Psychic Exercise: Zener Cards

If you are looking for a way to work on your psychic muscles this summer, how about you give Zener cards a try.

Zener cards are actually pretty simple. They are just five different symbols (a circle, square, star, cross, waves) on a card.  And they work pretty simply too. It is all about intuiting which symbol is on which card.

These cards were invented in the 1930s by Karl Zener for conducting experiments on psychic ability.  You can read more on the trusted site Wikipedia if you want to know more about the history of these cards.

So these cards can work multiple ways.  One way you can use them is to have a friend practice “sending” you a symbol and you practice “receiving” the symbol.  This is a popular method that many psychic development courses use…but I don’t find all that helpful.

First, some people just suck at sending information.  And some people aren’t that great at receiving psychic info.  What if your friend is a dud at sending info and keeps thinking about what they are going to have for dinner so you think you suck at receiving info?  Basically, if you are going to practice this route, make sure you have a really trusted friend who will take this exercise seriously.

I prefer to work with Zener cards by myself (I am an introvert after all).  You can buy a set of these cards or just write them on a piece of paper yourself (which is what I use).  The way I really like to use Zener cards is through an app – I use one called Psychic Intuition Training by IA Creative Software.  This way someone else calculates the results and you don’t have to worry about cheating.

Now, I want to warn you here, it may be that when you first state using these cards that you get the majority wrong.  That you truly are guessing and not using your psychic senses.  Instead, these cards are going to help you understand how you receive information and what is truly your imagination and what is intuition.

Yep, you can’t just use these cards while watching tv and hope to get better psychically.  You are going to need to get into the “zone” and really “tune into” the information.

One helpful trick I like to use is imagining the card in my mind’s eye face down and then I mentally flip it over.  The image I “see” in my mind’s eye will then correspond to the card in front of me.  I sometimes also use my physical hand as a representation of the card and “flip” my hand over and “see” what symbol appears.

You can also try focusing on something totally random, like your breath or the weather outside, and see what card image appears in your mind.  The idea is to practice getting into that receptive state – that state where you aren’t thinking about anything – not even about your next meal.

I actually find using Zener cards a lot harder than getting psychic information off people.  This is because there are only five choices.  My imagination and ego like to think it knows which one is “right” before letting my intuition get its vote in.  This is where distinguishing imagination from intuition really gets tough.  It is much easier to tune into a person’s energy and “see” a marching band when you haven’t thought of marching bands since the last fourth of July parade. Then you know that marching band is a symbolic and not just random brain gunk.

So, give Zener cards a try, but don’t get too discouraged if you get a bunch wrong.  A “good” score is really getting 10 out of 25 right – so congratulate yourself for getting those three or four correct.  Use this exercise to help you discern different methods for getting psychic information and for getting yourself into that receptive state.  It is great practice!