Ingo Swann (30May96)
The term SENSORIUM exists in the English
language, but it is very rarely utilized -- and even then with
definitions which tragically differ from its original meaning
in the English language.
The concept of the sensorium, however, is one we cannot do without
if we seriously inquire into the dynamics and processes of the
superpowers of the human biomind.
It is thus the purpose of this essay to attempt to resurrect the
term and its original concept.
As you will see ahead, there are a number of essential reasons
for doing so.
*
The first of the reasons has to do with
the deplorable fact that our modern Western culture has a paucity
of terms appropriate to considering the nature and dynamics of
the superpowers.
If we consider the many superpowers of the human biomind only
within the few terms and concepts typical of Western thinking,
then the concept of the sensorial is not really needed.
If, however, we begin considering the superpowers within their
own universal terms, then the limited concepts of the modern West
will not suffice -- and we would ultimately need the concept of
the sensorial.
*
And, indeed, the general purpose of
the essays in this database is to attempt to extract the anatomy
and dynamics of the superpowers out of the various cultural limitations
they have fallen into.
All of these cultural formats have established their own concepts,
metaphors and terms of reference regarding the superpowers. Some
are more serviceable than others.
For example, our West concept of "extrasensory perception"
is not very serviceable, simply because some kind of "senses"
are always involved regarding any of the superpowers.
*
But in general, the superpowers themselves
are not culturally dependent -- for the superpowers manifest throughout
our species while the various cultural formats come and go.
And as it has transpired, the modern cultural West is quite weak
in this regard, for its concepts, metaphors and terms of reference
regarding the superpowers are few in number -- and often misleading
as well. I am speaking of both the scientific and popular arenas.
*
One of the larger deficits of the few
terms we do use is that they refer to what we call "psychic
phenomena."
But in clinical fact, they are NOT phenomena but are RESULTS of
phenomena whose workings and processes are unknown and concealed
behind the results they produce.
All that we witness or experience as "psychic phenomena"
are the end-products of the mysterious superpower processes which
produce them.
*
In other words, they are EPIPHENOMENA
-- a perfectly good, but seldom used English word meaning "secondary
phenomena accompanying another and CAUSED by it." (Emphasis
on "caused" has been added.)
*
This is to say that what we experience
or witness as intuition, telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing
and so forth are secondary phenomena (epiphenomena) which have
been caused or brought into manifesting by something else -- and
which might be called "primary phenomena" to emphasize
the difference.
People also refer to the results of remote viewing AS remote viewing.
But indeed, the results are epiphenomena of remote viewing primary
phenomena, and it is the cognitive control of the primary phenomena
which are the substance of controlled remote viewing.
*
This distinction between primary phenomena
and their epiphenomena is a very important distinction to bear
in mind. For it is one quite central regarding whether anyone
will learn to activate their own indwelling superpower faculties.
You see, when Westerners try to develop access to their indwelling
superpower faculties, they almost always try to emulate psychical
epiphenomena on the mistaken understanding that they are the primary
phenomena.
Which is to say, they are emulating results, not causes. If you
think this through with some care, you will see that attempting
to emulate results (secondary phenomena) probably will not put
one in touch with the underlying causes and processes (the primary
phenomena.)
*
On the other hand, comprehending the
primary causative phenomena probably will enhance some kind of
increased access to various of the superpowers.
In our modern times, though, very little in the way of the primary
causative phenomena has been identified.
*
In this essay I will propose that the
original concept of the SENSORIAL is central regarding primary
causative phenomena.
Being so central, it has direct reference to all of the superpowers
and has direct bearing on the following topics and categories
which are intimately involved within the causative processes which
result in the epiphenomena which astonish most of us.
Energy bodies vs. physical bodies.
Consensus opinion vs. direct perception.
Mental image pictures.
Sensory receptors and sensory transducers.
Mental information processing grids.
Interpretation.
Representationalism.
Acquisition of knowledge.
The Signal-to-Noise Ratio.
Autonomic phenomena vs. cognitive mind phenomena.
*
All of the above (and more) are factors
which play roles regarding the various types of superpower activity
and their relevant processes.
And anyone who wants to attempt to increase their participation
in, say, intuitive phenomena needs to take time to learn about
their primary vs. their secondary phenomena.
*
This is the equivalent of building NEW
mental information processing grids concerning the workings of
the superpower processes.
*
In any event, NEW concepts regarding
our superpowers are called for -- at least as regards modern Western
contexts which are too few in number.
If one considers all of the past concepts about the superpowers
of biomind, we find, on the one hand, that few really explain
very much.
On the other hand, those past concepts, being useless, have served
to distort understanding which may be possible in the intellect
of those concepts were corrected and added to.
*
The end result here is that we can intellectually
jabber and write about our superpowers in a sort of empty-message
or stereotyped kinds of ways. But direct contact with the superpowers
themselves elude our intellectual comprehension.
Our species is quite good at getting up concepts and theories
which, in the end, prove only to be somewhat smelly winds.
*
In some of the earlier essays in this
database, I've indicated that the superpowers probably range along
a spectrum of special faculties that are very subtle in nature
and characteristic.
I've also argued that various elements of the superpowers have
spontaneously manifested in all generations born of our species
-- especially many of the types of intuition.
Indeed, episodes of intuition are so commonly reported by so many
that no one bothers to skeptically contest them. In this sense,
it is assumed that intuition exists and is a "normal"
experience -- even though it has obvious superpower elements or
fragments -- say, of clairvoyance and future-seeing which are
rejected as non-normal experiencing.
*
It has failed to dawn on anyone that
the categories within the entire spectrum of the superpowers can
blend in and out of each other -- perhaps much like different
colored light beams in motion and intersecting with each other.
Almost all reports of intuitive episodes clearly indicate that
space, time, matter and energy are transcended in some form --
such transcendence also being the hallmark of all of the superpowers.
*
To understand anything properly, we
have to distinguish between causes and effects. The results of
intuition and of the other superpowers are effects. Hardly any
of the causes are known.
*
There is very little in the way of study
regarding the internal biomind mechanisms (or dynamic structure,
so to speak), which permits the superpower results to manifest.
For clarity, when most people speak of intuition, for example,
they speak in terms of what was perceived or felt. They do not
usually speak about what permitted or facilitated the perceptions
or feelings.
*
A large number of individuals, for example,
foresaw the sinking of the unsinkable TITANIC in 1912.
But what they foresaw were the results of superpower mechanisms
by which they intuited what they did regarding this remarkable
event.
*
What I'm trying to get at here is two-fold:
1. That each specimen of our species possesses inherent faculties
regarding the superpowers. Thus, elements of these faculties may
spontaneously manifest (as they have historically done) under
certain conditions.
2. But there is a wide difference between spontaneous manifesting
and cognitive and volitional control of the superpowers. Volitional
control (by the intellect) would have to be based in acquiring
comprehension of the vital biomind dynamics which facilitate the
volitional emergence of the superpower activity.
*
As it has transpired during the modernist
epoch of the West, we have generally become locked into what might
be called the cause-effect syndrome.
This is to say that we intellectually consider the formulas of
causes and effects -- but miss a very important factor between
them.
*
It is this: between a cause and its
effects are PROCESSES. Which is to say that between a cause there
is something going on which results in the effect.
A more correct formula would then be: cause-processes-effects.
*
If things are carefully examined, there
is no effect produced unless processes have preceded it. And it
is the processes which the cause has set in motion in order to
result in the effect.
*
The standard definition of PROCESS is
given as "a natural phenomenon marked by gradual changes
that lead toward a particular result."
*
We can put the above definition another
way: "a natural primary phenomenon marked by gradual process
changes that lead toward a particular epiphenomenon."
*
In this sense, then, effects are the
result not only of a cause, but also of the gradual changes which
both preceded and produced them, albeit the gradual changes emanated
because of the natural phenomenon.
*
One cannot build a bridge simply by
having looked at one and trying to emulate it any more than one
can build one's own superpower potentials by looking a the superpower
results of others.
The processes and structures of bridge-building need to be understood
before undertaking the bridge. The bridge one sees is the result
or the effects of the processes.
The processes and structures of the superpowers also need to be
understood in a similar way. The superpowers one sees in others
are the results or effects of the processes needed to culminate
in them.
*
Having now introduced the concept that
processes exist between causes and effects, it is now possible
to consider a specific issue.
Unless the processes regarding the superpowers of the biomind
are volitionally understood, then attempts to access the indwelling
superpower faculties will always remain a chancy, spontaneous
affair.
This has certainly been the experience
in our cultural West, regarding not only psychical and parapsychology
research, but popular experience as well.
And, indeed, there are extremely few concepts in the West which
deal with the hidden processes of the superpower faculties.
*
One of the FIRST QUESTIONS to be studied
concerns WHERE or IN WHAT the superpower processes go on.
In accord with Western concepts, those processes should go on
either within the mind or the body -- since that is how our modern
culture viewed things in terms of science and philosophy.
*
But those two entities -- body AND mind
-- were for a long time considered as being separate and discrete.
As much is still being thought of them, although the post-Modern
concept has arisen as to where and how they "interface."
*
I don't particularly like to invent
concepts of my own, and even if I sometimes do so I like to relate
them to insights and discoveries already existing.
The reason here is that our species has accumulated a great deal
of very good information -- a great deal of which is later abandoned
or forgotten. So I spend a lot of time doing what might be called
"information archaeology."
*
My search for a pre-existing concept
which might have bearing on the FIRST QUESTION mentioned above
began during the 1960s, several years before I entered active
research.
Sifting through past concepts is a long and tedious affair, and
so to make that long story short, I ultimately found a concept
which seems to fill the bill.
*
I had already established that the concept
had to fill the three most important criteria:
(1) it had to refer to something that existed in everyone;
(2) it had to be suggestive of special space-time transcendence
completely characteristic of a wide variety of superpower episodes.
(3) it had to be a conveyor to cognitive consciousness of information,
or at least of feeling impressions.
*
However, as I continued reading accounts
and anecdotes of superpower experiencing, I discovered there was
a fourth criterion to be acknowledged and considered.
This consisted of a factor not identified by those studying such
matters. It is a somewhat complex factor, and so it now needs
to be described in detail.
*
A study of thousands of accounts and
anecdotes of superpower experiencing shows that in all cases a
transfer of information takes place.
By "transfer" is meant that important information outside
of the cognitive intellect is transferred into it by means of
processes unknown -- and, as well, literally out of nowhere. This
is especially typical of various intuitional and future-seeing
formats.
*
In other words, information which doesn't
exist in one's usual mental or consciousness arenas is somehow
acquired and transferred to those mental or consciousness arenas
-- and often to the complete surprise of the experiencer involved.
The transfer takes place by means unknown, and so the processes
of the superpowers remains a mystery.
*
However, by studying a large number
of cases reporting confirmed cases of superpower activity, it
can be seen that the information transfer takes place on a scale
ranging from weak to strong -- and sometimes to what can only
be called "compellingly strong and forceful."
In the cases of being compellingly strong and forceful (the spontaneous
experiencing), the experience is so strong that it overwhelms
not only one's cognitive faculties, but often THE MOTOR FUNCTIONS
OF THE BIO-BODY ITSELF.
*
An example of this is when an individual
suddenly and without explanation steps back from some kind of
instant mortal danger without having been cognitively aware that
the danger even existed.
Indeed, if the person had detected the danger and was trying to
sort it out in cognitive understanding, the danger would have
clobbered the person during the time it took to sort it out in
"one's rational mind."
*
What appears to happen in this "compelling"
type of intuitive experiencing is that "something" instantly
suspends the usual cognitive and motor functions -- apparently
because they are TOO SLOW.
The "something" then temporarily commandeers the motor
functions of the bio-body and moves it out of the way of the imminent
danger which the slower cognitive functions have not even perceived.
*
In this kind of thing, the information
transfer by-passes the cognitive functions altogether, and is
transmitted directly to the autonomic bio-motor response systems
while the cognitive functions are suspended or blanked out.
*
The final result is that the individual
has no cognitive understanding of what or how it happened -- only
knowing that it did happen after the fact of its happening.
The books are so full of reports involving this kind of "instant
motor-intuition" that it makes one look silly to deny that
such can happen. Talking with a few war veterans who experienced
in-the-field battle will place this in perspective.
*
This situation leads to the fourth criterion
mentioned above. The "something" involved with information
transfers ALSO has to have the capability of suspending the cognitive
functions and seizing direct control of the autonomic bio-motor
response systems.
*
Intuition, for example, is often explained
as a function of mind and/or consciousness, even though the source
or causes of intuition have never been located within their known
precincts. Even so, this explaining seems rational enough on the
simplistic surface -- until the fourth criterion is considered.
*
A prime example of "intuitive motor-functioning"
regards when someone jumps out of the way of immediate danger,
and is completely unaware that the danger even threatens. There
are very many examples of this type of thing.
The functions of the awake intellect are not involved here, but
"something" took over the motor systems of the bio-body
and effected the jump.
*
It is amusing to imagine how the mind,
its cognitive processes, and the processes of consciousness-awareness,
can suspend themselves in order for instant bio-motor intuition
to take place. Doing so would take precious time regarding reflecting
and thinking enough to reach a decision to suspend themselves.
One might be dead by then.
*
In any event, it is understood world-wide
that all the identifiable kinds of intuition involve matters outside,
even alien to, the usual processes of both mind and consciousness
functioning.
Thus, it is fair to assume that we are not dealing with mind and
consciousness processes, in that these cannot be seen to be the
source of intuitive experiencing.
*
First of all, those processes are too
slow to begin with. But second, most intuitive episodes inform
one of information which IS NOT ALREADY INCLUDED in one's usual
mind-conscious databases (a.k.a. in these essays as "mental
information processing grids.")
*
Indeed, mind and consciousness functioning
seem to be incorporated WITHIN the "something" which
induces intuitive experiencing as well as all the other superpower
faculties.
And it would appear that this "something" has to be
"larger" than mind, consciousness, and usual motor functions
put together.
*
PLEASE BE AWARE HERE that the above
small discussion constitutes a REVERSAL of the usual ideas.
The usual ideas presuppose that whatever accounts for intuition,
etc., exists INSIDE the mind-consciousness thing.
I have just proposed that the mind-consciousness thing exists
OUTSIDE of the inside thing, the something which may account for
intuition and other of the superpowers.
*
Since intuition is one of the oldest
and most broadly experienced of all the superpowers, it seemed
to me that a concept ought to exist which incorporated all of
the four criteria, or roughly so at any rate.
*
After a few years had passed in a search
for this concept, I could not discover one that filled the bill
regarding all four criteria.
Meanwhile, through those years, I began to notice how poor the
modernist English language was regarding nomenclature used to
denote the superpowers.
And I felt that I had discovered a very essential factor -- that
we cannot volitionally control what we cannot conceive of or conceptualize.
It is also true that if what we conceive of does not result in
control, then we have not correctly conceived of what is necessary.
*
Nomenclature is very important. We use
it not only to talk with others, but TO THINK WITH INSIDER OUR
OWN HEADS. If we have absent nomenclature for things we COULD
think about, then we probably won't think about them. Nomenclature
triggers concepts, if it is sufficient and precise enough, and
concepts trigger nomenclature.
*
In my search for an appropriate concept
regarding the "something" which might conceptually incorporate
the four criteria, I had of course run across the term SENSORIAL.
This term is in most modern dictionaries. But it is so seldom
used that hardly anyone is aware of its existence even in psychology
or psychiatry -- and in parapsychology as well where I have never
seen or heard it utilized.
*
Most modern dictionaries indicate that
SENSORIAL is derived from the Latin SENSORIAL, the ancient meaning
of which, so most American dictionaries state, was "sense
organ."
Now, we have very many senses, and so it was difficult for me
to consider what a "sense ORGAN" was in the singular.
But, as we shall see shortly ahead, there is adequate reason to
suspect that the term DID NOT mean "sense organ" back
in Roman times.
*
In any event, the modern English definition
is given as "the parts of the brain concerned with the reception
and interpretation of sensory stimuli; broadly speaking, the entire
sensory apparatus."
*
A somewhat more extensive, and slightly
more confusing, description of sensorial is found in the PSYCHIATRIC
DICTIONARY (R.J. Campbell, Ed., Oxford U. Press, 1981.) This description
is worth quoting in full.
SENSORIAL: "The hypothetical seat
of sensation or `sense center' located in the brain, is usually
contrasted with the MOTORIUM, the two constituting the so-called
animal organ-system, while the nutritive and reproductive apparatus
make up the vegetative organ-system. Occasionally this term is
applied to the entire sensory apparatus of the body.
"When a person is clearly aware of the nature of his surroundings,
his sensorial is said to be `clear' or `intact.' For example,
correct orientation is a manifestation of a clear sensorial. When
a person is unclear, from a sensory (not delusional) standpoint,
his sensorial is described as impaired or `cloudy.'
"Psychiatrists used SENSORIAL interchangeably with (organic)
CONSCIOUSNESS.
"The sensorial may appear to be disordered, when the psyche
is intensely active, as it is in severe manic states, or when
the patient is completely out of the environment, as he may be
while in a phase of depressive stupor."
*
If you have trouble with the above definition,
don't worry -- because the definition is itself largely troubled
as we will discuss ahead.
*
In any event, the definition introduced
the term "motorium," and so we need to know something
about that thing.
MOTORIUM: "(1) The motor cortex [of the brain]. (2) The faculty
of the mind that has to do with volition (as the function of the
sensorial is perception and of the intellect, thinking.)"
*
To briefly elucidate some of the perhaps
subtle confusions here, on the one hand the motorium is thought
to be the motor cortex of the brain -- but on the other hand a
faculty of mind having to do with volition.
This volition faculty is distinguished from the functions of the
sensorial, whose functions are said to consist of perception,
intellect and thinking.
Via these definitions a DISTINCTION between sensorial and motorium
is arrived at -- as least as regards modernist contexts.
*
There is a very great problem with this
distinction, however. For it can quite easily be shown that perception,
intellect and thinking themselves are volitional processes.
For additional clarity here, most terms beginning with VOLA or
VOLI designate some kind of motion.
Our English VOLITION is taken from the same word in French, both
meaning "will."
But both the French and English terms are quite likely derived
from the Latin VOLANT -- which meant "flying, capable of
rapid movement, in ceaseless motion, or constantly flitting about."
The meaning of the Latin VOLANT is a good descriptor for our perceptions,
intellect and thinking processes -- and quite probably for the
sensorial as a whole.
*
If the above is somewhat confusing,
the point being made is that it is difficult to distinguish between
sensorial, motorium, perception, and thinking because all of them
involve motion.
In the case of intuition or future-seeing, the motion is the transfer,
or attempted transfer, of information from "somewhere"
to the cognitive intellect. But it is fair to say that unless
the cognitive intellect has established concept grids relevant
to the information, the chances are that it will not perceive
it.
*
I should probably point up that we are
not embarked on mere semantic squabbles, but upon the task of
locating some kind of correct, basic concept which fundamentally
has to do with the processes of the superpower faculties.
*
Moving expeditiously along then, we
are now obliged to note that American dictionaries stipulate that
SENSORIAL is taken from the same word in Latin.
However, the OXFORD DICTIONARY states that the Latin term SENSORIAL
was derived from the Latin root verb SENTIRE which meant "to
feel."
*
Here, finally, we recognize something
quite consistent with, for example, intuitive experiencing.
Most, or even all intuitive episodes begin with a feeling, while
in a large majority of cases that is all the intuition consists
of -- FELT feelings. "I had a gut feeling." "I
felt a hunch." A feeling that something had or was going
to happen, a feeling that something was correct or not correct,
a feeling of impending.
*
If mental image pictures accompany the
intuitive experience as well as other superpowers, it is quite
credible that they were stimulated into existence because of what
was felt.
*
In any event, it is unthinkable that
the mental image pictures could come first -- that we then examined
them for the feelings incorporated in them -- and then, from that
examination, derived the intuition, and then the gut-feelings
and hunches.
This would be "doing" intuition backward, for the non-imaging
feelings almost always come first.
*
The OXFORD DICTIONARY shows when words
were first entered into the English language, and the different
meanings then and later attributed to them.
So, we will now belabor our cognitive powers and examine the known
etymological history of the term SENSORIAL in the English language.
*
To begin with, the modern definition
given in the Oxford is:
"The seat of sensation in the brain of man and other animals.
The percipient center to which sense-impressions are transmitted
by the nerves. Also COMMON SENSORIAL (Latin SENSORIAL COMMUNE.)
Formerly, also used in a wider sense, for the brain as the organ
of mind and the center of nervous energy."
Be pleased to bear in mind the reference to "sense-impressions."
*
However, the FIRST usage in English
was nothing of the kind. I shall set this first usage apart from
subsequent definitions because we will definitely discuss it ahead.
********
1647 H. More in SONG OF SOUL. "For there is first a tactual
conjunction, as it were, of the representative rayes of everything
with the sensorial before we know the things themselves."
********
Then by 1664, barely twenty years later, we begin to see the use
of the term more in the direction of how it is defined today.
1664 Power in EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. "Spontaneous motion
is performed by continuation of the Animal Spirit, from the common
Sensorial to the Muscle."
1695 Tryon in DREAMS ii. "When the first Censorium (which
is called the Organ of the common Sense) is obstructed with a
soporiferous vapour."
1737 Porterfield in MEDICAL ESSENTIALS. "Which Agitation
is communicated to the Sensorial, or that Part of our Brain in
which our Mind does principally reside."
1826 Kirby in ENTOMOLOGY iv. "Sensation and perception are
by the means of the nerves and a common sensorial."
1861 Sir F. Palgrave in NORM. & ENGL. iii. "Rome became
the common sensorial of Europe, and through Rome all the several
portions of Latin Europe sympathized and felt with each other."
1867 MacGreggor in VOYAGES ALONE. "The tiller, that delicate
and true sensorial of a boat."
1872 Darwin in EMOTIONS iv. "When the sensorial is strongly
excited the muscles of the body are generally thrown into violent
action." I.e., the muscles are thrown into violent action
because the sensorial became strongly excited.
*
Psychiatrists during the modern period
have attributed many pathogenic situations to this kind of thing.
On the other hand consider the following intuitive episode told
to me, but of which many similar ones exist in print and testimony.
*
"I was walking down the street
when something jerked me back rather violently. At that instant,
a bullet came flying at right where I would have been in the next
instant, and it crashed through the glass window of the store.
I had a few cuts from the flying glass, but was alive. I have
no idea of what jerked me backward. But -- Boy, oh boy, was my
intuition working!"
And, I may as well add, I myself have experienced three intuition
event-episodes of this kind which saved my life and in which my
body's autonomic motor system took over.
*
If the sensorial exists at all, we might
safely assume that it exists in everyone, that everyone has a
sensorial -- and that everyone's sensorial is connected to their
motorium.
Based on the definitions above, we might as well assume that it
is a biomind sensorial-motorium, and thus exists in all specimens
of our species.
So, the concept of the sensorial fulfills the first and fourth
criteria mentioned earlier.
*
We can also expect that the sensorial
senses and conveys various kinds of information to the cognitive
consciousness in the form of sensations, feelings, impulses and
signals which may or may not produce mental image pictures. So
the concept of the sensorial also fulfills the third criterion.
*
Thus, the first, third and fourth criteria
have been fulfilled. This leaves the second criterion, the time-space
transcendence thing -- which is the hallmark of many, or even
most kinds of intuitive and other superpower experiencing.
*
We now have to put on our thinking caps.
If we examine the example usages of the term SENSORIAL from 1737
up to the present, we can more or less trace the drift of its
definitions toward becoming an attribute of the brain -- as the
"seat of consciousness" in the brain.
*
In this sense of the definition, then,
if we wanted to focus our attention or visualizations on our sensorial,
we would accordingly try to focus on our brain.
It is therein that the sensorial is said to be located -- although
the exact site of this seat-of-consciousness "organ"
in our brains has never been identified.
*
But here we need to pause to consider
some extensive confusions.
IF the sensorial is defined as the entire sensory apparatus, then
we are talking about much more than the brain or any part of it.
The "seat of consciousness" seems a perfectly good phrase,
one with a very long and antique history. Just where this Seat
is located, however, has never really been determined.
*
Many premodern thinkers postulated that
the Seat was within the soul, while even earlier thinkers postulated
several Seats for different kinds of consciousness -- and which
Seats were often at odds with each another.
*
Furthermore, the term CONSCIOUSNESS
enjoys a very long list of definitions -- which, to me, implies
putting a vast and indiscriminant number of things in a bag and
then looking at the bag with the assumption we know what's in
it.
As it is, it is difficult to link intuition, etc., with consciousness
since intuition informs us of things we are not conscious of.
*
Awareness is one of the items attributed
to consciousness. But it is even difficult to link the superpowers
with awareness because most of them likewise informs us of things
we are not aware of. [See my forthcoming essays which will discuss
consciousness and awareness.]
*
But there is yet another exceedingly
important difficulty. This hinges on the concept that it is the
brain which exclusively is the seat of consciousness, the sensorial,
and all else we can sense, be aware and conscious of.
This is a modern concept. And it is one which is closely connected
to another distinctly modern concept -- so much so that the two
are almost inseparable: that the brain as a physical organ cannot
directly sense or perceive what is beyond the limits of the physical
senses, for example, the future because the future does not yet
exist.
*
But this is what intuition actually
does do, in the sense that it seems directly to perceive the future
-- whether via subtle or gross feelings or sometimes accurate
mental image pictures presented to the cognitive or witnessing
mind. So you see the difficulty here of assigning the sensorial
to the brain -- and wherein, by the way, it has never been located.
*
Thus it is necessary to point up that
most premodern societies overall did not doubt that the future
could be intuited, either via feelings, clairvoyance, or visions
of it.
And, indeed, the future continued to be intuited even after modernist
thinkers introduced the concept that it could not be.
*
I hope you see the rather hilarious
dichotomy here -- that modernist thinking said intuition could
not happen, but which continued to happen world-wide anyway (at
least upon quite frequent occasions.)
*
I will now return to the issue of the
sensorial. And in this regard if we turn our attention back to
the FIRST 1647 example given in the OXFORD DICTIONARY, here is
a usage and a meaning which is distinctly different from subsequent
usages.
1647: "For there is first a tactuall conjunction, as it were,
of the representative rayes of everything with the sensorial before
we know the things themselves."
*
Some scholars of the Renaissance period
might realize that this is a premodern usage -- and, as well,
a concept that was once familiar within the alchemy, astrology,
and the clairvoyant and healing arts and crafts of the Renaissance
period.
In other words, it comes from a period before the modern all-is-brain
concept arose -- a period when foreseeing was not yet rejected.
*
Within this concept, it was thought
that FIRST there was a "tactuall" conjunction with the
representative rays of everything. Which is to say, a "feeling"
conjunction of the rays of everything with the sensorial.
Of course, what was meant by "everything" might be open
to conjecture -- but "everything" usually means, well,
everything.
*
In any event, "everything"
implies not only what is inside the biomind organism, but outside
of it, too.
This makes it exceedingly difficult to position the sensorial
inside the skull and somewhere inside the brain. For if located
inside, the sensorial presumably would not have the tactuall conjunctions
of the rays of everything except only after they had passed through
skin, muscle and bone.
Likewise, it is difficult to consider that the representative
rays of everything are interior to the bio-body.
*
The implication in the early definition
is that FIRST there was the tactual conjunction of the representative
rays of everything. The tactual conjunction was with the sensorial.
And the direct implication here refers to outside of the bio-body
-- BEFORE the representative rays enter into its arrays of sensory
receptors.
*
This concept bears relationship to another
older one, sometimes referred to as "externalization of the
sensibilities" -- "sensibilities" not to be confused
with the senses.
SENSIBLE refers to something that can be sensed, while SENSIBILITY
refers to "a peculiar susceptibility to a pleasurable or
painful impression, such as in empathy or emotiveness."
*
A "sense" and a "sensibility,"
therefore, are not the same thing -- for a sensibility involves
IMPRESSIONS while a sense processes direct sensory data.
*
In any event, it could be argued, at
least for hypothetical wondering, that the tactual conjunction
with the sensorial might deliver IMPRESSIONS of the representative
rays of EVERYTHING.
Indeed, "representative" suggests impressions.
*
We need but convert "the representative
rays of everything" into "the representative information
of everything" -- with the result that there could exist
an EXTENSIVE "sense organ" which was once thought to
exist, which was lost sight of during our modern epoch.
*
"Representative rays," since
they are not the rays themselves, but only what they represent,
falls very closely to impressions -- and IMPRESSIONS is a very
big word relative to all of the superpowers of the human biomind,
one much favored by most psychics.
*
If, then, the FIRST conjunction to the
sensorial of the representative rays does take place, it would
be, or would stimulate, a process of impressions involving rays
or representations of everything.
And since most of "everything" is outside of the bio-body
itself, we would be talking of a conjunction, or a connectiveness
external to it.
*
But the conjunction would have to take
place at a certain location -- and so without doubt we might be
referring to the fields or "auras" which surround the
bio-body proper.
Such fields or auras are referred to as energy bodies to distinguish
them from the physical aspects of the bio-body.
If that would be the case, then the SENSORIAL as THE "sense
organ" would include not only the physical aspects of the
biomind, but also it's energy fields (or electronic) aspects.
*
In other words, the "anatomy"
of the SENSORIAL includes not only the physical aspects of the
bio-body, but all its energy aspects -- possibly excepting the
awake intellect which tends to function only within the parameters
of its mental information processing grids.
*
And the "representative rays of
everything" would include past, present and future -- if
we accede to the concept that "everything" includes
them.
And all one needs to do is talk with a few achieved psychics --
who will go on about "impressions" they receive from
someplace other than within their bio-body systems.
*
In any event, externalization of sensibilities
(as contrasted to the internal senses proper) is clearly involved
with most of the superpowers.
And if we accept that, then it is but one short step to considering
the sensorial as the "vehicle" which is first tactually
conjoined to the "representative rays" from which the
representative impressions are drawn.
*
At any rate, it is entirely difficult
to consider how impressions "arrive" unless "something"
is functioning in order (1) to connect the impressions to what
they are representative of, and (2) to convey the impressions
or the representations to the bio-mind's sensory users of the
impressions.
There may be many squadrons and arrays of such users -- from the
cellular level on upward to the cognitive functions of the understanding
or misunderstanding intellect.
*
A great deal more can be said in considering
the possible existence of the sensorial.
But in beginning to end this essay, we should return to the idea
of concepts and that it is quite apparent that the intellect functions
according to what, which and how many concepts are available to
it.
*
It is understood that much goes on regarding
the entire biomind of which the intellect often has no understanding,
or is completely unaware of altogether.
It is also true that the intellect somehow designs its functioning
in the light of, or against, what it thinks is possible or not
possible. In any event, vivid examples abound of intellects which
reject what is not thought possible.
*
During the early decades of the twentieth
century, it was generally thought, at least in the mainstreams,
that the physical brain was the Seat of all human functioning
-- and that this would ultimately be proven to be the case.
This concept served to focus intellect awareness on the physical
brain as the "answer" to the functioning.
*
Accompanying this concept was another
-- that the bio-body possessed only five physical senses, and
none of which included the "extra-sensory" factors which
were the topic of research of the early psychical explorers.
Those factors then had to be attributed to some other source which
was non-biological -- sources which mainstream Western scientists
labeled and condemned as superstitious.
*
As time and events dragged on, however,
it could be seen that there were many functions which also could
not be directly attributed to the then known physical aspects
of the brain -- such as creativity and other visionary functions,
much less telepathy, clairvoyance and intuition.
The concept of the brain-mind then came into vogue, and much could
be attributed to the "mind" which could not be attributed
to the brain itself.
*
Guided by this concept, people began
thinking that the extra-sensory "equipment" was contained
in the mind -- and attempted to develop the equipment within the
contexts of the mind.
*
Many brilliant people worked on this
concept. And so it would seem that if the extra-sensory equipment
indeed existed in the mind, then many superpsychics would have
resulted. Indeed, this was one of the central concepts of parapsychology
-- that extrasensory perception was a mental attribute.
*
It is possible to say, then, that the
brain-concept and the mind-concept failed to explain psi epiphenomena
-- and that those whose intellect subscribed to those two guiding
concepts did not really develop volitional ESP or any other of
the known superpowers formats.
*
It would be true, at least in large
part, that one's realities are based in the concepts the intellect
subscribes to. And if the concepts are not accurate or pertinent,
then information gaps exist in the intellect.
*
And it would also be true that the individual
seeks to emulate the concepts which help construct awareness of
what is possible or not.
If the concepts deny or defeat or do not include or permit certain
kinds of awareness, then information pertinent to such awarenesses
probably will not be processed within the intellect awareness.
*
The concept of the SENSORIAL, in its
original definition, is a perfectly good candidate for consideration
when it comes to the superpowers of the human biomind.
It is redolent with the externalization of sensibilities idea,
and serves to switch focus from internal bio-mechanisms to external
factors.
It is quite holistic -- in that it would seem to include not only
the bio-body but its energy fields, and which energy fields are
certainly linked to the sensory receptor arrays of the biomind
organism.
*
And indeed, in my personal experience
and research, the switching of focus from brain or mind or body
to the sensorial seems to permit conduits of so-called extrasensory
information to begin taking place.
As a result, sensory transducers long inactive might begin revving
up (see my mini-essay regarding Sensory Transducers.)
*
As I have occasionally pointed out,
in the end it does not matter which senses we have, or where they
are located within the biomind framework.
The only thing that matters is whether they are active or inactive
-- and correctly so. (See my essay regarding the Signal-To-Noise
Ratio.)
But incorrect concepts held within the biomind intellect seem
to have a great deal to do with how what functions, and why and
when and IF one is aware of "representational rays"
of everything.
*
I will extend the concept of the sensorial in other forthcoming essays in this database. But this concept can be considered in association with concepts of sensory transducers and mental information processing grids, and which essays have already been entered into this database. (End)