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This exercise from Joseph Weed's "Psychic Energy" is a superb daily exercise for building your reserve of psychic energy.
Breathing is an automatic function. When the body is at rest, breathing is normally slow and regular. But when violent exercise requires additional oxygen to cleanse the blood stream, the rate and depth of breathing increase automatically. But we can consciously control our rate of breathing, we can slow it down or speed it up at will. We can even stop breathing entirely for short periods. Diving, under-water swimming and water polo require great breath control. The members of the American Olympic Water Polo Team were trained to hold their breath so they could stay under water longer. One barrel-chested athlete had practiced until he was able to hold his breath for more than three minutes and was a great asset to the team-in his case this abnormal breath retention enabled him to lurk on the bottom and pop up unexpectedly in front of the goal. In our case we are going to learn to retain the breath for a far worthier purpose.
1. Here is the first exercise. Practice it every day once or twice for at least two weeks before going on to number 2. Continue it even after this. In fact it is a great invigorator and quite properly could be used by you every day for the rest of your life. It is-as you will see-extremely simple. Its purpose is to expand the lung capacity and help make easier a complete control of your breath. Just do this:
Breathe in to full lung capacity, fill your lungs to the count of 4. Then without pause, exhale to the count of 11. You can see from this that the intake is rapid but the exhalation slow. With a little practice, this should be easy to do. Count as you breathe in and out, always in the same cadence. Repeat this inhalation and exhalation 10 times at a sitting the first week. Then increase it gradually until you are doing it 20 times at a sitting and continue thereafter at that rate. In the first week or so, just seek to gain control-good smooth intake and exhalation are essential. When your control is positive and automatic, and this should be in about two weeks, go on to the next exercise.
2. Continue the breathing as in the foregoing, in for the count of 4, out to the count of 11, but now add a visualization. This means that you are to picture in your mind's eye the following:
Visualize the sun. See the sun as a great white light somewhere above your head. It matters not where it actually is or whether it is day or night. In your visualization see the sun shining brightly above you. Then with each exhalation, as you count to 11, visualize the brilliant white rays of the sun coming down upon you and entering your body through the top of your head and also through your spine in the region of your heart. See this occur only on the exhalation. As you inhale once again, the sun should be shining brightly above you but when you start to exhale see its rays flow down and fill you once again with their divine effulgence.
This is the simple technique for increasing psychic energy by means of directed breath. Don't underrate it. At first only a small amount of psychic energy is collected. But as you proceed, your breathing will become better balanced and your visualization clearer and less confused. This will bring better and better results.
Simple though this appears, it is basic. Adaptations of this technique will be given in later chapters for accomplishing certain definite, highly sophisticated tasks. But you will not be able to call upon and direct the required psychic energy until you have mastered this first lesson and trained your reflexes accordingly. So don't neglect it. And don't imagine you can do it too often. Even ten or 'twelve repetitions a day are not too many. Every one will help.
Used copies of Joseph Weed's "Psychic Energy" are available via amazon.com