Common Questions:
Q) Is this Witchcraft, or Satanism?
A) Absolutely not--psionics does not involve any religious practice, and does not involve summoning or working with spirit entities of any kind, whether good or bad.
Q) What kind of power is this? Where does it come from?
A) The energy used in psionics comes from within a person--it is present in all living people as a byproduct of the functioning of the nervous system. Psionics simply makes use of this energy in order to do work.
Q) I don't believe in ANY of this stuff. Why should I let my kids get involved with it?
A) At the very least, it's a harmless pasttime. If none of this exists, they aren't going to be harmed by trying it. It's not drugs, alcohol, sex, or violence--in fact, these things are discouraged. Friends can be made, ideas explored, and imagination exercised. So, why not?
Those three most common questions having been answered, I'll move on to a few other concerns parents might have. I'm also creating some guides geared toward parents who hold specific religious beliefs, which I hope will explain psionics within those terms, and address specific concerns related to those religious beliefs.
Psionics is use of energy generated by the mind and nervous system to accomplish tasks--this energy is not one that is currently accepted or recognized by science, but there has been sufficient evidence gathered to point to the existence of an unknown energy or force at work which can be directed by the human mind.
The more commonly known abilities which occur and which people can learn include precognition (sensing or seeing future events before they happen), telepathy (sensing others' thoughts, or causing them to know yours without any conventional means of communication), empathy (like telepathy, but dealing with emotion instead of thought), remote viewing (seeing events that occur far away, or behind barriers that block normal sight), seeing or sensing ghosts or spirits, telekinesis (moving objects), and many more that you may never have heard of.
What does it mean if a child suddenly begins to develop psi ability without any training?
In most cases, this means that the child has inherited the genes that trigger this, which are most often recessives. While a genetic link hasn't yet been proven, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to suggest that it exists--psi runs in families, very often on the female side. In a few cases, it may be triggered by some trauma, or exposure to psychic events.
Why not leave well enough alone? Why try to develop these abilities further, just because they've manifested?
The primary problem with that is that active psi ability very often leaves a person mentally and physically more susceptable to the effects of psychic events and abilities than a non-active person would be. In addition, uncontrolled sensing abilities, such as telepathy, can be prove to be more of a torment than a gift--imagine being in a room with a hundred people shouting, and never being able to escape the noise. Most psis who develop abilities spontaneously cannot shut them off, and without training they usually have some difficulty coping. Some may be misdiagnosed as having a mental or emotional illness, and placed on medications which affect mood and personality. In both the short and long term, lack of training is more dangerous to an active psi than the training could ever be. Training does not merely involve increasing the strength of abilities--it involves learning to control, dampen, and direct abilities, and develop defenses against events and actions which most other people would be unaware of, but which could cause them mental or even physical distress or harm.
Finally, psi training does not involve any sort of deprivation of food, sleep, activity, or social contact. It does not involve giving up religious beliefs, or adopting new ones. While it does require time and effort, actual training periods are generally less than 10 minutes in length, scattered throughout a day, and many can be conducted while a person is engaged in other activities. Side effects are usually minor, and so far as we have seen, do no lasting harm--they may include migraines, nerve spasms, and energy surges (which feel something like a hot flash). These effects, if they occur, generally go away or reduce to ordinary levels (many born-psis experience occasional migraines or nerve spasms anyhow), as training progresses.
Specifics for Catholic Parents