How to Test the Value of Psychic Experiences

To someone who wrote describing many kinds of psychic experiences including astral travel and kundalini manifestations.

So many kinds of experiences are possible that even the yogis of India have not listed and classified them as to their character and value.

For the yogi there is a single question: What is or was the lasting effect of an experience, if any? Did it impart knowledge and wisdom or did it leave me asking What Happened To Me?

Mistaken experiences

An experience may be real, but our response to it may be mistaken. For example, I knew a man who believed he was the present King of India because someone told him so in a dream. He would also dream someone was dead and would spend hours praying for their soul only to find out they were alive. Yet he never questioned the accuracy of his experiences.

I knew a very intelligent woman who had a revelation that she was a part of the Divine Mother that had broken off (???) and incarnated as her, and her husband was the Archangel Michael that was born on earth to protect her.

Another question to ask is: Have I learned anything from this experience, or do I just have more questions?

It is extremely important to approach these matters with great caution because it is so easy to misunderstand and come to a wrong conclusion about them. In the course of my own sadhana I have had experiences that would have been disastrous if I had accepted them at face value.

Benefits?

Astral travel is certainly real, but whether or not it is beneficial is the question. I have known several people who astral traveled from childhood because in a previous life they have been forced to develop psychic powers including astral projection. In this life it caused them great confusion.

I grew up with people who were visionaries and spiritual clairvoyants, but they were very stable and understood everything. One of them was a great healer and miracle worker. On the other hand I have known others that were confused and ultimately harmed by taking their experiences seriously.

Quite a few people have reported to me receiving “initiations” when out of the body, but they neither understood their experience or learned anything from it.

Look closely

I am telling you all these examples to urge you to carefully analyze everything and determine for yourself the character of various experiences.

Do you have some kind of test to apply during these various kinds of experience? It is very important to do so. I recommend that you intone Om over and over and see what occurs.

I would advise you to forget experiences that do not come with understanding, and put your attention on those that give you insight and practical knowledge. It is very common for psychic life to consist of worthless and worthwhile events. Sand and white sugar look alike, but an ant knows which is which. So the yogis say to be like the wise ant and take the sugar and leave the sand.