A little background on this next part: I've been picking up and putting down the study of Psionics for some years now, and at the moment I'm in the "pick up" stage of the cycle. Normally I've gone for a sort of scattergun approach, throwing together various disparate techniques pretty much at random, with equally disparate results. This time I'm trying to be a shade more scientific and focusing specifically on the RetroPsychokinesis Project, where one aims to retroactively affect a string of binary data generated beforehand, but not examined. There are visual feedback programmes in order to give the mind something to chew on.
My initial decision was that I would do these experiments every day, several times a day, and see what happens. So far, I'm getting nowhere fast. I get as many misses as hits-- more, even. So yesterday I decided to ask the guides about it. Here's the conversation.
Bold is them, plain is me.
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Okay. 'Bout this psi thing...
Yes, yes, yes! It is for you. [Really enthusiastic.]
Um. Okay. Coz I don't think I'm doing very well.
You will.
And it works, right? It's for real?
Why do you ask us? We are of the same 'real'.
You're right, I suppose.
This is our very flesh, you see. We are beings of [rather fuzzy concept which I have transcribed as "The mind-light."]
Oh. Okay.
Understand that this will come to you in time. Be at peace for now. You struggle still with small things, with the little fire. Let us not lay a great branch upon so small a flame. [In this sentence, the word "us" refers not just to the guides but to me as well.]
We will feed your knowing a piece at a time. All we know is for you to grasp at your leisure. Do not fear knowing. Understand as a child does. One does not give a child a great book and demand that she reads it at once. One writes each letter, patiently, telling her the sound of each.
So must you teach yourself. Do not berate yourself that you cannot read a great book all at once. Allow time to take each letter one by one.
And it is very well that you have taken up the study of the Will-on-the-stone. [This is the term they use to describe psionics, near as I can render it.]
Through this small thing you will come to a greater understanding of the Guides.
And it is strength. You cannot increase your strength too much.
Let us speak to you now of the will-on-the-stone.
It is true that others have come to this knowing. Understand that you have two special gifts: one, your innate strength, and two: your refusal to accept without proof. You belive nothing, ultimately. You insist upon proof, proof, proof...
(Passage excized for embarrassing mushyness)
This is no small labour you have taken up. Yet neither must it be, of necessity, great. All it must be is constant, not to be put aside often and taken up infrequently. That way lies only disappointment, frustration, and ultimately-- despair.
But I'm not very good at it.
And after two days!
I've been trying to do stuff like this all my life.
No. You have not. It is true that at certain times you have taken up this task. And how swiftly have you laid it aside! A day; two days; you become discouraged, your heart, as they say, goes out of the task. You have promised yourself a week. Let us make a small request: Two weeks. We predict great things for you, if you but persevere.
This skill is needful. It will assist in healing the flesh and spirit of your fellows. It will lend you a greater strength, which you sorely need.
But I keep feeling like it's not real. It's like I have a picture of a world where all this stuff-- you guys, reiki, psi-- it's all real, and another where this is all crazyness, where none of it happens, it's all bunk, and I'm a sad delusional fool clinging to a lie just to feel special. And It's like I snap between seeing one world and seeing the other.
We know. Let us ask one thing of you: Try, for only a few days, to banish that empty world from your mind. If we fail you, that world will still remain. You could resign from your labours and move on to other things better fitted for that world. But it will never come to that. Be at peace in this. For only a short while, give yourself to the belief that you can do these things. You must only try. It is all within your grasp! Only put out your hand, only reach a little further, and the first of the prizes is yours.
Persist in the little game of the line. [This refers to one of the excercizes on the RPKP site.]
It is charming and will help you. Then see.
Be at peace.
More soon...
Okay. No updates for a while, sorry about that. It's been rather an odd period. I actually lost all contact with the guides for almost a week at one point; that was scary. I missed them. But I got back on track and I've been having a lot more exchanges with them recently.
I'm still working on this peculiar narrative thing they've got me doing, on and off. Well, more off than on. I guess I'm scared of screwing it up somehow, despite repeated assurances from the guides that this won't happen. Still don't know what it's for or what it is, whether it's supposed to be an account of stuff that actually happened or a fairy-tale or what. They aren't telling.
They've also got me doing this other thing, an art project. I'm supposed to be drawing pictures of all this weird, Voynichy stuff they keep showing me, like odd plants and people doing rituals or something. I've made a bit of a start, but not much. In some ways I wish I'd read less stuff about magick, because I'm always second-guessing myself: is this something the guides are showing me, or something I saw somewhere and have conveniently forgotten till now? Am I creating something new, or just regurgitating stuff that others have done in a garbled, useless form? The guides tell me not to worry, it'll be okay, but I'm very unsure about all of this.
There's also another book they want me to do, but I haven't started that one yet because I need a really specific book, one with red pages. There's some lower, dodgier entity that apparently I need to talk to, but it's so dodgy it needs a seperate book and I've to wrap the book up and keep it away from my stuff, and blah blah blah. Obviously I'm a bit leery about the whole excercise, but it seems that I've somehow got myself in a position where this communication needs to happen, and the guides would rather I did it under controlled circumstances than have this thing come through any old how. They won't or can't tell me what sort of thing it is, whether it's external to me or a part of my own mind that needs to be expressed. Mind you, they haven't told me much about their own natures, on the (fairly reasonable) grounds that I'd reject almost anything they
did tell me.
I got a bit miffed when they said I had to get
another book. I was all, "Whaaat? Do you guys work for a stationary company or something?" But they calmed me down, saying that if I stuck with it it'll all be worth while. You know, I belive them.
Anyhow, without further ado, here's a chat I had earlier today.
Bold is the entities, plain text is me.
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Right. Now, what about this other book, the one with the pictures? What am I supposed to do with that?
Fill it.
Uh, huh. But I don't know what with.
Clear your mind. Do not second-guess yourself. We will guide you.
I'm having a hard time. The pictures keep going wrong.
They do not 'keep going wrong'. You have only made one.
The tree one went wrong. And I made a start on the big yellow flower thing.
You did not complete it. FEAR prevents you. You fear not labour but ceasless, hopeless labour. This we know. Understand: this labour will bear fruit.
What if I'm not good enough?
You are. Hide behind faliure all you wish, but your abilities will seek you out and find you.
But what's it for, anyway? The pix you show me look like an alchemical text or something.
Indeed so. [It is a part of] the great work, the alchemy of the soul, the key to awareness beyond awareness.
Don't get me wrong, but does the world really need another grimoire?
Yes. Have you, in all your searching and striving, found the answers you seek?
Well... no. Not really.
Indeed. That lack haunts you, paralyses you. And behold the fate of those who wrote the texts that you speak of: hubris, addiction, murder, disease, death; all manner of cruelty they inflicted. All manner of selfishness, they preached.*
That's a bit harsh, innit?
It is the truth. And the knowing of this truth is an element of your fear. You fear to inflict suffering. "Better to be weak," your heart says, "than to be villianous; better to suffer in weakness than to be the author of suffering."
And in this you are right, and wise. But that is not the choice at hand. We will not lead you into selfishness. Instead, we will aid you in aquitting yourself in those tasks that affect others. We will help you win free of fear, and give you strength.
Be at peace, now.
*Obviously that's not universally true, but it's true of the texts I had in mind at the time.
