Synchronicity is the granddaddy of all paranormal phenomena, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, and remote viewing.
“The unseen design of things is more harmonious than the seen.”
—HERACLITUS
For the moment, forget whatever you think you know about psychic phenomena. Forget The X-Files, Medium, Ghost Whisperer. Instead, recall the last time you had a hunch about something, a gut feeling, and acted on it. Or, think about the dream you had that later came true. Or, consider how you often know what your partner is going to say before he says it. If you’ve experienced something like this—and most of us have—then you’re already familiar with psychic phenomena and with synchronicity, which lies at the heart of all things psychic.
Carl Jung maintained that synchronicity is the basis for all psychic phenomena. Jung’s own visions during a vivid near-death experience after a heart attack in 1944 influenced this belief. He soared high above the earth until he saw it as a blue globe, then swept across the deserts of Arabia, over the snow-covered Himalayas, and into a temple in India. He was certain he had died and was about to meet “all those people to whom I belong.” Then, to his disappointment, he was pulled back to Europe, to the hospital, and into his body. He believed that experience was real, not imagined.
In his biography, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Jung wrote, “We shy away from the word ‘eternal,’ but I can describe the experience only as the ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past and future are one. Everything that happens in time had been brought together into a concrete whole. Nothing was distributed over time, nothing could be measured by temporal concepts.”
In order to experience synchronicities more frequently, strive to be open and receptive to intuitive experiences. Check the statements in the list below that apply to you.
If you checked
15–20: You’re open and receptive, and probably experience synchronicities frequently.
10–15: You probably experience synchronicities, but perhaps not as frequently as you would like.
0–10: Push open that inner door. A magical universe awaits you on the other side.
Psychic experiences emanate from what physicist David Bohm called the implicate order. In Bohm’s view of the universe—and in Jung’s—these aspects of synchronicity provide vital clues to how we’re all connected. Physicist Victor Mansfield agrees. As he wrote in Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making, we live in “a radically interconnected and interdependent world, one so essentially connected at a deep level that the interconnections are more fundamental, more real than the independent existence of the parts.”
These ideas are echoed in Eastern spiritual traditions that date back thousands of years. In the Indian sacred text, the Rig Veda, Indra—the king of gods and god of war—casts a great spiritual net (known as Indra’s Net) in which all members of the cosmos are interconnected. In Synchronicity in Your Life, Shawn Randall speculates that if the “net is multi-dimensional, the points where the strings of the net connect would be like intersecting points from which one could access the whole net.… Basically, this is how synchronicity works.” In other words, one tug ripples across the entire net.
The Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu religious poem, recognizes the synchronous nature of creation and an underlying cosmic unity. The Hindu term, Brahman, refers to the fundamental connection of all things in the universe. The appearance of this universal oneness in the soul is called Atman.
Zen Buddhism refers to satori, a sense of unity felt with the universe and an awareness of the compassionate intelligence that permeates the most minute details. Pratitya-samutpada, a doctrine of Buddhist philosophy, especially in China and Korea, translates as “dependent arising” and refers to an interdependent web of cause and effect, the motivating principle of the universe.
Chi, according to Chinese philosophy, is the life force that permeates all things and empowers the universe. In yoga philosophy, chi is comparable to pranayama, and is manifested in humans through the breath.
These Eastern ideas are similar to the concept of the noosphere, a notion created by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher, paleontologist, and ordained Jesuit priest. He was convinced of the existence of an invisible “ordering intelligence,” a mental sphere that linked all humanity. He proposed that as mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the noosphere expands in awareness.
Premonition is usually defined as a feeling of anticipation or anxiety about future events. Precognition is defined as knowledge of a future event or situation.
For instance, imagine you have a feeling that you should turn at a particular intersection, even though it’s not on your usual route to work. You later discover there was a huge accident on your usual route that tied up traffic. That’s a premonition. But if you dream someone hands you a phone message that reads Your uncle has just passed away, and he dies two weeks later, that’s precognition—foreknowledge of future events that can occur moments or decades before the event unfolds.
Both intuitive abilities originate in the nonlocal mind, which operates outside the boundaries of normal space and time. “By its nature, nonlocal mind connects all things because it is all things,” wrote Deepak Chopra in The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire.
When he was just a boy, Keith Fraser, a university records keeper in Aberdeen, Scotland, had a precognitive experience about the woman he eventually married. During visits to his grandmother’s house in the early 1960s, Keith read copies of D. C. Thompson’s The Friendship Book to pass the time. The book contained a number of photographs, and one of a young girl painting a picture captured his attention.
Years later, while visiting his girlfriend’s home for the first time, he noticed a copy of The Friendship Book on a bookcase. He mentioned that he used to read it when he visited his grandparents, and started to flip through the book. “It was then that I saw a photograph I recognized—of a small girl painting a picture. I pointed this out to my future in-laws and imagine my surprise when they said the photo was of my future wife, which they had submitted to the publisher, D. C. Thompson, in the early 1960s.”
When Ray Getzinger was twelve, he used to dream about a redheaded woman from Georgia who wore her hair in ringlets. Ten years later, in 1966, he married a woman with red hair who lived in Virginia but was born in Georgia. “Before we had been married a year she styled her hair exactly as I had dreamed.”
Both Keith and Ray were obviously impressed enough by their early experiences to remember them, so that when the actual women appeared in their lives, they recognized the stunning synchronicities. Their stories exemplify how synchronicities connect us to something larger than ourselves, to what is essentially invisible and unknowable. But if, as quantum physicists and mystics say, the nonlocal mind exists outside the usual boundaries of space and time, then perhaps the child Keith and the dreaming Ray were dipping into future possibilities.
In her book, Synchronicity: The Promise of Coincidence, Deike Begg wrote, “The most interesting aspect of all truly synchronistic phenomena is that there appears to be a pre-existing knowledge of things to come, things of which we have at that moment no apparent awareness whatsoever. There seems to be an altogether ‘other’ that knows more than us, can see into the future and also has the ingenious ability to find the quickest route to return us to our destined path.”
Like Keith and Ray, you can peek into the future. Here’s how to do it.
As we explained in the previous chapter, emotions often play a role in synchronicities, including incidents of precognition. Think about an important relationship outside of your immediate family, especially a love interest. Try to remember the first time you met. Did you feel an immediate connection, sense that a close, long-term relationship would develop? Were there any physical sensations that triggered your thoughts? Some people feel their teeth tingling or “growing” during important encounters that will affect their futures. Others have predictive dreams or receive flashes of images related to future events.
You might think such things don’t happen to you, but maybe they do, and you never noticed. Pay close attention to your thoughts and feelings as important events unfold in your life. Watch for patterns. Keep a journal. Try to guess what will come about, based on your intuitive thoughts and feelings. Later, look back and see how well you did.
Also, keep track of your dreams, even if they don’t seem to make sense at the time. Use a notebook or journal, or a file on your computer. You might be surprised later on to realize that a dream seemed to preview your future. Before going to bed, suggest to yourself that you’ll have a dream of an upcoming event.
Upon awakening, jot down any dream images you remember. Don’t try to interpret them, but note as many details as possible. Pay attention to the people, the scenery, and the main incident.
Note how you felt during the dream. Were you energized and joyful? Filled with fear and dread? Calm and observant? Or were you agitated? About once a month, review your dreams to see if any of the scenarios actually hinted at future events.
Most of your dreams will be symbolic messages concerning things taking place in your life at the time. But occasionally, especially if you’re nudging your dream self before falling asleep, you’ll probably discover dreams that foretell events in your life. When you do, note how you felt during the dream. That might help you recognize other precognitive dreams.
It’s also possible to consciously and intentionally peek into the future—even the distant future. In the late 1980s, our friend Renie Wiley offered to progress us hypnotically into the future. Renie wasn’t a professional hypnotist, but had practiced hypnosis on family and friends. She also had a soothing voice and an infallible relaxation technique. As she spoke, Trish suddenly saw herself as a tall woman, completely bald, living in a domed city.
“Why are the people living in domes?” Renie asked.
“It’s safer in the dome,” Trish replied. “Outside, the air is bad, it’s a wilderness.”
“Do all people live in domes?”
“Only the lucky ones. We aren’t many. There are a few other domes.”
“How old are you?”
“Late twenties.”
“Why are you bald?”
“Genetic. We’re all bald.”
“What year is it?” Renie asked.
“I don’t know.”
Trish was deeply unsettled by this progression. It felt real. She could sense the texture and reality of this young woman’s life.
Not long afterward, we ran across Mass Dreams of the Future, by Helen Wambach, PhD, and Chet Snow. Dr. Wambach, a past-life regressionist for nearly thirty years, discovered she could progress people into their future lives. She began a painstaking project in France and the United States where she progressed 2,500 people. She passed away before the project was completed, but Dr. Chet Snow finished the work and published the findings.
Most of the individuals who participated agreed that in the future the population of the earth was vastly diminished. The futures they experienced fell into four distinct categories: a sterile and joyless world, where most people lived in space stations and ate synthetic food; a world in which people lived in harmony with nature and with each other; a post-nuclear world populated by survivalists; and a future in which people lived in underground cities enclosed by domes. We were stunned by the parallels.
Snow explained the four different scenarios as probabilities only, potential futures that we’re creating through our collective consciousness. He subsequently released a map of what the United States might look like after earth changes he believed would occur between 1998 and 2012. Yet, he recommends that people visualize a more positive future. As he wrote in Mass Dreams, “If we are continually shaping our future physical reality by today’s collective thoughts and actions, then the time to wake up to the alternative we have created is now. The choices between the kind of Earth represented by each of the types are clear. Which do we want for our grandchildren? Which do we perhaps want to return to ourselves someday?”
Psychic ability is common among children. Whether it’s due to their lack of social conditioning or to something else, they can be gifted telepaths or clairvoyants. Perhaps the future is as accessible to them as the present. To help your child develop her psychic ability, try this game while you’re in the car. The car’s motion tends to be relaxing, inducing a kind of trance.
Set the stage. Tell your child you’re going to play a game with colors. One of you will be the sender, who will think of a bright, vivid color. The other will be the receiver, who should say the first color that comes to mind. Then reverse your roles. Or you could ask your child what event she thinks might occur in his life tomorrow. Or next week. The results may astonish you.
These kinds of psychic games help a child’s perceptions to develop in a different way. She learns to rely on her own instincts and intuition.
We played these games often with our daughter, Megan, when she was young. But we were surprised when, in third grade, she tuned in on an event that would impact our family.
During a Thanksgiving program in elementary school, Megan showed a dog she’d sculpted from clay and announced she was grateful for the golden retriever she was going to get. We were puzzled. We had no plans to get any kind of dog. After all, we had three cats. But shortly before Christmas, a family friend asked if we would adopt a golden retriever that needed a home. We agreed to keep the dog for a week to see how she got along with the cats. The retriever, Jessie, immediately got along famously with the cats, settled in front of Rob’s desk, and found a new home.
Megan’s desire for a dog was strong and pervasive, so she undoubtedly attracted the circumstances and opportunity for obtaining one. But how did she get the breed right? Not only was her sculpture a synchronicity, it was specifically precognitive.
Telepathy is unspoken communication—we pick up the thoughts, feelings, and sensations of others. Most of us have experienced it at one time or another, often with someone to whom we’re close. You’ve probably heard someone say, “I was just about to say that.” Or you’re just about to pick up the phone when it rings and it’s the person you intended to call.
Imagine you’ve just visited your elderly father who lives alone. You’re almost home when you hear his voice in your mind calling for help. At first you dismiss it as a reflection of your concern about your father’s health. But the voice in your head is persistent. You call your father on your cell and, when there’s no answer, your concern grows. You turn around and drive back to his apartment. You find him on the floor, unable to get up and answer the phone.
Jung, in his autobiography, describes a telepathic experience with one of his patients. He had gone out to deliver a lecture, then returned to his hotel around midnight, but had trouble falling asleep. “At about two o’clock … I woke with a start, and had the feeling that someone had come into the room; I even had the impression that the door had been hastily opened. I instantly turned on the light, but there was nothing.” Jung thought another guest must have opened his door by mistake, but when he looked out into the hallway, “it was as still as death.”
He struggled to remember what had happened and recalled he had been awakened “by a feeling of dull pain, as though something had struck my forehead and then the back of my skull.” The next day, Jung received a telegram informing him that his patient had committed suicide by shooting himself. “Later, I learned that the bullet had come to rest in the back wall of his skull.”
Jung said he felt this experience was a genuine synchronistic phenomenon commonly associated with an archetypal situation—in this instance, death. He believed his knowledge of the patient’s death had been made possible because in the collective unconscious, time and space are relative. “The collective unconscious is common to all; it is the foundation of what the ancients call the ‘sympathy of all things’… the unconscious had knowledge of my patient’s condition.”
Try this exercise in telepathic sending. Think of someone you want to call you. The other person isn’t aware of your desire. Begin with someone who might easily decide to give you a call. Write down the target’s name. Relax. Breathe deeply. Imagine a setting involving the person. If you know exactly where the person is and what her surroundings look like, visualize them.
Next, focus on the person. Picture her face and what she might be doing. Imagine her smiling as she decides to phone you. Imagine her dialing your number. You answer and she identifies herself and asks how you are. Focus on this scenario for a few minutes, then let go of the image.
If you don’t get a call within a short period of time, phone the person. Ask her what she’s doing and if she’s been thinking about you. She might’ve considered calling you, but got too busy. If so, ask what time she began thinking of calling you. Does it correspond with when you sent her a message?
If you don’t get a “hit,” try the experiment with another person you know.
Have you ever wished you could be the proverbial fly on the wall? That you could visit a certain time or place and see what was happening, without anyone knowing you were there?
Wishful thinking? Not necessarily.
Clairvoyance, a French word that means “clear seeing,” is a psychic skill that falls within the realm of synchronicity, as Jung described it. It’s an extrasensory talent that allows you to see something beyond the range of your normal vision. In other words, you project a part of your mind elsewhere. Another popular term for the talent is remote viewing, which came into our lexicon when the U.S. military used psychic spies.
How is this possible? While your brain is a physical receptor, your mind exists beyond the limits of your body. You may not realize it, but you can send your mind to distant places to pick up information. In fact, you do it when you’re sleeping. Research has shown that everyone, with practice, can attain some degree of clairvoyance. Sometimes it happens spontaneously. For example, in 1759, Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist, inventor, and mystic, told a group of guests that a great fire was raging in Sweden, 300 miles away. Later, his statement was confirmed. Because no telephones, radio, television, or Internet existed in Swedenborg’s time, such an ability was a valuable skill.
Even if you’ve never had a spontaneous clairvoyant experience, you can learn techniques to help you glimpse scenes taking place elsewhere. Although this book isn’t intended as an instruction guide for learning psychic skills, here is an exercise that was developed at the Stanford Research Institute. It’s a good one to use for your first attempt at remote viewing.
You’ll need at least one friend, preferably two, to participate. One person goes into another room and chooses a small object, then places it in a bag, box, or envelope so that you can’t possibly know what it is. The best objects are those with sensory details. A piece of sandpaper, for example, has color, texture, and sound attached to it. A tomato has scent, color, texture, and shape. Your friend must stay in the other room, so as not to give you any clues.
Your mission is to identify the object, using your psychic power. Close your eyes and begin to write or tape-record your impressions. If you prefer, draw the object.
If no impressions come to mind, try to look into the future and see the object being placed in your hand at the end of the exercise. Or, go into the past and see your friend slipping the object in the bag, box, or envelope. Use all your senses. Let yourself see, feel, smell, hear, and taste the object. Don’t try to guess what it is; allow your impressions and the sensory information to accumulate.
Meanwhile, a second friend (if available) asks questions that guide you to new ways of experiencing the object and keep you on track. For example, if you’re describing a round, red object, your friend might ask you about its texture or smell. He might suggest that you observe the object from a different angle. However, it’s important this second person doesn’t know the object’s identity. Otherwise, he could inadvertently drop clues.
Stop when you run out of impressions. Set a time limit of ten or fifteen minutes, then you’re goign to reverse your roles. Ask the first friend to bring you the object he selected. Hold it in your hands. Feel it and sense all its qualities. Note which characteristics come through to you clearly and which ones are faint or missed altogether. Did you get sidetracked by the tendency to overanalyze? Learn to distinguish between the mind’s idle chatter and psychic functioning. Remote viewing usually manifests as subtle, fleeting messages or images that come to mind when you quiet the chatter.
Of course, advanced remote viewers take on much more complex “targets.” Even with modern electronic surveillance, the U.S. Army and CIA developed a team of remote viewers who used their abilities to analyze hidden targets. The program, known as Stargate, existed from 1973 to 1994. Favorite targets included secret activities in the former Soviet Union. One of the best-known and most-successful remote viewers was Joe McMoneagle, a chief warrant officer. After Stargate ended, McMoneagle retired and continued remote viewing as a private citizen.
When Rob was writing The Fog, about the experience his coauthor Bruce Gernon had in the Bermuda Triangle, he gave McMoneagle several targets to remote view. Gernon had flown through a tunnel in an enormous thunderhead that rendered all his plane’s electronic instruments useless. He seemed to leap ahead in time and space.
McMoneagle was given a sealed envelope, labeled Target #2, that contained an illustration depicting Gernon’s airplane emerging from a tunnel in the massive storm cloud. A caption below the drawing read: “Exiting the time tunnel vortex. Dec. 4, 1970.” A sticky note on the outside of the envelope instructed: “Please describe in detail the target depicted on 12/4/70.” All McMoneagle had to go by was the date.
McMoneagle first sensed sound. “Get a strong sense of noise, engine noise, or wind noise, and quick movement, as though moving in a vehicle,” he began. “I’m sitting in the left-hand seat and I am male, and my hands are on a steering wheel which is shaped slightly funny.”
He called it “a different kind of car, maybe one of those radically different kinds from back in the 70s.” He said the driver was wearing headgear, but not a helmet. “It might be some sort of headset for listening to music … or some sort of muffler to cut out the loud hissing sounds.”
McMoneagle described a complicated dashboard, “cluttered with a lot more equipment than the average automobile.” He added, “The driver appears more concerned with the dash panel than watching where he is steering … (He) is switching different things on and off.… The driver is quite agitated and upset… . I have a strong sensation that the loud hissing noises are coming from the headsets and he is trying to change channels on some of the radio equipment, but all he gets is overriding waves of white noise or static.”
McMoneagle concluded, “The automobile can’t or shouldn’t be running. It is anyway, and the driver doesn’t appear to be concerned with where he is going, but he does seem more concerned with the system failure. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that this is either an automobile or boat, and much more likely that it is an aircraft.”
He went on to say that “the aircraft has entered a very narrow channel of super calm air … which contains two very well defined temperature gradients that have slipstreamed together and are polar opposites to the variable temperatures of the aircraft skins.… These bi-polar discharges … cause the on-board electronics to basically continually reset themselves in a set-loop that appears to be some sort of on-board jamming.”
McMoneagle accurately determined that the target was an airplane and that the agitated pilot was dealing with equipment malfunctions under unusual conditions. He also seemed to describe a tunnel—a “narrow channel.” He didn’t sense any extraordinary movement through time and space—that part of Gernon’s experience didn’t occur until after he had escaped the tunnel.
Even though the flight took place decades ago and McMoneagle had no knowledge of it, his ability to connect with the experience resulted in synchronicity: a description of an event that resembled the one Rob had in mind. In other words, the internal connected with the external in a way that couldn’t be explained by cause and effect.
In Secret 2, we wrote about the relationship of emotions and synchronicity. People with empathic abilities, however, take that connection one step beyond. Someone who is “empathic” tunes into the emotions and physical sensations of the person who is being read. Empathy was once described to us as “opening up to the vast, tumultuous ocean of desires, conflicts and pains, triumphs and joys that are specific to the person you’re reading.”
Psychic Millie Gemondo of West Virginia notes that sometimes the emotional connection to the person she’s reading shoves its way into her awareness. While reading for a friend on Florida’s west coast, she suddenly felt a pain in her breast and blurted, “You’ve got a small tumor in your left breast. Get yourself to a doctor immediately.” The friend went to the doctor the next day. Sure enough, a small tumor was found and subsequently removed. Millie’s warning might’ve saved her friend’s life.
Some empaths hold objects that belong to the person for whom they are reading. This ability, known as psychometry or psychic touch, enables them to read the thoughts that impregnate objects. In other words, it’s literally “hands on” psychic power. The term is derived from two Greek words, psyche, meaning “the soul,” and metro, indicating a “measure.”
You might’ve experienced psychic touch yourself when picking up an old object or visiting an ancient site. Some archaeologists have even used talented psychometrists to provide leads for their research of ancient cultures. Psychic detective Johnny Smith, played by actor Anthony Michael Hall, exhibited this ability weekly in the TV series Dead Zone. Whenever Smith touched a key object, his visceral reaction played a role in solving a crime or unraveling a mystery.
But it’s not all fiction. Renie Wiley, an empath and artist who died in the mid-1990s, often held objects belonging to the person she was reading.
In 1982, Renie and an officer from the Cooper City, Florida, police department were driving near a mall in Hollywood, Florida, where Adam Walsh had last been seen shopping with his mother on July 27, 1981. The cop hoped Renie might be able to pick up something psychically about the missing boy—where he was, what had happened to him, if he’d been abducted. The police suspected he had been kidnapped but didn’t have any leads. Renie didn’t have an object that had belonged to Adam, but posters of the boy had been plastered across South Florida, his huge, innocent eyes supplicating, begging for help. His face had been burned into the collective consciousness and that seemed to be all Renie needed.
When they were within a few miles of the mall, Renie’s hands suddenly flew to her throat. She started choking, gasping for air. The cop had worked with her often enough to understand she was picking up something related to Adam and quickly sped away from the area. After driving several miles, he swerved to the side of the road.
“Adam,” she sobbed, “was decapitated.”
Not long afterward, the head of the six-year-old boy was found in a field in Vero Beach, more than a hundred miles north of the Hollywood mall.
On a dismal night in the mid-1980s, we accompanied Renie on a case involving a missing girl. Eight-year-old Christie Luna had disappeared near her home in Greenacres, Florida, on May 24, 1984. Around 3:00 P.M., she had walked to a store to buy cat food and never returned. Police suspected foul play.
Renie had requested toys that the missing girl played with, and she sat clutching an old teddy bear. Her eyes were closed. She rocked back and forth, humming softly. Renie was a tall, large-boned woman, yet at that moment everything about her body seemed small and childlike. She started to whimper, then cry, then sob, her body hunched over the teddy bear.
“The mother’s boyfriend used to beat up on her,” Renie murmured. “She’s deaf in one ear because of it.” The deafness was later confirmed by the girl’s mother.
We left the station and, accompanied by the officer, drove around Greenacres, through the wet darkness. We passed the house where the girl had lived and the store where she was headed when she disappeared. Renie directed us through the streets until we came to a wooded area bordered by a high wire-mesh fence. She didn’t like what she felt and turned to the officer. “You should search in there.”
Renie felt the girl had been killed by the mother’s boyfriend, but the body wasn’t found and the case remained unsolved.
Move ahead twenty-four years. Dennie Gooding, a psychic from L.A. with whom we’d both had readings, called to tell us she would be visiting South Florida, where we lived and would be working on a missing person case. She planned to stay with the wife of the cop who had hired her to look into the case. We arranged a time to get together and eventually learned that Dennie was delving into the Christie Luna case.
The police officer who had hired her worked on cold cases for the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office. Even though Dennie wasn’t able to locate Christie’s body, she pinpointed the same wooded area that Renie had—several acres of undeveloped, government-owned land, bordered by a metal fence. “I think she was buried somewhere in there,” Dennie said.
The Christie Luna disappearance is tragic, a case that may never be solved unless more information is discovered. For our purpose, the investigations revealed synchronicity. Dennie Gooding and Renie Wiley hit upon the same wooded area where the body could have been buried. Skeptics might say that such a location would be a logical place to hide a body, that logic and cause and effect, rather than synchronicity and psychic ability, were involved. But there’s no denying that synchronicity played a role in our involvement. Dennie, who lives three thousand miles away, visited and told us about a cold case we had researched and written about more than two decades earlier. It was as if Christie Luna herself was nudging us all and awaiting justice.
You probably have some psychometric abilities, even though you might not realize it. Answer these questions to find out.
If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, you may have some psychometric abilities. The only way to find out is to try it.
Start with familiar objects, such as a family member’s watch or ring, or maybe a brooch your grandmother wore. If you prefer, use an article of clothing or a letter from a friend.
Find a quiet place where you can relax and clear your mind. Focus on your breathing; take deep, slow breaths. Think positively. Trust your abilities.
Hold the object between your hands. Or, press it to your forehead, to the “third eye.” You might find it hard to distinguish what you already know about the person from what you pick up from the object. If you sense something you didn’t know about the person, try to find out if it’s true.
If you’re having trouble getting impressions, don’t try so hard. Relax, breathe. As your mind starts to drift, notice stray impressions that touch the edge of your consciousness. Follow whatever it is; see where it takes you.
Next, try objects that belong to people you don’t know. See if you get impressions from a folded letter that’s not addressed to you and that you haven’t read. Or, work with something from the distant past, such as a piece of pottery or an arrowhead. Sometimes you can verify the information you pick up. Other times, you just have to trust your feelings.