Instructor: Rainsong
Date: May 5, 2018 (Saturday)
Topic: Centering (“a more in depth lecture about centering and what happens in day-to-day use when doing psionics, that decenters and/or destabilizes you” – requested by Rose) – Saturday, May 5, 2018 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time – text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) – Instructor: Rainsong – Search LECTURE22
Rainsong – Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another psionics seminar, here at the social club. Our topic for the evening is “Centering” Probably don’t even need the usual warnings, for this one… Any questions or commentary, before we dive into it?
moonie – Nope
Silkysky – I’m good.
Xero’och – Can we have the warnings anyway?
Rainsong – Sure… Why not?
Kate Embers – Will read tomorrow! Gotta go to bed – thanks in advance!
Rainsong – We’ll be discussing real-world psionics, rather than role-playing games, so if you were looking for a video-game discussion or the like, you might want to try a different channel before you get too weirded out (Have a good sleep, Kate) When working with oomph, it’s good to have a snack on hand. And if something feels wrong, painful, or otherwise “bad”…. stop doing it. In most cases, the basic rule is “don’t be stupid” There are several ways to do just about anything in psionics. If one approach doesn’t work for you, don’t worry about it: just try a different one. Froody?
Silkysky – Yep
moonie – Yep!
Rainsong – As usual, we’ll start by establishing what exactly we’re talking about. If you’ve been around the psionics community for any amount of time at all – whether you yourself practice or not – you’ll have heard the advice to “ground and center” The two concepts are used together so often, that people often conflate them… or at least, assume they are directly connected. The same thing happens with “search and rescue”, incidentally, even though you can rescue someone without searching for them first, and, sadly, not all searches end in a rescue.
moonie – But is the goal similar? In that both help keep your energy from being all over the place?
Rainsong – Sort of. (Good observation, Moonie) Grounding gets rid of excess “oomph”/energy/stuff – including excess emotions and debris in the field, usually – and many methods also bring oomph/chi/energy/stuff back into the field, to balance the amount of energy-stuff at (hopefully) optimal levels
moonie – Ok, that makes sense
Rainsong – Centering is frankly more difficult to define. It keeps “you” together: your mind, your spirit, your field, and that part of you that even most pseudo-skeptic debunkers admit exists (i.e., the flesh. bone, and connective tissue construction) In most forms, it also allows you to separate “you” from “not you”… rooting out advertising jingles, propaganda, telepathic pranks, parasites, and so on. I’m not much of a philosopher, so I won’t be getting into whether there is a real separation between you and not-you. Wayfarer’s probably the guy to talk to if you want to get into that discussion. Questions at this point? Commentary?
moonie – How do you learn to recognize what is and isn’t you?
Rainsong – Some pretty intense introspection, mostly. Observation over time, ideally with notes of some kind.
moonie – Got it
Rainsong – Obviously, such notes are very private stuff, so be sure to take measures against someone else “accidentally” reading them
moonie – *nods* Definitely I’ve had my run-ins with someone reading something not meant for them. Been a bit more careful ever since
Scelana – Sorry I’m a bit late to the lecture
Rainsong – Hi, Scelana In truth, the “introspection” stuff, chasing down your own metaphorical demons, is probably the hardest part of psionics. It’s pretty brutal. And, I don’t mean that you’ll never get anything to work before you get the internal stuff sorted. It’s just that the unsorted internal stuff can and often will cause problems…more with your mental state and emotions than with telepathy or pk. (In the interest of avoiding other misconceptions, the old “only pure and selfless people can do this, and only for good and pure purposes” idea is demonstrably bullshit.)
Xero’och – U gotta own yer shit or yer shit gonna own u
Rainsong – Exactly
moonie – I can get behind that
Rainsong – (Also, a person doesn’t need to be intelligent to do this stuff, either, although it helps in planning out how to do things and remembering steps for complex operations… So don’t judge a person’s supposed brilliance by their skill in spinning psiwheels or whatever)
Questions or comments?
moonie – Not at the moment
Scelana – I have none yet so far
Xero’och – I don’t understand how intelligence entered the conversation
Rainsong – Thought tangent from the misconceptions. It’s otherwise unrelated.
Why is centering ever needed? How does someone get “un-centered” or “destabilized” in the course of the average day? That’s out next sub-topic, because it was asked when the topic was requested.
There are lots of things that cause you to be less than entirely centered:
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Too much debris accumulated in your field… from being sick, from being in crowded places, from having an argument with your flatmate, from being around too much ionizing radiation, or just from being in a “psychically dirty” area, for examples. This is why grounding first often makes centering easier.
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Taking leave of your body: projecting partially or completely away from your physical location results in at least part of you/your consciousness being “away” from your physical location. Funny how that happens, yea?
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Some kinds of mental illness disturb your stability. Another surprise, eh?
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Even just having too many things going on at once can make a person pretty scattered and distracted, which can result in imbalance and scattering of the pieces of the mind all over the place
Those are probably the most common, anyway. A quick glance through the list will probably give you the impression that centering every day is a good idea. And it is. (Does everyone ground and center every day? Hell, no.) Any surprises there?
moonie – Nope, there’s a lot of things that can catch us unawares.. speaking of which, is there a way to keep things fairly centered most of the time, or is that just something you have to consciously do periodically throughout the day
Rainsong – As far as I’m aware, it’s just something that has to be done consciously from time to time, such that eventually it becomes habit… The big bulky parts, such as keeping your consciousness close to your body instead of randomly projecting, can be handled with a carefully programmed shield or similar construct. Generally, you’d want that construct to be anchored both to a physical locus such as a piece of jewellery and an easy gesture or word to re-activate it when convenient Of course, some folks who project too often for their safety also get panicky if they are “rooted” or “trapped” by such a construct. Soooo, your mileage may vary, as they say.
moonie – Sounds like a catch 22
Rainsong – Anchoring a basic centering routine as a cantrip/shorthand-working is also convenient, once your centering skill is reliable. Yep, it is like a catch-22 in those cases, sadly.
moonie – But there are ways to manage that panic, right?
Rainsong – Yes. I typically suggest starting with EFT as a first try to manage the panic. Sometimes, it can solve the panic outright and permanently. And, EFT’s easy and has very little risk. So, it’s a pretty logical first attempt. The link to the basic book (It’s a free PDF ebook) is pinned in the main room, I think
moonie – Cool
Rainsong – A sign that you need to center is the use of too many parenthetical subclauses. Guess what I’m doing after the seminar. :/ Questions or comments at this stage?
moonie – Just curious, why is that a sign?
Xero’och – Will interject that a cursory centering can give you better reaction time Less bullshit for your thoughts to filter through
Rainsong – It indicates that your thoughts are disordered. Some people never think very clearly, of course, but if you use more subclauses and parentheticals than normal, you need to center. You also need to center if you’re outright babbling, but that can also be a sign of more serious medical problems, so get it checked out, if babbling is not normal for you. It can indicate a stroke or other emergencies involving the nervous system
Xero’och: Very true.
moonie – That makes sense
Xero’och – Also if you need to sober up quickly
Rainsong – For sobering up quickly, it also helps to burn off the alcohol in your system, but that’s a lecture of another day Any other questions or comments before the next segment?
Scelana – None so far
Rainsong – Alrighty then. How to center. It’s not going to come as a surprise to any of you that there is more than one entirely workable way to center. There are many, many ways to do this. At the moment, we’re just going to look at one basic, easy one. Mostly because we’re already well past the one-hour mark
Ideally, you’ll ground first. Grounding and centering are closely associated partially because they are so often done at around the same time.
Next step, quiet your mind. This will be much easier if you have grounded already. A simple way to do it is to take a nice deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. Then breathe deeply and slowly… without struggling to make it too deep or too slow. Just comfortably deep and slow.
Count the exhalations. That is to say, mentally say a number each time you breathe out. The numbers ought to be in ascending order. But, if they aren’t, no problem.
If you can “sense” stuff, take a look/grok/listen around, and notice whether any part of you is obviously out of place, wandering off, in little pieces scattered on the lawn, and so on. If they are, gently pull them back toward you.
Gently pull your field in closer around you, too. It can be helpful to imagine your field as a blanket or a cloak that you’re pulling closer in a cozier cocoon
Take notice of your posture, too. Putt your body into a good position (if workable in your situation). For example, if you’re standing and have no particularly deformities of the skeletal structure, pretend there’s a thread pulling you upright.
When your body is in order, arrange your field so it is also lined up nicely.
Pull back any tendrils that aren’t in active use, and run a bit of oomph through your system, watching for any congestion or other irregularities.
Lastly, listen to your thoughts, and observe whether they appear to all be “you”, or if any are from outside influences (usually, there will be at least some). Choose whether to do anything about the outside ones.
Take a nice deep breath again, and let it out in a sigh.
This would be a good time to check and maintain any Shielding, too, having centered. Questions? Comments?
moonie – None for now
Xero’och – If you wanna be quick and dirty, you could grab yourself by the root and shake like a bunch of carrots empasis on “dirty” here
Scelana – Have you ever heard of anyone having a tendency to auto-center while they’re grounding?
Rainsong – A quick-and-dirty option is always good Scelana: It’s not very common, and often not entirely effective, but it’s also not unheard-of and it’s adequate for most general maintenance. Such people should also still do some serious centering deliberately from time to time.
Scelana – Ahh, I see I’ve had a few times where just me grounding has tended to some the things mentioned in the lecture
Rainsong – That’s handy
Scelana – The thoughts that aren’t from/of me part is one the more recent times I’ve had to do so
Rainsong – Not surprising. You live in a pretty big city
Scelana – Yea Those who channel need to ground and center regularly right?
Xero’och – Do athletes need to stretch?
Rainsong – Channelers? Yes, they should do it before and after every time they channel… and then some
Xero’och – half the job is getting your shit out of the way of whoever you’re talking for and the other half is getting their shit out of your hair afterwards
Rainsong – Yep, I was just typing that…
Scelana – Definitely makes sense
Rainsong – Any other questions or comments?
moonie – Nope
Rainsong – Thanks for participating, everyone.
moonie – Thanks for the lecture!
Scelana – Thxies for the lecture, Rainsong
Rainsong – 🙂
EFT Manual mentioned can be accessed here: http://www.spiritual-web.com/downloads/eftmanual.pdf (outside link active as of 5 May 2018)