Constructs For Newbies

Constructs for Newbies Lesenthe September 14, 2009

Contents 1 What is a Construct?

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2 Subtle Energy

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3 Why Make Constructs?

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4 What Can Constructs Do?

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5 On Sentience

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6 Planning and Programming

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7 Energy Manipulation 7.1 Visualisation . . . . . . . 7.2 Tactile/Spatial Awareness 7.3 The Tentacle Analogy . . 7.4 Mental Discipline . . . . .

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8 Focal Point

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9 The Blank Mind

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10 Visualisation

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11 Tactile/Spatial

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12 Exercises in Basic Energetics 12.1 Gathering Internal Energy . . . . . . . 12.2 Externalising Internal Energy (Basic) 12.3 Externalising Internal Energy (Slightly 12.4 Gathering Ambient Energy . . . . . .

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13 Creating Constructs

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14 The Method

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15 Further Information 15.1 Energy Types and Sources 15.2 Ambient Energy . . . . . 15.3 Ley Lines . . . . . . . . . 15.4 The Sun . . . . . . . . . . 15.5 Energetic Body . . . . . .

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16 The Question of Shelling

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17 Thoughtforms — Accidental Constructs

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18 Sample Construct Types 18.1 Shields and Filters . . . . . 18.2 Practical Shield Types . . . 18.3 Energetic Protection . . . . 18.4 Mundane Protection . . . . 18.5 Input Shields . . . . . . . . 18.6 Fields/Wards . . . . . . . . 18.7 “Guardian” and ”Watcher” 18.8 The Cop-Attractor . . . . .

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19 Final Notes

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Despite its length, this article is a very basic “for dummies”–style guide written with the newbie in mind. If you’ve been working with energetics for a year or more, you can probably afford to give it a miss. The purpose is to explain a little about how constructs work and how to effectively make, use and maintain them. I’ll be writing from a functional, rather than academic, standpoint here. The reason for this is twofold. One, you need not know the precise mechanics of how this works in order to do it. A functional understanding will suffice. Two, everybody has their own pet theory on precisely what energy is, how we are able to manipulate it, and its relationship with the more familiar physical world. I am not a scientist. I am an active psion, and the terminology I use could be termed pseudo-scientific at best. The definitions and descriptions herein will cover the how (or the how-to), and some of the why, and will provide you with an understanding of the subject matter sufficient to allow you to effectively create and use constructs. If you are looking for an article to prove that constructs exist, you will be disappointed. This is for those who can be bothered putting in the effort to prove it for themselves. All examples, unless otherwise noted, are from my own personal experience. The use of “he”, “his”, etc to describe the practitioner is for ease of reading (not to mention writing).

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What is a Construct?

A construct is an object which is “constructed” (hence the name) from subtle energy, the object being created by the practitioner and remaining functionally independent of him. I say functionally independent because constructs maintain

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a connection with their creator, but to all intents and purposes (at least for the purposes of this article) they are separate. You may be more familiar with the term “thoughtform”, which is similar, but quite different. Thoughtforms are created unconsciously, whereas the term construct is only used to describe something which is intentionally created. Thoughtforms will be covered further, though not in a great deal more detail, in a later section. The term “servitor” is used in some circles to describe a construct, often sentient, and most commonly created using ritual techniques. The emphasis of ritual here is only because the term is often used by ritualists, not because it is in any way different. A construct can take any form the practitioner decides upon, and will possess any attributes the practitioner wishes to impose upon it. Constructs range from the very simple, such as a featureless orb of energy which carries out basic tasks autonomously, to the very complex. The most complex of constructs can possess “intelligence”, and even (seeming) sentience, and are capable of virtually any feat the practitioner himself is capable of, and perhaps some that he is not. Constructs are both composed of, and “powered” by, subtle energy. If you’re anything like me, that statement may not make a great deal of sense until you actually start working with energy. After all, how can you make something out of energy? Much smarter people than I have made fools of themselves trying to explain subtle energy, so I’ll give you a brief, simple explanation that you can use while working with the stuff, until you come across, or work out, something better for yourself.

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Subtle Energy

Energy is easier to describe than it is to define, and it is a lot easier to use than it is to explain the mechanisms by which we use it. That being said, I’ll give it my best shot. Subtle energy is best defined by its attributes. Its most useful attribute to us is that it responds to thought. Any thought, no matter how idle, can and will have an effect, albeit a minor one. This is why psionic and magic training often starts with exercises to discipline the practitioner’s mind. The clearer the thought, the better the result. If you can manipulate this stuff while sitting in front of the television, you can manipulate it far more effectively with a clear mind and sharp focus. It’s a case of garbage in, garbage out; weak efforts will produce weak results. The type of directed thought used to manipulate energy is generally called “intent”. The second most useful attribute of subtle energy is that it is abundant. While this is not something that defines subtle energy as such, it is a good thing to know. The stuff is everywhere, quite literally. It composes our subtle bodies (more on this later) and emanates from us. It also emanates from all other forms of life, including plants. Physical objects have energetic “bodies” as well, though of a far less active nature. It collects in ley lines and emanates from the Earth itself. Stars exude a massive amount of energy. Energy is present, in some form, virtually everywhere. It is theorised by some that subtle energy forms the “framework” upon which everything physical is composed. The third attribute of use to us here is that energy can be programmed. It has already been established that energy is mentally manipulable. As long as you maintain your focus on the energy, it will do as directed. Once you stop

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focusing upon the energy, your control ends and it will naturally return to its natural state, which is to say it will disperse, as it is not in the nature of energy to simply hold a shape by itself. Patterns can and will maintain existence in the energy, but not with any degree of permanence. If you direct the energy to continue doing what you want it to, however - to maintain a cohesive mass in a specific shape, for instance - after you have stopped focusing upon it, you are programming it. You are imposing your intent upon it in a lasting way. It is programming that turns a blob of energy into a construct and maintains its existence. It also gives the construct the ability to carry out its tasks, if any, and to possess whatever attributes you desire. There are two popular opinions on just how this happens. The most popular idea is that the practitioner’s intent becomes imprinted upon the energy, and this is why the programming continues to work after you have stopped focusing on it. The fact that programming can be independently viewed and even deciphered by another practitioner seems to support this. The programming can even be disrupted or destroyed by another, as I described in an old article, entitled Beneath the Construct. The other opinion, which I personally embrace, is that the practitioner maintains a subconscious connection with the construct and that, because the practitioner is still focusing upon it, albeit subconsciously, the programming continues to function with seeming independence. There is a lot to recommend this notion, however unlikely it may appear at first glance. Firstly, the connection between practitioner and construct is an observable phenomenon. If that connection is disrupted, the programming ceases to exist and the energy which makes up the construct will dissipate. I’ve had some fun illustrating this fact without always telling the other person what it was that I was doing. “Hey, Les, wanna’ test out my new shield?” “Sure.” *pop!* “Awwww!” Secondly, there is anecdotal evidence in the form of accounts of practitioners creating more and more constructs until they have hit their limit and can create and maintain no more. This suggests that the mind of the practitioner is so busy focusing on maintaining so many constructs that it simply cannot focus on any more without releasing a few of the existing ones. I have not tested this theory myself, for the obvious reason that it requires the creation of many, many constructs, and I’m strapped for time at the best of times. I suspect that the truth may be a mix of the two, with programming existing within the energy, maintained by the practitioner’s subconscious mind. Really, it doesn’t matter which standpoint you take, or whether you believe something else entirely. Either way, you will be able to create constructs. I invite you to seek your own answer once you’ve learned the basics. All of this is well and good, but it doesn’t cover what energy actually is. The honest answer is that I’m not too sure. Every once in awhile somebody will come up with their grand unified theory of energetics which covers absolutely everything, but until I see some conclusive proof I’ll stick with my own flawed ideas. The simple fact is that it works for me, and that is all that matters at this point in my life. My functional theory is this: Energy is. It’s useful, it’s plentiful, and if you follow a few basic concepts you’ll be just fine. It is mentally manipulable, exists virtually everywhere and can be programmed. There are a variety of different 4

“types” of energy, but they are all manipulated by the same basic methods. I’ll cover a few different energy types later.

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Why Make Constructs?

Anything you can do, your construct can do; within reason. As the construct can act independently of your conscious mind, it can do things for you without your needing to oversee the process. In this way a construct is a labour-saving device, leaving you free to practise remote viewing (I’m sure you can come up with some interesting uses for that discipline) while your construct terrorises the locals on your behalf. The construct is free to act 24/7, whereas you may be too busy to do something yourself. Having a pre-existing construct ready and waiting is like having an energetic servant on-call to do your bidding while you get on with your busy life. It also means that there will be a constant focus upon your desired goal. I can’t hold my conscious focus for a solid week, but my constructs certainly can. Some operations require more time than others. A properly maintained construct will keep going until the job is done.

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What Can Constructs Do?

I’ve noticed a slight trend in some circles to create constructs which only affect things within the arena of energetics. I say, why limit yourself to the energetic world when there are countless things you can influence in mundane life? My favourite construct of all time was a creation which helped me at work by maximising revenue results. It possessed a semblance of sentience, and worked by influencing people and circumstances, bringing things together which resulted in some seriously impressive results. By influencing seemingly random events, it created favourable outcomes. This is a good example of construct use in the mundane world. It is also one of the occasions when a serious investment of time is required. It takes time to influence the mundane. In this case my poor, overworked construct had to deal with connecting me with the right people and the right accounts at the right time, as well as handling a few other factors that I’ll not discuss here. This is an ongoing process, as well as a time-consuming one, and because my construct had only one main task in its life, it was never distracted. After a short teething period, it helped me attain five monthly targets in a six month period, before reaching the end of its pre-determined lifespan. It also goes to show that planning is a key consideration. As I’d given it a limited lifespan, it simply ceased to exist at the end of the six month period, which I had forgotten about by the time it reached the end of its life. The shields you’ve heard so much talk about are constructs whose purpose is to block something energetic. I’ll save further discussion of these for the appropriate section, but they are a good example of constructs whose purpose lies solely in the energetic arena. There are other types of shields which function in a more mundane capacity, which will also be discussed. I could pad out this article by a few thousand words by citing many more examples of construct use, but it’s far simpler to say that a construct can do or assist in almost anything you can think of, and cover the specifics of the

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different types under their own sections. In brief, there are defensive constructs and offensive constructs, healing constructs and event manipulation constructs, sentient constructs to serve as guardians and early warning systems, sentient pets, et al.

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On Sentience

There is a warning to give on the subject of creating sentient constructs. Sometimes the warning is accompanied by the story of the Golem, which was an artificial being made to serve a purpose, who ran amok once he’d completed his task and had nothing left to do. The story is a nice little parable, illustrating the fact that if you create a sentient being and don’t give it clear instructions on what to do when it runs out of work to do, it could end up doing whatever it wants to do. Because folks rarely program a conscience into their creations, what it wants to do might be to eat other constructs, or vampirise somebody for extra energy. It might want to simply follow you around, making puppy eyes at you (you are its maker, after all). It depends on the construct’s nature - both that which you’ve programmed into it, and that which the construct develops by itself over time. You can easily remedy this unwanted behaviour by “commanding” your construct to return to you after it has completed its task and then go inactive, awaiting further orders. There is another, potentially more serious, problem with making sentient constructs, and that is that the critter may decide it doesn’t want to be ordered around anymore. This happened to me early in my psionic career with a pair of guardian constructs I’d created in the shape of big, scary-looking doberman dogs (I was a Resident Evil fan... sue me). Only just having learned that one can connect a construct to an external source of energy (more on that later), I hooked my hounds up to a pair of ley lines and left them alone for a few days. The next time I checked on them I was in for a shock. My constructs, formerly rather ephemeral and weak, were a great deal stronger. They were also a great deal meaner, and in short order one of them attacked me. I destroyed it in a fit of pique (cursing roundly all the while) and did away with the other one shortly after. It was a long time before I made another sentient construct after that. It was, of course, my own fault that this happened, and with a little forewarning from yours truly you’ll be able to easily avoid a similar debacle. The problem lay in my expectations. By viewing my beasties as completely independent, I opened myself up to the possibility that they could gain free will independent of my own. With free will comes choice, and at least one of the constructs made the choice to attack me (bad doggie). This is easily avoided by remembering a few simple rules. You made it, you own it. It’s yours, and is under your complete control at all times. If you deny your construct the ability to develop a free will (or at least a semblance of one), your construct will never develop one. It will desire what you want it to desire, which is to do as it’s told at all times. Simpler yet if you deny your construct sentience, and have it act as a programme or machine. You get what you ask for, as well as what you expect. The topic of expectation as a more passive form of intent is a big one (and one which I’ve devoted an entire article to; Expectation, or Passive Intent in the Design of Energetic Objects). If you drill yourself over and over with the fact that a certain thing

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will happen, you will come to expect it. Even if you don’t consciously think about it, the expectation that a construct follows specific rules will be enough to ensure that the construct will follow those rules. We are dealing here with a discipline that relies wholly upon your thoughts to get the job done. If you expect success, you are far more likely to receive it. If you expect catastrophic failure, or a construct that disobeys its daddy... well, you get the idea.

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Planning and Programming

I’m going to depart from convention a little here and start by teaching programming before energetics. I believe that programming is by far the more important skill, especially in the method of construct-creation described here. Energy manipulation is relatively easy, but of little use if you can’t programme the energy you’ve gathered. Contrary to what some may think, you can learn to programme before you learn to manipulate energy, which will leave you better prepared to make good use of the energy you’ve gathered. The trick when programming a construct using this method is to gather all of the construct’s attributes into a single, cohesive whole prior to creation. I find it messy to gather energy, then make the construct bit by bit, adding attributes (duration of life, abilities, etc), then giving it its tasks, then adding more and more info one piece at a time. It’s less complicated to spend a little time planning first, and then execute everything as a single step, rather than adding a half-dozen afterthoughts as you go. You can certainly add the afterthoughts later, if you so desire, and we’ll cover that a little later. As an example, I’ll run through the planning of a simple construct, whose purpose it is to manipulate traffic lights. We start with what it will do, which is to make lights turn green as you approach, or at least to speed up the transition from red to green. Is there anything else it should do? What if the light is already green? In that case, it should cause it to remain green until after you’ve passed it. How about things the construct should not do? I’m not sure there are any really dangerous ways of doing the above, but to be on the safe side, let’s add that it must do so without harming anybody. It might cause a bit of consternation to other drivers, whose turn waiting at the intersection has been extended, but that’s to be expected. Stick with the basic idea of not causing anybody any physical harm and you should be fine. We now reach the all-important how. If you make your construct go about its task in a specific fashion, you are limiting its options. That works if you know precisely how you want something to be done, but in this case I’ve frankly no idea how traffic lights work. If you approach the problem with the attitude that your construct will be able to do it, then it will find the most expedient way of getting it done itself. Within reason, of course. A little experience will soon let you know what is and is not possible when working with constructs. You should add, however, that the construct must not hinder or delay you in any way. Next, come up with a name. Lots of people skip this step, or at least they avoid adding a really creative name. If only for the purposes of reference, you’ll likely end up calling your construct the traffic manip construct or something similar. Just to illustrate the point, we’ll name this one Traffic Light Construct. Next it’s good to give it a form. It is perfectly acceptable to stick with the

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orb-shaped psi-ball configuration that’s become famous in psionic circles, but you shouldn’t feel restricted to that form simply because you’re new to this. Selecting a form that follows its function is a way of mentally reinforcing that function (Bauhaus psionics!). How about a floating green light? If another form takes your fancy, say a little flying traffic cop, a green traffic light fairy, or something equally fitting, then feel free to use it. What is important is that you make sure the form is firmly associated with the idea of the construct named Traffic Light Construct. The point here is to get all of the different things together as a single idea. To give you an idea of what I mean, let’s take a look at the humble alarm clock. Just thinking the words “alarm clock” will bring up the concept of an object with a fairly predictable form, with the following attributes: • Displays the time • Emits a sound at a pre-arranged time • Stops the sound at the push of a button If you wanted to create a construct alarm clock, you’d have the “schematics” already in your mind. Because we’re working with thought alone, all you need is to have what you want clearly defined in your mind beforehand. All of the concepts come together to form a sort of package of thought. From there, you simply externalise that package in an energetic form. Let’s return to our Traffic Light Construct. Don’t forget to specify how long your construct will exist. Setting an expiry date is a good way of ensuring a construct won’t hang around after you no longer have a use for it. You can specify that its life will end after its task is complete, but it’s a good idea to also give a time limit in case it fails in its task. For long-term constructs, such as the one we’re creating now, you might like to give it a life of one year, and recreate the construct after that limit has expired. Don’t forget to add the date to your calendar, however, or you may suddenly find yourself wondering why the traffic lights are no longer changing. You must form a package of thought, a series of related ideas that fall under the heading of Traffic Light Construct, and define it as a whole. Giving it a name helps tie it all together. Giving it a form also gives us a focus. The easiest thing to do when starting out is to put this all on paper, or type it into a word processor. Here’s what you’d write for the Traffic Light Construct: Name Traffic Light Construct Intent Cause all traffic lights to be green as I approach, and to remain green until I have passed them, without causing anybody physical harm. Active only when I am driving, or a passenger in a car. Form Floating green light Power Ambient (We’ll get to this later) Duration One year

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Once you have it all down, you need to mentally tie it all together. The idea is to link all the concepts together as a single idea, a single package of thought. Remember the alarm clock? That kind of instantaneous recall is what we’re aiming for. The easiest way of doing this is to run over it in your mind a few times, until the name brings up a mental image of its form, and the intent is clear in your mind. Obviously this is more difficult to do with more complex constructs. With practise, you’ll find it gets a lot easier to pack it all in there. Sounds too easy, doesn’t it? I’m aware that this is very different to other methods of programming you may have read about. It’s also the simplest and easiest way of creating the programming from scratch. Using this method doesn’t prevent you from altering the construct after the fact, and we’ll get to that in a later section.

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Energy Manipulation

You cannot manipulate what you cannot sense, so we begin learning to manipulate energy by learning to perceive energy. Just how does one go about sensing something they have experienced their entire life, but never noticed? After all, you have always had an energetic body, and it has always interacted with your environment and with others in that environment. The first thing to make clear is that you will be using senses other than your five mundane ones. People rarely physically see subtle energy, except under fairly rare circumstances. You may often hear of people who feel energy. This is usually for one of two reasons. It is certainly possible to feel the effects that energy has on your physical body. An excess of energy passing through the energetic body will affect the physical body, sometimes resulting in an increase in temperature. The other way of feeling energy is by focusing on the energetic body, and feeling the effects energy has upon it. There have been times where I’d swear that my temperature had risen dramatically due to energy work, and checked my temperature only to find that it was perfectly normal. Changes to the energetic body can be felt readily, once the practitioner has learned to place their focus there. The resulting sensations can feel a lot like something is occurring within the physical. Until the subtler senses are identified and trained it is easy to mistake input of an energetic nature for something else, so don’t be alarmed if you feel some pretty weird things. Sensations can range from hot and cold to buzzing, tingling and even crawling, and the sensations can occur anywhere in your body. Use common sense here and seek medical attention if you feel unwell.

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Visualisation

This is the most commonly taught method, both in terms of sensing energy and manipulating energy. The practitioner often forms a picture in his mind’s eye, directing the energy to take on the visualised shape or pattern. After a time the practitioner will find that he can use visualisation to perceive what is occurring visually. This is useful, but to do so is to run the risk of mixing fantasy with reality. It is exceedingly easy to come up with a mental picture of what you want to see - or what you may dread seeing - rather than what is really there. Subtle input is interpreted by your mind, and the images you

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visualise will often be symbolic rather than literal. For example, it’s common to associate heat with the colour red, or illness with the colour black. These are not literal in an energetic sense, but your mind’s way of displaying an attribute.

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Tactile/Spatial Awareness

This is a little harder to describe. Imagine that you are running your fingers through somebody’s hair. Imagine the soft feel of it against the skin of your fingers. The individual hairs separating as you let the locks pass through your hand. This is an example of tactile memory. At many times in your life you have run your fingers through your own, or somebody else’s, hair. You have touched many different surfaces and textures, and as a result it is a simple thing to imagine what most things would feel like to the touch. Spatial awareness is simply the awareness of where something lies, either in relation to yourself, or to its surroundings. Imagine that a ping pong ball is resting in your hand. You know where that is without looking, as your hand is a part of you and you are aware of where your various parts are at all times. Now imagine that the ball is hovering a small distance above your hand. Now imagine that the ball is hovering a few feet away from you, at eye level. Don’t merely see the ball in your mind’s eye, but try to maintain an awareness of where the space is that the imaginary ball would be occupying if it were real. Focus upon the texture of the imaginary ball’s outer surface, where it hangs in the air before you. Feel the seam that joins the two halves. Next try to feel both the inner and outer surfaces of the ball, while maintaining your awareness of where the ball would exist in relation to you. Then in relation to the floor. Then the ceiling, the walls, and to the doorway. This is tactile and spatial imagination at work.

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The Tentacle Analogy

You’ll no doubt have noticed that both of these methods of perception and manipulation use the practitioner’s imagination. There is a good reason for this, though it’s not always explained. My favourite way of explaining it is with this analogy. Imagine that you woke up one morning with an extra limb. Not something as mundane as an additional hand or a third leg, you’ve somehow sprouted a long, sinuous tentacle. You decide to keep your new appendage, rather than sawing it off, and set about learning to use it. Here’s where you hit the wall. You’ve no idea how. You ask it politely to move, but it remains stubbornly still, curled up next to you on the bed like a flesh-coloured snake. Now consider this: if you lie down and imagine yourself running, really imagine your legs pumping, the road under your feet, your toes springing off the asphault and your calves stretching into the next stride, your legs will eventually begin to twitch. You are, by imagining your legs moving, giving a rather vague instruction to your mind. Of course you’re not operating every tendon and muscle as you do when actually running, but you will find that your body will respond to this sort of instruction. With this in mind you return to the task of moving your tentacle. You close your eyes, calm your mind, and focus on your awareness - however as yet unclear - of your tentacle. You imagine it writhing and uncurling, with the intent that 10

this be so. You feel the unfamiliar skin and muscle moving toward its purpose. You focus completely on the feel, the image, the imagined awareness of your tentacle moving. Lo and behold, the tentacle gives a little twitch. As you continue you gain familiarity with how your tentacle feels, you will eventually gain an awareness of position the same as you already possess with your existing parts. With time and practise, you learn to use your tentacle. A fun and silly analogy, but I hope an illustrative one. When we use imagination in psionic training, we are signalling to our minds what we wish to do. By maintaining focus upon the desired result, we use imagination as a tool to get that first twitch of the tentacle, so to speak, and learn to consciously use those faculties which have remained dormant or unused for so long. Unlike your more physical parts, you will continue to use imagination as a way of communicating specific things to your mind. The shape of your construct, for example. Your mind will also, if you so desire, provide information to you using this same medium. Always bear in mind that your imagination is a tool to be used.

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Mental Discipline

A great many books on practical energetics and magic in general start with exercises to discipline the mind. As discussed earlier, we are dealing with a predominantly mental subject. We manipulate subtle energy with controlled thought, so the longer you can maintain focus on your work, the better. You will also need to be able to keep your focus exclusively upon what you are doing, without allowing your mind to wander. These are actually fairly difficult things to accomplish. If you don’t believe me, test yourself. Start counting mentally, from zero, and see how far you can get without any other thoughts intruding. If you’re honest with yourself you’re likely to find that you reach a fairly low number. If you have undertaken mental training before then you have a head start, but most of us come to psionics with a fairly low level of mental discipline. Think of the times in your life when you have been totally absorbed with something. Perhaps you were reading a good book or watching a movie. Many gamers find themselves completely immersed in their video games, to the point where they are so absorbed that they completely lose track of their surroundings. These are examples of being focused, but they aren’t quite the level of discipline we are looking for, for the simple reason that it’s easy to become absorbed in something that is interesting. It would be ideal to develop your focus to the point where you can completely still your mind to the exclusion of all extraneous thought, and shut out all external stimuli, so that your thoughts are focused on your work alone, regardless of whether that work is interesting or mindnumbingly boring. Obviously this is no easy task, and that level of discipline is not absolutely necessary. You will find that it gets easier with practise, and that your efforts in all fields of the mind will improve as you develop your mental discipline. You will notice that the exercises that follow are pretty boring. This is for a reason! There will almost always be something more interesting to think about than your construct. Your mind may want to wander to thoughts of the girl or guy you’re interested in, or worries about money, or any one of a multitude of concerns. If you sit around waiting for a time when there’s nothing of interest to occupy your mind, you’ll be waiting a long time. You need to be able to clear your mind of all the day’s clutter before you start working. To gain and maintain 11

a state of blank mind is to begin your work with a blank slate. You also need to be capable of maintaining a sharp focus on your work, to the exclusion of all else, as previously discussed. If you cannot do this, your mind will return to the thoughts you just emptied your mind of, or you’ll find another, equally disruptive, mental distraction. Accurate and reliable imaginative ability, especially in the areas of visualisation, tactile, and spatial awareness, is also a must. The ability to maintain focus will come as a matter of course when practising the other exercises listed below, for the obvious reason that you will practising it in an effort to maintain the results of the exercises. That being said, I’ll start with this ability anyway as it is of the utmost importance, and possessing it will make the exercises that follow easier.

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Focal Point

This is the most boring of the four exercises. It is best to begin in a place that is quiet, where you will not be disturbed. As you gain in ability, try doing it with some controlled distractions, such as music or a television playing quietly in the background. When you feel ready, practise in a crowded place. You may be surprised how quickly you reach a level where you can shut out enough of the noise to adequately focus. I find that the best place to begin is in bed, either before sleep or before rising for the day. Depending on the time of day the house is likely to be quiet, and you are in a place which is usually associated with quiet and rest. Lie in bed and choose a spot on the ceiling at about eye level, or slightly above, and make a mental note of its position. Get up (I hope you didn’t get too comfortable), and mark the place with a small spot sticker, easily obtainable at any office-supply store. Lie down again and close your eyes. Breathing exercises are a classic in the literature, and with good reason. They work. At first, simply be aware of your breathing. Don’t force it or attempt to control it at this stage. Simply be aware of the gentle rhythm of your breath. After a little while you will notice that the rate has slowed a little and can move to the next stage. Rather than breathing deeply, which will wake you up, maintain the slow, shallow rhythm. Don’t over-breathe, but certainly don’t under-breathe either. Begin to mentally count out the duration of each inhalation and exhalation. The duration is not important, as long as it is regular. With each inhalation, focus on breathing into the bottom of your lungs, rather than the top. To ensure you are doing this correctly, place one hand on your chest and the other on your diaphragm. The hand on your diaphragm should move before - and higher than - the one on your chest. Continue inhaling for the normal count, and pausing for an equal or slightly lesser count, before exhaling. Make the exhalation a sigh for the first few breaths, going for a little longer than the inhalation. A slightly longer exhalation will increase your body’s level of carbon dioxide. This is not a bad thing, in fact it is a very good thing as it will naturally calm you. Your body will tell you if you’re doing this wrong, and the only way to do it wrong is to force your breathing into a weird, unnatural pattern. As long as you are comfortable, you are doing it correctly. Maintain focus on your breathing until it falls into an automatic rhythm, without your needing to count it out. Once you have reached this stage, open

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your eyes. Rest your gaze upon the dot on the ceiling. Don’t strain your eyes or glare at the dot. The aim is to simply rest your eyes there, with an emphasis on the word rest. It is simply a place to let your eyes come to rest, a place for them to sit without effort. Become aware of the sounds in your immediate environment. There are always sounds to be heard, and you will notice more of them when the house is quiet and you’re paying attention. Perhaps the whir of a computer fan, or that near-audible whine of a television in another room. The creak of the house settling, and the wind outside. One by one, allow yourself to notice these sounds and acknowledge them. Accept that they are there, and mentally affirm that they are not very interesting. These unimportant background noises will, in fact, help you to relax and maintain focus upon the dot on the ceiling. Don’t try to block them out, as that will only draw attention to them. Simply acknowledge that they are there, and let them go. Return your attention to the dot. You may find that your eyes have wandered. That’s normal. Simply bring your gaze back to rest upon the dot. Notice its colour, and the round shape. You’ll notice that the patch of ceiling around the dot is not very interesting, and you can mentally tell yourself this. Maintain your focus on the dot. Try to avoid the trap of focusing on the act of focusing. Should this occur, simply return your attention to the dot. If a thought arises, allow it to arrive and acknowledge that it exists before returning your attention to the dot. If your eyes become uncomfortable, you can blink normally. You will find that if you close your eyes halfway, then re-open them, you can maintain your gaze without needing to blink as often. Let this happen without really thinking about it, and keep your attention on the dot. As stated, this method is boring, but it is also very relaxing. You may even find yourself looking forward to each night’s practise before sleep. Don’t worry too much about the actual length of time spent focusing on the dot. As long as you practise diligently and continue returning your attention to the dot each time you are distracted, you will quickly improve. The important thing to remember here is not to struggle, and not to focus on focusing. The rule of thumb is to return your attention to the dot anytime something intrudes.

9

The Blank Mind

Traditional exercises for gaining a blank-mind state usually involve the practitioner meditating upon a mental image of blackness, or nothingness. I’ll admit to having had considerable difficulty with this method, though I did eventually gain the ability to enter the state at will. It wasn’t until years later that I was referred to Wayne Dyer’s work and found a far easier method. In his book, Getting in the Gap, Dr. Wayne Dyer describes a method of achieving a blank-mind state that I’ve found to be very useful. The “gap” described in the book’s title is the gap between thoughts. This is a clever way of causing the mind to come to rest. Rest is the objective word here. If you attempt to shut down your thoughts by fighting them, you’re fighting a losing battle. Your thoughts are yours to control. Dyer’s method consisted of reciting the first ten words of the Lord’s Prayer, ”Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name,” and pausing between each word. The practitioner begins by seeing the word “Our” in his mind, and then moving on to the word ”Father”.

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Then they pause, and rest in the “gap” between the two words, then saying (or vibrating, to use the traditional term) the name of God. They then return focus the word “Father” and move to ”who”, and move backward to the gap and vibrate the name of God. In this fashion, the practitioner moves through the sequence, ending with the word “Name”. The exercise is obviously of a spiritual nature. Once the trappings of religion are dispensed with, we are left with a very useful tool for inducing a blank-mind state. By placing the focus on the space after one thought ends, and before the next begins, we are placing the mind in a state of waiting, a state of rest where the next thought is yet to be realised and the mind is silent. This takes some effort, but you’ll find it is surprisingly easy. There is no attempt made to block thought. The pracititioner already knows what the next thought will be. With practice, the gap between thoughts becomes longer and longer, and eventually the entire exercise can be dispensed with. As you will have noticed with the focal exercise, such states are easily induced once you have become accustomed to entering them. If you ever find yourself unable to enter the state at will, you have an exercise which has been used successfully in the past, which you can rely on to guarantee the necessary state. If you have practiced the focal exercise diligently, you will find this exercise will pose no difficulties at all. Begin, as with the focal exercise, by finding a quiet place for practice where you will not be disturbed. Perform the basic breathing exercise in its entirety, starting by closing your eyes and focusing on your breathing, and continuing until you have the rhythm of breath flowing without thought or effort. You may prefer to keep your eyes closed, or you can perform the exercise with them open. Acclimatise yourself to the sounds around you, acknowledging them and allowing them to deepen your focus. Rather than the Lord’s prayer, we will use the phrase, ”I am the silence of the mind at perfect rest”. Any phrase will do, so feel free to substitute something with a more personal meaning if you prefer. Mentally say the phrase, “I am the silence of the mind at perfect rest.” Mentally say the word, “I”. See it in your mind’s eye, as though projected onto a screen. Take your time doing this, and make it clear. Deliberately move your attention from the word “I” to the word ”am”. Focus on the word “am”, seeing it in your mind’s eye. Again, spend some time on the word before moving on. Pause, and move back in your mind from the word “am” to the space in between ”I” and “am”. As with all things, there is a trick to it. Do so without effort, without strain and without attempting to force your mind. Simply allow your mind to come to rest. Your mind should be in a state of waiting, ready for the next thought, but not yet there. Hold this until your hold on the state begins to slip, and then move your attention back to the word “am”. Focus once more on “am”, saying it again mentally and holding the image in your mind. Move then to the word “the”. As before, hold the word ”the” for a few moments, then slip back into the gap between the words, the gap between thoughts. Come to rest on the space, or the gap, between “am” and ”the”. Continue the exercise until you have completed the entire sentence. The aim of this exercise is to introduce the practitioner to the state of mental silence which occurs when no active thought is taking place. Once identified, the state is easy to slip into, though it can be difficult at times to maintain it. The sequence of words is nothing more than a focus, designed with the sole purpose 14

of leading from one period of mental silence to the next. Try to maintain the blank-mind state for a longer period with each word in the sentence, and with each repetition of the exercise. With practice you will be able to induce the blank-mind state without effort, and after a time you’ll find you can maintain it for a longer period of time.

10

Visualisation

I am yet to meet a person with absolutely no ability to hold a mental picture, however vague that picture may be at first attempt. Teenage boys tend to have reasonably good ability in this area, for obvious reasons, but there is still work to be done. Your average fantasy does not have much by way of fine detail. To perform this exercise you will need an analogue clock or watch. Begin by completing the breathing exercise. By now, you should be able to do this start to finish very quickly. You should next attain the blank-mind state, either by performing that exercise in its entirety or by simply shifting to that state if you are able to do so. By now you should find that simply beginning the breathing exercise will get you on the right track, and you will be mentally calm and ready to begin the exercise. This sort of practise turns a short breathing exercise into a quick preparation for work that lasts only a few moments, but which prepares you adequately for mental work. Pick up the clock and take a really good look at it. Notice the format the numbers are in. Are they in our standard hindu-arabic style, or are they roman numerals? Are the spaces between the numbers incremented, or are they simply blank? What do the hands look like? Does the second hand move once per second, or does it make a continuous, slow progression around the clock face? Really focus on all the details, paying specific attention to each feature you notice. When you feel you are ready, put the clock down and close your eyes. Create a mental image of the clock. This is very easy, until you attempt to fill in all the fine details. You may find that you can get a good overall image, but the details are a bit vague. Perhaps you can create detail in one area, but at the loss of the remainder of the image. It is quite common to be able to fill in details only if you are focusing on one area only, as though you are in a “close-up” view. This is normal. I’ve found that while it may be difficult to visualise something complex, I search my memory for the image and find that it is there. You may find it helpful to imagine the clock as you were holding it. Try to let your mind fill in the blanks rather than struggling to hold it all at once and push further detail in. You may have noticed that each exercise places emphasis on allowing things to happen, to guiding one’s mind rather than forcing it. This holds true with all mental pusuits. You’ll find that your mind is a willing accomplice in all endeavours, so long as you approach the issue with the right attitude. See how much detail you can put into the image, and then open your eyes and look at the clock again. Did you miss anything? Was there anything that wasn’t quite right? How much did you get right the first time? It’s surprising how many small details are in an object as simple as a wall-clock. Once you’ve reviewed to your satisfaction, close your eyes and return to the mental image. Repeat the exercise frequently until you are happy with your ability to visu-

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alise the clock, then add the element of movement. Start by having the second hand move, and see if you can make one complete revolution without breaking focus. Once you can do that, complete multiple revolutions, ensuring you don’t forget to have the minute hand move with each revolution.

11

Tactile/Spatial

We’ve already had an exercise in tactile/spatial imagination in the explanation for that section on imagination. Instead of a simple ping pong ball, use a ball with a more complex design. A cricket ball would be ideal, or a baseball for American readers. Failing either of those two, there are few people who don’t have a golf ball or two lying around the house. As always, begin with the breathing exercise, followed by acclimatising yourself to those stimuli around you which may prove distracting. Attain the blank-mind state, and you’re ready to begin. As with the visualisation exercise, start by thoroughly examining the ball. Cricket- and baseballs have rather complex patterns of stitches, and golfballs have equally complex dimple patterns. Observe with both eyes and fingers, and set the ball aside. With your experience in using the preceding exercises, this will be much easier than your initial attempt with the ping pong ball. Once you can imagine the ball in your hand, imagine it as floating above your hand, and move on to other parts of the room, and then the house.

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Exercises in Basic Energetics

As stated, you’ll need to be able to perceive subtle energy in order to manipulate it. There are two schools of thought on how to proceed. The first is to stick with perception before you start manipulating, in order to ensure you’re up to the task before trying your hand at actual construct creation. The second, and my personal preference, is to learn as you go. Yes, you will make mistakes. Chances are you’ll make a lot of them, as most of us have, and do. You’ll also gain experience in both perception and manipulation at the same time, and this is something you really can’t buy. Experience is gained only through practise. So let’s start practising! In order to practise perceiving energy you’ll need a quantity of it at hand to play with. Luckily, you have a whole body that’s made of the stuff. Without giving too much away before the appropriate section, the energetic or subtle body is the part of you which is composed of subtle energy. While you are inhabiting a physical body on the physical “plane” or ”level”, you are also inhabiting an energetic body on the energetic level. The senses we use to interact with the physical level - sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell - are physical senses. The senses you use to interact with the energetic level are energetic senses. I believe - and not everybody agrees on this point - that these senses are completely separate from the five physical senses. You cannot see energy, nor can you hear it, taste it, touch it or smell it. You can, however, use your physical senses as reference points. I believe that people who train themselves to “see” energy with their physical eyes are using a form of visualisation. My views on touch as an energetic sense have been described above, as there is some

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parallel between the physical sense of touch and the energetic sense of touch, so I hope you get the idea. Touch is probably the most reliable sense we can use with energy, especially when beginning practise. Once you get the knack of feeling it, you’ll be able to rely on it. Unlike the physical sense, you can feel energy at a distance, also, as you’ll see soon enough. The exercises below are simple and fairly brief. If these are your first steps in energetic practise, remember to take your time. Be sure to complete each one fully before moving to the next, otherwise you’ll gain little benefit from them. No matter how determined you are to master everything in the next five minutes, try to remember that all complex skills come with time. Consider how long it took you to learn to read and write. Some results may come immediately, but others will take time, patience and, most importantly, practise.

12.1

Gathering Internal Energy

In order to manipulate energy, we must create some sort of mental reference for it. This is where visualisation comes in. Imagining energy as a sort of fluid light is traditional, and I see no reason to depart from that tradition unless you have a particular mental image that is more meaningful to you. Begin with the usual exercises, and imagine your body as it is in its current position. Imagine that it is filled with energy (which it is), and spend some time paying attention to the energy flowing through you. Don’t expect a vastly detailed representation at this early stage. In all likelihood what you’re seeing will be purely a visualisation, and will bear no resemblance to what is actually there. That’s fine at this point. As you visualise, try to feel the energy as it moves through you. Don’t focus too hard on the details, just let the energy move in whatever manner it seems to move naturally. Try to focus on how the energy feels. After you’ve spent some time doing this, visualise the energy moving to your hand and concentrating there. See it glow, see it really burn as it concentrates in your palm and fingers. Try to move the sensations and pay attention to how your hand feels as this happens. Do you sense anything at all? Does it feel different to how it felt when you were imagining the energy simply flowing normally? The purpose here is to get that first twitch of the tentacle, so be ready to sense something, but try not to feel too disappointed if you don’t get anything at first. The simple act of using a mental place-holder - the fluid light - coupled with the intent of moving your body’s energy should have a result. If you are paying attention, that result should be noticeable. If it’s not noticeable immediately, it will be noticeable eventually. Keep at it until you can sense the energy’s movement and do so reliably before going on to moving the energy to other parts of your body. Be sensible here. If you start to feel sick, or have any unpleasant sensations, stop immediately and give it a day or so before picking up where you left off. If the unpleasantness continues, discontinue practise until it stops. Repeat the exercise daily at your normal practise time, and as many more times per day as you feel is reasonable. Once you can sense the movment of energy to any part of your body reliably, move to the next exercise.

12.2

Externalising Internal Energy (Basic)

By now you will have an idea of how energy feels when it moves. In the absence of a practise partner who is able to sense energy, this is your most reliable 17

indicator of whether anything is happening or not. The reason for repeating the first exercise over and over is to fix firmly in your mind the sensation of energetic movement, and you will need a sense you can rely on from the get-go. Visualisation is too prone to fantasy to ever trust completely. If you have a perfectly visualised result but feel nothing, trust the feel. The next step in manipulating energy is manipulating energy outside of yourself. To do this, concentrate energy in the palm of one of your hands. Keep the energy flowing until you feel a strong response, then hold your (hopefully) energised palm a few centimetres from your other palm. What do you feel? Does your visualisation change in any way? Try to make the energy flow from your palm to your other hand, and again focus on the result. Pay attention both to how it feels, and how it impacts your visualisation. If you sense nothing, be honest with yourself. It’s far better to have no results now than to talk yourself into a false positive and have to re-learn everything from scratch later. Slow learning beats fantasy any day of the week. Repeat this exercise daily until you can reliably project energy from one hand to the other before moving on to the next exercise.

12.3

Externalising Internal Energy (Slightly Less Basic)

Hold your palms together, far enough apart that you cannot feel the body heat from each hand. Start energy flowing into both palms, and let the energy flow together, focusing it on forming a ball between your hands. Yes, this is a psi ball. Most construct articles start at this point, and then focus on teaching you to program the energy you’ve gathered. I’m not going to do that, though you may of course feel free to give it a try if you’d like. Continue to trickle energy into the ball. Focus on causing the energy to maintain a cohesive mass between your hands. Once you think you have enough energy, stop the flow, but continue focusing on the energy between your hands, willing it to maintain its shape and position. This is a ball of energy. It is not a construct. Remove your hands, but maintain focus on the ball. Focus on how the ball feels without your hands. This is where tactile and spatial awareness plays a big part. You may be surprised to notice that the sensation you felt in your hands is hanging in the air in front of you. If not, don’t try to manufacture it. Simply continue practising. Confirm that the ball still exists by moving your hands around it. Once you are done practising, cease focus on the ball and let it go. After a few seconds, pay attention again and see if it is still there. If it is, has it changed in any way? Focus on the ball via touch, and see if you can visualise it as it is now. Once again, trust your touch, rather than your visualisation, and see what you find. If the ball remains, mentally cause the energy to dissipate, confirming afterward by touch, of course. Continue to practise this exercise until you can create, sense, and (if necessary) dissipate the ball reliably. As you’ve no doubt guessed, a case of remaining ball means that you’ve programmed the energy by focusing on making it maintain its shape. It’s quite an easy thing to do, but don’t stress if it doesn’t happen. The focus of these exercises is improving the energetic senses.

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12.4

Gathering Ambient Energy

Ambient energy is energy that sort of floats around in a given area. There is quite a bit of it around. The one thing you shouldn’t do with ambient energy is internalise it. Energy retains programming for awhile, and it’s not a good idea to draw strange programming into yourself. The energy is fine for construct creation, because the act of programming pretty much rids it of the erroneous bits of programming and assorted ick that’s in it. Start the exercise in a place that’s likely to have a high concentration of energy. Any place where there are a lot of people frequently gathering is a good bet. The food court of your local mall will be just fine, but get a table rather than just standing there with your eyes closed. It attracts less attention. For the same reason, you should try to progress to the stage where you no longer need your hands to feel energy. Focus on the ambient energy around you by visualising it in the same way you normally visualise the energy within yourself. You may notice that your visualisation shows different concentrations and densities of energy in the area, or you may just see it as being a uniform glow. Be sure that you’re focusing on ambient energy only, rather than the energy in the auras or fields of the people around you. It is considered bad form to suck energy from other people. By visualisation and tactile and spatial imagery, draw energy from the area into a ball in front of you. You can draw quite a bit from a populated area, so keep pushing it into the ball until it gets very large, and then pack the ball more densely before sucking more energy into it. Keep going until you have a very dense ball that really seethes with energy, then let it go and start again.

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Creating Constructs

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for. No doubt you’ve read up to this point before delving too deeply into the exercises in the past sections. If you feel up to the task, go ahead and follow the directions for creating your first construct. I do recommend, however, that the reader revisit the exercises described above and to continue practising them. As much as I love the sound of my own voice, they were put here for a good reason. Your construct work, and any energetic work you undertake, will be of far higher quality if you expend the effort and brush up on the basics. That doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun first, of course, and it certainly doesn’t mean you can’t continue making constructs while you train.

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The Method

Before you begin, perform the breathing and blank-mind exercises. With time, simply beginning the breathing exercise will get you there, and you can spend a few moments relaxing in the blank state before starting work. It’s definitely a good habit to get into, so keep practising. Begin with your intent. For your first construct, we’ll start with something simple. The intent is for your construct to be highly noticeable. It will be as “visible” as possible to your senses, so you can use it as a perception-building tool. It will draw power from ambient energy to sustain itself, if required. It will 19

be spherical in shape. It will exist for a duration of one hour, and will then cease to exist, its programming dissolved and any remaining energy dissipating. To add to the intent, visualise your construct as a very heavy, very hard, perfectly spherical ball the size of a billiard ball. The ball glows with an inner light, though its surface is very cleanly and clearly defined. It emits an electric sort of hissing, buzzing sound. None of these are literal, of course, but serve to reinforce the intent that the ball is very noticeable. We shall call it... Mini-Me! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) We’ll name the construct “Attention Getter”, as its sole task is to be very obvious to your senses. Name Attention Getter Form Hard, glass-like sphere emitting a bright blue glow and a loud hissing buzzy noise Intent To be very easily and clearly detected by the psionic senses Power Ambient Duration One hour, unless destroyed earlier Read the above table, and then re-read it. Get the specs for your construct firmly in mind, its name, what it looks like, what it does. This may take an instant, or it may take considerably longer. In putting the associated information together, you are creating the construct’s blueprint. You are creating the programming which will cause the construct to exist, and maintain its existence. It may seem to take longer than you think it reasonably should to get it all cemented together, and if that’s the case just relax and let things happen in their own time. Things will speed up with practise, and it’s more important to get it right than to do it quickly. Once you’ve mulled over the design, visualise it in front of you. It may help to visualise a vague, ghostly sort of outline of the construct’s form leaving your body (or even your head, if that helps) and floating out in front of you. Gather energy from the immediate area and push it into the blueprint, seeing it become more concrete and solid, glowing with energy. Continue doing so until you believe that the construct has sufficient energy, and then keep going for a little longer for good measure. When making constructs, I usually have a sense that it is complete when I’m done. Before that point, it feels unfinished. If you dose the construct with a reasonable amount of energy, but it still feels incomplete, keep going until it feels right. Reaffirm the construct’s programming as the final step, and then end the process. You have just completed your first construct. Another quirk of mine is that my constructs tend to be complete, but inactive, when I first create them. If you find that this occurs - and you’ll know by the lack of activity with the Attention Getter - simply will it to be active. “See” it start to glow, “hear” it hiss, and know that it is active. Play with your new creation for awhile, and pay some serious attention to how well it works. Is it as clear as you’d like? Are there any imperfections that you can see? Perhaps it’s not quite as spherical as you’d hoped, or it’s difficult to sense. The purpose of this construct is to help you hone your perception, so spend as much time as you can feeling it with your mind. Once you’re done, you can destroy it. 20

A lot of authors recommend including a “kill switch” in the programming, so you have a way of destroying the construct quickly in case something goes awry. Remember what I said earlier about expectation? This is your construct. You made it, you own it, you control it. What you make, you can easily destroy. It’s a simple act of will. The easiest way to do this is to remove the programming. You can do his visually by imagining the form blinking out while willing it to disappear, leaving only the leftover energy to dissipate in its own time. As with everything, this takes practise, so re-make and re-destroy it several times.

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Further Information

I’ve tried to keep the information thus far relevant to the process of construct creation itself so the reader can get to the actual construct making as quickly as possible. With that out of the way, we can get a little more in-depth.

15.1

Energy Types and Sources

The energy we’ve been working with thus far is usually termed psi energy, and it comes from the energetic body itself. The ambient energy we gather from crowded places is largely composed of psi energy cast off by human beings. What we interact with physically, we interact with energetically, and we leave energy behind wherever we’ve been. I’m sure we’ve all heard the example of walking into a room shortly after an argument has taken place and felt the emotional energy left behind. There is some contention about whether emotional energy is a type in and of itself, or whether it is simply psi energy that has been patterned with the emotions of the people who generated it. The general consensus is that the latter is true, and it’s an example of unintentional programming being left behind in a room’s ambient energy. I’ll stick with types and sources that can easily be used to power constructs, and leave the rest for your own experimentation. Most short-term constructs are powered by the practitioner himself. If you look for it, you should find a link, which looks a bit like an energetic hose, between the construct and yourself. It’s not a good idea to power too many constructs from yourself, which is why we use other sources. If you power up a construct initially, but don’t give it another power source, be sure to specify that it not draw power from you. That way it will simply cease to exist once it uses up its energy.

15.2

Ambient Energy

In his book, The Power of Intention, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer describes air as possibly the best example of something that appears to be infinite. Where does the air in one room end and the air in the next room begin? Where does the air in your house end, and the air of your yard begin? The defining lines that make up areas of your house don’t apply to air, which flows freely throughout. Unless you’ve installed an air-lock, anyway. Like the air in Dyer’s description, energy, in varying densities, is virtually everywhere. Though it is easiest to draw ambient energy from a place with a heavy human, animal or plant population, there is

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no such thing as an energetic vacuum (as far as I’m aware, and certainly not naturally occurring) on Earth. No matter where you go, you will find energy. It is worth bearing in mind that your construct may not find sufficient energy in a given area. It must not only gain energy from its immediate environment, but from a distance also. The pull of energy must be constant, rather than drawing it only when the batteries are low, so to speak. By doing it this way the construct is always at full power, and there is time to remedy the situation if it for some reason cannot access its usual source of energy. It also means that there will be a constant, slow tug as opposed to a sudden, massive drain.

15.3

Ley Lines

Originally suggested as an explanation for the straight lines intersecting archaeological sites, ley lines have come to mean something slightly different in energetic practise. To the psionics student, ley lines are paths of energy criscrossing the Earth. The energy contained in ley lines is different to the psi energy we have utilised thus far. As with ambient energy, you should not internalise it, but feed it directly into your construct. To use a ley line, you need to find one. Traditionally, ley lines were dowsed for, using divining rods or a pendulum. The easiest way to find one for our purposes is to enter your meditative state, then view the landscape around you energetically. You are seeking what looks like a long, thick stream of energy. You can draw energy directly from the line, but to power a construct long-term, you’ll need a way to connect the construct to the ley using a link. Creating one is simplicity itself; just create a hose construct between the ley and your construct. If you find that one ley line is not enough, you can use multiple ley lines for a single construct. Don’t bother using multiple links to the same ley, however, as the effect is not the same. When you first create the hose, ensure that it is closed at one end, opening it only once it is attached to the construct. Unlike ambient energy, there is no need for the construc to draw in the energy. It comes from the ley line at force, like water from a hose. Pay attention to your construct when you open the hose, and see the difference the ley line’s power makes.

15.4

The Sun

The sun is a much greater source of power than ley lines. You use it in much the same way, by creating a link between power source and construct. As with the ley, the energy comes at force.

15.5

Energetic Body

The energetic body, or subtle body, has been described by some as the framework upon which the physical body exists. I prefer to think of it as an essential part of the totality of a living being. Just as our physical bodies exist in and interact with the physical “layer” of reality, the subtle body exists in and interacts with the subtle layers. We describe reality as having layers as a means of classification only, so as to separate things out and make them more easily understood. Your physical and subtle bodies occupy the same space. Studying the energetic body is a good introduction to the planar theory many practitioners subscribe to, which is why I’ve saved discussion on the topic for this

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section. While it’s not necessary to understand the different “layers” of reality, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a very basic understanding. Physical reality is the most easily perceived for those with a physical body. This stands to reason, as we have physical organs with which to perceive them. Eyes, ears, etc, feed us information from our physical environment, giving us a window on the physical plane that allows for perception. But we in the physical don’t exist on one layer alone. We exist simultaneously on all planes. When we deal with subtle energy we are dealing with energy that, for the most part, does not exist in the physical. It can and does have an effect upon the physical, but it does not exist here. Reality is often described as being made up of a certain number (it varies, depending on who’s doing the writing) of planes, starting with the physical and becoming more and more subtle, or less and less physical. Most articles about the aura, or field, describe it as having several layers, and name them accordingly. I’ll leave the specifics of the different bodies and their corresponding planes for a later article, and stick with those parts of the energetic body which are relevant to basic energetics and construct creation. The energetic body as a whole takes up a great deal more space than the physical one. Diagrams of the human field usually show the physical body at the centre, and the different layers of the field as radiating outward, the closest hugging the physical body and conforming to its basic shape, and the outer stretching out to form an oval which extends several metres in all directions. The field is a part of the individual, rather than a plume of energy exuding from the individual. What affects the individual affects the energetic body, and we therefore see the effects of diseases and injuries in the field. Things like diseases generally show up in the field before they appear as physical symptoms. The reverse is true of injuries; if you cut off your finger with a power saw, that would not appear in your field until after the event. For this reason, aura reading is used by some healers to gauge health in a subject prior to healing. The most dense part of the field extends a centimetre or so from your physical skin. This is the most easily detected part of the field. It is also the most easily manipulated. One of the field’s functions is to act as a sort of shield, to keep out the majority of the mental noise. Working with energy will enhance your senses, so it’s a good idea to enhance your field’s resistance to excessive input by putting more energy into it and willing it to become more dense. This is a form of programming also, but in your field rather than a blob of energy. The outer layers are more subtle, and thus more difficult to perceive at first. By now you should be able to find your own way in exploring your field, so I’ll refrain from further exercises. The energetic body is far more complex than this brief section has room for. I suggest the reader conduct their own research for further information.

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The Question of Shelling

“Shelling” is commonly taught as an important part of many tutorials on construct creation. I’ve omitted all mention of it for a very good reason; using this method, it isn’t necessary. For the sake of clarity, I’ll explain. The method of construct creation I’ve described is different to that commonly taught and used in many circles. The “normal” method goes something like this:

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1. Gather energy. 2. Shape energy into a useful or meaningful form. 3. Form a shell or skin of dense energy on the outer surface, in order to hold it all together. 4. Program the energy. My method, in brief, is as follows: 1. Mentally create the blueprint or programming in its entirety, by deciding what will be required and what attributes will be necessary. 2. Externalise the blueprint in an energetic form. 3. Energise the externalised blueprint. Let’s revisit that first step. We create the blueprint, by deciding what will be required, and what attributes will be necessary. I think you’ll agree that maintaining a cohesive form is necessary. Shelling is nothing more than programming the energy to do this. Some may initially dispute this. The outer shell is denser than the energy housed within. Quite right. But what is holding that dense energy together? It is the practitioner’s intent for the energy to form that shell and hold it all together that causes it to happen. In other words, programming. This is covered, usually without actually thinking about it, in the initial programming stage. This is an example of expectation as a more passive form of programming. In expecting the construct to maintain its form, we are programming the construct to do so. This means the formation of an actual shell is not necessary, and the proof is in the pudding. If you’ve followed my instructions (and I really do hope you have) you will have created a construct already, and that construct will have maintained its form without the additional shell. Going Deeper Now that you have a functional construct to play with, we can move on to one of the more interesting things about constructs; how they are put together. This is a largely visual exercise, which leads me to re-state my warning from earlier: how you see things in the energetic has nothing to do with your physical eyes. By attempting to perceive a construct visually you are signalling to your mind that you want a visual representation of a non-visual phenomenon. Your mind will happily oblige, but you must understand from the outset that what you see will very likely be far from literal, and in the beginning it is equally unlikely to be very accurate. With time you will see an increase in your accuracy, and you will, with practise, be better able to discern the meaning of what it is you are “seeing”. Allow your senses to come into contact with the construct and attempt to “see” it in your mind’s eye. Remind yourself as you work that you want to see it as literally as possible. Maintaining a focused, disciplined mind is of the utmost importance here, in order to avoid spoiling your results with erroneous mental noise. View the construct’s surface and then move beneath to the inside, so you can see the programming itself. What you will see will be determined by several factors, including how adept you are at consciously perceiving energy, what you expect to see, and what is actually there. 24

Against my better judgement I’ll describe how I perceive constructs, if for no other reason than that many other descriptions have been put forth, and it is unlikely that this is the first psionics article you have read. Remember that you are attempting to perceive what is there, rather than what you want or hope to see. As I described in Beneath the Construct, my first look at programming occurred at a time when I had fairly little interest in what the programming looked like. I was in a “cage”, which is like a shield, but inside-out (or outside-in). Such creations are made to block another practitioner’s senses and abilities, keeping them confined within. Because I was more interested in getting out of the cage than in what the programming looked like, I was able to avoid anticipating or imagining how it would appear beforehand. When I chose to perceive the programming, I “saw” the programming in the form of glowing filaments or lines, showing through the construct’s outer surface. To others it might have appeared as etchings, or some other expression that meant that information was somehow encoded into the energy which composed the construct. Such imagery is a mental construction, something seemingly objective which you can relate to on a more literal level. I urge you to simply look for yourself and see whatever is there to be seen. But don’t stop there. Once you are able to view the programming, look deeper. Scrutinise it on a finer level, zooming in, as it were, on each part. I will describe no further, but I will offer some further advice. Once you can perceive the programming, take a moment to quiet your mind and focus on perceiving its function. With practise, you will find that you can discern the programming’s purpose. This information arrives in the form of a sort of intuitive leap. Rather than seeing it, you come to simply know it. We are, after all, looking at a creation of the mind, and thought is the mind’s province. Play with the programming in an existing construct. Take it apart, see what happens when you remove a piece, or duplicate a thread or two. What happens when you change the patterns? Can you strengthen the programming, making it more resilient to external tampering? Can you make it harder to “read”, or harder to find? Given that this is an online article it’s not a great stretch to assume that my readers will have had some exposure to the OEC, or Online Energetic Community. There are many chat rooms out there with people like you who are in search of greater understanding. Passing constructs back and forth, pulling them apart and trying to understand them is a great way to improve your skills in construct design very quickly. An element of construct design that is not always discussed is the link between practitioner and creation. Because our minds often go with the simplest description, this link is generally perceived as a line that spans the space between the construct and its creator. It is similar to the link that provides the construct with energy, insofar as it resembles a kind of energetic hose. This link tends to appear finer and is a little more difficult to discern immediately. I had to be told that it was there before I perceived it, which is rather telling, suggesting once again that there is less of form than there is of function. Once I needed to see it, I was able to see it without difficulty. This link between practitioner and construct is what sustains the programming. Break this link (which is actually a little more difficult than it may sound) and you effectively separate the construct from the mind which created and sustains it. Without that link, the programming ceases to exist, and the construct will be nothing more than 25

subtle energy floating in the breeze. Even if the practitioner is unaware that somebody has been tampering with his construct this kind of action tends to grab their attention. The link will resist tampering, and re-form immediately if attempts are made to break it. It takes a concentrated effort to break this link and keep the practitioner separate from the construct before the programming will be interrupted to the point where it will disappear.

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Thoughtforms — Accidental Constructs

Thoughtforms are, as I mentioned in the beginning of this article, rather similar to constructs. The terms “construct” and ”thoughtform” have been used interchangeably in some circles, but the definition usually accepted is that thoughtforms are unintentionally created, whereas constructs are created with intent, and with purpose. The notion of accidentally popping out energetic creations may seem strange, so I’ll explain with an example. Let’s say that you’re an avid cricket player. You’ve missed the last two matches due to illness, and one match remains this season for you to show your stuff out on the pitch. Your team won’t make the finals, so this is your last chance. You desperately want that game to go ahead. Then, to your horror, someone mentions that it might rain, forcing officials to cancel the game. You desperately want to play in that last game of the season, and you are beset with worry. All week, your mind conjures up images of torrential rain, soaking the grounds and killing your chance to play. As we know, thoughts carry weight. By focusing - meditating, after a fashion - upon the worst case scenario, you unknowingly create a thoughtform, strengthening it thorugh countless repetitions. The day of the game finally dawns, bringing with it the rainstorm that you were dreading, courtesy of your thoughtform. It isn’t guaranteed that you will create an effective thoughtform every time you worry, but the chances increase based upon the length of time and the amount of focused thought you put into it. A good example of ineffective thoughtforms would be those wrought by teenage boys, constantly daydreaming about that girl they have their eye on. One would think that all those torrid imaginings would create a first-class thoughtform, capable of attracting the girl of their dreams, but it doesn’t quite work that way. If the boy has no doubt that he’ll get the girl, his chances of success are dramatically increased, but if he doubts it, focusing on the fact that he’ll never get her, he cancels out much of the work he’s done. A thoughtform, like a construct, is only as strong as the intent put into it. If the intent is mixed, the thoughtform will be so unclear that it is unlikely to do much of anything. This reinforces the importance of clear intent when creating constructs. By setting the intent aside from our mental meandering, we keep the intent clear.

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Sample Construct Types Shields and Filters

Entire articles have been written on the related subjects of shields and filters. Having already discussed construct creation, we can skip the process of creation and look at what makes a good shield or filter, and why. 26

A shield is a construct created with the purpose of preventing something from reaching the practitioner. That “something” can be anything energetic, and commonly includes things like other practitioners, and energetic entities. The term “filter” is often used to describe a shield which keeps out input, such as telepathic or empathic emanations, while not blocking anything else. I tend to use the term shield to cover all types. A great many shield articles describe fairly literal shield types. A good example is the bubble shield. A bubble shield is a bubble of energy which encases the practitioner, keeping nasties out. Another example is the marshmallow shield. This is a bubble composed of energy with a thick, soft consistency. A described benefit of the marshmallow is that it will absorb blows rather than shattering. A good attribute, if we were talking about physical matter. We are not. Energy will do, in essence, whatever you want it to. My attitude here might make you think that I disapprove of this kind of imagery, but the truth is that I don’t. By visualising a material, we are mentally describing the attributes we wish our shield to have. Marshmallow is soft. Soft means that there is a degree of “give”. By building the shield using such a material, you are programming your shield to likewise yield a little. Time to relate a little story. Awhile ago I was surveying a shield I’d made and was feeling pretty smug about it. The only problem I’d ever had with shielding was getting the things to sit properly. I’ve always had problems with creating things around myself for some reason. I can create them behind, in front, to the side, above or below, but to hold a visualisation on all sides at once is something that has caused me some issues at times. To remedy this I would create the shield, then put it on. I’d been playing about recently with altering my perception of my devices, and for some reason I was reminded of an episode of Doctor Who I’d watched when I was little. The Doctor and Leela are in the TARDIS, which is a sort of ship which travels through space and time. One of its more interesting attributes is that it is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Leela asks the Doctor how this is possible, and he illustrates the concept with a pair of boxes, one large and one small. He asks which one is bigger, and she indicates the larger of the two. Setting the smaller one a short distance away, he carries the larger to the far side of the room, and asks which is larger now. Leela pointed again to the larger box. “That one.” “But it looks smaller, doesn’t it?” Leela admits that it does, explaining that that’s because it’s farther away. ”Exactly! If you could keep that box exactly the same distance away, and have it here, then the large box would fit inside the smaller one!” “That’s silly!” “That’s trans-dimensional engineering!” said the Doctor severely. ”A key Time Lord discovery!” It is silly, but it got me to thinking. I looked at my huge, spherical construct, and switched my perspective, trying to view the shield as though it was a great distance away. From this perspective it did, of course, look smaller. Then I reached out and plucked the golf ball-sized bubble shield from the air. It had nothing to do with trans-dimensional engineering, and everything to do with a shift in perspective. What I did was chose to view the shield as small, and maintained that perspective when I mentally picked it up. Now I had a tiny shield, capable perhaps of keeping a beetle safe from energetic harm. The funny 27

thing was, upon further investigation, I found that the shield still worked! It still blocked everything it had been programmed to keep from reaching me. It wasn’t necessary to have the shield actually around me in order to do it. The key to the shield was the programming. The shield was programmed to block certain things from reaching me. I didn’t program it to block only those things between the shield and myself. If I had viewed the construct as a physical-type barrier, one which blocked things like a wall instead of blocking by virtue of the construct’s programming, I would have found that the construct no longer worked. The other thing this story illustrates is that things like size are largely irrelevant. A properly prepared construct the size of a match book can have the same effect as one the size of a car. It may assist you mentally to visualise your construct as something massive in order to reinforce in your mind that your creation is equal to its task. Once done, it’s very easy to shift perspective and “make” the construct appear smaller. A ”smaller” construct is often preferable if it’s something you intend to keep on your person, and you’re not in the mood to have a tank on your shoulder. Bear in mind, also, that if your intent is for a construct to be large, it will probably be perceived by others as being large.

18.2

Practical Shield Types

You’ll pick up more uses for shields as you progress in your studies in psionics. Below is a basic overview that you might find useful. There is no need to cover the how-to of shield creation as we’ve already discussed how to create a basic construct. The method is the same, and the only additional information you’ll need is the intent.

18.3

Energetic Protection

There are some who feel that a psion needs to be on guard against the world at all times, but I’ve found that this isn’t the case. If you don’t go actively seeking trouble you are very likely to find that trouble won’t come looking for you. As we’ve discussed, thought is what makes things happen. It may seem at first glance that anybody who has a nasty thought about you is sending an energetic nasty screaming for your blood. Realistically, your average ”I hate him!” thoughtform isn’t going to do a great deal, and actual psionic attack is very uncommon. All of this being said, here is how to protect against both. External energy is the best choice for protective constructs, as they tend to be long-term creations. While it’s a good idea to check your construct from time to time it makes little sense to use a long-term construct that will need to be frequently recharged. The construct must block all attempts to alter it by anybody other than yourself. It must block all attempts to reach or affect you on an energetic level. Be aware here that if you intend to interact with other psions it’s not a good idea to simply block everybody. You may choose to stop all attempts to harm you (an ambiguous sort of intent at best) or simply block everybody aside from a trusted few. It is certainly possible to block all interaction that is not initiated by you. That way you are free to interact, but it won’t allow contact without your permission. You may find it useful to create a construct to block all energetic interaction, and leave it inactive until you feel there is need to use it. 28

18.4

Mundane Protection

The energetic can affect the mundane. Magic in general would be a fairly pointless effort if this was otherwise. Charles “Uncle Chuckie” Cosimano’s Psionic Warfare contains a good example of protection in the mundane, where a mugger is dispatched by a falling air-conditioner, which just happened to come loose from its mounting at the right moment. A construct cannot break an assailant’s neck or stop an oncoming car. What it can do is manipulate circumstance, to make it more likely that that air-conditioner is going to make a bid for freedom at the right moment. It may cause you to feel an odd compulsion to walk a different route to the train station, or to slow down before approaching that intersection. There are a variety of ways in which a construct can offer protection that don’t involve direct physical inervention. Once again, the best energy source here is external. The construct’s intent is very simple: it is to protect you at all times from attack, accident or misadventure, using whatever means are necessary, but without harming anybody who does not intend you physical harm. The workman who drops his hammer from a scaffold above had no ill intent, and doesn’t deserve a three-storey fall. Simply ensuring you’re not in the path of the hammer is more than sufficient. The crackhead waiting in a darkened doorway is a different story, and while the construct’s mandate does not include punishing those who mean to harm us, I think it altruistic to the point of stupidity to worry about their safety when helping you avoid harm, especially when the easiest path may involve a sticky end for them.

18.5

Input Shields

Commonly described as filters, input shields are of particular use to the telepath and empath, especially when out and about. A trip to the local mall can be an exercise in discomfort for those who can can sense the thoughts or emotions of others. They key is to choose what you want to block, and what you want to let through. There is a major consideration here in the form of passive input versus input which is actively sought. There have been times when I’ve put shields in place to block input from a certain person, only to find that the input still came through. There was nothing wrong with the shield and everything wrong with my approach. We gain input in two ways; passively and actively. Passive input is simply that which comes to you without your needing to seek it. This is the surface information that people cast off at all times without intending to. All one need do is simply focus upon it. To seek input actively is to attempt to read a person directly. If your shield’s intent is to block passive input, you will still be able to actively seek information. If you find that an input shield has failed, ask yourself whether you are still focusing on the input. It could be that the passive input is effectively blocked out, but you’re still actively seeking. An input shield can be short-term or long-term, depending on what it is being used for. A shield to block input from one person during a temper tantrum may last for only an hour or more. In that case it may be easier to charge it directly and not worry about a permanent source of energy. If you are especially sensitive you may choose to put a permanent shield in place, in which case you would be better served by an external energy source.

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18.6

Fields/Wards

Fields or wards are usually created around a specific area, and are programmed to keep people away from something. The most common ward I use makes use of colour symbolism, and I jokingly call it the “gtfo ward”. The visualisation is simply a very dense, ominous-looking black cloud or field of energy which is programmed to keep people out by making them feel uneasy and unwelcome. Fields of this sort are good for keeping people off your property at night, or away from your car when you’re parked. It’s very quick and easy to deploy, and for that reason I’ve used it for things as simple as guarding a can of Coke when I have to leave the room. The power source is usually nonexistent or ambient, depending on how long I intend to leave the ward. I’m sure you can come up with a lot of applications for this one. You can programme your field in a similar way if you are in a place where you want to be left alone. I usually deploy this at shopping centres to avoid being bugged by salespeople. Don’t forget to dispel it once it’s served its purpose, or you may find people avoiding you at home and at work.

18.7

“Guardian” and ”Watcher”

Watcher constructs may or may not be sentient, and usually serve as earlywarning systems to let the practitioner know of any trouble on the horizon, such as an unfriendly psionic observer, an approaching mugger, or even bad weather on the way. It is not uncommon to place a watcher construct around a student or loved one to keep an eye on them. Guardian constructs tend to be sentient warrior-types that actively defend against psionic attack, in addition to the duties carried out by the watcher type.

18.8

The Cop-Attractor

I thought it a good idea to add something useful for those times when my readers are angry on the road, just so it’s known that there are ways of getting justice (or vengeance, at least) without resorting to violence or property damage. Besides, this is one of my favourites for when I’m in a temper over some teenaged hooligan on the highway. I hope you’ll find it useful, too. As we’ve seen, the form can be just about anything that’s meaningful to you. I use a dome-light, like the ones seen in old cop movies where the undercover officer puts the light on the top of his car before charging off at full speed after the criminal. The intent is simple: to attract police officers, and make them very interested in the vehicle, and its driver. After years of saying, “There’s never a cop around when you need one,” I decided to ensure that there would be one around eventually, even if they’re not there at that moment. The Construct Library After you’ve worked with constructs for a short time you’ll find that, if you do it properly, you’ll only ever have to create the blueprint once. Once created, all you need do is call it up mentally and then externalise it energetically. This saves a hell of a lot of time and effort, and means you can cast multiple constructs of the same design very quickly. If you want to change the construct later in some way then you’ll obviously have to re-plan it, but as long as you’re only doing minor modifications and not changing it in its entirety then this is a very

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easy matter. Pretty soon you’ll have a library of construct designs at your disposal, which you can cast at a moment’s notice.

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Final Notes

This is an article that was written to be read more than once. I realise that my advice regarding mental discipline will fall on deaf ears with some readers, but I suppose that is to be expected. After all, I certainly ignored similar advice when I first set my feet on the psionic path. It was only later, and through other studies, that I learned the value of a clear and disciplined mind. I hope that the reader won’t fall into this trap. However you choose to practise, I urge you to be an active participant, rather than an armchair theorist. Theories are great, but they’re all for naught if you don’t put them to use, and put them to the test. Far too much has been written by those who prefer to sit back and regurgitate things they’ve read by others (often by others in a similar position), with their own spin on how it actually works. That is one of the reasons I decided to take a long time to pen this article, being sure to include only those techniques I’ve used myself. Often I’ve found myself stopping the flow of writing just to take some time out to try an exercise for myself and ensure it really works from a practical point of view. Some areas have been left intentionally vague in an effort to discourage the thinkers from just thinking and hopefully give the doers a nudge in the direction of practical experimentation. If you want in-depth information about constructs, spend some time making and dismantling them. You’ll find more useful information under the surface of a humble psi-ball than you will in most online articles, this one included. That that reason, I urge you to trust only your own experience. If somebody tells you something, and your experience contradicts this, go with your experience. All ideas and hypotheses should be tested for yourself. Take nobody at their word. Constructs are easy to make, cheap to build (you don’t even need to visit the local hardware store before you can make one), and very useful. They can also be a lot of fun, especially if you have a sense of humour. There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you watch somebody look around the room for the tenth time because you made a construct to simply stare at them.

Get busy. :)

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