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Purpose:
Many issues experienced by new practitioners are preventable. This article will provide a brief description of shielding, when it is appropriate, and give ideas that you could integrate into shielding you are using. Lastly, I will try to address the main argument against shielding.
Background:
I was active in the psion community for several years, and mainly practiced psionics under Anka's school of thought. I am now in an order that does non-ritual magic. I am biased toward non-ritual approaches or “direct magic” in general. To clarify, this article does not apply Anka's approach to shielding.
Terminology:
First, it is important to clarify some basic terms that will appear in the article:
Shield:
A spell cast around yourself that is intended to somehow block unwanted influence over you. There are many kinds of shields. This article will only cover a general approach. For all intents and purposes, the shield moves with your person and is not fixed in one location, although it is possible to create those as well, e.g., a shield over personal property.
Link:
A spell used to connect one thing to another. In this case, a link is used to connect your shield to a power source.
Ambient energy:
We can assume the we are surrounded with energy at all times. The ambient energy in an area can change or take on different properties depending on a number of factors.
Ley line:
A concentrated mass of ambient energy. The amount of energy in a ley line can vary greatly. We usually think of these as occurring in nature, but they can also occur in cities, possibly due to lots of frenetic activity in that space.
Overview:
A few advantages of shielding include:
You can control the energy around yourself. If the energy in a space is negative, it will roll off your shield and you will remain unaffected.
You are less prone to psychic influence from others.
Shielding can prevent psychic input when it is unwanted, for example from empathic or telepathic input. Complementing this with grounding and centering can prove useful when under stress.
Shielding can be turned up and down on a scale, for example from 1 (most porous) to 9 (least porous). Although the shield is always present, you can allow ambient energy in, connect with others on an energetic level, and reach in and out of your shield at will. Feel like you are in a negative environment and want to block out input? Turn your shielding up, and adjust it later when no longer in that setting.
But doesn't this make me more vulnerable to influence from others? Sort of, yes. Connecting with others is important and a basic human need. It is not feasible to have a shield on yourself 24/7, cutting off all energy input. For that reason I always recommend that you imagine a kind of dial built into the shield that allows you to scale it as needed.
Technique to shield:
There are many different techniques to shield. You probably already know of a few if not many. I will not bore you with that. Instead, I will just give some of my general thoughts that could be integrated into an existing shield design:
With your senses, try to find all of the power sources (ley lines) near you and that you could reasonably reach. You are likely to see many regardless of your location.
Using ambient energy, create the shield structure with your intent. The method and core functionality of your shield is up to you.
Once your shield structure is established, begin to power it by creating links from it to ley lines. How many links can you create and maintain to different power sources? Link to all of them for more power being funneled into your spell. (Although it goes without saying, your shield should also extend over each link.)
Arguments against shielding:
The most common argument I see against shielding is that it is unhealthy to cut yourself off for extended periods of time. This is probably true if that is how you shield, and why I recommend making yours porous and with the ability to scale it as needed.
Many issues experienced by new practitioners are preventable. This article will provide a brief description of shielding, when it is appropriate, and give ideas that you could integrate into shielding you are using. Lastly, I will try to address the main argument against shielding.
Background:
I was active in the psion community for several years, and mainly practiced psionics under Anka's school of thought. I am now in an order that does non-ritual magic. I am biased toward non-ritual approaches or “direct magic” in general. To clarify, this article does not apply Anka's approach to shielding.
Terminology:
First, it is important to clarify some basic terms that will appear in the article:
Shield:
A spell cast around yourself that is intended to somehow block unwanted influence over you. There are many kinds of shields. This article will only cover a general approach. For all intents and purposes, the shield moves with your person and is not fixed in one location, although it is possible to create those as well, e.g., a shield over personal property.
Link:
A spell used to connect one thing to another. In this case, a link is used to connect your shield to a power source.
Ambient energy:
We can assume the we are surrounded with energy at all times. The ambient energy in an area can change or take on different properties depending on a number of factors.
Ley line:
A concentrated mass of ambient energy. The amount of energy in a ley line can vary greatly. We usually think of these as occurring in nature, but they can also occur in cities, possibly due to lots of frenetic activity in that space.
Overview:
A few advantages of shielding include:
You can control the energy around yourself. If the energy in a space is negative, it will roll off your shield and you will remain unaffected.
You are less prone to psychic influence from others.
Shielding can prevent psychic input when it is unwanted, for example from empathic or telepathic input. Complementing this with grounding and centering can prove useful when under stress.
Shielding can be turned up and down on a scale, for example from 1 (most porous) to 9 (least porous). Although the shield is always present, you can allow ambient energy in, connect with others on an energetic level, and reach in and out of your shield at will. Feel like you are in a negative environment and want to block out input? Turn your shielding up, and adjust it later when no longer in that setting.
But doesn't this make me more vulnerable to influence from others? Sort of, yes. Connecting with others is important and a basic human need. It is not feasible to have a shield on yourself 24/7, cutting off all energy input. For that reason I always recommend that you imagine a kind of dial built into the shield that allows you to scale it as needed.
Technique to shield:
There are many different techniques to shield. You probably already know of a few if not many. I will not bore you with that. Instead, I will just give some of my general thoughts that could be integrated into an existing shield design:
With your senses, try to find all of the power sources (ley lines) near you and that you could reasonably reach. You are likely to see many regardless of your location.
Using ambient energy, create the shield structure with your intent. The method and core functionality of your shield is up to you.
Once your shield structure is established, begin to power it by creating links from it to ley lines. How many links can you create and maintain to different power sources? Link to all of them for more power being funneled into your spell. (Although it goes without saying, your shield should also extend over each link.)
Arguments against shielding:
The most common argument I see against shielding is that it is unhealthy to cut yourself off for extended periods of time. This is probably true if that is how you shield, and why I recommend making yours porous and with the ability to scale it as needed.