Those of you who see and hear spirits or have strong astral senses, how did you do this and how did you get to this level?
Sometimes you don't have to do anything to get to any "level." Sometimes the spirit teaches you how to hear it, see it, interact with it. This was the case, for example, with old world Europe and the "familiar spirits" old world European witches had. Those witches back then did not have to read books about how to hear and interact with their familiar spirits. The familiar spirit itself teaches the witch.
This was, and still is the case with "shamans" in any human culture. The "shaman" [here not meaning the neo-shamanism of the New Age Movement a la culturally appropriated Native American Traditions] did not read books, their spirits teaches them what needs to be done.
There are "levels" of interaction between a person and spirits though. I enclose the word "level" in quotes because they are not actually levels, just degrees and amplitudes of consciousness.
The first "level" which is universal to all human cultures is via dreams. This is when the spirit, often ancestor spirits, meaning spirits of your dead relatives, enter your dream to tell you things.
The second "level" of interaction, which is also universal to all human cultures is when you see and hear the spirit in a state of consciousness we in the West call "hypnogogia." The hypnogogic state is when your body is still asleep and often paralyzed, but your mind is awake and aware. The Gateway Experience actually starts off by training you to enter that hypnogogic state intentionally.
So for example, my mom just recently passed away, and so, I will occasionally see her and hear her talking to me, very vividly and realistically in that hypnogogic state. For me, I wake up in that hypnogogic state sometime around about an hour to 30 minutes before my alarm goes off.
Another example would be my Kuman Thongs. A Kuman Thong is a necromantic occult paraphernalia made from the powdered crematory ash of a dead baby mixed with plants and herbs and minerals with magical properties. The Kuman Thong spirits will interact with you in that same hypnogogic state. I will hear them playing and laughing, and making noise in my room, and sometimes they will whisper things in my ear, things that I need to know.
The "third level" of how a spirit interacts with you when you are in a state of normal everyday waking awareness, called "beta wave." This is the hardest level of consciousness to hear and see and interact with spirits, because our mind is simply too busy thinking about work, since most of us work during the daytime, busy interacting with other people, and being entertained my multi-media, and so on. In that everyday state of consciousness, when a spirit tries to interact with you, you will have hunches, intuitive feelings, faint pictures/visions will pop up in your mind like thoughts that come out of nowhere. In your everyday state of consciousness, because you are way too busy doing other things, it is normally not possible to hear a spirit talk to you.
The "fourth level" of spirit interaction is when your mind/consciousness is at rest. At rest meaning like when you are sitting still and reading a book, you are taking a warm bath, you are on the toilet, you are in the shower, you are just sitting around not really doing anything or thinking about anything, you are taking a nice quiet hike.
In that "fourth level" when your mind is relaxed and at rest, you will experience "clairvoyance," which in all practicality simply means that the spirit shows you images of things, of itself, of future events, etc. The way you see those things clairvoyantly is very much like daydreaming, or daydreams, but in the case of clairvoyance, the daydreams or images in such daydreams are self-animated, meaning that you yourself do not make the objects and characters in those daydreams of visions move.
In that fourth level, you may also experience "clairaudience," which is when you actually hear the spirit communicate with you. Clairaudience, in all practicality, as it is experiences, isn't when you hear shit with your ears like a schitzo. It's when in your mind you have self-animated daydreams, where you are not controlling what you see, and in such self-animated daydreams or visions, the characters you see, such as the spirit itself, talks to you. This is just like how when you recall something you experienced in the past, like your friend once telling you something. In that recollection, you hear your friend's voice talking to you, but in your mind, and in the matrix of your memory envisoned in your mind. And so, in that "fourth level" the spirit talks to you in that same way, in your mind, but the spirit is self-animated.
In all human cultures, that fourth level is the state of mind used to connect with nature spirits. It is that state of consciousness that allows old world shamans healers to connect with the spirit of a plant to learn what healing properties such plants have. The spirit of the plant communicates what it heals to the mind of the shaman or healer via what we today call clairvoyance and clairaudience, and intuition.
The "fifth level" of spirit interaction is a light trance. You often enter a light trance when you are "spaced out," or when you are high on weed, or you drink alcohol and sit quietly (which is why wine was scared to both Dionysus and Shiva), when you listen to music you really like, when you are having good sex (which is why tantra was used in India), and when you are meditating in silence.
In that light trance, the spirit has a better link and connection to your mind. Your mind is relaxed and tranquilized, it does not chatter. With that stronger connection, the spirit can speak and show things to you better and clearly. Meaning that via clairvoyance, you see more clear and vivid visions and images and via clairaudience you hear voices and whispers from the spirit more vividly and clearly. This is also the state when the spirit can also influence you to experience automatic writing, channeling, and so on.
The "sixth level" of spirit interaction is a deep trance. This is the level of trance an experience shaman will enter. In this level of trance, often times, something we call "spirit possession" takes place. This is when the spirit has such a strong link and connection with your mind and brain that it can move and control your body. This is the state of trance a Vodou Horse (a person possessed by a spirit) is in when the Loa/Lwa possesses their body. It's also the state of trance when Santeros (Santeria) enters when they gather for a tambor and dance to drumming for hours. The spirit possess the bodies of those in that deep trance and then speak and interact with people.
The deeper you enter a trance, the better the spirit can connect and link to your mind and brain. Which means that the deeper a trance you enter, the more the spirit is able to use and utilize stuff in your mind, such as your knowledge base, vocabulary, memories, education level, paradigm, world views, myths, and so on. This means in practice that if a spirit connect with an uneducated person and also with a scientist, although it is the same spirit, the spirit through the scientist will speak and communicate in a more intelligent manner, simply because the scientist has more things for the spirit to work with.
The "seventh level" of spirit interaction is a catatonic or cataleptic trance. This when you're so deep in a trance that your body is paralyzed, your breathing slows down to an extreme, you are completely unconscious of your body and surroundings, and your mind is somewhere else. This is where the spirit and your own spirit interact and communicate with each other without any hindrance.
Some spirits do not need you to enter those levels of consciousness. This is called a "Two-Headed Possession." A one-headed possession is the typical spirit possession most people know about: it's when you are unconscious and the spirit takes control of your body, and you wake up and can't remember what happened. This would be like those intrusive spirits and astral parasites, for example demon possession and so on.
A two-headed possession is when you are normally awake and conscious and normally in control of your body and mind, but a spirit is also in control of your body and mind. When the spirit moves your body, or arms, or fingers, you see it move, but you are consciously aware that you are not moving it. With a two-headed possession, the spirit can just interact and communicate with you through your own mouth and vocal cords, by writing things for you, by drawing things for you, by interpretating divination things for you (like cards).
I have an old traditional necromantic thing from my culture which has a spirit inside of it, and the spirit is linked to me in a permanent two-headed possession. With such two-headed possession, those levels of consciousness also apply in the sense that the more relaxed and tranquil and silent your mind is, the more the spirit can access your own memories, vocabulary, knowledge base, so that it is better able to convey deeper and better thoughts to you.
