blend and enchant incenses and oils to facilitate spirit communication; use as needed.

Fuck around with doors and keys.

If your magical/spiritual tradition doesn't include astral projection/soul-flight training, "energy" or pranic work, the production of influence at a distance via nothing except your own mind and spirit, it is lacking.

How interesting for you to bring this up 🙂

I have a degree of clair-sentience or -cognisance which has been present from a young age. It gives me an instinctual knowledge of whether a person is trustworthy, whether they might deceive or harm me.

Sometimes I can tell at a glance. Other times the instinct gradually makes itself known as the person speaks and interacts with me. It can feel like instant alarm and suspicion, but more often I feel the subtle reservation and discomfort you mentioned. They don’t have to do or say anything particular, I simply observe and my instincts stir.

One of my favourite examples of this happened when I brought up my 'people senses' in a conversation with a couple of housemates at university. They were talking about former friends who had mistreated or betrayed them. Out of interest, they showed me a few group photographs of themselves and their friends.

Their question: "In this photograph, who are the people I'm no longer friends with?" In other words, who were the 'friends' that had mistreated them.

I looked at each of the faces on the photographs, and asked myself if I would trust that person. I pointed out the ones I would not trust. I was right about every single one.

I suspect that 'voice' rings louder the more harmful and unreliable someone is. But people are complicated.

There are those who have good intentions and fail to follow through. There are those who are deeply, sincerely kind, but have so little control over their lives and their emotional impulses, that they end up hurting you anyway. There are those whose perceptions are riddled with ignorance in some places, clarity in others. There are people trying to be kind and virtuous, but are lacking in skill or experience. And there are people who are just innately incompatible with you for one reason or another.

These are the people who inspire that sense of reservation. "They're not bad people, but maybe I should keep a distance..."

Also, there are people who are intimidating, irritating, even offensive - but not truly harmful. All bark and no bite. Sometimes they are kind underneath, other times they are simply not worth the trouble!

My 'people sense' is most noticeable with those that bite, but don't bark. People who seem ordinary, and have not revealed themselves as potential harm or trouble. Yet for some unknown reason I feel I cannot, must not, trust them.

I can't always use it to tell whether someone is lying to me - it depends - but by proxy I can tell if they would lie to me. Or, if they are prone to being deceived themselves and would likely spread false information.

Logic and experience feeds into this. If you can read body language, or simply observe a person's interests and ambitions. Who, where and how they spend their time. That information will mingle with your clair senses.

Remember that it's never "either or". Everyone has strengths and flaws, and so can be trusted with some things, but not others. And that will depend on how your life and your needs intersect with theirs.

The main obstacle that interferes with my instincts is that I have a soft and forgiving heart. If there is any evidence of a person's goodness, then I want to give them a chance, to watch and wait and understand them better. This is a virtuous thing, but it must be balanced out with decisiveness and self-esteem.

My mother also has a degree of claircognisance. She can spot a troublesome person with a single glance. She has a way of predicting the future too, in a rather mundane way. However, she is different to me, in that she focuses on the negative qualities of others. Thus she's prone to isolating herself and assumes more pessimistic outcomes.

This sort of subtle skill requires empathy, observation, and the dissolving of personal biases. This is what allows one to perceive the disposition of others and what their tendencies are.

As I've grown older, I get less of the 'alarmed' response and more 'general caution'. People have fewer means to hurt me because I've grown more resilient and resourceful, and so whether they can harm me is a question of whether I let them. But for the same reason, I trust more easily. I meet people who I just know I am safe with, because I sense their kindness and intelligence.

It can be easy for biases to overrule this subtle sense. And since it doesn't come with any visions or extraordinary sensations, it can be easily dismissed as well. At times it's also bothersome because I know if I can trust someone, but not why or how. Nonetheless, it is an underrated source of protection and good fortune.

A Storm (Shipwreck) by J.M.W. Turner

Pisces, Psychism

But now Idealism can be enhanced. In our age there are some men who are trying to do this. They find ideas at work in the world, and this implies that there must also be in the world some sort of beings in whom the ideas can live. Ideas cannot live just as they are in any external object, nor can they hang as it were in the air. In the nineteenth century the belief existed that ideas rule history. But this was a confusion, for ideas as such have no power to work. Hence one cannot speak of ideas in history. Anyone who understands that ideas, if they are there are all, are bound up with some being capable of having ideas, will no longer be a mere Idealist; he will move on to the supposition that ideas are connected with beings. He becomes a Psychist and his world-outlook is that Psychism. The Psychist, who in his turn can uphold his outlook with an immense amount of ingenuity, reaches it only through a kind of one-sidedness, of which he can eventually become aware.

Scorpio, Dynamism

But there can be persons who do not rise to the level of the Monads; they cannot concede that existence is made up of beings with the most varied conceptual powers, but at the same time they are not content to allow reality only to external phenomena; they hold that “forces” are dominant everywhere. If, for example, a stone falls to the ground, they say, “That is gravitation!” When a magnet attracts bits of iron, they say: “That is magnetic force!” They are not content with saying simply, “There is the magnet,” but they say, “The magnet presupposes that supersensibly, invisibly, a magnetic force is present, extending in all directions.” A world-outlook of this kind — which looks everywhere for forces behind phenomena — can be called Dynamism.