Purpose: To provide a short outline of psionics and its practices. There is a lot I could not cover here, but if there is interest I may try to write more in the future.
My own background: I was active in the psi community from 2001 to 2009. Much of my practice and beliefs at that time followed Anka's school of thought. For that reason, I will mainly focus on Anka's view of psi and only touch one or two other popular schools of thought.
Although I now practice a different system, I still think fondly of my time in the psi community. I consider this separate from the greater online energy community (OEC), which was also popular in the early 2000's. No specific forums or websites are named here due to Wizard Forum rules. Nonetheless, these communities are now largely defunct. I have been feeling nostalgic for the community the last few days, which led me to write this article. Hopefully there are not too many objections.
What is psionics: There are many views on what psionics is. The answer you receive will depend on who you ask.
In Anka's school of thought, psi is viewed as a specific energy type generated by the body's nervous system. While our bodies generate other types of energy, psi is most closely associated with psychic abilities. This is distinctly different from naturally occurring energy sources in nature and elsewhere, i.e., ley-lines. By harnessing our body's own reserve of psi, we can tap into and hone our ability to sense and manipulate energy.
Psionics is not focused on morality or self-improvement; it is not attached to any overall theme of how one should act. An old community narrative of psionics would liken the system to a knife: it is a tool like any other, and while dangerous can be wielded to great benefit.
Further, Anka's system of psi does not focus on manipulating event outcomes. If it does, it is generally targeted on manipulating an individual or group of individuals. In that sense, it branches off greatly from other systems, where one will cast a spell for an outcome without necessarily specifying how it will come about.
There is also a tendency in psionics for claim it is not magic, but a self-contained system in itself. I tend to disagree with this sentiment however, and instead identify it as a subset of chaos magic. There are also no prescribed beliefs for the system: they tend to only focus on specific exercises and techniques to manipulate psi.
Focuses of psionics:
Charging: A concept already well-known to many. The idea is to generate as much psi as possible within different nerve clusters throughout the body. Over time, the amount of psi naturally occurring in the body will increase.
Anka has written a manual for his students on this, which describes charging different areas of the body, a few minutes at a time per area, over the course of 1 hour each day. The complete practice regimen takes ~1 year to finish, resulting in significantly greater reserves of psi. In doing so, latent sensing abilities can also be triggered.
Shielding: This tends to be a contentious topic. In Anka's paradigm, shielding is essential and should be maintained at all times. By increasing your reserves of psi, you become more sensitive to energetic input from others on multiple levels. One example of this is how some psions require thick empathic shielding to feel stable in busy places.
Further, as someone within increased energy levels for casting you become more interesting to discarnate spirits. Maintaining a shield is a last line of defense. I may try to write more about this in the future.
Sensing: Empathic, telepathic, and precognitive exercises are often practiced. As stated before, these abilities may also come about naturally in the course of learning to manipulate psi, and can be honed further.
Another aspect of sensing is to observe psychic constructs. This includes spell work completed by onself and others as a kind of object with qualities that can be scanned, interpreted, and analyzed.
Combat: For more information, try reading Charles Cosimano's e-books.
Psi/orgone devices: Used to supplement one's reserve of psi in creating constructs such as shields.
Continued Reading: Beginning Psionics by Winged Wolf
Other psionic paradigms: One other popular paradigm is Dynamic Psi, taught by Kobok. This tends to be very different from Anka and is more of a path to self-actualization and has spiritual elements. I tend to think of Kobok's Dynamic Psi system as a kind of thought experiment, whereas Anka's system is a pragmatic approach to attaining psychic abilities.