When I am teaching beginners I often have them work with a “Psychic Development Aptitude Exercise” that involves sending and receiving colored shapes.  You’ll find the exercise score sheet, instructions, and cards that you can download and print out in my Anastasi System of Psychic Development Level 1 book, in my Psychic Development Level 1 class on my website, and in the Free section of downloads available on my website.

 

The Psychic Development Exercise is great for developing both telepathy and empathy, and also visualization.  The Crown Center Mandala that is on the cover of all of my Psychic Development Books also aids in developing your visualization skills.  Another tool I’ve often employed is to look at a picture, then turn it over and ‘see’ it in my mind.  Or mentally recall a person or place that is important to you, and attempt to visualize as much of that image as you can.  For those who lack visualization skills, focus on the feeling the memory gives you.  Visualization develops out of feeling. The artistically inclined may even attempt to draw an image from memory.  All of these strategies will help you develop and improve your visualization skills.

 

Through working with students over the years I discovered that children are almost always able to visualize or ‘picture’ a colored shape in their mind, prior to sending it to a partner, but some adults have difficulty with visualization, unable to picture the colored shape in their minds eye.  Gradually I learned that all of us are born with the innate ability to visualize, but as we develop language many of us stop visualizing, preferring instead to use words to describe things, even to ourselves.  I have found that ‘word’ thinkers usually have more difficulty with visualization exercises than people who just allow themselves to ‘feel’ the colored shape or whatever thought image they are sending.  Those people who ‘feel’ the shape will often immediately visualize it along with the feeling, just like a child does.

 

In my classes I find that word-thinkers represent about 50% of adults.  I usually have word-thinkers skip the black and white shapes in my practice deck of cards and go straight to the colored shapes.  For some indeterminate reason, focusing on a color intensifies feeling and aids visualization.  I’ve learned that when sending a black and white image, if the word-sender imagines it is colored, they will be able to visualize and send it more easily.

 

It’s also noteworthy that when I say, “Don’t think of an apple”, my student ALL visualize an apple.  That’s because I surprised them into ‘seeing’ the image before their conscious mind gets in the way and says the word  ‘apple’ in their mind.

 

Word-thinkers are generally not as good at visualizing things as their more empathic ‘feeler’ fellow students, but they are often better, initially, at telepathy itself - that is, the sending of words or complete thoughts and phrases.  I love to watch the development of my students, as the empathic ‘feelers’ in the class begin to become more telepathic and learn to send words and phrases, and the word-thinkers gradually become more empathic and regain the ability once again to visualize too.

 

So, are you an empathic ‘feeler’, good at visualization already, or a word-thinker, better at telepathy but not very good at visualization?  Now you have a better understanding of why, some exercises to help develop the skill, and the knowledge that you do, in fact, already have visualization ability, and once you are able to relax and allow it to come back to you, it will.