Annette Martin Psychic Training

Annette Martin, who claims to have had psychic experiences since childhood, teaches a series of popular psychic development classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Martin herself is well known as a psychic reader and has also worked with medical doctors. One of her specialties is psychic medical diagnosis. Although she has established a reputation for responsibility within the professional community and tests of her abilities have been conducted (May 1978), no medical studies of her abilities have been published in scholarly form. The newspaper article by Antoinette May, previously cited, described a test conducted by Dr. Gerald Jampolsky in which Martin apparently used ESP to diagnose the condition of a patient whose history was unknown to her. Ile diagnosis was both detailed and accurate, although conditions were not such as to preclude normal sensory communication.

Martin attributes her apparent success as a psychic reader partially to her early theatre training which she describes thus: "The theatre training gave me the capability of jumping into another person's body. It allowed me to just let go, relax and become another person.... My teacher would tell me to always remember about the little ball made up of white light. This little ball came from my chest area, around my heart, out to the audience. She'd tell me, ‘They're going to take it into their heart and then send it back to you. I always want you to remember that. You send that little white ball to them and they will always send it back to you.' I feel that that is a real foundation there, dealing with the psychic white light."

In addition to this experience, Martin claims to have been under the guidance of various spirit guides since childhood. A unique feature of Annette Martin's talents is that she claims to be working under the direct guidance of the spirit of the deceased Edgar Cayce, the well known Virginia Beach psychic.

It was the spirit of Cayce, Martin claims, who directed her to begin teaching classes in psychic development and who even outlined for her the teaching program which she uses. She described her training techniques as follows:

"Mr. Cayce gave me a strict rule of thumb of the things they are to do in which order so as to slowly progress, step by step, just like a baby. The baby doesn't walk until he can crawl. The meditations become more complex from week to week. At first, I lay my students on the floor and teach them self-hypnosis to relax their bodies. As I go on, I have them sit up and do longer meditations. Then I go into doing a sound, the OM, and having them feeling the sound come from the chest area and resonate through the whole body. We use psychic white light a great deal, sending it to other individuals or to different places inside our own bodies. Combined with the meditation exercises are tests of psychic ability.

"We start out by sending an emotion, then color, then comes a scene, then we look at a magazine picture that I have cut out and they send that, then they draw a picture, then we do psychometry. We spend a lot of time on psychometry. They get to perform in front of the group and get rid of all the inhibitions that they have about that. From there, I have them bring in objects that belong to other people. Then I have paintings that I have all covered up. They get to choose the paintings that they want to hold and they tell me what the painting looks likecolors, the name of the painter, what country it is from. They get instantaneous feedback.

"Mr. Edgar Cayce is always there when I teach. Last night, for example, I did six medical readings on my students. I do not usually do that. But as we were going around getting feedback about what happened to them, it just started spontaneously. The information which I give them from Mr. Edgar Cayce is always exactly what they need to hear at that moment. They trust me. These readings are part of the training, but I don't plan on it. Whenever they need it, it is given.

Martin believes that her own psychic abilities are important the teaching process. She states that she is watching her students psychically all of the time and therefore knows exactly what to say at any moment to produce a desired effect. She adds that her presence seems to help the students, and they do not generally do as well practicing the ESP tests at home as they do in the class. She also adds that the work of watching her students so intensely during the class is very exhausting.

It is interesting to note that there are several texts which purport to present Edgar Cayce's views on psychic training (Bro 1970, Patterson & Shelly 1975, Thurston 1977). These books are all very involved, incorporating notions of religion, spirit guides and reincarnation and not very similar at all to the straightforward and logically progressive system used by Martin.

Martin claims that her own abilities are still being trained directly by her spirit guides. She states that when they tell her what to do, "I follow it to the letter. If I don't listen, they will shout at me or even cause me to see the message written on a wall. There is not a lot of room for improvising." She adds that she takes a similar attitude with her students, and also expects them to follow her instructions precisely, which they usually do because "they feel the love, the security, and the trust."

Other than the extensive reliance on the postulated spirit presence of Edgar Cayce, Martin's training program is very similar to that of Alan Vaughan, relying primarily on simple meditation techniques and informal tests in class with feedback. While verifiable psi results are emphasized, there exist no data regarding psi other than the testimony of individual students. Classes such as those of Martin and, it may be safe to presume, the thousands of similar ones throughout the world, can provide ideal situations for field studies, and experiments of the psi learning process.

Bro, H.H. Edgar Cayce on religion and psychic experience. New York: Paperback Library, 1970.

May, A. Medicine and the medium. San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Magazine, July 30, 1978, p. 4.

Patterson, D.T., and Shelly, V.M. Be your own psychic. Virginia Beach, Va.: Edgar Cayce Foundation, 1975.

Thurston, M.A. Understand and develop your ESP. Virginia Beach, Va.: Edgar Cayce Foundation, 1977.

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