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[K-Mentalz]

I think that most psionic communities are lacking a systematic approach to energy manipulation. It seems like it's to abstract for anyone to progress to the more advanced and complex levels of EM, and anything "advanced" that most people post is generally regarded as "fluff".  Most people start of with EM pretty well, but once they get past making various types of psiballs and constructs, they eventually plateau and lose intrest (this has happend to me). After that, there is really no more room for innovation, discovery, and growth. Having a specific systematic approach to EM would be more beneficial than just "doing what works for you" because it would allow psions to practice under one logical system with its own applicable and reliable terms and rules. It would also make sure everyone had a concrete system to work off of, and that we could all be on the same page and reach the same results from practicing EM. I hope you guys understand what I am getting at. (I had a hard time wording this.)

What do you all think about the idea of having a systematic approach to EM?

[ShadowRain]

I have noticed the plateau as well.  Personally I think the problem isn't so much that everyone is doing things different ways (aka "what works for them"), but that no one can really agree on what the results are.  Energy perception/scanning has received very very little attention in the OEC in general--there isn't even a good comprehensive article on it.  So a lot of people end up trying to do energy manipulation without being able to see what they're doing. :\

The people that I know who have taken energy manipulation past the plateau and actually innovate and do phenomenal things--all of them are fantastic scanners as well, and can see incredible detail accurately (such that they can look at things independently, and when the results are compared, they agree).  When you can see at that level of detail you can *see* how things work, regardless of how they were originally done (though often there are clues about how it was done visible in the energy flows and patterns).

Essentially, teach someone a specific method of energy work, and they'll be able to duplicate whatever, but that will limit them if they stop with that.  Teach them to *see*, and discovery and innovation can follow.

My two cents.

[zekechyo]

EM takes long time to get strong effects.
I guy in Taiwan I know can control the street light lighten or darken.
But he has practiced chi-gong for a few years.

[Red30]

Here's a routine I did for over 3 years, I hit a wall with it and added in the element accumulations of Franz Bardon's IIH. This gave me a different perspective on psi energy work and magick energy work. I found that it's basically the same but the mechanics (application/way of doing it) are the only differences.

http://psionguild.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6801

Another problem with teachers is that some of them are not really masters of the art. I'd be more willing to learn from someone who could use the empty force. Which if I keep at it, I will master it.
The things I have achieved are..
Moving energy sensitive people with my energy. (working hard to effect mundanes)
Energy healing. (Freak'n jedi master of this, must be my niche)

I have an easier time manipulation living energy, than inanimate objects.

[The Adfeng]

I think that most psionic communities are lacking a systematic approach to energy manipulation. It seems like it's to abstract for anyone to progress to the more advanced and complex levels of EM, and anything "advanced" that most people post is generally regarded as "fluff".  Most people start of with EM pretty well, but once they get past making various types of psiballs and constructs, they eventually plateau and lose intrest (this has happend to me). After that, there is really no more room for innovation, discovery, and growth. Having a specific systematic approach to EM would be more beneficial than just "doing what works for you" because it would allow psions to practice under one logical system with its own applicable and reliable terms and rules. It would also make sure everyone had a concrete system to work off of, and that we could all be on the same page and reach the same results from practicing EM. I hope you guys understand what I am getting at. (I had a hard time wording this.)

What do you all think about the idea of having a systematic approach to EM?

People advance with psionics when they want to advance.  To be honest, you don't really need another to scan your own construct or to ask questions to.  Everyone is completely capable of self-sustaining their own research and experimentation.  Of course it's helpful to have others, that's why we have the OEC.

The OEC usually frowns upon other types of energy manipulation because they are, as you said, regarded as fluff.  Unless you can prove it with video/pictures/etc, then don't claim you can do it.  It is not up to myself or another to give you ideas on how to perform psionics or experiments.  Every psion should be experimenting on their own and talking to others(if they wish) about what they find.  There are no real "terms and rules" to psionics.  Experiment, train, do whatever that helps you advance.  Don't be limited because of someone, something, or because there's not an easy way of doing something.

[K-Mentalz]

Every psion should be experimenting on their own and talking to others(if they wish) about what they find.  There are no real "terms and rules" to psionics.  Experiment, train, do whatever that helps you advance.  Don't be limited because of someone, something, or because there's not an easy way of doing something.

Well, I guess your right about that, but why wouldn't a systematic approach work for EM? Do you think that it could hinder personal progress? Do you think psions gain more knowledge about EM from approaching it in a non-systematic way?

Sorry if I'm asking to many questions lol. I just want to know what you guys' opinions are about the idea.

[yamitenshi]

First of all, there's no such thing as too many questions.

Second, I agree that there's not really a comprehensive guide to scanning available. If anyone were to write one, I'd be much obliged.

Third, I think that in a field where everybody does what seems to be working for them, and where a particular way of doing things will work for one person but not the next, using one grand unified way of doing things will hurt everybody's progress.

[The Adfeng]

First of all, there's no such thing as too many questions.

Second, I agree that there's not really a comprehensive guide to scanning available. If anyone were to write one, I'd be much obliged.

Third, I think that in a field where everybody does what seems to be working for them, and where a particular way of doing things will work for one person but not the next, using one grand unified way of doing things will hurt everybody's progress.

That's the thing(with a unified way of doing something), in psionics, there are many ways to do something.  You can create a shield many different ways.  On top of that there are different types of shields that you can create.  There's more than one way to make a construct, or program, or move a psiwheel.  You can make a guide for everyone to do one way to do something, but it won't work for everyone.  That's why there aren't many guides on scanning.  People scan so many different ways.  Some people close their eyes and think of the person, some people just think of someone, some people have to meditate and concentrate and then focus on one person.  Some people do it even differently.  If there was one way to do everything, then it would be great to have a guide to do everything in psionics.  But there's not just one way.  There are things that we don't even know about.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from their ideas, but I'm trying to tell my opinion/ideas on it.

[shade000]

I would say that being systematic is essential.

[yamitenshi]

Agreed, but being systematic is something different from having a unified approach. Also, being systematic is only useful once you know what works.

[The Adfeng]

I would say that being systematic is essential.

I would strongly disagree for above stated reasons, but that is my opinion on the matter.

[yamitenshi]

I would say that being systematic is essential.

I would strongly disagree for above stated reasons, but that is my opinion on the matter.

I would say that once you know what works for you personally, being systematic may be a good idea. Doing the same thing every time can help you monitor your progress, as when doing the same thing yields different results, the difference is a combination of personal progress and external factors. Only after that can you properly try a different method for comparison. Otherwise, the perceived difference between two methods might be falsely attributed to the new method working better or worse, when external factors may also be playing a major role.

[The Adfeng]

I would say that being systematic is essential.

I would strongly disagree for above stated reasons, but that is my opinion on the matter.

I would say that once you know what works for you personally, being systematic may be a good idea. Doing the same thing every time can help you monitor your progress, as when doing the same thing yields different results, the difference is a combination of personal progress and external factors. Only after that can you properly try a different method for comparison. Otherwise, the perceived difference between two methods might be falsely attributed to the new method working better or worse, when external factors may also be playing a major role.

Well, yes, of course.  I'm not saying that you doing what works for you over and over again is bad, I'm saying that trying to get everyone to do everything one way is bad.  If you can only scan one way and that's the way that works for you, that's fine.  If you can only make a construct one way, that's fine.  I'm not saying that you should change everything you do all the time.  I'm saying there shouldn't be a systematic approach for EVERYONE to follow(such as, to make a construct you have to do this this and this).

[flamedancer]

Actually, it is quite easy to create a systematic method if one creates an ontology. An ontology is basic a way to make implicit knowledge explicit and it allows implicit knowledge made explicit to be reuse-sable. Experience, technically, is a vector. Say that we have an image, the content of a thought, such as a cat. Well, the archetype of a cat has a context. There is a cat and then there is my cat where the context of the image is determined by associated experiences(memories, emotions, beliefs, etc.). This creates an orientation between different instances of the same thing - the cat. We, in this sense, can think of different instances of the cat as rows, in a matrix/table, where the columns would be associated experiences. An ontological method, in this sense, would aim to take these implicit experiences and model them explicitly. For example, say we have a glass that has half a liquid in it. The glass is half full or half empty depending on how you look at it; however, it still models the same thing with different ways of representing that instance of information. If you take a group of people good at sensing things psychically, you will see variations in how they experience what they are sensing; however, they all know what they are looking at and can agree on it, though, there are implicit differences in how this information is modeled. In doing this, it makes intuitive leaps less ephemeral, consistent, and it allows it to be shared. The issue with psionics is that is is a paradigm and not an ontological framework, in itself, which makes it lack any sort of systematic anything due to lack of any sort of ontological aesthetic.

For some reason, abstract frameworks, along with linguistic ways of modeling these abstract frameworks symbolically, is associated with magic, so a lot of people who claim the psionics paradigm avoid explicit ways of modeling intensional(not intentional) states.  

Stanford has a great ontology editor called Protege which can be found here:
Protégé
Along with a great article on creating ones first ontology where it uses the:
Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology

I'm saying there shouldn't be a systematic approach for EVERYONE to follow(such as, to make a construct you have to do this this and this).

You are actually missing a very important factor. Psi is intentional. Intentional states are bracketed by, contained in, and predicated by intentionality in which intentionality is the thought about something. How this thought is modeled is represented by how it seems like to think about this thing; therefore, it is linked to implicit experiential knowledge, but other things are rooted in this. How to do math is deeply rooted in tacit and intuitive forms of knowledge so to is language, but we have standards of language and formal ways of modeling mathematics. This starts as a formal ontology. The lack of any sort of ontological framework means there is a lack of a way to share implicit, experiential, and tacit information making it so that it is hard to share within the psionics paradigm. You are confusing a formal ontological framework for an imperative operational framework where, in actuality, how to do psi is rooted in the implicit frameworks which model information. It is like saying that since the glass of liquid can be half full or half empty, that we should not create a common way of sharing information about this state in since to do so creates an imperative view - you have to say the glass of liquid this way. No. It just creates an explicit standard which allows for the modeling of information to share and to reason about that information. Having a standard of language, for example, does not create, in itself, an imperative framework. It allows us, semantically, to create accurate propositions about the world by manipulating concepts where we can share these concepts. The goal, in such an ontology, is not imperative; rather, it is simply a way for information to be shared across a common domain, explicitly, in such a way that it can be used over and over again.

[yamitenshi]

That doesn't take away the fact that this works differently for everybody, as I understand it. What might be one person's half full might be another's half empty, and vice-versa, but they're not interchangeable. Or, as a better example, it's like having a red and a green button labeled A and B respectively, with two people having to press a specific button without seeing each other do it. However, one of them is analphabetic and the other is colorblind. Telling them both to press button A will achieve nothing for the analphabetic, and telling them both to press the red button will amount to nothing for the colorblind person. Of course, both approaches will eventually result in the right way to do it, but that will come from either the analphabetic learning, after a great deal of trouble, what an A looks like, or from the colorblind person noticing, after an equally great amount of trouble, what the subtle difference between red and green is for him. The better way would be to just tell the analphabetic to press the red button, and to tell the colorblind person to press the button labeled A.

A universal systematic apprach would be possible by just telling them both to push the button on the left, but the thing with psionics is, we don't know what left means. Therefore, a universal apprach that works for everyone is not possible with our current understanding of psionics, and we'll have to stick with colorblind people pressing the button labeled A and analphabetics pressing the red button, until we finally find out what left really means.

[flamedancer]

yamitenshi:

Not only do your points not relate to what I said, it is incorrect when we look at what we inductively know about psi. It is also incorrect with the example. You stated that an instance of a glass being half empty and half full cannot be interchanged, but they can be since they model the same information. The variations arise based on choices made by the person seeing it along with things they attend to and things they ignore. Since perspectives are different for the same thing, possible choices and decisions based on that perspective are different; however, the same thing is represented. With psi, this only impacts referents of intentionality and things that are significant or meaningless in terms of perception and acting on a finite set of choices. In a simpler form, this only impacts the orientation of their mind as well as choices and what we will see and what we will avoid. In other words, for any objective instance, we have a finite number of ways to perceive and experience this objective instance in which it impacts how we model our selections, choices, and decisions - finite perceptions refer to that object in objective reality. Both the labels of half full and half empty accurately reflect the contents of the cup; however, differences in models results in different ways we will treat the cup. We can adjust this with a context. When I am happy, a cup may be half-full. When I am sad, it might be half-filled; however, I can make the decision to see it as either or depending on the context of my mood thereby taking away from any sort of imperative structure. While I would be making a set of ontological commitments making it imperative in a sense, it is contextual thereby taking away from it being imperative - I can make a decision about what to do with the cup based on my decision on how to see the cup where it is the same cup with the only differences arising when one considers what they will do with it. It is more like having an apple and thinking what one will do with that apple. Saying there is an apple does not mean one has to eat it, for one can throw it at someone. One can make it into apple sauce. Each possible action is a decision based on how one chooses to see that apple; however, it is an apple nonetheless.  

Imagine that you have a beaker capable of holding 10cc of a liquid and you pour 5cc of water into it. Some people would say that the beaker is half-full ... others would say that it is half-empty ... and some would say that it is filled to one-half of its capacity or that it merely contains 5cc of water.
4 oz. beaker with 2 oz. of water

The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that we can portray the same item in various ways, with each representing a different perspective or mindset. Thus, when selections are made from the set of possible portraits and are then gathered together in the conceptual framework known as an ontology, the result is but one of several possible vistas.

This concept was eloquently explained in What Is a Knowledge Representation, where under the caption of Role 2: A Knowledge Representation Is a Set of Ontological Commitments, the authors state:

If, as we argue, all representations are imperfect approximations to reality, each approximation attending to some things and ignoring others, then in selecting any representation, we are in the very same act unavoidably making a set of decisions about how and what to see in the world. That is, selecting a representation means making a set of ontological commitments. The commitments are, in effect, a strong pair of glasses that determine what we can see, bringing some part of the world into sharp focus at the expense of blurring other parts.

The Conceptual Frameworks and Organized Vocabularies for AI Programs

A universal systematic apprach would be possible by just telling them both to push the button on the left, but the thing with psionics is, we don't know what left means. Therefore, a universal apprach that works for everyone is not possible with our current understanding of psionics, and we'll have to stick with colorblind people pressing the button labeled A and analphabetics pressing the red button, until we finally find out what left really means.

We know that psi is ostensibly an intentional phenomena. This means that qualia necessitates psi, so while it is subjective in its utilization, this is an objective point in terms of its mechanic. Since qualia necessitates psi from what we currently know, I can make the inductive statement that qualia necessitates psi, unless refuted by an instance of psi where qualia was absent; therefore, for every instance of psi, we have qualia, so I can, indeed, make an universal statement that everyone has to use intention to do something with psi since mental states necessitate it. This means that one cannot argue that using intention works better for some than others where it is all relative since intentional states, in the terms of possessing mental content not being purposeful, necessitate the phenomena. If you disagree with this statement, then find me an instance of psi where there was no consciousness involved(anything with the ability to be aware of the way something seems) And, going beyond that, we can make the statement that intentional states and experiences have a particular sympathy in such a way that one can create a correlation among how intentional states are modeled and represented. In other words, experiences can have a correlation which results in implicitly and tacitly knowing how. An ontological framework does nothing more than make this more explicit and we see this already demonstrated with language. For example, we have different ways of thinking about these words we are saying; however, we are capable of communicating these concepts in a standard way that both of us can understand even if we don't understand the subjective experience of how we think about these words.

As I stated, you are looking at it from an imperative stand point versus the stand point of common domains that contain the predicates for common experiences which are like saying having a common language means that one must structure ones ideas in certain ways. Doing your own thing is fine and dandy, but we experimentally know that psi manifests strongly when you have instances of field consciousness which cannot happen smoothly if everyone's experiential states are going in the opposite directions and you can't very well communicate which way you want to go if no one is on the same page.  

Furthermore, in the above reply, I explained how experience, which frames the context of intentionality, has a particular direction relative to what one thinks about. As I explained, above, having different ways of modeling the same objective entities, events, etc. creates a series of possible conclusions about this object and thus possible directions that one might take; therefore, it is accounts for the orientation. In other words, creating a common ontology that capitalizes on intensionality explicitly states what left is. So, for both two people people to go left, we just have to have an instance of some character which marks that experiential state in terms of qualitative meaning.  

Versus saying a systematic approach, how about one states aesthetic. Psionics, as a paradigm, lacks any sort of aesthetic which results in it lacking any sort of refinement. I think such an aesthetic would benefit it the same way that the genre of music can provide a type of framework for the music.

The issue is that you are looking at it in terms of a set of techniques, but psi does not arise from a set of techniques, for it is the exchange of information. We can think of information as a sort of knowledge where how comes from how this knowledge is represented. An ontology is a set of ways to model information, knowledge, and how these domains are expressed which allows for any method of utilizing them. You can get the drift if you think of an RSS feed. You can plug that feed into any method of displaying the information. You can use different methods/techniques for displaying the information; however, the information shared is static in its grouping. Another example is the fact that I can access this forum topic from my phone, my laptop, from different browsers, etc. I am using different ways/techniques to access the same information. If there was no standard way of doing this, then all of these devices could not share information, and different methods of accessing this information are used. The information or knowledge expressed remains the same, though, due to having a common ontology. The goal of an ontology is to separate domain knowledge from operational knowledge. With IRC, how the IRC client operates is different from how the IRCd operates, though, they use the same protocol(domain knowledge). I am just pointing out that it really is not hard as it sounds.