How to Develop Your Psychic Ability  Part 1

By Edgar Cayce  

June 30, 1932 

[Note: The following article is based on a lecture given by Edgar Cayce on 6/30/1932 at his home in Virginia Beach for the First Annual Congress of the A.R.E. It is included in the report document for reading 5752-2.]

Unfortunately, we have all come to think of "psychic" as something very unusual, especially since the dictionary gives as one definition of psychic as follows: "having abnormal powers, especially the power of automatic writing or of conversing in a trance."

If we understood the real meaning of psychic forces, however, we would have a different conception as to the significance of developing such powers within ourselves. Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, all of us have psychic forces. Whether we want to develop them or not is a different question.

When people go about to develop any special ability or faculty, we know that they go into training with that object in view. One training for the prize ring has certain things that must not be done. In order to develop the ability to use some portion or function of the physical body, specific preparation must be made. One developing the voice trains that special ability or faculty. Certain rules must be followed in order to sing, to play the violin or piano.

What is that faculty which goes through the process of being trained? Is it simply a portion of the physical body?

As we begin to develop such faculties or abilities latent within every individual - such as discernment of color, or the differentiation in how to apply it to visualize or picturize for others something we have seen in nature - these faculties partake of more than just the ability to draw the hand across the palette, the canvas or a piece of paper. Something within is being expressed. What gives the expression? Our psychic forces!

Now let me give you just what "psychic" means and say how it should be properly used. Do not think that every person you hear spoken of as "psychic" has something very peculiar about him; for you are afflicted with the same condition! You are just as peculiar as he; possibly more so.

Webster gives this primary definition of psychic or psychical: "Of or pertaining to the human soul. Of or pertaining to the living principle in man. Sometimes pertaining to the human soul in its relationship to sense, or to appetite, and the outer visible world as distinct from the spiritual or the rational faculties." The second definition is "Of or pertaining to the mind, the mental contrasted within the physical body."

Perception of the physical mind must come through the senses. Development of a faculty within means development of the acuteness of a sense. We know that what we seek to understand or comprehend reaches us physically through the five senses. As we draw comparisons, we get the differentiation and the ability to evaluate tone or color. Just as a photographic print has to go through a certain process in being made, so in perception we develop the power or ability to discern with the faculty we possess.

People are sometimes afflicted with psychic blindness, consisting of an inability to recognize objects as they are seen. I once knew a man who saw everything upside down. He could not see any other way; everything was upside down to him. He was psychically blind!

There are also those who are psychically deaf, which consists of an inability to comprehend the significance of harmony or sounds heard. We have seen people who were able to hear over a telephone but could not hear while sitting in a room talking with anyone; or they could hear while riding on a train but not while walking down the street. That is because some portion of the psychic functioning in the body is deficient.

Then we know from these things that there is a definite faculty within our bodies which we may call psychic forces, or psychic powers. This faculty pertains to the soul and also to something physical. Hence the great difference in the French and in the Grecian definition of psychic. To the French it means "animal" or "carnal"; while the Grecian meaning is "of the soul life." These two meanings are just as foreign to each other as possible! No wonder we find so many different meanings of the word as used by others!

When we used a word, what do we mean to imply or convey to others? This depends upon the ability of those listening - and also upon our ability to describe, through psychic forces, or through the development obtained through psychic forces. Only like begets like; only like can understand like. It is very hard for an engineer to describe to a musician just what his work is like, or for the musician to describe his work to an engineer. This is because of individual training of physical faculties - but also the portion which gives a perfect understanding or comprehension of those physical faculties: that is, the psychic force. 

There is also such a thing as psychic medicine, that department of science which treats of mental disease. If the psychic forces are not developed, there's something wrong with the mental abilities, something wrong with the abilities to comprehend. Because the ability to feed our souls (and that is why we are here) depends upon our ability to supply ourselves from our surroundings with that which will enable us to develop the power of comprehension within.

If you are a musician, you can easily understand what is meant by psychic rhythm. It is the rhythmic form in which the mind tends to perceive monotonously repeated stimulation. That's why we pray and why we should also pray audibly, because the sound stimulates the ability to awaken our senses, in order to arouse the forces which will strengthen the psychic abilities within.