Originally published on Yahoo! Contributor Network Feb 1, 2009
Harold Sherman's, How to Make ESP Work for You, was first released in 1964. I was already interested in everything metaphysical and paranormal, so not only did I read the book, I also immersed myself in it. In truth, I absorbed it. I was 13.
With his step-by-step approach, Harold Sherman (1898-1987) taught me how to relax into receptivity, and I faithfully practiced his methods, amusing myself every time his instructions and my ESP worked.
Fortunately I had a friend who was as interested in the subject of ESP as I was. Kathie and I played little ESP guessing games and discovered that simply thinking of somebody could bring that person into being, whether through telephone lines or in person. However, Mr. Sherman's admonitions to be spiritually ready frightened me, and not knowing what he meant by spiritual readiness, I put my ESP development aside.
Several years passed. At nearly 18, I gave birth to my first daughter and decided I was probably ready to further develop whatever ESP I had brought into the world with me. I read the book again, cover to cover, and practiced the exercises.
The First Major ESP Experience
Shortly after I separated from my first husband, I found a job with an insurance agency in Chicago, my first real taste of life outside of high school. I quickly developed friendships with Marilyn and Jeannie. Though I wasn't planning on dating anybody yet (my divorce wasn't final), Marilyn's cousin, Dennis, found his way into my heart. We had a lot in common - he was not yet divorced, he had a young daughter, he treated me respectfully, and we had a great time together.
Usually we spent time riding on his motorcycle. When Dennis arrived at the home I still shared with my parents, he brought along his entourage of motorcycle buddies so we could all ride together. Mom and Dad hated him, insisting he belonged to a gang. They were also embarrassed by what they thought the neighbors might say, and they refused to babysit any longer if I insisted on dating this "rebel". So I told Dennis to take his daughter out for ice cream that night and I would figure out how we could get together the following weekend.
The next morning I awoke with a feeling of dread. The air around me felt heavy and stifling. My pulse quickened with a certain knowing that something was amiss. By the time I arrived at work, I was consumed with the thought that something was terribly wrong with somebody I loved.
Marilyn was not at work that day. Jeannie watched me call my childcare provider, my sisters, my parents, and my best friends. I told Jeannie that I KNEW something was terribly wrong with somebody. I couldn't eat breakfast. I couldn't concentrate on work. Morning break came and went, my mind still focused on reasons I might feel as uncomfortable as I felt. Jeannie kept watching me. By the time lunch arrived I still had no appetite and I hadn't eaten anything all day.
By afternoon break, Jeannie told me she couldn't stand to see me suffer anymore. She thought she knew why I was experiencing these feelings. Dennis and I had only begun to date. I never would have imagined my thoughts would have been connected to him, so I was surprised by my reaction to her news. Jeannie had heard that Dennis was killed in a motorcycle accident the night before and suggested we call to verify the rumor.
It was true. On the night I was supposed to be with him, a Pepsi truck crashed into Dennis, severing his head from his body. The moment I heard what had happened to him, I knew my feelings of dread were connected to him. I sobbed with a mixture of grief and relief - grief because I had lost somebody who was becoming more meaningful to me day after day, and relief because my family and the rest of my friends were fine.
During that time, I slept in the basement of my parents' home with my daughter's crib next to my bed. Exhausted from the emotions of the day, I turned out the light and crawled into bed. As my head touched the pillow, somebody whispered in my ear. I couldn't understand the words and I was too frightened to find out. I shot out of bed like a bullet and turned on the light.
The following night, after turning off the light, and as I sat on the bed, I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I jumped to turn on the light. From that night on, I slept with a light on every night.
As much as I wanted to learn how to develop my ESP, I discovered I was too afraid to continue learning about it. I shut out the whispering and the touching and apologized to the spirit I believed to be Dennis for being too frightened to communicate with him.
The Lighter Side of ESP
But I was not able to stop the ESP from filtering in. When I was promoted from the typing pool, I entered a different department, where I toyed with my newly developed ESP on a much lighter level by playing the "I know what's happening" game with bewildered coworkers. One national manager, for instance, received a call at the same time I came across an agent's name in a file box. With certainty I KNEW the manager was talking to that agent.
In the 1970's we had no caller ID, so when I asked a coworker to sneak into his office to confirm my statement, she couldn't help but investigate. The caller could have been an agent anywhere across the country, a family member, a friend, a coworker, or even a subscriber. But that call came from the agent I named.
ESP Offers Help To Those Who Listen
I have often believed that ESP is merely an ability to ascertain all possible reactions generated from each action, and when certain energies are aligned, and somebody is receptive to those energies, they click. Some of us hear that click. Like computers, we have the ability to reason a "then" from an "if" in order to learn more about the world in which we live. By becoming aware of or sensitive to feelings, facial expressions and body language, and by listening to our consciences or our "sixth" sense, we have the ability to recognize signals that alert us to possible danger - if we listen - and if we act.
My ESP has helped me on many occasions. Driving to Great America one year when my children were young, I awoke with a sense that something was not quite right. A friend of one of my children demanded we not go because of a dream she had. Another friend cautioned us not to go as well. But we really wanted to go to Great America, so we ignored the warnings. I drove carefully, however, the warnings ever present in my mind.
All the way up to and past Chicago that day we saw accident after accident. People were racing in excess of 90 mph. By the time we saw the Ferris wheel from the expressway, we had rammed into a car that had rammed into another car that had rammed into yet another car that stopped short when it saw an accident ahead. All total, there were five accidents on and off the cloverleaf of the expressway that day and countless others along our way to Great America. As a result of our accident, instead of enjoying ourselves at the amusement park, we spent the day in the hospital with no way home. My car was totaled, but we were all in fairly good shape.
Another day, as I was driving north in the left-hand lane of a four-lane highway alongside a truck, I had a feeling that a driver heading west from the east, even though he or she had a stop sign, might run the stop sign in front of the truck that was turning east. Fortunately, I listened to that little voice and, without seeing - only sensing - danger, I slammed on my breaks just in time to see a car run through the stop sign and speed past me. I hadn't seen the car until it was directly in front of me. The accident would have been, if not fatal, devastating.
ESP Warnings
Some feelings are generated from actions that practically scream at you to pay attention. One morning as my sister (another Kathy), my friend (Clare), and I were planning a canoe trip, I kept dropping and breaking things. After about the fifth breakage I reasoned that the clumsy actions were probably warnings signaling me to NOT go on the trip. My sister awoke with a feeling that maybe we shouldn't go on the trip either, after having had a dream about it. And when my friend arrived to pick us up, she told us she thought we shouldn't go because she had been having a bad feeling about the trip since she awoke. We will never know if there would have been an undertow that might have ended our lives or if something less serious might have happened - we trusted ourselves enough to know we should change our plans.
ESP Friends
As one might expect, I gravitate toward people who believe as I do, that the world offers far more mysteries than we can imagine and who delight in discoveries of things we previously did not understand. Katherine was one of those friends. She and I made a pact that whoever died first would contact the other. One January day a couple of years ago, I felt a presence in my room. Too terrified of what it was to even try to make contact, I shut myself off from it only to discover a month later that the friend I had been trying to reach since before Christmas, had died on January 10th. Katherine had kept her word, but I shut her out because I didn't know it was she who was trying to communicate with me.
I often wonder, though, if I had known she was dead, would her presence still have frightened me? In our discussions before she died, I told her she would find it much easier to reach me in my dreams. And she has.
My Future With ESP
Fortunately for me, Harold Sherman's, How to Make ESP Work for You, was reprinted in 1986, because in total I have had to purchase three copies of the book. I lent my first two copies to people who refused to return them. I still have my third copy. Now if only I could build up the courage to read it and practice it again.
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