(Superpowers of
the Human Biomind)
THE
COMING
IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION:
CAN THE
SUPERPOWERS BE TRAINED?
Ingo Swann
(8Aug05)
NOTE OF EXPLANATION
THIS
essay is a slightly adjusted version of a Situational Paper prepared by this
author at the request of two representatives of "interested parties," the
identities of which, as well as the contents of the Paper, were not to be
disclosed. This author does not at
all favor such mumbo-jumbo affairs cloaked in mystery if they come out of thin
air. But the initial go-between
came through a dear friend of highest integrity and knowledge who referred,
rather obliquely, to a sort of behind-the-scenes venture capital group
interested in funding advanced directions in what was more or less referred to
as "super-consciousness activities."
As
it eventually turned out, to this author's surprise, and for reasons quite
obscure, the unidentified group nonetheless urged open presentation of the
Paper in this Website.
The
central issue involved has to do with increasing interest in potential ways and
means of superpower training. As
will be discussed in the text ahead, one doesn't need to be a rocket scientist
to assume that this interest has undergone stimulation because of the recent
discovery (during the 1990s) of "empathic mirror neurons" in the premotor
cortex of the brain via which the "motives and intentions of others" can
be
detected.
Detecting
the motives and intentions of others is also one of the formal definitions of
that super sensitivity categorized as "telepathy," and the discovery of mirror
neurons implies that empathic telepathy does exist, does have a physical
explanation, even if only in "raw" potential.
The
discovery furthermore means that searches for ways and means of developing the
raw potential via applied training-enhancement methods will (if not already)
seriously be undertaken by any number of "behind-the-scenes interested
parties."
Situation
Papers are often requested to help recognize missing elements of a missing
bigger picture.
THE COMING IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION: CAN THE SUPERPOWERS BE TRAINED
Ingo Swann
1. SITUATIONAL FOREW0RD
THIS
AUTHOR has been requested to provide an in-depth Situation Paper concerning
potential training of human superpowers such as those commonly referred to in
the modern West as PSI or ESP faculties and which appellations include
clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, etc., and more lately collectively
referred to as "superpowers."
The
request does not principally ask for intimate discussion of the superpowers
themselves, but rather for a consideration of them from the EXPERIENTIAL
viewpoint within the human species in general.
What
this "experiential viewpoint" might consist of needs clarification
here at the
beginning.
*
For
about 150 years now (roughly demarking the Late Modern Age circa 1920-1990),
positive and negative interests in the superpowers have usually been built upon
viewpoints more or less in keeping with various attitudes, opinions, ideas and
concepts consistent with "old" philosophic-scientific theories and
doctrines; and viewpoints that characterized various social groupings and their
vested
principles.
This
complicated mŽlange fomented a Situation in which it hardly mattered what
people actually experienced of their super sensitivities. What mattered was how such experiencing
fitted in with this or that mŽlange of "old" concepts.
*
Within
this not insignificant modernist mŽlange, the probability that super
sensitivities might have some kind of innate status in our species was avoided
and became, as it were, a nebulous ring-pass-not kind of thing that hardly
anyone officially dared look at much less challenge.
Innateness
of a given phenomenon or activity in our species is first established by
finding out how "universal" or "generic" it is throughout,
or how often it
actively manifests within the sum of human experiencing.
Thus,
when some form of human activity is found occurring everywhere (i.e., including
or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively more or less without
limit or exception), it can be surmised that it is inherently, generically, and
innately existing – at least potentially so.
However,
when the probable innateness of super sensitivities is avoided and shunted
aside altogether, then data reflecting the sum of human super sensitivity
experiencing is NOT likely to undergo anything resembling organized itemization – and
certainly not in any societal-relevant philosophic or scientific
contexts.
*
Since
this cast-in-cement Situation has been ongoing for so long in modernist
contexts reflecting powerful resistance to super sensitivities, it could easily
be predicted that it would be projected, largely unchanged, into the decades
ahead.
Suddenly,
however, at about just after the turn of the millennium, one finds a sort of
Embryonic Situation growing within the cement of the long ongoing one, one that
carries a particular characteristic that needs to be emphasized.
To
help distinguish between the "old" and emerging "new" approaches, one might
find increasing interest in extending research of the super sensitivities based
on traditional "old" psychical or parapsychological concepts and models.
But
this is not the case at all with the emerging Situation, for the new interest
is on seriously organized TRAINING of super sensitivity potentials – i.e.,
an interest that had hardly ever seen the light of day before in broad societal
contexts.
Simply
put, this aspect boldly jumps across mere super sensitivity research into a
pursuit of applied super sensitivity activity – simply because hardly
anything is trained unless it is meant to be used.
*
Before
entering into discussions relative to the question of whether the super
sensitivities can experientially be trained, there is the rather complicated
Experiential Situation involving whether specimens of our species in general
fundamentally experience super sensitivities in a more or less species-wide
manner.
For
example, it is quite well documented that instincts, gut-feelings, intuitions,
and premonitions are experienced broadly, at least sufficiently enough to
qualify as "universal" to our species.
These
age-old and enduring phenomena are not generally thought of as examples of
experiential super sensitivity – largely because modern parapsychologists
could not figure out how to experientially drag them into the laboratory and
empirically test them.
One
of the subtle problems involved here is that the vast expansiveness of human
experiencing has never quite fitted into empirical models - or, as it might
better be put, fitted into empirical models that are usually structured upon
limited contexts thought to be evidential and thus valid, but which do not
allow for evidence outside their limited contexts.
Simply
put, human experiencing that fits into empirical contexts is thought to be
scientific; human experiencing that does not fit into such contexts is thought
to be unscientific. End of story.
*
At
first sight, the difficulties discussed just above are usually thought to
emerge out of flawed empirical concepts – which is at least partially the
case.
But
there is an additional facet involved that is seldom, if ever, considered. You see, the contexts and phenomena of
human EXPERIENCING are not very well understood, although it is taken for
granted that they are.
So
the overall Experiential Situation has to do with a couple of significant
problems that subtly surround the term EXPERIENTIAL, and these need to be
worked through before going on.
Please try to do so, and see if the subtle fallacies involved become
apparent.
That
term is of course taken from the word EXPERIENCE ehivh has at least eight
definitions.
In
general, it is first officially defined as "The (usually) conscious perception
or apprehension of reality or of an external, bodily, or psychic event." Please note the "usually conscious" element
here.
The
term is also narrowly defined as "The conscious events that make up an
individual life."
Lastly,
the term is vaguely defined as "Something personally encountered, undergone,
or
lived through."
EXPERIENTAL
is defined as "Derived from, based on, or relating to experience –
empirical" – i.e., usually conscious empirical experience.
The
insertion into this definition of the term EMPIRICAL engenders subtle
difficulties, because it has three somewhat conflicting definitions: (1) Relying on experience or
observation alone often without due regard for system or theory; (2)
Originating in or based on observation or experience; and most importantly, (3)
Capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment.
All
of these definitions might seem okay at first. But in seeking the definitions of EMPIRICAL, one finds that
its major definition is rendered as "capable of being verified or disproved
by
observation or experiment."
In
other words, it confines the EXPERIENTIAL to whatever is "capable of being
verified or disproved by observation or experiment." Please note that this particular definition is very
meaningful in that EMPIRICAL (i.e., empiricism) was THE chief hallmark of the
modernist sciences and philosophies.
This
is to say that "something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through" must
be submitted to empirical verification or disproving via empirical observation
of experiment.
Bluntly
put, this Empirical Situation involves WHOSE and WHAT experiment via what and whose
attitudes, opinions, ideas; via what and whose philosophic and scientific
theories or doctrines; and via what and whose adherence to various social
groupings and their invested principles.
Thus,
what is empirical to some may not be considered empirical by others, this being
a very old story. But within the
ongoing mŽlange, specimens of our species experience what they do whether such
is empirical or not.
*
It
is worth noting that the contexts of both EXPERIENCE and the EXPERIENTIAL have
traditionally been discussed AFTER
examples of them have manifested.
But
both terms imply the existence of potentials that might, could, or can manifest
whether they do or do not.
In
other words, there probably exists a lot of experiential Stuff that might never
enter into one's experiencing of it, or into empirical observation and
experimentation of it.
Additionally,
empirical observation and experimentation might NOT be capable of addressing
Stuff outside of criteria being empirically utilized.
Thus
something, such as sudden emergence of super sensitivity experiencing formerly
not experienced might take place, often in ways that objective, empirical
realities cannot account for.
*
2. SOME OLD
SITUATIONS
WONDERMENT about
whether training of the superpowers is possible is made difficult because the
question is entangled in numerous Situations some of which are quite subtle and
not easily recognizable.
Most of these
Situations are locked into old realities, some of which are fortunately in
process of being replaced by new ones with staggering implications. If this were not the case, then
constructing this consultative document would be rather pointless, and boring
as heck to boot.
*
One
of the "old" Situations consists of two somewhat related parts,
the first of which has to do with the question of whether or not parapsychology
has failed in the sense that
it once was an idea whose time had come, and thence, after a few exciting
decades, declined and went leaving behind a confused residue.
Among this residue,
parapsychology contexts and frames of reference still endure, even if now
becoming slightly obsolete. But if
those contexts are not depended on or utilized then no one knows what is being
talked about.
The
best (and shortest) definition of Parapsychology is found in PARAPSYCHOLOGY:
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
published in 1973 wherein (on page 13) it is stated that "Parapsychology
(the
modern and more restrictive term for psychical research) is the field which
uses the scientific method to investigate phenomena for which there appear to
be no normal (that is, sensory) explanations. Basically this refers [only] to phenomena subsumed under the
general term psi . . . [that] refers to the building blocks of telepathy, clairvoyance,
precognition, and psychokinesis."
The
operative key of
this definition is "the scientific method," one part of which involves
utilizing the empirical statistical method to establish scientifically
acceptable epistemological evidence of the real empirical existence of
something, such as telepathy, etc.
The
second part of this
two-part Situation also involved "the scientific method," but as seen not from
parapsychology hopes but from the empirical contexts of modernist Science
itself – i.e., the empirical context resolutely marked by the firm conviction
that nothing but Matter existed, and that unless a phenomenon could be
explained as a result of identifiable material sources and process it could not
be accepted as "scientific."
In other words, mere
statistical evidence was Not Enough, even if obtained via strict empirical
procedure. So, in this sense,
parapsychology failed in obtaining its ultimate goal of scientific acceptance.
But it is important to
stipulate that overall it did not fail in its basic, cumulative statistical
approach to researching PSI and its several manifestations among the human
species.
*
However,
as mentioned by others, it can justifiably be said in retrospect that the
parapsychology
approach to PSI was too narrow for any number of reasons, especially in that
it
did not, in general, incorporate fundamental study of such phenomena as
perception, consciousness and its capacities, or the fuller spectrum of
exceptional human experiencing – or the possibilities of TRAINING of
anything.
At about 1970,
parapsychology was already more or less moribund when this author inadvertently
entered it as an experimental (and, at first, a somewhat abused) guinea pig.
Since
then, Science has discovered that Matter is NOT the only reality, and that
at least telepathy
DOES have a physical basis – both of which ironic events are sardonically
delicious to those who have strongly experienced some kind of super
sensitivity.
*
One of the working definitions
of the term
SITUATION is given as "relative position or combination of circumstances
at a certain
moment, place, or time."
When this definition is connected to the topic of
the super sensitivities, it simply signifies that concepts of the super
sensitivities are seen as relative to various kinds of circumstances within
which they are being considered pro or con.
Such relative circumstances
can be cultural,
social, individual and/or "group think," philosophic, or scientific,
etc., and they also depend on what kinds of dominant intellectualisms are holding
sway at
any given moment, place, or time.
All of this makes for a massively complex and messy
picture that writers, analysts, historians, etc., try to wade through - and
usually end cognitively mired up to their brainpans. More simply put, this simply means that there are very many
conflictive INTELLECTUALISMS via which the superpowers and their associated
super sensitivities can be viewed in various conflicting ways.
*
In order to TRY to cut through, or downsize, this
complex and messy entanglement, this author will consider only two situational
characteristics that are obviously involved.
The second of these
might be styled as the DEEPER SITUATION, while the first can more precisely
be referred to as the SUPERFICIAL
SITUATION that is absolutely known to exist - if only because of the vast
abundance of popular books, theories, guesstimates, etc., that "say" what
they
do pro or con, but don't provide all that much depth into the essential,
fundamental nature of the superpowers.
A very long paper could be written dissecting this
superficial situation, but it seems the better part of valor to suggest why it
exists in the first place, and exists in such a continuing manner.
You see that term INTELLECTUAL-ISM just above? Let us start dissecting that.
The INTELLECTUAL part
seems okay, in that the term is
defined as "of or relating to the intellect or its use" - although
what use is
made of intellect is sometimes to be wondered about.
Depth diving into this
particular issue, it can be found that the definition of the ISM part is
given as "doctrine, theory;
adherence to a system, doctrine, or theory identified by the particular class
of principles incorporated into them."
DOCTRINE is merely defined
as "something that can
be taught [including its Ôprinciples'], while THEORY consists of "a hypothesis
assumed for the sake of argument or investigation based on analysis of a set
of
facts in their relation to one another."
However, a more perceptive actuality is this: until they are proven factual, such
theories, doctrines, principles, isms, etc. don't always need to incorporate
facts – and especially cannot really do so if important facts are
intellectually unknown within the sometimes fact-less principles incorporated
into them.
If and when important
hitherto unknown facts come to light (if they are allowed to do so, or can't
otherwise be prevented or
resisted}, then former principles, theories, doctrines, isms, begin to
dis-incorporate – or, as it might better be said, "become undone,
to come
apart."
Anything that is in process of dis-incorporating
quickly sheds its former vogue and fashionable allure. And pundits will begin pointing up that
such were composed only of mere and sometimes stupic intellectualisms all
along.
*
In the sense of the above observations, it can be
wondered if both modern Parapsychology and modern Science treated the
superpowers in superficial ways.
In the case of modernist Science the answer is in
the absolute positive, because the superpowers were simply (and officially)
dismissed via ways and methods overall characterized by one of the most
dogmatic forms of crass superficiality.
In the case of modernist
Parapsychology, it could be thought that its empirical/statistical searches
might not constitute a
superficiality – until it is realized that most (but not all) of such
searches were more politically motivated toward gaining scientific acceptance
(and hence more funding) rather than by more profound depth-diving into the PSI
phenomena being considered.
So, both parapsychology
AND empirical science missed two of the most important and enduring facts
of the superpowers, two
facts that have long stood the tests of time – whereas parapsychology
came and went, and the ever-so-neat-packaged materialistic Science is now in
the process of going, too.
*
The two tests-of-time FACTS relative to the
superpowers are:
(1)
That their reality existence within our species has been noted
in all cultures from time immemorial; and
(2)
That their manifestations erupt spontaneously even within
populations otherwise shackled by various types of negative attitudes against
them.
In other words, while
negative intellectualisms, theories, doctrines, etc. might come and go, super
sensitivity phenomena have a
much longer and deeper history – and it is these two tests-or-time facts
that principally constitute the DEEPER SITUATION as contrasted to the more
familiar Superficial ones.
All of the foregoing
having been joyfully pointed up, we can now move into the post-Modern arenas
of super sensitivity
recognition – and why attempts at training will certainly be future-forthcoming.
3. EMERGING NEW
SITUATIONS: I.E., SOME ASTONISHING
SCIENTIFIC "COSMIC" SURPRISES OF
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
AS
ALREADY briefly discussed, the parapsychology goal of achieving scientific
acceptance based on empirical statistical data was successfully resisted on the
grounds that PSI phenomena could not additionally be explained as the empirical
result of empirical material processes.
Mere statistical data alone were not completely scientific of and in
themselves.
This
scientific resistance was completely logical IF matter WAS the Only Reality – meaning
that nothing else other than Matter could exist or co-exist
with it.
So,
from the scientific viewpoint, it was generally thought that parapsychology
research was in scientific default by failing to provide direct physical
evidence for the existence of PSI items such as telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.
The
idea that the modern scientific theory-doctrine holding that Matter was the
Only Reality could, itself, be in default was unthinkable.
*
To segue into the possible confusions that are to
follow, the term STUFF is usually considered as having very low
philosophic-scientific dignity and even lesser merit.
Among its several definitions
in addition to "rubbish," one can discover that the term refers
to: (1) fundamental material, substance, or essence; (2) the
aggregate of something; (3)
special knowledge or capability.
The contexts of these three definitions, however,
usually refer to Stuff that is more of less known to exist if only in a
theoretical manner, even though few if any details of what is involved are
clear.
As a case in point, advancing sciences (IF they ARE
advancing) tend to discover Stuff that can't be explained within the contexts
they are advancing out of.
Philosophies are also reluctant to have advancing Stuff discovered -
because such discoveries would entail bothersome rewriting of the philosophies.
As a general rule of thumb, scientists and
philosophers usually don't appreciate discovery of the real existence of Stuff
that is outside or beyond the reality boxes they don't want to advance out of,
probably because of the dreaded loss of face that would be involved.
*
As of about 1890, scientific
investigations of
Matter were doing quite well – until unanticipated Situations began entering
into the Only Reality when the cutting edges of physics began dissecting Matter
into smaller and smaller particles, and, as a result, eventually encountered
Stuff (during the early 1920s), which was dubbed as the sub-atomic quantum
realms.
Quantum theory thence yielded the advanced,
cutting-edge concepts of non-continuity, non-causality, and non-locality. The details of these concepts are too
involved to include here, and if interested, one can bone up on them via
Internet resources.
But briefly put here, quantum theory began
establishing that Matter was actually coinciding and interfacing within
conditions of some Other Realities Stuff that could neither be measured nor
understood by empirical scientific measuring and testing in ways consistent with
the Only Reality of Matter.
Perhaps too simply put,
the Other Realities
consisted of "radiations" emerging, in the strict material sense, from
"no-material-thing," but which were anyway interpenetrating the Only
Reality of
Matter.
Did you "get" all
of this? If not, don't worry too much because
there is worse to come, but which, even if worse, is a bit more understandable.
*
To jump a bit ahead
from earlier beginnings of quantum mechanics and theory, during the 1980s
and 1990s, the "cutting edges" of physics found themselves capable
of mathematically deducing the real existence of Stuff dubbed as dark matter,
exotic matter, dark energy, multiple
dimensions, and multiple universes.
As all
of this stands so far:
DARK MATTER may or may not interpenetrate the
physical realms; but
EXOTIC (SUBTLE) ENERGIES interpenetrate; while
DARK ENERGY certainly does interpenetrate;
As well as do MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS that simultaneously
co-exist with and interpenetrate within each other.
One
of
the outcomes of all these "Other Realities" (including PARALLEL UNIVERSES and
the HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE), is that the former "only reality" of Matter
now is
thought to constitute only about some 4 percent to 7 percent of the
Universe.
(NOTE:
Those interested in these items are invited to check the appropriate
Internet sources. Google It, as it
is said.)
For an attempt at clarifying, practically everyone
comprehends what is meant by PENETRATE, an English word officially defined
as: "To pass into or through;
to
see into or through; to discover the inner contents or meaning of; to pass,
extend, pierce, or diffuse into or through something."
At a lower, more gross
level of understanding, the term is understood as merely shoving something
into something else – and/or gaining access to something that is thought
to be shielded against access, such as secrets, motives, intentions, and
other hidden or concealed
whatnots, etc.
That much having been
said, there is another
English term that is less understood – INTER-PENETRATE, defined as: "To penetrate between, within, or
throughout; to mutually penetrate; to spread or diffuse through; to permeate."
The conventional modernist definitions, functions,
and activities of PENETRATION are quite well comprehended, largely because
concrete demonstrations of them are rife everywhere.
However, although the
term INTERPENETRATION is occasionally used, there is always the elusive issue
of what is mutually
interpenetrating what – especially if such cannot strictly be explained
as the result of material processes.
What all of this interpenetrating scientific STUFF
means with respect to super sensitivities is by no means clear. But many super sensitive individuals
have referred to perceiving "radiations," other dimensions, multiple
realities,
and all kinds of information not available via the five physical senses.
But a sort of parallelism is implied between the
existence of interpenetrating Stuff and, let us say, interpenetrating
capacities of human consciousness whose functions are not strictly confined to
objective perception of the matter-only reality.
*
Enlarging upon this a little, as far as the
objective physical universe of Matter is concerned (and in the modernist
rational sense of it), that universe is generally assumed to be composed of
physically objective things that might penetrate other things, but which don't
mutually interpenetrate, and thus do not mutually co-exist with and within each
other.
THIS context is the central reality of the
modernist Western philosophies and sciences. Or, as it might better be put
today, it WAS the central reality in the conventional modernist West.
The modernist philosophy of Materialism held that
Matter was the Only Reality. End
of story.
The modernist sciences followed suit, additionally
holding that anything that could not be explained as a manifestation or
resulting processes of Matter could not have real existence.
It is quite easy to
understand the utter allure of this, in that we do exist in our local section
of the material universe and
have, by necessity, to grapple with its local vicissitudes all of the time – THIS
even before we have to grapple with the more complex vicissitudes
of human nature.
There are lots of old stories about this state of
material affairs, but there is one somewhat complicated aspect that has seldom
undergone examination and discussion.
Briefly put:
The Matter universe is filled with OBJECTS, i.e., things "that are
capable of being seen, touched, or sensed via the physical senses" and/or
via
physical equipment designed and engineered to do so.
These objects are LOCAL
to and within the Matter
universe, meaning they are "characterized by or relating to position in space;
characterized by, relating to, or occupying a particular place" in that
universe.
Such "position(s) in space" and "particular
place(s)" are of course OUTSIDE of US, and they all locally "belong" to
what
and where they are at any given time.
Hence the term OBJECTIVISM,
defined as "Any of the
various theories [including philosophic and scientific ones] stressing objective
reality, especially as distinguished from subjective experience or appearance."
Now, in these particular objectivistic contexts, it
is quite easy to comprehend that the first level of conscious-of-ness
development simply has to focus, or centralize, on external objects external
that exist in their local positions in space and in their particular places.
It is generally thought that THIS is achieved via
the five physical senses, and by tutoring and training them to function at
least somewhat properly and efficiently within the contexts of objectivity as
found among the vicissitudes and hazards of the Only Reality of Matter.
(As a brief aside here,
please note that this kind of training does not include efficiency training
for dealing with the vicissitudes
and hazards of human nature itself for which other kinds of "senses" are
certainly required in addition to the famous physical five ones.)
For reasons that have
never exactly been objectively explained, it is taken for granted, in objective
materialistic
contexts, that all of the objects in the local universe of Matter do not
violate the local "laws" that are assumed to govern the local objective
existence of matter, energy, space, and time.
Therefore anything that
does so cannot be explained – at least in objective terms.
So a rather pregnant question can emerge from all
of this: Why does human
consciousness seem to have capacities that dare to violate the local "laws" of
objective existence?
*
To
remind: The term SUPERPOWERS
refers:
(1)
to any sensitivities
that cannot be attributed to the five physical senses;
(2)
to any sensitivities that transcend
whatever is passing for conscious reason and logic based only on the
restrictions of material objectivity;
(3)
to any
sensitivities that transcend the materialistic understanding of matter, energy,
space, and time; and
(4)
to the
acquisition of efficient information that can, if well trained to do so, result
from such transcending.
Also
to remind: The term itself is not
original to this author or to this Website, having, as it does, a rather long
history in other languages. The
prefix SUPER (and its many linguistic equivalents) merely denotes "over
and
above; higher in quantity, quality, or degree than; exceeding or so as to
exceed a norm; surpassing all or most others of its kind."
*
The key concept in all of the foregoing is
INTERPENETRATE. This is a point to
be emphasized for several reasons.
One can easily think or speculate about the
existence of other realities, realms, dimensions, and so forth. But there is a general tendency to
think of them as being outside of, elsewhere, and as having their own versions
of objectivity independent and separate within the realms, dimensions, etc., of
our material realities.
The difficult problem here is that although other
realities, etc., probably do have their own objectivity versions within them,
our own scientific quantum and sub-quantum discoveries are indicating that they
are NOT ELSEWHERE.
Instead, they are mutually enfolded and
interpenetrating each other and thus are simultaneously HERE, simultaneously
co-existing at sub-quantum levels (including co-existing with our own material
realities), and, as one might suppose, doing their own thing whatever that
might be.
All of this is quite "alien" to
our standard Western ways of thinking about reality, because they are more
less firmly
locked into the physical objectivity of things that can be perceived via the
five physical senses, even if it takes microscopes, telescopes, and all other
sorts of technical mechanisms to do so.
Indeed and on average,
our consciousness is more or less programmed to function only with what is
objective in this or that
material sense, and which can objectively be "explained." Thus, when some sort of spontaneous
super sensitivity experience takes place, everyone is befuddled, including the
experiencer.
The foregoing is probably too amazing to take on
board, so don't worry too much about it.
It takes time to digest this kind of STUFF.
The larger point being made is that INTERPENETRATION
with and of Other Realities is now a big deal, at least at quantum scientific
levels. Mainstream science
magazines are full of it, even including the venerable SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
whose earlier editors carefully clung to objective-empirical precepts acceptable
to scientific materialism.
*
If advanced interpenetration-realities
are alien and absolutely too amazing, it is likewise even more astonishing
to find that
something like such has been known for a long time – but objected to by
modernist materialism, thus rejected and ejected from the arenas of material
objective-thinking-only.
As already mentioned, this is revealed by searching
other languages for relevant word-references, a good many of which are found,
for example, in Amerindian languages that are redolent with such.
But it is astonishing to find that ancient Sanskrit
. . . Well, let us start over here.
Sanskrit has, of course, its share of terms dealing
with objective, material things, including actions and interactions within the
realms of Matter.
But these material references are far overshadowed
by the proliferation of terms relevant to Other Reality interpenetrations of
all sorts, and the sum of which has long ago been encoded on behalf of possible
and probable innate states of consciousness that can and do deal with them.
This is to say that while our extraordinary present
scientific approaches to interpenetration Stuff have now been unavoidably
underway for about twenty years, there was a language dating back 3,000 or more
years ago that had its own versions of such Stuff.
This is not at all to say that the contexts of our
own post-modern quantum discoveries are the same thing as are (or were) the
ancient Sanskrit Other Realities thing.
But the Sanskrit contexts do identify what we today refer to as "mutually
interpenetrating quantum and sub-quantum levels."
Thus, there is at least
one somewhat discrete concept that the two contexts do share, if only recently
so – i.e., the
actual existence of multiple interpenetrating realities.
The Sanskrit contexts insist that human
consciousness is possessed of ways and means to interact with multiple
interpenetrating realities. Our
post-modern quantum sciences seem to be lagging a bit behind in this.
It is also worth mentioning
that it should be obvious that super sensitivities are principally distinguished
by their
interpenetrating nature – which is to say, to interpenetrate Stuff and
things that the mere five physical senses cannot. More discussion on this later. We now need to move onward.
4. A NEW
ASTONISHING SITUATION: THE
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY OF "TELEPATHIC"
NEURONS IN
THE BRAIN
AS ALREADY pointed up, it was held within modern
materialist philosophies and sciences that parapsychology research was in
default by failing to provide direct physical evidence for the existence of PSI
items such as telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.
Put another, perhaps
more significant way, science itself had not discovered any such kinds of
physical evidence that could have
aided parapsychology's work – and so parapsychological data could be
excluded from scientific appreciation of it.
This exclusion was especially
focused on super
sensitivities which, after all, transcended the "laws" that were thought
to
govern matter, energy, space, and time, including the electromagnetic,
chemical, and quantum arrangements within them. And it was thought to constitute a necessary, neat, tight,
and seamless example of pure scientific reason and logic based in confidence
that nothing of the kind would ever be discovered.
As a result, the exclusion has been socially
enforced in rather serious unforgiving ways, while proponents of the super
sensitivities, no matter their standing otherwise, have been socially
stigmatized, at least in the sense of mainstream acceptability.
*
And yet, as already discussed, by the beginning of
the twenty-first century, mainstream science periodicals (such as the venerable
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and the data-crunching NEW SCIENTIST) were bristling with
reports about Parallel Universes, Multiple Dimensions, Holographic Universes,
the mysteries of Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Subtle Energies, and Exotic Stuff.
But before the twentieth century was over, a new
kind of mind-boggling discovery had been made during its ultimate decade.
While dark matter and
energy etc. might not yet mean too much on average to mere individuals plodding
along in their local "universes," this new discovery, once its
ramifications begin to sink in, IS particularly significant at the individual
level.
*
Now, perhaps to over emphasize, it was held that
telepathy did not exist because:
(1)
There were no brain-mind mechanisms that could account for
direct, mental mind-to-mind exchanges of information especially of the
long-distance kind; and
(2)
There was no known physical medium through which the mental
information could directly be transmitted – since in the
matter-only-reality universe, there was no non-matter Stuff simply because no
other realities existed.
Such WAS the scientific situation.
*
An expanded version
of what will now briefly be outlined below can be found in this Website under
the heading of TELEPATHY – THE OPENING UP OF, and those interested
are invited to surf the Internet under the topics of TELEPATHY and MIRROR
NEURONS.
In the April 30, 2005
issue of SCIENCE NEWS (Vol. 167, No. 18), their appeared a brief article
entitled "Goal Oriented Brain
Cells – Neurons may track action as a prelude to empathy."
This somewhat obtuse heading was then clarified
as: "Neuroscientists in Italy
listened in on monkeys' brain cells that they say may lie at the root of
empathy, the ability to discern others' thoughts and intentions."
The scientific name
given to these special brain
cells was MIRROR NEURONS (possibly because they "reflected" what was
going on
in the neurons of others.)
Mirror neurons were first discovered in Macaque
monkeys and later confirmed by MRI scanning also to exist in humans where they
are located in Brodmann's area 44 (Broca's area) of the brain's cerebral cortex
and elsewhere.
Mirror neurons are now
scientifically defined as specializing neurons that (detect? respond to?)
the "intentions and motives of
others."
"Detecting intentions and motives of others" is, of
course, the official, long-standing definition of TELEPATHY – and some
scientists have noted (in print) that such neurons actually seem to place one
in the minds of others, or, at least "mirror" what is going on in others'
minds.
Among others, a neuroscientist
scientist (at the University of California) indicated that via the special
premotor cortex
neurons "we are practically in another person's mind."
*
At this juncture, it
is again worth reminding that in this Website, SUPERPOWERS more or less refers
to any perceptual processes
that range beyond the limited powers of the conventional five physical senses
that "sense" physicality – which
is to say that super sensitivity perceptive processes transcend such
limits.
"Telepathy" is
a modern term that has been assigned
to one such
superpower,
although the
processes involved were earlier referred to as "thought transference," a
definition that is much in keeping with the new scientific definition of
"mirror neurons."
As it is, the results
of "thought transferring" and
"thought mirroring" seem, if not identical, at least quite similar. Telepathic super sensitivities can easily
be thought of as a superpower, in that thoughts of others are not exactly
comprised of any identifiable physicality – and hence are not sensed by
the usual physical five.
At this point, it would be de rigueur to provide
reference sources that attest to the actual scientific existence of mirror
neurons. But by now there many of
such sources available in the Internet under the subject of mirror
neurons. Rather than list them
here, interested readers are now referred to that greater electronic source.
However, one such source is pointed up here,
principally because it contains a long list of references. So, See: Gallese, Vittorio, "Action,
goals, and their role in intersubjectivity: from mirror neurons to the Ôshared manifold' hypothesis" (gallese@ipruniv.cce.unipr.it).
*
Before the recent discovery of mirror neurons in
the brain, it was scientifically thought, in crass materialistic terms, that
telepathy could not exist because there was no physical explanation for
it. So, the discovery came not
only as quite a surprise, but also engendered a number of ancillary questions.
One such question (not yet very openly being
discussed, but nonetheless quietly circulating here and there) consists of the following
wonderment:
WELL, if telepathic neurons exist, do similar kinds
of them also exist for, say, remote viewing, for various forms of clairvoyance,
for various kinds of intuitions, for premonition-sensing of future events, and
etc?
Since it is generally realized that motor cortex
functions and responses CAN be trained, well, you see, this wonderment is now
beginning to represent a VERY seriously sensitive one for any number of
reasons.
*
Because of the recent discovery of mirror neurons
in the premotor cortex of the brain and elsewhere in the biobody, interest has
been stimulated behind the public scenes as to whether some kind of training
might be possible so as to enhance and achieve higher performance efficiency of
their functions.
This developmental interest
is probably not so much inspired by the mere existence of such neurons, but
more by the possibility
that if "we don't try to develop them, others are sure to do so." Right?
So, you see, telepathy
under any other name IS here
to stay – if not in the general public per se, but certainly in the
worldwide espionage games. Ironic,
isn't it, that a cutting edge of science itself should discover the physical
existence of little gray cells that substantiate the actual existence of
something on which science itself expended much debunking.
*
Now, it must be pointed out that theoretical
enhancing of mirror neuron efficiency begs the question of whether ANY super
sensitivity can be enhanced.
The only way we can judge this is by the actual substantiated RESULTS of
such enhancement.
ENHANCEMENT, by the way, is defined as: "to raise; to make greater; to
heighten; to intensify."
NOTE:
As this document was in preparation, in its Science Times section of
Tuesday, January 10, 2006, the very venerable NEW YORK TIMES featured a lengthy
article entitled "Cells That Read Minds."
The lead observation:
"Scientists plumb the secrets of mirror neurons, which allow the brain
to perform its highest tasks – learning, imitating, empathizing. One mystery remains: What makes them so smart?"
The "telepathic" issue was not enlarged upon all
that much, but just about everyone realizes what "Cells that can read minds" means.
5.
CAN EFFICIENT SUPER SENSITIVITY FUNCTIONING
ACTUALLY EXIST?
ALTHOUGH
they portend coming Situations quite different from modernist ones, the
scientific discoveries of various kinds of non-locality-quantum Stuffs that
interpenetrate our local Matter realities probably, at first sight anyway,
don't yet mean that much to us who everyday struggle amongst the local Matter
vicissitudes involved.
However,
the discovery of "cells that read minds" is probably a quite different
Situation - because such "cells" are part and parcel of the vicissitudes of our
local, everyday, Matter realities – in that the deciphering of another's
hidden intentions and motives is now scientifically possible or at least
theoretically feasible.
In
other words, an important shift has suddenly taken place with respect to how
super sensitivities as a whole (and telepathy in particular) are viewed. In the modernist past, the super
sensitivities were viewed, at best, as non-normal psychological phenomena for
which there was thought to be no material explanation.
Now
that "cells that read minds" have been discovered in the brain, the
apparent
lack of material explanation for telepathy has been filled in - rather
ironically it seems, because the greatest modernist opponents of telepathy were
the modernist sciences themselves.
One
possible factor about all of this seems so far to have escaped what passes for
frequently changing scientific realizations – in that cells that can read
minds might have the capacity to "read" a lot more than just minds.
*
That
parapsychologists in the past have gotten up words and terms in an attempt to
differently categorize what appeared, to them, to be various kinds of super
sensitive phenomena is no sign that the actual workings of super sensitivities
MUST correspond to them.
For
example, in the modern cultural West, a number of words and terms have conceptually
evolved that supposedly identify this or that type of super sensitivity – such
as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, premonition, sixth sense, second sight,
intuition, etc., as well as remote viewing, a term that this author
helped to coin in 1971.
Such
words and terms are useful at a superficial level, but they don't at all
provide cognitive access to the deeper particulars of the functioning processes
involved.
In
terms of possible training of those deeper processes, it doesn't take a rocket
scientist to realize that if something is going to be trained, one does not get
very far by trying to train any superficial concept of it.
One
rather has to go to work and try to identify whatever deeper processes are
involved, processes that are amenable to training via cognitive training,
development, strengthening, and enhancement of them.
So,
even if the terminological categorizing might serve some purpose in
parapsychology labs experimenting within objective empirical methods, if one
takes time to observe super sensitivity functioning in real life situations, an
entirely different picture tends to emerge.
*
The
question that emerges from the brief discussion above has to do with where, in
real life, can one actually witness super sensitivities in efficient activity.
One
of the definitions of EFFICIENT is given as "productive without waste." One of the synonyms is EFFECTIVE,
defined as "The quality of being efficient; producing a decided, or desired
effect or result."
Two
further observations might be appended to these real-life definitions: (1) if super sensitivities do not
produce information that is usable, practical, or verifiable, then there is
little reason to consider them as much of anything; and (2) many may actually
experience active super sensitivities, but produce distorted information down
to and including gobbledygook that might be fascinating in terms of
entertainment, but having little merit beyond that.
In
this particular contest, it might be observed that super sensitivities turn
into super POWERS only if they more so rather than less so demonstrate useful,
organized, efficiency.
*
So,
where do we find demonstrations of efficient super sensitivities? During the last hundred or so years,
there seems to be only one social real-life context within which efficient
super sensitivities have achieved a modicum of social tolerance and reality.
This
is the area now familiarly known as "psychic detectives" who help solve
crimes when police detectives find themselves either between a rock and a hard
place
or up against a clueless brick wall.
Professional
police detectives, working toward building an airtight case must of course
totally depend on accumulating logic-reason evidence that will stand up in
logic-reason courts of law.
As
is well known, although they usually won't admit it, many police detectives
themselves are in possession of modicums of intuition or gut-feelings. But even so, they occasionally
encounter clueless brick wall situations, after which they are up against
whatever they ARE up against, such as crimes not solvable by
logic-reason-detecting alone.
In
general, any super sensitive sleuth worth their own water is expected to "see" through
clueless brick walls and provide informational clues not apparent via mere logic-reason
contexts, but which COULD become apparent if mere
logic-reason knew where and how to look and test for them.
About
the only thing a super sensitive sleuth can do is to provide information that,
if ultimately proven efficient, can help resolve clueless situations.
There
is, of course, a lengthy history of failure along these lines, but there is no
real need to throw the baby out with the bath water – because the point
here is that the baby does exist.
As
this essay is being constructed, there are several quite remarkable
contemporary super sensitive sleuths here and there, and which some few really
stressed cops are no longer too reticent to consult. (If interested in names of these contemporary super
sensitive sleuths, do consult the Internet.)
However,
in the general contexts of this essay, there are a number of reasons to review
two deceased super sensitive sleuths.
Both
of these are of Dutch fame. Both
were assiduously investigated by detractors and European parapsychologists – and,
without much help by the investigators, both trained themselves well enough to
efficiently deploy their remarkable super sensitivities.
*
Gerard Croiset (1909-1980), born in Enschede,
Netherlands, was plagued as a child with all sorts of confusing super
sensitivities. As he grew up, he
somehow managed to train himself and thus achieved some kind of efficient,
heightened, volitional control over them.
At a rather early point
in his life, he began working unobtrusively with the Chief Justice of Leeuwarden
and with the Chief
Justice of Haarlem, in tracing the activities of criminals or missing persons,
thereby helping to solve many crimes via different aspects of his super
sensitivities, thereafter becoming internationally known as a "super sleuth."
Croiset's super-sensitivities
were intensively investigated by leading European and some American parapsychologists
who
established that the sensitivities were multiple and included various
extraordinary forms of clairvoyance, telepathy, pre- and post-cognition, the "sixth sense," and psychometry roughly defined as "using
extrasensory perception of a physical object to gain information about events
or people once
associated with it."
His "crimebusting" was
utilized in close collaboration with police departments in many European
nations and even in the
USA. Although some failures
occurred, his overall verified success rate remained extremely high.
Since his remarkable sensitivities were present
while very young, it has everywhere been assumed he was especially naturally
born with them.
This assumption fitted
with the then fashionable idea that certain specimens of our species are,
via some special genetic
combination, naturally born with such sensitivities, while all the rest are not – i.e.,
unless you are naturally born with them you will never have
them. (This point of view will be
dissected ahead.)
(Those interested in Croiset might avail themselves
of his biography, CROISET: THE
CLAIRVOYANT (1964) by Jack Harrison Pollack.)
*
However, the "naturally-born" hypothesis
underwent stress just as Gerard Croiset's naturally-born fame was nearing
its highest
ascendancy.
Peter Hurkos (1911-1988) was also born in The
Netherlands, in Dordrecht, and early worked as a laborer and merchant seaman,
later becoming a member of the Dutch underground after Holland was occupied
near the beginning of World War II.
During this period, he didn't have a clue about any kind of
super-sensitivity.
However, in 1941, at the age of 30, while painting
a house he fell thirty-six feet from a ladder and landed right on his head.
After more or less recovering
from his injuries, he found himself in sudden possession of super sensitivities
enabling him "to
obtain information about people and objects" in telepathic and psychometric
ways.
He thereafter underwent a period during which he
had to work out various
confusions, and was finally able to bring at least some of his new
sensitivities under heightened voluntary control. About this same time period, he was captured by the Gestapo
and imprisoned in Buchenwald, Germany where he remained in hard labor until
that camp was liberated by U.S. and Canadian troops in 1945. So he had plenty of time to test and
train his newly found super sensitivities,
Regaining his freedom, his increasing super
sensitivities were too distracting for him to follow a normal occupation. So he took to appearing on the stage to
demonstrate his newly self-discovered sensitivities, more or less obtaining the
reputation of a mere trickster.
But he also began trying to help police in several countries solve many
cases of murder, theft, and missing persons.
His verified success
rates were slightly less than those of Croiset, but in any event Holland
found itself possessed of TWO
internationally known "super-sleuths" during the same time period of
its
history.
(For those interested, Hurkos wrote his own
autobiography, entitled PSYCHIC:
THE STORY OF PETER HURKOS (1962).)
*
The foregoing brief sketches of Croiset and Hurkos
are but two examples of many that are available.
The first reason for reprising these two sketches
is to focus discussion of the long-standing assumption that one won't have such
sensitivities unless one is born with them - end of story.
Within the contexts of this assumption, Croiset WAS
born with them, since the super sensitivities were already naturally blipping
on his radar as a child.
It could therefore be concluded that Croiset was
especially naturally hardwired and thus equipped with them at birth.
In the case of Hurkos, however, the super
sensitivities did not begin blipping on his radar until after he quite
dramatically fell on his head and knocked himself out.
Apologists for the "naturally-born" hypothesis
thus
explain that Hurkos was also naturally innately hardwired for such
sensitivities, but didn't know it, because they had not turned on earlier in
his life.
If such WAS the case, then who is to know whom is
similarly innately hardwired, but doesn't know it? Most of us, perhaps?
YES?
From this, it could be deduced, hypothetically anyway, that many, most,
or all are hardwired for super sensitive capacities but don't know it.
*
To get into the second
reason mentioned earlier,
the term PREMONITION is defined as "a warning presentiment or anticipation
of a
forthcoming, usually dangerous event without rational or logical conscious
perception or reasons for it."
One doesn't need to
be a Croiset or Hurkos type to experience premonitions, because such have
been experienced by "ordinary"
individuals in all times, societies, and cultures, backwaters, battlefields,
nature, streets, homes, etc. – and, it might be added, experienced in
ways that the experiencers themselves cannot account for.
*
The efficiency value
of any super sensitivity can be determined, only or mostly, by its practical
results – and the
practical results of premonitions, when they are heeded, are obvious.
For every ten famous specimens of the Croiset or
Hurkos types, thousands or more of no particular fame spontaneously experience
premonitions, this somewhat indicating the innate hardwiring for premonition
sensitivity is far more indigenous to our species than heretofore acknowledged.
As already mentioned,
PREMONITION is defined as "anticipation of an event without conscious
reason; forewarning."
It is rather safe to say that premonitions of some
kind occur, perhaps only infrequently, to just about everyone, and there is a
vast anecdotal literature describing many such events, most of which are
fascinating.
When a premonition occurs "without conscious
reason," the implication is that somewhere in one's systems exists "something" that
is obviously conscious of whatever is involved in the premonition.
Thus, premonitions are
usually attributed to some
perceptual aspect of the "subconscious" – which seems somehow to be aware
of something that is going to happen in the immediate ordistant future that
"conscious reason" is not foreseeing.
In this sense, it seems possible to suggest that
the subconscious is equipped with innate hardwiring sufficiently enough to
achieve such perceptions, whereas the hardwiring, if any, of conscious reason
seems rather unequipped to do so.
Indeed, in at least some few specimens of our
species, conscious reason seems singularly inadequate with respect to playing
with a full deck of reasoning attributes.
*
There also exists a
quite large, often dramatic and poignant, anecdotal literature having to
do with spontaneous cases of
mother-child telepathy during which mothers "sense" their child is
in distress
or danger, even if the child is at a great distance away.
Fathers sometimes experience such events. But mothers seem in particular to be
hardwired along these lines, and in their cases it seems that the barrier
between sub-conscious and conscious perceptions is very permeable indeed.
In any event, they spontaneously
and easily abandon
their "conscious reason," and, if at all possible, make impulsive haste
to aid
and abet their children.
This particular literature is well worth reading,
especially now that innately hardwired mirror (telepathic) neurons have been
discovered actually to exist.
*
So, what have spontaneous premonitions and
telepathic linkages have to do with teaching, learning, and training any of the
super sensitivities?
To try to get into THIS,
it is necessary to review the definitions of SPONTANEOUS, which, in its most
important nuances, is
altogether defined as "involuntarily originating, being produced, or becoming
activated without conscious deliberation, without apparent external influence,
force, cause, or treatment."
The term has four synonyms: INSTINCTIVE, IMPULSIVE, AUTOMATIC,
MECHANICAL,
Everyone has, of course, heard of INSTINCT, but
might not be too familiar with the term's formal definitions: "A natural [innate] aptitude, impulse,
or capacity; a complex and specific response by an organism to environmental
stimuli that is hereditary and unalterable, does not involve reason, and has
as its
goal the removal of somatic tension."
The "goal" part referred to in this definition
might more specifically be defined as "the preservation of the organism," in
that threat of non-preservation probably would result in all kinds of "tension" in
addition to somatic examples of it.
IMPULSE is principally
defined as "a wave of
excitation transmitted to the tissues and, especially, nerve fibers and muscles
that results in physiological activity; a sudden spontaneous inclination or
incitement to some usually unpremeditated action."
What is not mentioned
in definitions of this term
is that such "excitation and spontaneity" is largely the function of
the motor
and pre-motor cortexes. Mull this
over as we proceed.
With respect to the synonym AUTOMATIC, we will
examine the definition of AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM, given as: "the part of the vertebrate nervous
system that supplies with nerves (innervates) the smooth and cardiac muscle and
glandular tissues and governs involuntary action."
In this sense, the innervating
autonomic nervous system is automatic, and, as well, can be referred to as
a MECHANISM –
defined as "a process or technique for achieving a result or goal."
*
If spontaneous super sensitivities don't arise
because of or out of the perceptual conscious reason, then there are two
systems
There has to be another perceptual system because
of, and out of,
which the super
sensitivities spontaneously arise and in ways that conscious reason neither
perceives nor can account for.
So the autonomic nervous
system does its own things – sometimes much to the alarm of whatever
is passing for reason.
All
of this having been said, it is now time to pose a very seminal question: Can the autonomic nervous system be
trained – that same system that sometimes spontaneously produces hints
and clues of naturally hardwired super sensitivities.
6.
THE SITUATION OF WHETHER SUPER SENSITIVITY RUDIMENTS
ARE INNATE IN
THE HUMAN
SPECIES?
SO! We have modicums of highly efficient
super sensitive sleuths who have actually helped resolve crimes, and whose
successes are increasingly being substantiated by law officials, and some
examples of which are increasingly being documented on TV.
We
also have voluminous spontaneous incidents of efficient and amazing premonitions, mostly documented after
the fact, because few pay attention to premonitions until after they have been
fulfilled. (The best source on
this so far is the 1971 book PREMONITIONS: A LEAP INTO THE FUTURE, by Herbert B. Greenhouse.)
We
also have a large incidence of transient, spontaneous super sensitivity events
erupting in the populations in general.
Last,
but not least, we also have animal superpowers that of late are acquiring not
only popular, but also scientific attention. (See, for example, the article entitled "Animal Superpowers"
in the December 24, 2005 – January 6, 2006 issue of NEW SCIENTIST.) Just about everyone knows that animals
sense-perceive energies and stuff that humans usually don't unless they have a
modicum of clairvoyance. In the
case of animal superpowers, scientists are now busy trying to locate the
relevant genetic hardwiring. They
will eventually (if they haven't already) get around to trying to locate such
hardwiring in US, in THEMSELVES, etc.
*
Developing,
enhancing, training something presupposes that the something already exists in
rudimentary form.
RUDIMENT
is defined as "raw, beginning; a beginning raw fundamental principle or
element
that can be enhanced, developed, or trained into a skill."
Before
it became possible to map the entire genome (i.e., inherent-innate genetic
structure) of a species, the existence of rudiments had to be guessed at, or
tested by observation and experience.
During
the last twenty or so years, it has become possible to identify the existence
of such rudiments at the genetic level, even though they may have not been
activated, turned on, energized, awakened, and thenceforth developed into some
kind of lesser or greater skill-like efficiency.
It
is also now understood quite well in the genetic research fields that Genetic
Systems are usually quite busy turning off and turning on this or that
rudiment, although the Why of this remains something of a mystery.
It
is also somewhat well known that genetic systems INNATELY possess rudiments
that are not used, but which anyway are passed along through their progeny.
Some
now speculate that the human species has an overabundance of rudiments that are
not used. Hence, these are not
awakened, energized, developed, etc., but are anyway downloaded into successive
generations.
So
we have now tripped across that word INNATE – a depth diving term that
goes hand-in-hand with the essential existence of raw rudiments.
*
The term INNATE is defined
as "naturally existing
in or belonging to an individual from birth; inherent within; belonging to the
essential nature of something."
These are perfectly good definitions. But before going on it should be
pointed up that the term INNATE seems somewhat to have gone out of fashion, and
is being replaced by the concept of HARDWIRED.
This is now a concept
associated with computers whose hard drive capacities are, well, hardwired
to perform those functions
they do or can do – and if they are not hardwired, then they cannot
perform such functions.
Bending this analogy a little, it could be said
that a computer's hardwiring exists in and belongs to it from birth; its
hardwiring is inherent within it, and belongs to the computer's essential
nature.
However, computers operate
on electricity, and so
somewhere is a switch which, in its "on" position, is hardwired to permit the
flow of the necessary "juice," or, in its "off" position,
cuts the flow.
When a computer is switched off, its hardwired
capacities are still inherent within its designed essential nature, and will
perform those inherent functions when the contraption is again turned on and
juiced up.
It could be said, roughly
speaking anyway, that in
its juiced-up state, the computer is once more "sensitive" to its inherently
designed capacities AND the designed programs inserted into them.
It takes just one little
glitch in all of this – well, everyone knows what THAT means.
*
SENSITIVE is defined
as "subject to excitations by
external agents; highly responsive or susceptible; capable of sensing and
indicating gross and minute differences; also, the capacity of an organism to
respond to stimulation by external and internal agents or sources."
As most realize, the human species and all of its
individual specimens possess and experience many different kinds of
sensitivities, so many in fact that no real attempt has ever been undertaken to
itemize them.
These copious sensitivities
have been thought of as
consisting of two principal categories – physical sensitivities, and
super-sensitivity capacities, designated here as such, in that they transcend
the capacity limits of the physical sensitivities, and which, in some
demonstrated cases, seem to have no really discernable limits at all.
*
It is generally accepted
that the human organism is
innately. i.e., "naturally," hardwired with respect to the physical
sensitivities, largely because of their broadly shared functions in all
specimens of our species.
But demonstrated emergences of this or that super
sensitivity have always been thought of as erratic among individuals, and, as
such, do not demonstrate broadly shared hardwired species functions.
So the super sensitivities have not been considered
as innately hardwired in anyone, much less throughout the entire species.
Nevertheless, the super
sensitivities have been "accounted for" in numerous ways, the principal
one consisting of the erroneous idea that certain human specimens are somehow
specially born with them, while
the majority of those born are somehow deficit of them.
This idea does not really
coincide with the widespread fluctuating manifestations of the super sensitivities,
even though
it seems "logical" enough – at least to those who are not too
familiar
with the actual history of what is involved.
*
The recently discovered
existence of mirror (telepathic) neurons in premotor cortices implies they
are innate, and thus
have rudimentary potentials whether they are cognitively activated or not – potentials
having to do with discerning motives and intentions of
others.
This must come as quite a shock to our present
civilization in which people resent having their conversations overheard, or
their telephones tapped. How does
one get a search warrant with respect to mirror neuron tapping of another's motives
and intentions - a warrant forbidding the use of one's own mirror neurons. Can you imagine?
In any event, mirror neurons genetically exist, and
so it must be assumed they are super sensitive rudiments innate and universal
to our species, and in all of its specimens whether cognitively inactive, or
spontaneously active in the absence of conscious understanding of what's
happening and why.
Spontaneous activity of various super
sensitivities, or the existence of such, within our species has been reported
perhaps from Day One. So even if
they only occasionally activate does not at all mean that their rudiments don't
permanently exist in some inactive form.
For extensive lists
of what these innate "universals" are, do consult the Internet, and/or especially the entry for a
List, compiled by Donald E. Brown, of "Human Universals" in THE MIT
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE COGNITIVE SCIENCES, Wilson & Keil, 1999. This List is also found as the Appendix
of Steven Pinker's magnificent book entitled THE BLANK SLATE: THE MODERN DENIAL OF HUMAN NATURE
(2002).
*
To remind, and hopefully
for increasing clarity,
the term UNIVERSAL is defined as "Including or covering a whole collectively
or
distributively without limit or exception; present or occurring everywhere;
reference to everyone without exception in the class, category, or genus
considered."
INNATE is again defined
as "Inherent; existing in
or belonging to an individual from birth, or inherent throughout a genus;
originating naturally rather than from learned experience."
To sort out a possible confusion here, UNIVERSAL
more or less means that everyone DOES it; INNATE means that everyone HAS it
whether they consciously know it or not, and if they don't innately have it
then they can never do anything with it.
*
Now to momentarily return
to the List of innate universals referred to above, it is therein pointed
up that the innate items
included in it consist primarily of "surface" universals of behavior and overt
language noted by ethnographers, but that the List does not include "deeper
universals of mental structure that are revealed by theory and experiments."
Are we therefore to
think that the activities of
our species consist only of "surface" universals that are unaccompanied by
"deeper universals of mental structure."
Well, some of such deep-diving
activities are quite
well known and widely accepted – such as INSTINCT and premonitions,
future-seeing episode phenomena, and INTUITIONS, none of which are included in
the list.
Telepathy, the most
socially hated super sensitivity, didn't make the List, either, and of course
clairvoyance is at
such a deep-diving depth that "mental structures" apparently need special
depth-cognitive equipment that might enable even partial notice of that type
of
super sensitivity.
*
There are two grousing points being made here:
(1)
Temporary intellectualisms come and go, and thus are
characterized by impermanency;
(2)
Even so, the innate capacities of instinct, intuitions, and
etc., are interpreted THROUGH and BY such impermanent intellectualisms, many of
which would rather that such capacities did not exist at all (for specific
reasons that have earlier been discussed.)
There is also a third grousing point. As mentioned, super sensitivities
spontaneously emerge all of the time among specimens of our species, this an
historical FACT supported by all sorts of unambiguous robust evidence – a
FACT that many intellectualisms chose to ignore.
Explaining the HOW & WHY of things is, of
course, a favorite preoccupation of various kinds of intellectualisms, and so
if the how-why of something can't compatibly be explained within the reality
boxes of given intellectualisms, then the "something" and its how-why
is not
thought of very favorably, its facts not withstanding.
*
So, are super sensitivities innate? If super sensitivities are innate in
our species, then one has to consider why they manifest only occasionally and
then mostly spontaneously.
There are numerous possible answers to this
question, most of which rotate around either doubt about their innateness or
denial of it altogether.
However, if the super sensitivities are innate,
then historical evidence for them must exist in worldwide past cultures of
lesser or greater antiquity.
Depth diving into past cultures of lesser or
greater antiquity is a quite cumbersome activity, not as easy a matter as most
historians make it sound.
As many have commented
elsewhere, one of the difficulties involved is that historians usually only
interpret past cultures
via the assumed realities of their own times – and there is a general
tendency to edit, distort, or omit past historical topics that are inconvenient
to the contexts of their own principles, intellectualisms, and so forth.
But there is another difficulty, one seldom pointed
up. If one takes the time to
examine the English language, about 93 percent of it refers to external
material objects, states, or facts, and so it is deplorably deficient in
references of any other kind.
Thus, states or facts that are not all that objective more or less have
to be discussed within English that has a minimum of terms for them.
However, most languages of greater antiquity are at
least somewhat rich with concepts and terms that specifically refer to states
and facts that are not based in gross material objectivity. For example and among others, Hawaiian
Huna, early Chinese, Tibetan, and numerous Nordic and Amerindian ones, from
which certain terms now and again leak into English usage.
Predominantly, however,
these foreign references
are quite hard to deeply incorporate – because modern English, in its
overall philosophic-reality sense, does not itself possess relevant
depth-contexts for them.
*
Since this essay focuses on possible training of
super sensitivities, we would like to know if they have ever been identified as
such in, let us say, antiquity, and if some kind of training has ever been
associated with them.
Indeed, if rudiments of super sensitivities are
innate and more or less universal, we would expect them to have been identified
a long time ago. They have been,
of course, since many languages formatted terms for them.
For reasons that will be self-explained ahead, this
author has elected to discuss certain aspects of the Sanskrit language, a
project he admits was, to say the least of it, quite challenging.
7. THE SITUATION OF WORDS, TERMS, CONCEPTS,
AND THEORIES
BEFORE discussing Sanskrit materials, however, it
is necessary to digress a bit into the Situation indicated just above. If we have a word for something, it is
then thought of as identifying whatever the word refers to – after which
we think we know what we are talking about.
If the words refer to objective things, such as
things ranging from sub-quantum particles up to and including the visible
matter cosmos, then such words are probably efficient enough for their
purposes.
However, if the words
refer to non-objective "things" having no exact or definite physicality, then their probable
efficiency tends to decrease, sometimes considerably so, although we still tend
to think we know what we are talking about – because we HAVE words for
what is involved.
Furthermore, words in
this latter category are NOT actually based on objective things, but on intellectualizing
concepts or
theories which, in and of themselves, need words so as to be able to talk about
them – as if we again know what we are talking about.
Concepts and theories are merely based on what is
thought to be understood about whatever is involved. But such understandings can be quite wobbly, and they tend
to come and go when new understandings emerge – and which might be
replaced by other new understandings, ad infinitum.
*
Human experiencing of super sensitivities needs
word-concepts in order to identify what has been experienced, and then to talk
about such to others, hoping the others know what is being talked about.
In English, there are at least eighty-five or more
words that refer to some kind of super sensitivity experiencing.
Such words, like all
other words, have come into existence AFTER the fact of the experiencing,
and the definitions of which have
been contributed via intellectualizing concepts and theories based on whatever
kind, type, or quality of understanding was at hand – all of this via
intellects that might be slightly comatose in the first place.
*
This problematical situation
doesn't stop with what
has been discussed above – because intellects that are not too comatose
sometimes seem to realize that non-objective kinds of experiencing do need, if
not exact words, some kind of suitable words, even if slightly ambiguous ones.
Thus, in addition to
ambiguous terms supposedly identifying this or that super sensitive experience,
other ambiguous terms such
as "mind," "intelligence," "subconscious," "subjectivity," "the unconscious,"
"altered states," and even "Consciousness" itself (if and
when that item is
used in its largest "cosmic" scope).
*
So, here is a rough description of the Situation we
end up with by considering the above brief discussions.
Super sensitivities are experienced.
AFTER the fact of being experienced, words are
gotten up for them.
Concepts and theories are then generated that seem
compatible with the words.
The concepts/theories hold water only as long as
they do, and then new ones are originated, etc.
Since neither the super
sensitivity experiences nor the resulting concepts/theories for them can
be explained by depending on
objective realities, they are perforce included in other concepts-plus-theories
that likewise cannot be explained, as least in some total sense, in objective
realities – such as subjectivity, the mind, the subconscious, altered
states, etc.
These particular word items and their contexts are
supposed, or posited, to exist.
After which word items denoting experiencing NOT directly derived from
objective contexts can be bundled into what is supposed or is posited to exist – for
no other reason than having a basis for discussing them at in least quasi-objective
ways.
As it more or less turns
out, if the actual dynamics of super sensitivity experiencing cannot be explained
via any
relationship to objective experiencing, they also remain unexplained in the
contexts of mind, subjectivity, the subconscious, altered states, etc. – as
well as in the contexts of Consciousness which, itself, so far remains unexplained
at least in the scientific sense.
*
So to briefly, and deliberately, to repeat:
Super sensitivity experiencing takes place if and
when it does;
After the fact of the experiencing words are gotten
up so as to be able to refer to the experiencing as such;
Since words are of little use if not accompanied by
concept-definitions, these are then attached to the WORDS, but NOT to the
experiencing itself.
The words are thus ONLY after-the-fact, superficial
intellectualizing formats;
Whereas the experiencing takes place, at least in
spontaneous super sensitivities events, before the intellectualizing words are
gotten up, or before one can intellectually look them up in a dictionary.
It is appropriate here to mention that different
languages have words for the same experiential phenomena, but in the other
languages the definitions can differ quite a lot. When then transliterated into English words, the English
definitions are utilized, but the English definitions may be far from the mark
as expressed in the original other-language word.
Additionally, Sanskrit, for example, has certain
terms for which there are no equivalent words, or concepts, in English. Over-energetic translators then search
English for the next-best English term, but which almost nothing to do with the
actual definitions of the Sanskrit one.
Got it?
*
THUS, if and when events come about that inspire
interest in possible training of super sensitivities, WHAT is it that can be
trained?
The intellectualizing words?
The intellectualized concept-definitions associated
with them?
Intellectual variations of the concept-definitions
(of which there have been many)?
The existing sum of intellectually accumulated
knowledge about the super sensitivities?
(Well, knowledge is not accumulated in the absence of words-plus-concept-definitions. If one does not comprehend this, let
them try to accumulate knowledge without words to speak-tell or read-learn
about what the knowledge consists of.
And, by the way, the English and Western existing sum of accumulated
knowledge about the super sensitivities is not very big to begin with, much
less having achieved high degrees of refinement.)
The suggested bottom
line here has to do with what
comes first – in respect of which it could be posited that experiencing
comes first, followed by intellectualizing word-concept-knowledge that may or
not activate or even reinforce the experiencing.
*
It could be obvious
by now that nothing can be trained in the absence of some kind of potential
activity for it – activity that results in experiencing of the activity.
Since all sort of spontaneous super sensitivity
events do innately occur throughout the human species (even to those many
intellectually ill-prepared for them), it should be supposed that human sensing
systems, known or unknown, are equipped with the necessary rudiments, rudiments
that may or may not have become activated.
Has THIS situation been noticed before? Yes, it has.
8. THE SITUATION OF THE
TWO GURU FUNCTIONS
THE LANGUAGE of modern
science excludes terms that
refer to super sensitivities, as does the "language" of mathematics
that so far
has not incorporated mathematical probabilities for them.
But outside of these two exceptions, most other
human languages (including English per se and some thousands of others) do
incorporate some terms for and concepts about super sensitivities.
After all, words are
needed for what peoples
experience and become aware of – this somewhat based on the simple fact
that if there is no experience-awareness of something, then no words are needed
for it.
It is difficult to search
through languages because the terms in question usually have been garbled
via translation or
transliteration into English – and sometimes, as in the case of Huna and
American Indian languages, deliberately mistranslated or not translated at all.
Additionally, English often altogether lacks modern
equivalents for contexts specified in other more ancient languages, so even
transliteration into English is usually only approximate at best.
*
To help get into what follows, Sanskrit is said to
belong to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European
family of languages. Sanskrit is
known to have been in existence at about 1500 B.C., most certainly with much
earlier antecedents. Just what
these antecedents actually were seems to be a matter of debate – with the
possibility that no one really knows for sure where that Sanskrit was
formatted, and when it was.
However, by about 1500 B.C. and later, Sanskrit
seems especially used, in its classical form, as both a liturgical and as a
standard court language, and therefore might have been inaccessible to
subservient masses.
Sanskrit is commonly
acknowledged by scholars to be "characterized by elegant and amazing
perceptiveness." It is very rich with terms for states
of
Consciousness and for super sensitivities over and above its "gross material" words.
For reference, this author has largely depended
on: (1) the second edition (1976)
of Judith M. Tyberg's book THE LANGUAGE OF THE GODS: SANSKRIT KEYS TO INDIA'S WISDOM; (2) Arthur Anthony
MacDonell's A PRACTICAL SANSKRIT DICTIONARY (2001); (3) discussion of Sanskrit
terms with Sanskrit-fluent owners and employees of this author's local magazine
and tobacco shop; and (4) various Internet Sanskrit resources. (Please note
that in the following examinations of certain Sanskrit terms, we will march
slowly and gently as possible.)
*
In our modern English,
TEACHER is simply defined as "one that teaches; especially, one whose
occupation is to instruct."
So far, so good, right? Well, there is a sometimes not so subtle complication
involved having to do with what IS and IS NOT to be taught – in that most
social groupings, large or small, have their own centralizing ideas of what is
and is not to be taught-learned.
There are three general and quite identifiable
results of this:
(1)
Teachers transfer to their students only the information they
are supposed to, while learners receive that information the best they can;
(2)
Information that conflicts with what is taught and learned is
discouraged and not taught;
(3)
Innate potential capacities that might conflict with what is
to be taught-learned are likewise discouraged, not taught, and not developed
into actuality.
The principal result of (3) above is that no one
really knows what or how many innate capacities actually dwell within the
potentials of our species, such as hardwired capacities that exist in this or
that state of latency with no real effort to trigger or develop them into
actuality.
Furthermore, the modernist Western concept of
teach-learn attempts to be based on reason, logic, facts, and supposed
facts. This mix is usually all
bound into what is assumed, at any given time, to be a seamless "educational" package
of information, that, in most cases conforms to whatever is serving as social
principles and standards.
*
In modern English, the
Sanskrit term GURU is
defined as "a venerable teacher, usually a personal religious teacher and
spiritual guide." Thus, in English
a Guru is basically thought of as a teacher.
However, in her book discussing various aspects of
Sanskrit, Judith M. Tyberg does effort a larger description of GURU, to wit:
"One
who has the capacity to pass on his realizations to those who seek him for
wisdom." Also: "There may be the outer Guru, or
Guide, who removes ignorance by the radiant light of his divine wisdom; or the
inner
Guru or Self (Atman) who is the Guide working through the intuitive part of
Man."
There are some subtle complexities in this
description of GURU that may not be noticed all that easily.
For example, "removing ignorance" is
not quite the same as replacing or curing it by absorbing information packages
via the
teach-learn process that occasionally might result in installing a bit more
ignorance than actual learning.
In any event, in Sanskrit, there are at least two
different Guru functions, the first of which is to transfer information and
realizations to students, but the second of which is to invoke wisdom by
working through the intuitive part of Man.
Although this "invoke" part
doesn't appear in Tyberg's descriptions of Guru, a little depth diving into
the origin of the
term is helpful.
The Sanskrit root word
upon which GURU is formatted
is GRI meaning "to invoke, to praise."
Now, don't just skate
across this "to invoke" part,
in that INVOKE is, in most languages, including English, principally defined as
"to call forth."
Please try to bear in mind that calling forth
something is somewhat different from the sometimes weary and unfruitful process
of merely transferring an information package to a student-learner.
So, in this sense, the
second basic guru-function seems to consist of calling forth something in
the student-learner – i.e., awakening, unfolding, and activating it,
etc.
In this sense, it is possible to think that if something
does not exist in the student-learner, it cannot be called forth.
If such exists, but is not somehow called forth,
then it continues to exist in some kind of NOT-called-forth state or condition.
Here, then, is a significant distinction between
(1) what seems to be the more profound guru-function, and (2) the Western
modern teacher who merely transfers information packages, the learning of
which, if such does take place, might not call forth much of anything else.
*
One of the specified
guru-functions is "to remove
ignorance."
In English, the term
IGNORANCE is more defined by
its synonyms than by its actual definition – synonyms such as ILLITERATE,
UNLETTERED, UNTUTORED, UNLEARNED, all of these terms referring to "not having
knowledge" – i.e., destitute of the sorts of intellectualized knowledge
that can be transferred from teacher to learner.
However, the actual,
and major, definition of
IGNORANCE is simply given as "unawareness."
So.
With respect to the Guru-functions, "removing ignorance" could refer to
"removing unawareness" – this being a function that is obviously
achieved, and probably only achieved, by INCREASING awareness by awakening and
activating innate hardwiring latently existing in the student.
*
Judith Tyberg indicates
that a Guru "removes
ignorance by the radiant light of his divine wisdom."
The DIVINE part of this
concept remains
problematical – until one consults a competent dictionary, wherein it can
be found that the first definition is given as "to discover by intuition"
– i.e., by calling forth, invoking, or activating the intuition in
students.
Thus, Tyberg's effort to describe GURU could be
somewhat rephrased as: One who has
the capacity to pass on his intuitive realizations to those who seek him for
guided intuitive awakening toward achieving wisdom.
To repeat:
There may be the outer Guru that merely teaches information packages; or
the inner Guru-Guide who removes unawareness via the radiant light of his
intuitive wisdom by working through or with the intuitive part of Man, i.e., of
human specimens in general.
This author has not
been able to discover exactly
how this is achieved – except to think that the "intuitive part" of
individuals of our species is innately be hardwired but often unactivated
– but which but can be lit up, so to speak, by the Guru-Guide who removes
unawareness of such hardwiring.
Got it?
In the above sketch,
there are good grounds for
thinking that "radiant light" might be replaced by "radiant energies" of some
kind – such as, perhaps, telepathic osmosis, telepathic transfers of
intuitive information, etc., etc.
In English, two of the
first definitions of LIGHT
are given as "something that makes vision possible; also inner light."
Of course, something
depends on what is meant by "vision," and what "inner light" might actually consist of, especially if such
"radiates."
*
Just ahead, we will have to begin depth-diving into
a few other complex Sanskrit
terms, principally to establish that some of the super sensitivities we have
words for today actually had identifiable and better developed Sanskrit
concepts in the distant past.
This implies that such super sensitivities were
with our species during Sanskrit times, and probably much earlier.
But first, there is the matter of a particular term
that needs a little sorting out so as to help return us to its original and
literal definition in the Sanskrit language.
The nature and contexts of the Sanskrit term YOGA
are much discussed and debated within our modernist cultures. But nevertheless in English
dictionaries the principal definitions are given as:
(1)
A Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all
activity of body, mind, and will in order that self may realize its distinction
from them and attain liberation; and
(2)
A system of exercises
for attaining bodily or mental control and well-being.
This author won't comment on these two somewhat
decorated definitions, except to note that the term ATTAIN might be remembered,
and that definitions (2) and (1) seem diametric opposites.
In any event, it seems
that the literal definition
of YOGA in Sanskrit basically refers to "skill in action," which seems quite
close to one of the important nuances of our English term TRAINING – one
of it's major definition being given as "to make prepared for a test of
skill."
As will be discussed
ahead, "a test of skill," if
positively demonstrated, equates to an ATTAINMENT, a term referring to whatever
is "come or arrived at by motion, growth, or effort."
9. SOME SANSKRIT TERMS FOR
SUPER SENSITIVITIES,
i.e., THE "SIDDHIS"
SIDDHI is sometimes
translated into English as
referring to "Occult powers." But
this translation is more or less reckless because the term "occult" has
been much demonized, often not in very good taste or style, and with a seeming
lack of
higher cognitive intellect.
So it is necessary to
remind that OCCULT is originally taken into English from the Latin OCCULTARE
meaning "The state of
being hidden from view or lost to notice; hidden or concealed from sight," i.e.,
hidden, or outside the scope and limits of the five physical senses, and outside
the limits of objective logic.
Please especially notice
the "lost to notice" part
of these definitions.
*
Before going on, it
is the better part of valor to do a little depth diving into two particular
English words – ATTAIN and
ATTAINMENT.
ATTAIN – "Achieve,
accomplish; to come or
arrive at by motion, growth, or effort."
ATTAINMENT – "The
act of attaining; the
condition of being attained; something attained; accomplishment."
The basic definition
of the Sanskrit root word SIDH
is "attain," while that of SIDDHI is "attainment" via processes
almost exactly in the sense of the above English definitions, i.e., by motion,
growth, or
effort, accompanied, of course, by obviously specializing forms of learning and
TRAINING.
However, there are two special stipulations
involved here: That SIDDHI
attainments refer (1) to attaining cognitive access to substantive qualities
outside of, or beyond, the scope and limits of the five physical senses; and
also (2) outside of, or beyond, objective material conditions and activities
themselves.
*
One's "mental structures" might
quiver at this
prospect. So it is worth reminding
that our depth diving efforts here are simply limited to discovering if any
given ancient language did possess words and terms at least somewhat equivalent
to our modern English terms denoting various types of super sensitivities.
This is an effort to establish that such super
sensitivities have an antiquity that is suggestive of their being innate and
present in our species, and therefore must be based in some kind of
long-existing innate capacities.
*
The principle extant source describing the Siddhis
is The YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANGALI, a volume that dates back to about the second
century B.C. It is generally
agreed that Patangali did not originate the Sutras, but rather compiled and
systematized them from different sources, some of which might have been 5,000
years old or more.
SUTRA literally means "thread." But the Sanskrit connotation is accepted
as referring to something like the slimmest or barest line of meaning or
thought which a Guru can expand upon so as to awaken or stimulate, well, let's
just put it, innate states or planes of consciousness that are in need of
awakening and recovery.
Patangali's Sutras are
195 in number, divided into numerous sections that address different topics
of yogic growth and
development, but he devotes a large fifty-four Sutras to the Siddhis alone – this
suggesting that he attached substantial importance to them.
The Sutras have been
translated into English many times, but there is that small matter earlier
referred to – that English
is mostly focused on objective material contexts and is therefore deficient in
concepts relevant to inner and non-physical planes of consciousness and their
associated realities.
Thus, the various translations do differ, and
perhaps the best thing is to study and compare several of them.
*
Since this translation problem does exist, there is
long-standing difficulty in determining how many Siddhis Patangali is
enumerating.
In her book already referred to, Judith Tyberg
lists only eight of them. For our
purposes in this essay, we will briefly depth-dive only four or five because we
have approximate English terms and concepts for them.
TRIKALA-JNANI SIDDHI. The least complicated way of defining this Siddhi is given
as "Attainment of knowledge-knowing of past, present, and future via diving
deeply into an object, phenomenon, or idea." This Attainment is achieved by activating "deeper mental
structures" rather than depending only on intellectual thinking resulting
from
reason, logic, and whatever is passing as rational.
Taken literally, TRI = three; KALA = escaping or
transcending time; JNANI = knowledge-information thus achieved by doing so.
This Siddhi is achieved by the practices of:
DHARANA = concentration; the binding of deep
conscious awareness to one place, object, or idea until all aspects are
revealed.
DHYANA = a type of (non-objective?) meditation or
contemplation.
SAMADHI = balanced state; to hold together
completely; being one with - so as to attain unity of deep perceptions.
When these three tripartite "practices" are
developed and combined together, the whole activates or attains a siddhi-like
state or plane of direct inner perceiving (perceptual) consciousness referred
to as SAMYAMA, which transcends the plane of consciousness directly focused on
gross physical matter only.
So?
Did you get all of that? If
not, don't worry too much, because the whole of this Siddhi is much debated -
not so much in its Sanskrit contexts, but with trying to translate those
contexts into English which does not (yet) have similar concepts or equivalent
terms.
*
Before moving robustly
onward, in his book THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANGALI (2001 version), Sri Swami
Satchidananda indicates that the
modern science of physics has performed a type of SAMYAMA on Matter and its
atoms by investigating deeper and deeper into their constituencies – and
have thus recently discovered that matter atoms are merely clusters of energies
that are not completely or exactly material in their nature.
Some of these new discoveries have been discussed
earlier, and will again be referred to ahead.
*
In any event, the Trikala-Jnani Siddhi deals with
perceiving past, present, and future, this a Siddhi attained by activating
deep-diving perceptions the potentials that obviously exist - otherwise they
could neither be deep-dived into nor activated.
So it seems that the existence of such time
transcending potentials and associated super sensitivities had already been
identified some three to five thousand plus years ago - and were taken
seriously enough in those ancient times to inspire a rather elegant and
extraordinary research and developmental training of them.
But there is one question that goes unmentioned in
Sanskrit texts having to do with how and why such deep diving perceptions were
noticed in the first place.
Well, if it is possible
to think that such deep-diving stuff is innate in our species, it is then
possible to think that
such stuff could spontaneously activate under certain circumstances – and
do so just about everywhere in all cultures.
And that could explain why most languages (except
that of modern scientism) develop words that identify them.
*
English contains one particular unscientific word
that is assigned to a particular type of spontaneous manifestation that is
completely in keeping with the Siddhi discussed above.
PREMONITION first appears
in English at about 1456,
defined as "The action of premonishing or forewarning; a forewarning of
subsequent events; a forewarning."
During the later 1800s, however, a new definition
was added: "Anticipation of
an
event without conscious reason."
Now, "anticipation without conscious reason" must
occur spontaneously via ways and means that conscious reason alone cannot, or
usually does not, have ways and means of accounting for.
If and when a premonition
is "fulfilled," so to
speak, and since it cannot be attributed to "conscious reason," then the
implication is that deeper perceptual structures are somehow aware of what is
being spontaneously forewarned against – while, it MUST be emphasized,
conscious reason is out to lunch, especially if conscious reason supposes that
a given present time cannot be transcended in past or future way.
Other English terms associated with premonition are
INSTINCT and INTUITION that also spontaneously transcend the limited scopes of
conscious reason.
So, hypothetically speaking
at least, spontaneous premonitions, instincts, and intuitions are possible
innate beginnings of
Siddhi development accompanied by some kinds of training – and such is
reported everywhere and throughout all time. So, as is now the discovered case with mirror telepathic
neurons, deep hardwiring equipment must be latently universal, innate, or
indwelling within our species.
*
Sutra 3.37 identifies
a composite or collective kind of Siddhi, the activities of which awaken
via Samyama, i.e., "spontaneous
intuition" that functions without conscious reasoning.
In English, this Siddhi
collective is expressed as "superphysical hearing, higher touch, seeing, higher tasting, and higher
smelling," also collectively now referred to in English as Extra Sensory
Perception (ESP).
In English, these superphysical activities are
referred to as clairaudience, psychometry of various kinds, clairvoyance, and
second sight or the sixth sense, while higher taste and higher smelling have no
English references.
Sutra 3.49 elaborates a little more about this by
indicating that applying Samyama (spontaneous intuition) to the general power
and qualities of perception, the intuitional senses actively re-attain to the
ability to swiftly function without the aid of the physical sense organs.
So, what we refer to as ESP had achieved specific
Sanskrit terms at least three to five thousands years ago, but the organized
discovery of which in the modernist West took place just a little as a hundred
years ago.
The acronym ESP dates
only from the 1930s, although spontaneous ESP-like events have long taken
place in all cultures, sometimes
explained, if at all, as some kind of innate INSTINCT – which, by the
way, IS accepted as both innate and universal.
*
Sutra 3.26 refers to
attaining to the Samyama
intuitional super sensitive Siddhis whereby "knowledge of the subtle, of
the
hidden, and of remote distances is obtained."
Super sensitive perception
of the subtle and the hidden are usually grouped together in English as clairvoyance,
but the "remote" stuff began (in later 1870s English) began to be referred to as
"traveling clairvoyance," and later, during the 1970s, as "remote
viewing."
The Sanskrit term for "remote" is
VIPRAKRISHTA.
*
In Section Three of Patangali's book, Sutra 19 is
devoted to a particular type of Siddhi, various aspects of which are attained
by Samyama:
The Sanskrit is given as PRATYAYASYA PARACITTA
JNANAM. This more or less
translates as "Knowledge of others' mental images is obtained."
PARACITTA = others' mental images;
JNANAM = knowledge (of).
The exact meaning of
PRATYAYASYA seems a little difficult as expressed in English, since the term
is generally translated as "By Samyama on the distinguishing signs of
others' bodies."
It is difficult to sort this out, except to note
that Samyama involves deep intuitive acquisition of knowledge independently of
the usual five physical senses, while SIGNS of others' bodies can more or less
be achieved by the five physical senses.
In this sense, one doesn't quite understand the
connection between (1) intuitive Samyama and (2) signs of others' bodies. Thus, (1) and (2) seem contradictory – UNLESS
some kind of telepathy is involved.
In English, SIGN is applied in two ways: (1) to any indication perceived by the
physical senses or by reason; (2) to any signal that transmits or conveys
information beyond the range of direct physical perception or recognition – and probably eluding "the reason" altogether.
The second definition
here could be applied to
telepathy - IF individuals are producing "signals" that transmit or
convey
information.
Samyama, as direct intuition
transcending "the
physical senses and (usually) the reason", would not be too much needed
to
identify signs, but would be needed with respect to signals of other's mental
images and the contents of their deeper mental structures.
This, of course, presumes that mental images and
deeper mental structures produce signals, or, shall it be said, vibrations that
emanate whatever they do.
Now, there is a long
history behind the phrase "I
can just see what others are thinking" – this from physical body cues,
or
from an intuitional type of perception first identified during the late 1800s
as THROUGHT TRANSFERENCE and later in the early 1900s as, yes, perhaps you
already got it! TELEPATHY via
interacting mirror neuron activity – the remarkable SCIENTIFIC discovery
discussed earlier.
*
There is MORE to be discussed about all of the
above, but in order to connect up the Siddhis with TRAINING, it is now
necessary to enlarge a tiny bit on the second of the two Guru functions also
pointed up earlier.
In Patanjali's discussions of the Siddhis (and
elsewhere in the Sanskrit literature), it is indicated that four conditions
must be present (more or less, anyway) in order to activate the Siddhi
Attainments.
Very briefly put, (1) there must be interest in
activating them, then (2) the intuitive function of a Guru Guide is needed as a
Guide, then (3) development and stabilization of what is in process of being
activated, and, finally, (4) a philosophy that incorporates the actual
intuitive realities that are involved.
*
The principle English
definition of GUIDE is given
as "one who leads, shows, or directs another in his way." This definition almost certainly
applies to the second function of a Guru Guide with special focus on attaining
the Siddhi Attainments.
Now, it must firmly be stated that if there is no
fundamental, raw rudimentary basis upon which an attainment can be built, so to
speak, then it is really quite difficult to see how an Attainment can be
attained.
Equally speaking, if there is no interest in
attaining something, then it probably won't be attained, even though the raw
potentials for it are latently existing.
This is the case with just about all human activities, the activating
and development of which depend on interest in them.
If interest in whatever does manifest, then most
are at first dependent on others to show, lead, or direct that interest in some
kind of structured way.
With respect to the
Siddhi Attainments, interest may erupt spontaneously, or, if not, it can
be "awaked" by a Guru Guide who
already has experienced such awakening and been properly tutored with respect
to how and why the awakening can be enhanced so as to attain structured and
efficient performance.
In English, this is
usually referred to as DEVELOPMENT,
the first definition of which is "to set forth or make clear by degrees
or in
detail."
One can think of this
as "education" via the
teach-learn context. But it can
also be thought of as training IF a raw potential is involved and capable of
growth and unfolding from its raw state to a refined, perfected, efficient
Skill-Attainment.
Finally, some kind of philosophical MODEL must be
provided that profoundly strengthens cognitive awareness structures necessary
for the actual growth, development, and actuality of Siddhi Attainments.
So, now THE question arises! WHAT philosophical model would we be
talking about that is relative to attaining the Attainments?
In Sanskrit, this philosophical model is quite
complex. But it contains one
particular element that is quite surprising – the element that can
roughly be referred to as "interpenetrating realities."
10. SANSKRIT "OTHER REALITIES"
AT FIRST SIGHT, what now follows in this somewhat
challenging section might not seem relevant to the topic of super sensitivity
training. But there remain the
questions of what, why, and how such training might be possible.
So, in order to get into this, it might be
repeated, once again, that the modernist philosophic and scientific arenas
abjured the existence of super sensitivities on the grounds that they didn't
really exist because there was no material explanation of them.
Thus, the idea of training them was
irrelevant. As a first Situational
result, no modernist efforts were undertaken to build a philosophic or scientific
model that incorporated them. As a
second result, if super sensitivities do exist, then they must be thought of as
capacities of consciousness, the fuller attributes of which admittedly remain
unknown.
Yet, 3,000 or more years ago, such a model had been
constructed, and copious evidence of it remains today in the Sanskrit language.
*
In English, the term MODEL has several
definitions. The two being
utilized here are given as: (1)
a
system of postulates, data, and inferences presented as a mathematical
description of an entity or a state of affairs; and (2) a description or
analogy used to help visualize or conceptualize something that cannot be
directly or objectively perceived."
The basic modernist
Western model of "reality" was
that Matter was the Only Reality.
Thus, all phenomena had to fit with and within that model.
So, in order to prepare
for what is to come, it is
first necessary to examine our English term MATTER – that same objective
Stuff that has, during our modernism times, been assumed to constitute the Only
Reality in the universe.
Taken from the Latin
MATERIA, our term MATTER was in English at about 1340 with the early definition
of "The substance, or
substances collectively, out of which a physical object is made or of which it
consists."
This definition was added to at about 1420: "Physical or corporeal substance
in
general, of which the chemical elements and their components are the separate
kinds, contradistinguished from immaterial and incorporeal substance (spirit,
soul, mind) and from qualities, actions, and conditions."
Modern English definitions, including scientific
ones, have not moved much beyond these early ones. For example, most dictionaries define MATTER as "physical
substance,' end of story, and one has to enter higher education in order to
become acquainted with modernist scientific details of it.
Back in the 1300-1400s,
however, thinkers were not yet acquainted with such modernist details, and
MATTER was thought to consist
of four elements – Earth, Water, Fire, and Air – plus a fifth
element referred to as Quintessence.
QUINTESSENCE was in
English at about 1430, defined
in the Oxford dictionary as "the Ôfifth essence' of ancient and medieval
philosophy, supposed to be the substance of which the heavenly bodies were
composed, and to be actually latent in all things; the essential part of any
substance."
The "supposed to be" phrase
of this definition came about much later when modernist Materialism began
(c. 1845) influencing
mainstream philosophic and scientific thought with the Only Reality thing.
However, as scientific
things stand this concept is being reintroduced because since the 1980s,
when physicists began "weighing the
universe, they discovered that there is too little visible matter to account
for the observable behavior of galaxies, clusters and superclusters, etc., and
that most of the missing mass is hidden.
As discussed earlier,
that "missing" mass was
eventually referred to as dark matter, dark energy, etc. (For those up to a longer discussion of
this, see QUINTESSENCE: THE
MYSTERY OF MISSING MASS IN THE UNIVERSE (revised edition of "The Fifth
Essence") (2001) by Lawrence Krauss, Chairman of Physics at Case Western
Reserve University.)
(Please also note that this same Situation is also
anciently found discussed, in Sanskrit, in the Hymn of Creation, the RIG VEDA.)
*
To try to get into Sanskrit
equivalents of our
concepts of "matter," it seems appropriate to simply suggest that we
cannot do
so.
In other words, we cannot reverse engineer our
English terms back into Sanskrit contexts, and then propose to think that we
understand the Sanskrit contexts.
To be sure, Sanskrit has its bulky share of terms
that refer to matter, material things and situations, and to objective
perceptions of it. But whereas
modernist concepts are rather firmly rooted in matter-as-the-only-reality
thing, ancient Sanskrit realities are not rooted in anything of the kind.
So the brief discussions that now follow might
stretch cognitive capacities and overload at least some brain synapses. In other words, get ready for a
headache. But do remember we are
still hot on the trail of the super sensitivities.
*
In Sanskrit, there are
numerous and diverse words
that apply to what we think of as "matter," or as "material existence" –
and, in modernist Materialism's terms, as the "Only Reality."
Now, we shall proceed very slowly, so take your
time.
The larger majority
of these Sanskrit "matter"
terms are based on the root word BUHR having the general meaning of "earth,
matter, material existence and experience, and Man's earth-world."
One of the several terms
derived from this root
word is BHUR-LOKA – defined as the "World of material becoming," and
which is the lowest, most "gross" World of seven (and possibly more) LOKAS into
which the "Universe is divided."
The term LOKA represents
the "universal heavens,
the Vast places of Light and becoming in them."
BUHR-LOKA therefore
refers to "Becoming, arising,
proceeding, or being produced from or within earth [matter] as a substance," and
which is considered as the lowest, most gross form of all possible
existences.
*
The next "becoming" situation, slightly above
BHUR-LOKA, is BHUVAR-LOKA, the "world of vitalistic manifestation-of-embodied
life existence and becoming within emotion, passions, affectations of which
desire is the pivot."
This is the vital or
nervous "plane" just above our
material earth "plane" through which "gods" come to commune
with Man, but it is a confused wideness, and its paths are many, intricate and
entangled. It is the mid-point "plane," or
mid-world between Bhurloka and Svarloka.
Here, it becomes slightly
obvious that what we
refer to as (possibly confused?) "consciousness" seems to be the "pivot" that
is being talked about.
*
Above this mid-point,
or mid-world mess, is
SVAR-LOKA, the "world" of light, pure (unentangled) thought and feeling, and
becoming, within a pure psychic state" or "plane". Svarloka is described as becoming within the "clarity
of high mental existence," but one wonders if the English term "mental" is
all
that much applicable here.
Although this author has not found it mentioned in
the Sanskrit sources he has at hand, one also wonders if attaining Svarloka is
a necessary precursor in order to awaken and attain efficient Siddhis, i.e.,
efficient super sensitivities that are not entangled with the Bhuvarloka mess.
Indeed, it would seem that if rudimentary Siddhis
awaken, but remain entangled with the Bhuvarloka mess, then one attains little
more than an entangled Siddhi mess.
Some examples of such messes are available, but we are trying to remain
constructive here.
*
Above the clarities
of Svarloka is the "plane" of
MAHAR-LOKA, described as the "world of vastness – beyond mind." This seems at least to suggest "consciousness" unentangled
with mind, and thus becoming and operating, so to speak, in the Unobstructed
Vast."
The Sanskrit root term MAHAS equals the English
term VASTNESS. Other than that,
English has few other supporting contexts – except, possibly, the innate
vastness of consciousness itself.
There are three other, and even higher, Lokas,
which will not be discussed here because of extreme language difficulties. It should also be mentioned that all of
the above depends on which Guru-Yogin is involved, of which Judith Tyberg discusses
a rather great number in her precious book. You see, various Guru-Yogins seem predisposed to argue about
what's what with all of this.
*
The basic point being
made in dragging (ever so briefly and perhaps inadequately) through the foregoing
is that one of the most
basic themes throughout the Sanskrit language has to do with "becoming,
arising" within something, including numerous incorporeal states "above" the
matter-earth-corporeal thing.
In contrast, the Matter-Is-The-Only-Reality thing
clearly indicates that Matter is the only thing to become or arise in. End of story!
Additionally, the Sanskrit
language is dripping with, as it might be put, scads of incorporeal terms
that are not translatable
into English because English has no comparable terms or contexts – excepting,
of course, some of the Attainment Siddhis, but which terms are only relevant
in parapsychology, etc., and forbidden in modernist versions of
philosophy, science, and today's quantum physics.
*
Now for the really, really hard part which focuses
on Sanskrit treatment of States of Existence in addition to, or above the
Matter-Only thing.
In English, these "higher" States
are referred to as identifiable PLANES, and all of which COULD have some
kind of different
separateness in the contexts of objective realities where things are different
and separate.
Why the English term
PLANE should have been
selected is something of a mystery – until it is discovered that, among
its many other definitions, one of them refers to "A level of existence,
consciousness, or development."
You see, a great portion
of the Sanskrit language is devoted to words having relevance to levels of
existence, levels of
consciousness, and levels of development within the fundamental context of "arising-becoming" within
them.
Which is to point up
that a PLANE (in the particular Sanskrit context) is not individual to or
with the individual, but
rather exist as extra-material realities in their own right – and within
which the individual can, with training (at least with an appropriate
Guru-Guide) can undertake arising and becoming.
*
Basically speaking,
in Sanskrit a PLANE refers to
various hierarchical ranges of existence that "blend" with, into, and
INTERPENETRATE all other planes.
(So, finally, there is THAT word – in Sanskrit no less."
The physical matter
world grades off and "upwards"
into a "higher," more subtle ones, which in turn grades off into another
more subtle, which in turn grades of into yet another higher, more subtle one,
and
etc., etc., etc., while the sum, or whole, of these grades interpenetrate,
including interpenetration of the physical world.
In modernist materialistic mainstreams, there could
not conceivably be a model for this kind of thing, and so it was thought of as
a lot of hooey and occult nonsense.
However, a similar,
if not exact, model for this is now in hand with the recent discoveries of
dark, subtle, and exotic energies
that interpenetrate, as well as interpenetrating multiple dimensions that are
theorized as interpenetrated by same, including our matter-only reality – and
including parallel universes.
So Stuff exists and
interpenetrates –
something the Sanskrit ancients were somehow aware of sufficiently enough so as
to identify and create words AND a model for the apparently extensive "planes" of
the interpenetrating Stuff.
It can now finally be pointed up that if Stuff
interpenetrates, then it interpenetrates with whatever it interpenetrates. If, for example, so-called dark
energies and multiple dimensions interpenetrate our Matter universe, then this
interpenetrating includes not only physical bodies, nervous systems, and brains – but
innate consciousness capacities, too.
So, in a certain sense, the recent Situations of
interpenetrating discoveries are at least akin to similar interpenetrating
Situations discussed in Sanskrit 3,000 or more years ago.
*
In English, INTERPENETRATE is defined as: "to penetrate between, within, or
throughout; permeate; to penetrate mutually."
In English, PERVADE is defined as: "to become diffused throughout every
part of; to go through, or mutually go through."
In English, PERMEATE is defined as: "to penetrate so as to diffuse through
or throughout; to spread or diffuse through."
*
So, how did English come to have this precise
definition? This a definition that
harks back to Sanskrit times at least 3,000 years ago or more.
Well, it seems that this particular definition was,
in its first instance, associated with the geometry of OPTICS, otherwise known
as the scientific study of light, which got underway at about 1570, and which
was combined with the 1811 discovery of polarization, often referred to as
bi-polarization.
Now, under the scientific
concept (c. 1865) of "Combinations and special collocations," PLANE-POLARIZATION was originally
defined as "of light, so polarized that all the ethereal vibrations take
place
on one plane."
ETHERIAL vibrations?!!! Well, for goodness sakes.
ETHER has several English
definitions, one of which
is given as "A medium that in the undulatory theory of light permeates all
space and transmits transverse waves."
ETHERIAL is also basically
defined as "Immaterial,
impalpable; marked by unusual delicacy and refinement."
11. THE SITUATION INCLUSIVE OF THE INFORMATION
UNIVERSE AND SUPER SENSITIVITY
INFORMATION TRANSFER WITHIN IT
IT IS GENERALLY
understood that the physical senses detect information only within ranges of
their objective, material physical limits. It is then understood that the detected information is
transferred via the nervous systems to the brain – after which conscious
awareness of what has been detected becomes involved one way or another. Thus, the transfer of information via
the physical senses is more or less scientifically understood
However, the super
sensitivity transfer of information is not likewise scientifically understood
for at least two reasons: (1) the
super sensitivities that detect information have not been scientifically
detected; and (2) the information the super sensitivities detect not only
notoriously transcends various objective aspects of matter, energy, space, and
time, but also often "transcends" conscious awareness of whatever information
is involved.
It
is thus to be expected that confusions about the nature of the super sensitivities
and their
transfers of information should come about, and especially so for the following
reasons – i.e., Science has not succeeded in attaining either a complete
model or a science of consciousness, and it seems that Science has missed at
least half the brain in the first place.
*
The modernist
scientific failure to achieve such a model is quite embarrassing, so it is not
generally emphasized or brought to public attention. It was very daring of Roger Penrose (Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Oxford) to intimately discuss the details of
this embarrassing failure in his book entitled SHADOWS OF THE MIND: A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING SCIENCE OF
CONSCIOUSNESS (1969).
The details rendered in
this book are somewhat challenging and will not be reviewed here, but it is
recommended for those brave enough to struggle through it.
A
review of science missing at least half the brain is found in SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN (April, 2004)
under the heading HAS SCIENCE MISSED HALF THE BRAIN - which title should read "Science
HAS missed Half The Brain."
This is a fascinating read.
A brief explanation: It
seems that for every one cell neuron in the brain, there are nine Glial cells
that were once thought merely as providing neurons with "nourishment."
Now
it is being
recognized that Glial cells "may be nearly as critical to thinking and learning
as neurons are" i.e., NINE times more critical.
Exactly
how Glial cells
might be "critical" is not discussed all that much in the article, but they
seem to involve implications to "thinking and learning," all be it
what kind of
such is not discussed in any detail.
Even
so, "thinking and
learning" (and training, too) involve some kind of INFORMATION and INFORMATION
TRANSFERS – this being a particular aspect of super sensitivity activity
that seems to have "gone missing" so far, along with the missing science
of
consciousness and missing than half the brain, too.
So here is yet another Situation that briefly needs
to be dissected.
*
Early psychical and
later parapsychology researchers set up a paradigm, or a basic model, within
which various types of
super sensitivity evidence were looked at as "phenomena" that could
separately
and objectively
be categorized under given verbal identifiers – such as telepathy,
premonition, clairvoyance, psychometry, precognition, ESP, etc.
By using such largely arbitrary verbal categories,
one could intellectually know what one was talking about. Over time, this categorizing verbal
model became so automatic that it was, and still is, difficult to suggest that
it contained at least one important intellectual flaw.
The term PHENOMENON
has several definitions, but the one being used in this context is given
as "a rare or significant fact or
event; an exceptional, unusual, or abnormal occurrence."
The subtle difficulty
here is that such facts, events, or occurrences can be perceived only AFTER
they have manifested, and if
one perceives something only after it has happened then all one can perceive
is
that it happened – and one will be left much in the dark about the
source, cause, about the why and how, it happened.
The term EPIPHENOMENON
is defined as "a secondary
phenomenon accompanied by another and caused by it."
The prefix EPI denotes "upon,
near to, over, outer, before, anterior, after, besides, related to, coming
before in time, preceding."
Therefore and in general, "epiphenomenon" refers to something that precedes
something else, which caused and accompanies that something else, and which
remains
before AND after, as well as upon, near, over, beside, and related to that
something else.
A bit boggling, isn't it, certainly with respect to
the objective senses that perceive physical-material things as they SEEM, at
any given point in TIME.
In any event, when super sensitivity activities are
viewed only within the contexts of the objective-intellectual senses, those
activities can be perceived (AFTER the fact of perceiving them) ONLY as
exceptional, unusual, or abnormal occurrences resulting in a rare or
significant fact or event. That
is, IF the information contents of such turn out as a demonstrable, verifiable
reality.
*
TRANSFER is defined
as "to convey or move from one
person, place, or situation to another."
The Situation with respect
to super sensitivities is that information is transferred from a situation
OUTSIDE of sensing systems
into a situation INSIDE the sensing systems, after which the sensing systems
forward the information to something that can understand it as information – this particular "something" quite
possibly being Consciousness, for
which a science is missing.
No matter how super sensitivities are
intellectually identified by words and concepts that enable placement in
different kinds of categories, all of them share one factor in common. They transfer information from an
outside situation into an inside one.
Telepathy transfers information.
Clairvoyance transfers information
Second Sight transfers information.
Precognition and premonitions transfer information.
Intuition transfers information.
Instinct transfers information.
The Sixth Sense transfers information.
Postcognition transfers information
Remote Viewing transfers information. Etc., Etc.,
Etc.
All of
these (perhaps more yet undiscovered) transfer information, but then there are
two problems yet involved: the
problem of the something that understands whatever information has been
transferred, and the problem of from where it has been transferred.
*
As discussed earlier,
it is increasingly being thought that whatever the universe consists of,
it principally consists of
information through and throughout – and whatever forms are within it are
built upon the information they consist of. This universal state of affairs is being referred to as The
Information Universe.
This is clearly mind-boggling, but there it is, and
detractors of this must argue with the scientific cutting edges examining this
state of universe affairs.
If this is the case, then information exists
whether or not there exist information detecting systems for it.
Information detecting
systems will think, quite obviously so, that the universe consists only of
what they detect – since
what is not detected will have no detectable reality.
So a double sort of confusing question arises as to
what the information universe actually consists of that is or is not being
detected by various kinds of information detecting systems.
As so far established
by cutting edges of various sciences, the information universe consists of
atomic matter and energies, and
of Stuff so far labeled as dark matter, of dark energy, of subtle and exotic
energies, of multiple dimensions, of parallel universes, of holographic
potentials, of entropic Stuff having no specific form, of local and non-local
situations, of time loops, etc – and whatever other Stuff remains
undetected so far.
As so far understood, dark matter may or may not
interpenetrate atomic matter, but all of the rest could, might, or do.
Within all of this Stuff, the percentage of atomic
matter/energy Stuff has now bottomed out as having the lowly status of only
about 4 percent to 7 percent of the actual constitution of the Universe.
All of this is well and good - if a bit dizzying
and confounding to certain types of reluctant reason and logic.
But there is an observation that could be made
about all of this, one that is perhaps somewhat overdue.
This is that human Consciousness does not, even on
average, ACT like it is totally confined within and to the 4-7 percent of
matter.
In some cases, perhaps
admittedly rare, it doesn't
act like it is confined within anything at all – THIS having a certain
similarity to the activities of super sensitivities.
Additionally, even though the five physical
objective senses might seem as if they are confined to perceiving only physical
objectivity, there is increasing scientific evidence that such is not ALL they
detect even within their own categories as conventionalized in the past.
Each topic that has
been discussed in this small section suggests particular future situations
that are likely to be applied
toward comprehending the actual nature of super sensitivities of Consciousness – sensitivities that clearly interpenetrate with information ranging from
the mundane to, so to speak, the Cosmic – whatever the Cosmic is
inclusive of.
It might actually be thought, in the sense of the
Information Universe, anyway, that information interpenetrates everything.
*
Now,
it is
scientifically held that Matter incorporates the "laws" that result
in matter
being matter. It is also held that
the Matter Universe doesn't disobey these "laws." Indeed, if matter disobeyed its own laws, then what would
happen? If, so, matter would
become something other than matter, and who knows where we would be?
Is this not at least
somewhat logical?
As
discussed earlier, it is thought that Stuff such as dark, subtle, and exotic
energies and multiple
dimensions interpenetrate everything, including our Matter, and if such
interpenetrating Stuff followed the "laws" of Matter, then such Stuff
would
become Matter, too.
So
it seems that such
different Stuffs do not follow Matter "laws," making it possible to think that
such Stuffs might have their own "laws" quite different from Matter "laws."
Furthermore, our Matter
Universe is both built upon and is consistent with the Information it embodies.
Thus
arises the question as to what kinds of Information these other interpenetrating
Stuffs
are built upon is consistent with the Information "laws" they embody?
In
our Matter "reality," matter is identified as objects – from
galaxies
down to and including subatomic and subquantum particles.
Space is measured by
the distance between objects.
Energy is identified by
whatever energy is input and output from, between, and into the objects and the
space between them.
Time is measured by
motions of objects relevant to each other.
The
recently discovered Stuff that interpenetrates our local matter, energy,
space, and time cannot be
consistent with the law-like information that makes up any of these Matter
phenomena – because if such Stuffs were consistent with the law-like
information of Matter, the Stuffs could not interpenetrate and probably would
tend toward becoming Matter.
Insofar
as this author has been able to discover, there seems to be no great scientific
revelation as
to whether the different kinds of recently discovered interpenetrating Stuff
contains, embodies, or carries their own kinds of Information – or how
such Information is within the contexts of their interpenetrating.
However,
in that the interpenetrating Stuffs interpenetrate the substance, information,
and "laws"
of our Matter realities, it might be presumed that the interpenetrating Stuffs
have their own "laws" that transcend those of Matter and all of its
substantive
constituents.
*
Advancing
Information Theory postulates that all Information in the interpenetrating
Information
Universe is everywhere available – even if detectors appropriate for
detecting it are NOT available – or, put another way, even if appropriate
sensing systems are not available.
If information is not sensed-detected, then no one is the wiser that it
exists in the Information Universe.
So
it is possible, say, for given bio-consciousness organisms to have sense-detectors
for certain kinds
of information, but not for other kinds of it, after which the perceived "realities" of
such organisms will correspond only to what is sensed-detected.
It
must then follow that if the human species is innately possessed only of
Matter
sensing-detecting systems, perceived "realities" will then be confined to and
correspond with Matter and its various phenomena, the "laws" of which
do not
transcend anything.
*
But
the Situational problem involved with all of this is that the human species
is apparently
possessed of sensing-detecting systems other than the Matter detecting ones – sensing-detecting systems that interact with Information that
transcends the limits of the Objective- Matter-Only "realities."
As
already briefly discussed, in Sanskrit these transcending sensing-detecting
systems are
generically discussed as the "Intuitional Part of Man." This "Part" can and does interact with
the infinitely interpenetrating "Intuitional Plane" in which all Information
is
available all of the time.
Among
others, ancient
Greek, Latin, Chinese, and (somewhat) Egyptian also had nomenclature
equivalents for "Intuitional Plane," as do several American Indian
languages.
However,
these ancient
nomenclature equivalents will not be reiterated here – because they are
yet too scientifically sensitive, which is to say, too upsetting to basic
scientific thought yet reeling from implications of the now discovered
interpenetrating Stuffs.
In
the discussions just above, it might not be noticeable that we have glided
past a quite important
Situational question – discussions of which will be undertaken just
ahead.
12. A SITUATIONAL "MISSING
LINK" IN
COMPREHENDING THE REAL EXISTENCE
OF SUPER SENSITIVITIES
THE IMPORTANT Situational question referred to
above might be phrased as follows:
How in any given time period do specimens of the human species begin to
become aware of the existence of super sensitivities in addition to their
physical, mundane, objective ones?
Having searched high and low for about five
decades, this author has not been able to discover any source in which this
significant question has been discussed or even mentioned.
So, in the absence of any supportive source, it
seems the better part of valor is simply to TRY to initiate the required
discussion - even if more or less hypothetically.
*
It seems that reasonably
conscious people become
aware of what they experience – in that if they don't become consciously
aware then they can't claim to have experienced anything.
Of course, one can become intellectually aware of
the existence of something without having actually experienced it. Thus, one can become intellectually
aware of the existence of super sensitivities without actually having
experienced any of them.
Thus, we might think in terms of prime actual
self-experiencing of the real thing, so to speak, and secondary intellectual
experiencing via what one has been able to hear or read about. In other words, prime actual
experiencing is not the same as secondary intellectual experiencing – and,
for that matter, never has been and never will be.
In order to get the
meat of this across, it is necessary to pick a particular poignant example
of prime actual experiencing
and discuss it in some detail – an example that has a tremendously long
tradition even in antiquity, and examples of which are still happening today.
For example, one is contentedly walking along a
narrow mountain path admiring the surrounding scenic wonders. One's physical body suddenly stops
walking, the legs take a few steps backward. There has been no cognitive volitional decision to do this – one
wonders why - if one has time to do so - because
Without any perceptible hint of forewarning, the
path ahead immediately falls away in a thunderous landslide.
Legs now quivering, one cautiously creeps forward,
and, with some elevated degree of mind-numbing amazement, peers over the edge
and objectively views where one's mangled body would objectively have been.
Then, as soon as one can reach the mountain lodge,
one consumes at least three martinis while breathing heavily.
Tales of this spontaneous, unpremeditated,
unpredicted event are then incredulously told, retold, and often recorded, even
including the involuntary stopping and the involuntary backward stepping that
no one can understand the what, why, or how of.
Prime experiencing, right? And of a type that has a very long
history, especially in situations when this type was useful and needed.
*
Let us now TRY to consider what was basically
necessary for this to happen.
First of all, one's volitional cognitive awareness
factors seem clearly not to have been involved.
So it was, shall we say, some other
sensing-detecting system perceived that the path, cliff, and mountainside were
going to collapse a few seconds ahead in time.
To this other sensing-detecting system, the few
seconds ahead in time represented calamitous DANGER.
This other sensing-detecting system perceived that
there was not time to try to trigger even a slightly awareness premonition into
the cognitive activities happily in charge of moving forward while enjoying the
scenery.
So, this other sensing-detecting
system simply commandeered the physical brain's motor cortex which then stopped
the
volitional walking and executed the involuntary backward stepping – all
in a day's work, perhaps. After
which the astonished volitional cognitive systems needed the three martinis,
and perhaps six more.
*
Archaic peoples and the ancients that followed them
probably did not know of the existence of the motor cortex.
But when it came to prime experiencing such things,
they probably had the cognitive powers to recognize the difference between
events like this and the more limited physical objective senses that do not
transcend time even a few seconds ahead during which extreme dangers can come
out of nowhere.
You see, this kind of prime experiencing saved
lives, whereas the mere physical objective senses might not likewise be as
dependable.
*
This author has met hundreds and hundreds of people
who have experienced exactly something like this, and lived to talk about it.
Yet, no parapsychological term has been assigned to
it. The only official
documentation for it consists of interviewing those who have undergone
different kinds of such prime experiencing.
When it is necessary to refer to it via a word, the
term INSTINCT is usually seized upon.
But "instinct" has not officially been accepted as
a super sensitivity parapsychology construct, because it is not seen as having
any "Para" implications.
You see, INSTINCT is
simply defined as "a complex
and specific response of an organism to environmental stimuli that is largely
hereditary and unalterable, does not involve reason, and has as its goal the
removal of somatic tension" - such as, presumably, somatic tensions arising
because of sensing danger present or ahead.
Sensing such most certainly will result in somatic
tensions.
Well, who is to say that instincts do not involve
their own kinds of reason? And who
is to say that prime super sensitivity experiencing is NOT the result of some
kind of reasoning, a kind of reasoning that can act independently of whatever
is passing for mere intellectual reasoning?
And who is to say that the brain's motor cortex
itself does not have its own versions of reason?
We thus arrive at considerations
of the "missing
link" which, it is thought, with respect to super sensitivities – i.e.,
the brain's motor cortexes are entirely responsible for any and all motions of
the organism, even the motions of thought processes no matter what they consist
of, including all information transfer systems.
13. THE DOUBLE SITUATION OF (1) SOCIAL DESENTIZING
OF SUPER SENSITIVITY INFORMATION TRANSFERS,
AND (2) THE ABSENCE OF AWARENESS 101
IN THAT INSTINCT "does not involve reason," it
could not be thought of belonging to PSYCHOLOGY generally defined as "the
study of mind, mental or behavioral characteristics in general, and the study
of mind
and behavior associated with particular types of reason."
Even so, if instinct does not involve reason, it
can be wondered how it could detect and reasonably recognize forthcoming danger
a few moments into the future.
In the same sense, it is can easily be observed
that psychological reason is somewhat infamous for failing to detect danger in
the here and now, just ahead, or farther ahead into the future.
In any event, INSTINCT
was not included in the lexicon of parapsychology studies because it was
thought not to involve reason,
while certain super sensitivities thought to involve psychological reason were
included – such as telepathy, clairvoyance, premonitions, etc., which
were assumed to consist of extraordinary reasoning functions of mind and its
mental processes.
Do note that REASON is defined as: "mental computation; to calculate,
to
think; the power of comprehending or inferring especially in orderly rational
ways; the sum of intellectual powers."
Yes, indeed.
*
As earlier discussed
in section 2 entitled "Some
Old Situations," super sensitivities have a longish history of not being
socially wanted or approved.
One basic reason for this is that most societal
groups function on shared average, normal, or mundane sensitivities usually of
the objective kind. Thus, it would
be quite obvious that efficient super sensitivities might give numerous
advantages in those types of social contexts within which access to such
advantages are prized and jealously guarded.
After all, efficient mind reading and predictive
foreseeing would obviously muck up any number of mundane or secretive goals,
plans, plots, machinations, etc., while even halfway efficient instinct,
gut-feelings, intuition, inspired deduction, or even a smattering of wisdom
would also be problematical.
It is thus that societies might become somewhat or
even very intolerant of attempts to broadly enhance super sensitivity
functioning, even though spontaneous eruptions of them occur among its general
populations.
Since it is difficult to prevent such kinds of
spontaneous eruptions, about the only general way of containing, so to speak,
the issues involved is to envelope within social ways and means for
discrediting, discouraging, and desensitizing awareness interest in them.
*
Nothing about the various kinds of super
sensitivities is really real to individuals unless they first self-experience
and attain awareness of their existence, the type of awareness that invokes
experiencing that results in becoming conscious of whatever is involved.
This is to suggest that
conscious experience of something is first preceded by some kind of subtle-to-stronger
awareness, and
also to suggest that if such awareness does not take place, then nothing
happens, and no one is any the wiser – excepting the known fact that
super sensitive phenomena often appear in dream, hypnotic, altered states, and
spontaneous super sensitive events.
In most societal collectives and their systems, and
according to their stabilizing and principles and other social control
whatnots, one is encouraged to be aware of what one is SUPPOSED to be aware of,
and furthermore, if social controls are to be and remain workable, one should
not become aware of what one is NOT supposed to be aware of.
It is thus that most evolve and imprint not only
somewhat precise mind maps containing what they are supposed to be aware of,
but also evolve at least rough mind maps of what they are not supposed to be
aware of.
This to say that most become SENSITIZED, via social
reinforcement, to what they are supposed to be aware of, and at least roughly
discouraged and DESENSITIZED, via social intolerance, with respect to what they
are not supposed to be aware of.
In conditions like this, the worst thing in the
world is to ask people what they have actually become or are aware of, especially
if smatterings of super sensitivities are involved.
It is not surprising, therefore, that studies of
awareness and potential awareness are few and far between, and that what might
be called Complete Awareness 101, or even mere Awareness 101, is absent just
about everywhere. There is no
encyclopedia itemizing either the scope of awareness magnitudes of our species
or the innate capacities within consciousness that make such magnitudes
possible.
*
It does turn out, however,
that so-called "archaic" peoples, living and trying to obtain their
life-support needs within the dangerous vicissitudes of Natural environments
did tend to encourage
enhancement of awareness, instincts, intuitions, etc., including various kinds
of super sensitivities.
So-called "civilized" people
don't need to do much of this kind of thing, because life-support elements
are more easily at hand,
and thus mere objective experiencing stands them in good stead, more or less
anyway, depending on their social strata positions.
It is quite well known to anthropologists that
peoples depending on Nature for their life-support needs encourage the
development and enhancement of higher and more extensive levels of awareness,
because Nature beautiful and wonderful is also fraught with serious dangers to
life and limb.
Archaic (i.e., pre-civilized) peoples did not have
our present vocabulary for super sensitivities. But what we refer to as developed instinct rated very
highly, as did extensive awareness enhancement, up to and including their versions
of telepathy over distance, certain pro-survival clairvoyant capacities, higher
quality premonitions, and possibly enhancement of infrared and ultra violet
sensing, and, of course, awareness of various kinds of other intuitions.
This suggests that archaic
societies quite probably did have some kind of Awareness 101 tutoring in
mind – or, as perhaps
better said, Appreciation of Awareness Potentials 101.
AWARE is principally
defined as "to be wary," but
the "archaic" definition is given as "watchful." More modern definitions are given as "having or showing
perception, realization, or knowledge."
Synonyms are given as COGNIZANT, CONSCIOUS OF,
SENSIBLE, ALIVE, AWAKE.
As found in Webster's
International dated 1966, in
the contexts of being aware, AWAKE "implies that one has become alive to
something and is on the alert."
SENSIBLE "implies direct or intuitive perceiving, especially of
intangibles or of emotional states or qualities." ALIVE "adds to SENSIBLE the implication of acute sensitivity
of something."
However, Webster's 1966
does not point up that these SAME awareness definitions were being utilized
and worked with in
Sanskrit 3,000 or more years ago – Sanskrit Awareness 101?
14. THE RELATIONSHIP OF INNATE SUPER SENSITIVITES
TO TEACH-LEARN-TRAIN SITUATIONS
SO, WE HAVE words denoting
certain kinds or types
of super sensitivities – such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition,
etc.
Because the words have been brought into existence,
and because they have established definitions, it is generally assumed, by
utilizing the words-plus-definitions, that it is understood what is being
talked about.
Thus, for example, the
definition of TELEPATHY is
mind-to-mind "mind reading."
CLAIRVOYANCE – "the
professed power of
discerning objects not present to the physical senses."
PRECOGNITION – "having
clairvoyant cognition relating to a future event or situation that has not
yet occurred."
Additionally, these
and other parapsychology terms
are referred to as "abilities."
Thereafter, teach-learn-train procedures depend on
or proceed from the intellectual frameworks established by such
terms-definitions, and the whole of this seems to make perfect intellectual
sense having no flaws because we do know what we are talking about.
*
Well, as with just about everything else that is
more or less JUST intellectual, it follows that teach-learn procedures can and
do emulate such intellectualized frameworks, and so the intellectualized
information transferred from teach to learn can be perfectly understood, again
with the idea we know what we are talking about.
But subtle problems
begin to be recognizable when
it comes to TRAINING of the alleged "abilities."
For starters, it can
be thought that IF the intellectualized frameworks were, say, ENTIRELY workable,
then efficient and
vigorous activation of super sensitivity training would have manifested some
time ago – producing thousands of all kinds of efficient super
sensitivity experts and workers.
It must clearly be pointed out that the above
musing is not at all intended to demean any attempts to enhance super
sensitivity processes, because ANY attempts to do so are seriously better than
none at all. After all, it is the
super sensitivity heritage of our species that is involved, and any attempts at
such enhancing should be properly appreciated in this specific sense.
So with respect to any attempts of such kind, it
can be said that what works does work, to the degree such can be seen to
work. And in this sense, we can
learn as much from failed attempts as successful ones.
However, the point under discussion here is not (in
any criticizing manner) directed at real or alleged super sensitivity training
attempts. Instead the point is
directed to the possibility that mere intellectualized understanding is quite
different from more profound experiential understanding.
In this sense, in all
fields of human activity it
is easily demonstrated that "book" or "armchair" learning is quite different
from direct experiential learning – i.e., direct experiencing in the open
field of experiencing.
So, two questions can now be posed, the first of
which is: Does efficient super
sensitivity training mostly emerge from "book" and "armchair" learning,
or
would such training more emerge from direct experiencing of super sensitivities
themselves?
The second question might ask if the
word-definitions of the various super sensitivities actually and accurately
reflect the intimate processes involved, and some of which remain decidedly
unidentified?
There are partial answers to these two questions,
and all of such answers depend on WHAT is trainable. E.g., would one be training
words-plus-definitions-plus-intellectualizing concepts; or, would one be
training direct super sensitivity experiencing?
After all, the relationship of our super
sensitivities to the teach-learn-train thing DOES NOT so much depend on what
can be taught-learning, but on WHAT in general CAN be trained.
There is a subtle Situational
problem involved here – in that it is generally assumed that learning
and training equate to
the same thing.
However, learning consists
only of learning, but
training consists of applied learning plus direct experiencing – APPLY being defined as "to put to
use,
especially for some practical purpose."
If, however, super sensitivity learning is not
meant to be applied, then training efforts are not applicable, right?
*
It is always useful to clarify the definitions of
terms when attempting to write about them, especially in the contexts of super
sensitivity discussions. Such is
the case with the words to TEACH, to LEARN, and to TRAIN, the more precise
functions of which often become confused with each other.
TEACH is taken from
the Medieval English TECHEN
meaning "to show," but the modern definitions are "to cause to
know a subject; to cause to know; to impart the knowledge of; to instruct by
precept, example,
or experience."
LEARN is defined as "to
gain knowledge or understanding or skill in by study, instruction or experience;
to come to be
able to; to come to realize."
TRAIN is defined as "to
direct growth of; to form by instruction, discipline or drill; to teach so
as to be fitted, qualified, or
proficient; to make prepared for a test or performance of a skill."
*
It is obvious that the contexts of these three
terms are interactive, but subtle differences between them do exist.
The central context of TEACH is simply to instruct.
The central context of LEARN is simply to be
instructed whether by others or by oneself.
The central context
of TRAIN is to make proficiently prepared by directing (via instruction,
discipline, and drill) the
GROWTH or UNFOLDMENT of potential activity."
Aside from the definition
of "a stage in the
process of growing, the central context of GROWTH is "progressive development
as in emergence, evolution, increase, or expansion."
*
The teacher-learner relationship is wonderful, of
course, especially if teacher is proficient and learner is interested, so there
is much to be said of that relationship.
But there is always the matter of what is being taught and what is being
learned.
It can be mentioned,
as many have done, that just
about anything can be taught and learned – including, as it must be said,
misconceptions, "facts" not based on facts, suppositions, speculations,
assumptions, all sorts of falsities, and etc.
Such can be taught without
either teacher or learner being the wiser, and sometimes not having any recognition
that what is
taught and what is learned do not produce the phenomena of any kind of "growth."
In other words, such
teachings as these have their
own contexts and always yield those same contexts – until it is
recognized that they are, as it is said, "the mothers of all fuck-ups."
There are, of course,
teachings that result in
better and more knowing, showings, and learnings – some such teachings
perhaps not resulting in too much growth of anything, but rather resulting in
rote application of the learned knowing with little growth beyond what has been
learned.
For example, a mere unfounded opinion can be taught
and learned; a theory (which at first is also mere opinion based on
supposition, etc.) can be taught after which both teacher and learner might
tend to think of themselves as learned; an idea, whether fruitful or not, can
be taught; a falsity, whether recognized as such or not, can be taught; prejudices
can be taught/learned; etc, and ad infinitum.
*
The teacher-learner relationship seems to be a
dynamic factor innate in our species, and when that important relationship does
work and bear positive fruit it is absolutely terrific.
It is possible to think
that in the absence of the innate teacher-learner function, everyone would
have to figure out everything
for themselves – perhaps including toilet training. As it is, however, the teacher-learner
relationship automatically commences everywhere our species is found.
But this statement must be slightly qualified, in
that this teach-learn-train concept usually automatically commences in
relationship to becoming conscious of physically objective realities, based on
the physical senses and, as has been discussed, modernist concepts of
consciousness do exclusively relate it to perception of physical objects.
This is to say that consciousness is based on
awareness-cum-perception of material objects - i.e., Matter-Only things and
stuff.
However, super sensitivity types of consciousness
involve other kinds of awareness-perceptions that imply the existence of
consciousness without an object.
(NOTE: This author has
discovered only one extensive modern philosophic treatment of this in THE
PHILOSOPHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT AN OBJECT by Franklin Merrell-Wolff, first
published in 1923, reissued by Julian Press in 1973.)
So the now probable
existence of awareness-consciousness not based on objects opens a door onto
the subtle, but
significant, vista of all kinds of super sensitivities not exactly explainable
in Matter-Only terms – not only involving super sensitive awareness of
ghosts which can't quite be considered or explained as Matter-Only – but
which subtle super sensitivities, if enhanced, might be inconvenient to
awareness-consciousness based on Matter-Only objects.
In any event, teach-learn-train
processes are quite identifiable with respect to objective matter realities,
largely because it is
usually understood WHAT can be trained – such as intelligence
experientially operating within the contexts of this or that kind of physical
matter.
However, when it comes to super sensitivities that
transcend objective matter realities, teach-learn can intellectually convey
what has been learned, or thought to be learned, about them.
But the TRAINING aspect is not understood (in
general that is), because whatever is involved has long been assumed to involve
intelligence experientially operating within contexts other than those of
objective physical matter.
So, is that assumption entirely correct?
15. THE RELATIONSHIP OF TEACH-LEARN-TRAIN
TO THE BRAIN'S INNATE MOTOR CORTEX
LEARNING ABOUT the motor cortex of the brain is
probably not very high on everyone's reading agenda. So something resembling a suggestive reason to take interest
in the matter needs to be established.
We will begin by referring
back to the incident of walking along a mountain path, body stopping, legs
moving backward, cliff
collapsing in a tremendous avalanche, life saved – all of which took place
WITHOUT volitional conscious reason or explanation. Thousands of similar events exist in various literatures.
These events are understood as having occurred via
non-conscious intuition, non-conscious gut-feeling, non-conscious instinct,
etc.
The events are, after the fact, intellectually
quite appreciated as such, as some kind of extraordinary events.
But one important factor
is seldom, if ever,
discussed – why the body was stopped without a trace of volitional
reason, why the legs stepped backward, also without conscious reason. Indeed, none of the several factors
operational in various kinds of similar of events were accompanied by conscious
reason.
In other words, this
entire event was totally involuntary, taking place beneath, above, or outside
of conscious perceptions
and reason – and none of which is explainable, except particular one
factor.
No biophysical motion, whether voluntary or
involuntary, takes place without motor cortex activity.
*
In the biological sense,
MOTOR is basically defined
as "Something that causes or imparts motion;
of, or
relating to, or being a nerve fiber that passes from the central nervous system
or a ganglion to a muscle and conducts an impulse that causes movement;
also, a motorneuron, a nerve cell with its
processes;
a muscle designed to move a particular part of the
animal frame;
a nerve whose function
is to excite muscular
activity in a particular part of the animal body."
Prior to about 1800,
it was generally thought that
the muscles themselves supplied their own "muscular energy" so as to
result in
their motions.
At about 1808, it was
being held that "In every
motion, there must always be a number of muscles employed, some as motors, some
as directors, some as moderators."
However, by about 1899,
motor-motion seems to have
taken on, shall we say, a "mental" aspect – for example, "If
we think of a ball, this idea must comprise the images of these muscular sensations,
as it
comprises the images of sight and touch.
"Such is the motor
image. Also, by making reading and writing proceed together, the
two memories, visual and motor, are constrained to associate and to aid one
another."
In 1900, it was announced
(in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF
PSYCHOLOGY, April, XI, 210) that "Motor phenomena are now regarded as necessary
in all mental processes."
In 1903, the THE AMERICAN
NATURALIST (March,
XXXVII, 207) indicated that "To whatever sense the stimulus is given, the
impulse has to go to the motor-image centers, and then to the muscles."
At some point this author
has not yet been able accurately to determine, but probably about 1924, it
was either discovered or
decided that the "motor-image centers" resided in what then became termed as
the "motor cortex."
Also during the 1920s,
a general Map of the Brain
was produced by "a French woman" (whose name has not yet been discovered
by
this author).
This Map seems to have
endured – until quite
recently.
In any event, the physical placement of the motor
cortex is situated at the top of the brain. The motor cortical areas are now typically divided into
three regions that have different functional roles: The Primary Motor Cortex (M1); the Premotor Areas (PMA); and
the Supplementary Motor Area (SMA).
The purpose of M1 is to connect the brain to the
lower motor neurons via the spinal cord in order to tell them which particular
muscles need to contract. These M1
upper motor neurons are found in layer 5 of the motor cortex and contain some
of the largest cells in the brain.
(If one is interested, Map diagrams of the physical brain are easily available.)
It has, however, proven difficult to locate
anything like an elegant definition of the motor cortex composed of 200 words
or less.
It is usually pointed
up as "The region that is
mainly involved with motor functions," after which discussions descend into
describing its internal physical details and minutia for which physical
evidence is identifiable.
The entire brain is also described along such
physical lines, i.e., how areas of the brain physically act or react to
objective information fed into it via the five objective physical senses.
This is completely in accord with the Matter-Only
thing, and so activities associated with super sensitivities that seem to
transcend matter, space, energy, and time have not scientifically been looked
for.
NOTE:
Excepting, of course, the recent and now ongoing discoveries of premotor
cortex involvement with mind-to-mind sensing of others' intentions and motives – in
that intentions and motives hardly fall into any completely
neurophysical category.
*
This Map Situation,
however, is undergoing change – because it seems that cutting edge
research of the brain is rendering the old map/model of the brain more or
less obsolete.
For example, the physical brain was once the
exclusive territory of neurobiologists.
These must now move
over a bit so as to include
what are being called "3D brain mappers and cartographers" who scan
brains via all sorts of imaging devices, and are thus busy attempting to create
the most
detailed and sophisticated computer brain-atlas ever assembled.
In December 2001, BBC News interviewed Arthur Toga,
director of the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of California
(UCLA), who complained (here somewhat paraphrased): That the old brain-map that has served as a model for the
billions of brains on the planet has been inappropriate in terms of
representing the entire human population;
That the old brain-map was mostly an physical
anatomical one, so the fuller scope of its functions have not been mapped in
any comprehensive way;
That brains may be anatomically similar in general,
but individually their functions vary in accord with genetic inheritance and
other factors;
And that no one yet
has been able to identify what
a "normal" brain should look like.
*
Troubles with the old brain-map have also arisen
elsewhere in other types of research.
For example, it was
once thought that since the
brain is divided according to its anatomical "regions," that each of
such parts
and activities had a separate identifiable function.
MRI and Positron Emission
Tomography (PET) scanning have recently indicated that when the brain is
in this or that kind of
activity, not just parts but ALL of its regions light up more or less like
fireworks in the night sky, as if scads of "information messages" were
being
exchanged among the regions with great velocity. (See the article entitled SPREADING CONSCIOUSNESS: AWARENESS GOES GLOBAL IN THE BRAIN, by
Bruce Bower in SCIENCE NEWS, October 19, 2002.)
The September 29, 2001 issue of SCIENCE NEWS
featured an article (by Bruce Bower) entitled JOINED AT THE SENSES: PERCEPTION MAY FEAST ON A SENSORY STEW,
NOT A FIVE-SENSE BUFFET. This
article basically discusses evidence that helps explain one of the fundamental
mysteries of the brain – i.e., how it unites separate sensations into
multifaceted experiences.
So, on-going research of these kinds seem to imply
that progress is being made with respect to identifying all sorts of functions
of the brain. And indeed is seems
that progress is being made in discovering what has NOT been known about it.
As already mention, in its April 2004 issue, the
venerable SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN featured a lead article (by R. Douglas Fields)
entitled HAS SCIENCE MISSED HALF OF THE BRAIN? NEGLECTED CELLS HOLD KEYS TO THOUGHT AND LEARNING.
This article discusses
the topic of "Mounting
evidence suggesting that Glial cells, overlooked for half a century, may be
nearly as critical to thinking and learning as neurons are." In the past, Glial cells, even though
out-numbering neural cells nine to one, were thought to have only a maintenance
role, such as bringing nutrients to neurons, maintaining a healthy balance of
ions in the brain, and so forth.
It has now been discovered that Glia influence the
formation of synapses and help to determine which neural connections get
stronger or weaker over time, such changes being essential to learning and to
storing long-term memories.
Research along these
lines has begun to show that Glial cells also communicate among themselves
in a separate but parallel network
to the neural network – which is tantamount to being ANOTHER brain inside
the neural network one.
So, although yet cautious, neuroscientists are
excited by the prospect that more than half the brain that has gone largely
unexplored may contain a trove of information about how the entire brain
actually works.
To remind AGAIN, interlocked
within all of the above advancing discoveries, were also the discoveries
of mirror "telepathic" neurons in the premotor cortex.
Meanwhile, while all
of the above discoveries developed, certain neuro scientists have recently
embellished on the discovery
of "The OTHER Brain, the One With Butterflies."
According to THE NEW
YORK TIMES (23August2005),
this is "the brain in your gut."
So, the human body has two brains, "the one at the top of the spinal
cord and the hidden but powerful brain in the gut known as the enteric nervous
system." This article includes, in
glorious color, a cut-away anatomical diagram of the gut.
The TIMES article more or less focuses on physical
(and some psychological) situations and difficulties that might occur between
the two brains. But in the
contexts of this Situational paper, it can be noted that the rather famous "gut-feelings" involving
premonitions, instincts, and presentiments, etc., have
a long human history.
Most of the advancing research efforts briefly
discussed above are still quite locked into focusing only on anatomical
physical phenomena, and don't seem quite ready to include experiential super
sensory functioning. So "more-than-half" of human experiencing
functions are still being missed, i.e., those functionable aspects relative to
information that transcends mere physical, objective perceptions.
But it is somewhat obvious that many of the old
realities about brains are in process of being turned upside down.
However, most of the old concepts about the motor
cortex are still holding water, and especially two of them as already
mentioned.
*
Returning to the motor cortex, as a brain part, it
is located at the very top of the brain and, deeply embedded downward within
it, is the region mainly involved with motor functions in which precise
muscle-moving signals originate.
Just in front of this
primary cortex is the
premotor cortex, the primary "receiving" area for detected incoming signals,
and for initiating and sequencing movements - and which is also associated with
"higher intellectual functions," especially those associated with "planning
and
intention." (This is the principal
area in which the apparently innate mirror (telepathic) neurons have recently
been discovered.)
It is generally appreciated
that the importance of the motor cortexes cannot be over estimated, in that
if they don't work, then
nothing else does either - even though elsewhere in the general nervous systems
neural detectors-receptors are busy enough initiating "waves of excitation" that
remain undetected by the two cortexes.
Likewise, it seems that
although the motor cortexes might have different kinds of innate capacities,
some of these kinds might not
become awakened or activated – which is the same as saying that they are
not working. And even if awakened
or activated, they might not have pierced through the veil of cognitive
unawareness.
*
The motor cortexes are definitely innately and
diversely hardwired to deal with the enormous varieties of stimuli and
resulting waves of excitation provided by the five physical sensing
organs. The "kingdom" of
these five is, of course, the objective physical material universe, but only
insofar
as the detecting limits of the five permit.
It is thus that tremendously
strong general and
special perceptual responsive learning "programs" are developed within
the motor cortexes, programs based exclusively on physical stimuli (whatever
these
consist of in different environments.)
E.g., learning to walk,
talk in different languages, skillfully and automatically managing computer
keyboards with all
ten fingers, riding bicycles without thinking about it, etc., all of which
require at least the equivalent of some kind motor-skill training - but most
of which might not require all that much intelligence, because after all
everyone
can perceive and interpret the Here & Now physicality in more or less equal
playing field ways, and which perceiving does not require the introduction of
all that much super sensitivity.
So, it is possible to
end up with very strong motor cortex perceptions and interpretations of OBJECTIVE
PHYSICALITY via the famous
five sensory organs – and not much else, even though the motor cortexes
might also be innately hardwired for dealing with other kinds of perceiving,
say, super sensitivity perceiving.
So, properly outfitted with matter-only
perceptions, one can be walking along and just about to cross a bridge or
something of the kind, and suddenly experiences a compelling premonition to
stop walking. One stops walking
without conscious reasons for doing so.
During this involuntary
stop walking pause, the
bridge, or whatever, then collapses – even though there was no
consciously perceived apparent physical, objective, Here & Now reason for
it to do so.
*
So, the situational question here has to do with
what DID perceive the collapse of the bridge (or mountain side) BEFORE it did
collapse, and after pulling off this non-conscious bit of wonderment, what involuntarily
MOVED the body backward.
It certainly seems that "something" was
perceiving ahead in time, perceived the forthcoming danger, put two and two
together via
some kind of non-conscious thinking, and galvanized the processes of the motor
cortex systems to move somewhere outside the perceived, forthcoming danger
zone.
As already elaborated, there are multitudes of
historical examples of this kind of spontaneous event, and so it is almost an
equal bit of wonderment as to why involuntary movement that takes the objective
body out of harm's way has not been researched, and especially so in
parapsychology.
About the only clue to all of this is found in the
following two early statements about the motor cortex:
MOTOR PHENOMENA ARE REGARDED AS NECESSARY IN ALL
MENTAL PROCESSES.
WHATEVER SENSE THE STIMULUS IS GIVEN, THE IMPULSE
HAS TO GO TO THE MOTOR-IMAGE CENTERS.
At the time these two motor cortex provisos were
formulated, they obviously referred to objective physical stimuli that
transferred objective information to the motor cortex that forwarded such to
the brain's associative areas, and then into the conscious cognitive areas of
the brain.
But if these two motor cortex provisos can be
interpreted as including super sensitivity stimuli-impulses resulting in super
sensitivity information transfers, then the two provisos equally apply to
objective and super sensitivity information transfers.
Which is again to say that without motor cortex
involvement and participation, nothing can be perceived consciously or
otherwise to happen, and therefore nothing can be experienced, nothing can be
taught, learned, or trained.
16. THE SITUATIONAL QUESTION OF WHETHER
OR NOT THE INNATE MOTOR CORTEX
CAN DIRECTLY AND "MENTALLY" INTERACT WITH
SUPER SENSITIVITY INFORMATION
IN CLOSING this Situational
Paper, it is now
necessary to TRY to discuss the "mental" aspects of the brain's rather
complicated motor cortexes. Basic
information about those cortexes can rather massively be found by consulting
appropriate neurological textbooks and in Internet sources.
In order to TRY to get into this situational
question, there is the question of what is meant by the term MENTAL.
For about 200 years,
perhaps a bit more, that term has, in English, almost exclusively come to
refer to whatever is psychological
and outside the scale of given situations characterized, it is thought, by (get
this!) "normality."
In turn, NORMAL is defined
as "according to,
constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle."
NORM refers to "a
pattern or trait taken to be typical in the behavior of a social group; an
authoritative standard."
However, MENTAL is principally
defined as "occurring or experienced in the mind" – such
as THINKING in the awake
conscious state of doing so.
THINK has a number of definitions that describe
different kinds of thought-experiencing that go on in the mind.
The scope of most of these THINK definitions are
reflected in a sort of confused and intellectually messy grab bag containing
the term's given synonyms - such as CONCEIVE, IMAGINE, FANCY, REALIZE,
ENVISAGE, COGITATE, REFLECT, REASON, DELIBERATE, SPECULATE, FANTASIZE,
THEORIZE, SPECULATE, etc.
However, the most basic
definition of THINK has to
do with "attainment of clear ideas or conclusions," and in the light of this
definition most of the given synonyms might not actually qualify as
"think." But the synonyms
do
suggest much "think" that needs to be desensitized in order to achieve this or
that condition of "typical mental behavior of a normalized social group."
*
If the capacity potentials for super sensitivities
are innate, such may spontaneously be experienced only in the contexts of
special real circumstances, especially the spontaneous kinds that result in
saving lives.
However, the term THINK
is not applied to such cases, probably because such spontaneous experiencing
is commonly understood as
not being based on thinking that is understood mostly to take place via
cognitive processes of the awake mind – which, if not out to lunch
altogether, is busily at work trying to apply reason to whatever is being
thought about.
Even so, when one is
spontaneously saved from avalanches, collapsing bridges, or mine fields in
war, "something" outside of
conscious reason has gained the necessary "attainment of clear ideas or conclusions" that
activated the otherwise unexplainable saving sequence.
*
In any event, why and
how "attainment of clear
ideas or conclusions" is achieved is hardly ever discussed with reference
to
verifiable super sensitivity activities.
But it doesn't take
a rocket scientist to realize that it is achieved via processing of information
either in the non-conscious
parts of the brain, or in non-conscious capacities of Consciousness itself, or
at least somewhere in human neurological systems (discovered or yet
undiscovered) that can pull off the necessary "attainment," even if
conscious
reasoning is not conscious of such.
Now, nothing can do
anything unless it has
capacities to do so – this being the case both with (1) creating
artificial intelligence mechanisms into which information-processing capacities
have been hardwired, and (2) as well as with any biological organism that has,
hopefully, modicums of hardwired capacities to do so.
With respect to information
acquired via super sensitivity processes, the ever-so-important bottom line
points to hardwired
capacities for processing information, in the absence of which such information
would not get processed – with the logical fallout that no one is the
wiser about such unprocessed information, but might be dead in an avalanche,
etc.
*
A rather laborious effort has been made in this
document to substantiate that specimens of the human species often EXPERIENCE
various kinds of spontaneous super sensitivity events, generically referred to
as premonitions, intuitions, or instincts that are experienced even though the
THINK mechanisms of conscious reason has not been involved.
The why and how of these experiencing events cannot
be explained by depending on the physical senses or by objective reason-logic
based on them.
So when the why and how of the super sensitivity
event ultimately proves correct, there is no real way to explain anything.
We shall now begin modifying the above sentence so
as to state it in a slightly different ways.
When the information of the super sensitivity event
ultimately proves correct, about the only explanation possible is that there
exist capacities for sensing information that is not sensed by our objective
physical senses or by reason-logic based on them.
There are three specific factors to be considered
here:
(1)
When the physical motor systems of the body involuntarily move
the body out of harm's way before it is consciously realized that such has
actually taken place, it should be obvious -
(2)
That sensing systems transcending the physical ones have
processed relevant information and "attained clear ideas and conclusions" about
it, and -
(3)
Then DONE something about it, including preempting the brain's
central motor systems (even though this usually leaves one's "mind" in
an
astonished and confused flutter.)
In other words, the
conscious "mind" is not the
only aspect of human capacities that processes information, in that it seems
quite clear that the motor cortex is involved in interacting with information
the conscious "mind" is not processing.
*
So in the contexts of
verifiable super sensitivity
experiencing and activity, there must exist –
Capacities (largely
unidentified) that process information in ways that transcend (or transgress)
the known "laws" of matter,
energy, space, and time as objectively seen in the material realms;
Capacities of awareness
that undercut objective,
conscious awareness of those material realms – but which capacities can
nonetheless interact with the brain via its motor cortex and associative
systems, or perhaps the entire autonomic nervous system altogether.
*
To reiterate, the term CAPACITY has several
materialistic definitions. It also
refers to (1) the ability to hold, receive, store, and accommodate information;
and (2) the POWER to grasp and analyze ideas and cope with problems,
situations, and experience.
The term POWER also has some materialistic
definitions, and, of course, several social ones. But that term also applies to human faculties of ability
capacities, to personal or species capacities, to natural aptitude capacities,
the term NATURAL referring to capacities innate.
Although the use of
the term POWER in these contexts has been unfashionable for several decades,
it is nevertheless derived
from POTENT simply defined as "to be powerful" in the context of POTENTIALITY
defined as "capable of development into actuality."
*
In these contexts, then, it seems that
natural-innate super sensitivity capacities exist that are capable of
development into actuality, but might not be developed into activity.
However, if verifiable
and efficient spontaneous super sensitivity events take place, it would seem
that the capacities involved
simply blossom into activity all by themselves, and do so without consciously
struggling to "develop" them within whatever is passing for normal
reasoning.
Two of the useful definitions
of DEVELOP are "to
set forth or make clear by degrees or in detail; also, to make active."
Thus, in order to develop undeveloped capacities,
it is necessary to be taught so as to learn something about them in terms of
clear degrees and details.
However, it is commonly
understood that to render a developing capacity into an active state, not
only is learning required, but
also TRAINING – defined as "to form by instruction, discipline, or
drill,
so as to become prepared for a test of skill."
*
It is, of course, completely recognized, in the
materialistic sense, that humans have both innate and acquired capacities for
objectively interacting, via the physical senses, with material objectivity.
It is also accepted that increasing the potentials
for this interacting can be achieved via all kinds of teach-learn-train
processes, and that such processes can be applied even if intimate details of
brain activity are not known.
For example, although
it is thought that one "learns" to ride a bicycle, such is not
accomplished by the learning, but by training into the motor cortex an experiential
program that eventually works
automatically on its own.
The same applies to
anything else that requires motor cortex participation, such attaining efficiency
in sports, various of the
martial arts, ballet dancing, vocal training, utilizing a computer keyboard
with all ten fingers, language training, recognition of super sensitivity
information aspects such as "psyching out" land mines in a jungle,
sensing
intentions and motives of others, etc. ad infinitum.
*
It is worth reminding that brain activity, much
less details of it, were NOT historically known until, roughly, the beginning
of the nineteenth century A.D., and which details are not YET fully known as
this document is being constructed.
Today, however, it is fully recognized that the
associative and motor cortexes are fully involved in the teach-learn-train
processes, and with the memory components, too.
MEMORY reflects an obvious and a powerful innate
capacity, the existence of which could not have gone unnoticed even in ancient
times (although in today's sciences, the location in the brain of the Seat of
Memory is a mystery still to be solved, along with the Seat of the Mind, and
the Seat of Consciousness itself.)
*
So, an important issue-question arises, one that
has not been even minimally addressed in our modernist, materialistic,
scientific times.
Before the modern discovery of brain details, it is
quite obvious that the teach-learn-train thing had been recognized throughout
human history.
But teach-learn-train procedures need to be based
against perceptible evidence indicating the existence of something can benefit
from teach-learn-train efforts.
We will slip into this important issue somewhat
sidewise. If something is NOT
experienced, then whatever is involved doesn't exist as such, and there can be
no concept of applying teach-learn-train procedures to it.
But if experiencing, especially various kinds of
super sensitivity pro-survival experiencing, IS experienced, then there might
arise interest in evolving teach-learn-train procedures so as to enhance
whatever experiential dynamics are involved.
This applies more or less equally to experiencing
the objective via enhancing the dynamics of physical sensitivities, as well as
to experiencing super sensitivities via, as it might simply be put, enhancing
the dynamics of super sensitivity.
*
Of course, those who have not experienced
spontaneous eruptions of what we today refer to as instincts, premonitions, or
intuitions, might be at sea here.
But in the past, in
rough and tough environments (including human nature environments), the potential
advantages of experiencing
instinct, intuition, and premonition could not possibly have gone unnoticed – in
that all of these super sensitivities demonstrate various kinds of FOREWARNINGS
not directly available via the objective physical senses alone.
Forewarnings are GOOD – at
least relative to
environments and topics where they are useful.
*
As already discussed, no one can experience
anything for which rudimentary capacities don't exist. Such capacities might exist in a
latent, or inactive unawakened condition – such as is the general case
not
only for super sensitivity capacities, but also for mere objective sensitivity
the larger experiencing scope of which is often found in desensitized (or not
enhanced) conditions.
But that capacities
for super sensitivities do exist is vouched for via all human languages (even
so-called "archaic" ones)
that contain many terms reflecting many different kinds and types of them.
In fact, the few modern
terms we have used for them probably represent only the tip of the VAST super
sensitivity iceberg – VAST here referring back to the discussions about
Sanskrit multiple realities.
*
As also earlier discussed,
the modern, materialist Objection to super sensitivities was that no physical
source or physical
processes could be discovered for them – and so they could not be
considered either as innate or acquired capacities.
This Objection was more probably based on social
intolerance of super sensitivities rather than on real scientific observation
and research.
In any event, after
about 200 some odd years of the
supposed legitimacy of this Objection, mirror "telepathic" neurons were
discovered to be innate in the premotor cortex not only in monkeys, but in
humans also – apparently much alive and working in monkeys, apparently
less alive and working in humans.
Mind reading (also a component of forewarning)
represents one of the most socially sensitive issues imaginable. However, enhanced instinct, intuition,
and premonition are probably as socially sensitive as telepathy – IF any
or all of these might respond to the teach-learn-training thing designed so as
to involve motor cortex participation.
*
So, can such super sensitivities be trained?
As discussed in the Sanskrit sections earlier,
probably NOT unless at least a modicum of experiencing capacity can be
awakened, that is, be coaxed up from a latent to a somewhat active state.
After that, as is quite well understood today, the
brain's motor cortexes are certainly involved, and that anything involving the
motor and associative cortexes almost certainly can be taught-learned-trained.
Because, you see, motor responses CAN be trained,
as well as can anything involving information transfers if they become
recognizable as such.
This is entirely in keeping with the known fact
that incoming information is first processed via the motor cortex, then
forwarded to and processed by the associative systems.
*
As we now near the close of this Situational
report, there are two very subtle Situations involved that have not been
identified as such.
The modernist scientific Objection to the super
sensitivities held (1) that they could not be explained or accounted for by
Matter-Only sources or processes; and (2) that since Matter was the only
reality, there was no other reality that might account for them and or provide
ways and means for their processes.
Thus, the super sensitivities
were dubbed as
EXTRA-SENSIBLE, defined as "beyond the each of sensuous perception" – meaning
beyond the limited scopes of the five objective physical senses, and beyond the
reach of objective-matter-only sciences, too.
The term EXTRA-SENSIBLE
was converted to EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION by the J. B. Rhine, whose famous
book of the same title
was published in 1934, and which term "denoted awareness apparently received
through channels other than the usual [physical] senses."
One of the principal results of this was that the
super sensitivities, and evidence of them, became detached from any physical
contexts, after which it was assumed that there was nothing that connected them
to physicality. Thus, there was no
logical reason to look for such connections either in parapsychology or in the
Matter-Only brain.
This Situation remained
in place until about 1996
when mirror "telepathic" neurons were discovered in, of all places, the
physical premotor cortex of the physical brain – and which discovery came
as a "surprising" shock to matter-only scientists and numerous
parapsychologists, too.
This implied that TELEPATHY,
ambiguously defined as "mind-to- mind" can now be rendered more precisely as "premotor cortex to
premotor cortex," although this conceptual shift has not actually occurred
yet.
Meanwhile, the ongoing
cutting edges of physics and astrophysics had determined that the Matter-Only
universe was not a matter-only
one – in that the Universe was also occupied not only by dark interpenetrating
energies, but equally interpenetrating subtle and exotic energies, as well as
multiple interpenetrating dimensions and interpenetrating realities, etc.
It might be presumed
that these other realities "carry" or "manifest" various kinds of information that are not governed by the
objective "laws" of Matter but apparently by yet unknown "laws" of
their own.
So, it seems that there
exist interpenetrating "laws" as well as "interpenetrating" information – concepts
that somewhat resemble concepts and terms found in the Sanskrit (and many
other) languages.
*
Thus, we are obliged
to reexamine the general definition of EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION once given
as a term that "denoted
awareness apparently received through channels other than the usual [physical]
senses."
We might, for example,
begin this reexamination by
asking "awareness" of What?
If AWARNESS is to be
defined as "having or showing
realization, perception, or knowledge," then it is quite proper think in
terms
of perception of What, realization of What, knowledge of What.
You see, although it might be too simplistic to say
so, if there is nothing to become
aware of, there will not be any awareness of it.
In other words, awareness occurs AFTER the fact of
the existence or presence of something that can stimulate awareness of it.
To repeat so as to GRIND this in, if there is not
something to become aware of, then awareness does not ensue, take place, or
manifest.
So, awareness itself
cannot be "received," but
information might be received through channels that might provoke, awaken, or
stimulate awareness of whatever such information consists of – and which
information is thus converted into perception of it, realization of it, and
knowledge about it.
It is now reasonable
to ask where, why, and how such information is thusly converted within innate
Consciousness perspectives
and capacities – in that, again, if Consciousness does not exist then
utter universes of information might exist with nothing to "receive" it.
So it could be thought that Information exists;
Consciousness exists;
Within Consciousness are capacities to detect
Information;
It seems that the physical
Brain has something to
do with "recognizing" different types of Information;
Thus the Brain must have different kinds of neural (and
other) information recognition detectors and which commence the processing of
Information as different kinds of information;
Such information may
refer to physical objective information, and to super sensitivity information
acquired by other "channels
than the usual physical senses"
After all of this, conscious-of Awareness may or
may not take place;
But nonetheless, there is one Brain Part that seems
to recognize information whether conscious-of-Awareness takes place;
So far as is understood, this Brain Part seems
principally to consist of the Motor Cortex and its closely affiliated
sub-parts;
One of which is designated as the premotor cortex;
Which is the physical
Brain Part in which mirror telepathic neurons have been discovered and which
apparently possesses innate "channels" that deal with detecting
information (such as intentions and
motives) in others;
And which particular motor cortex capacities
probably represent only the tip of the super sensitivity iceberg.
17. THE SHIFTING SUM OF THE SITUATIONS
WITH THE exception of the Situations forming up
because of the new scientific discoveries, the contexts of most of the other
Situations probably would have continued to endure.
As discussed, the most apparent principal reason
for this projection probably has to do with social antagonism toward super
sensitivities that might interfere with the protection of confidentiality and
secrecy upon which many human activities depend.
Early psychical and later parapsychological
research certainly suffered from such antagonism, although both research
objectives were energetically pursued at their startups.
Both of those research
objectives essentially
focused on identifying super sensitivity phenomena – psychical research
focusing on general experiential phenomena in the presence of suitable
witnesses, while parapsychological research focused more narrowly on
theoretical statistical phenomena gained in laboratory settings.
Neither research objectives
undertook examination of how to enhance or train super sensitivities - principally
because it was
thought that super sensitivities were special "gifts" or "abilities" of
individuals often of very different psychological types, but altogether
consisting of a census of only 7 percent or less in given populations. So their "gifts" or "abilities" were
more or less considered as psychological flukes occurring by inconsistent
unidentifiable chance.
Many popular books were early available that
presented evidence of individuals spontaneously experiencing some kind of super
sensitivity event, especially of the premonition, intuitive, and future-seeing
kinds.
These sources of indicated
that such spontaneous experiencing took place quite more frequently than
expected, and did so among
individuals in whom special "gifts" and "abilities" did not
manifest as
such. This quite large body of
evidence was more or less dismissed as merely anecdotal – meaning
questionable and possibly fictitious.
The concept that rudimentary
super sensitivities might be species-innate achieved only extremely minimal
discussion in closets,
and, at any rate, was never connected up with anecdotal body of spontaneous
evidence, with the exception of certain "occult" studies ostracized
from
psychical and parapsychological research, as well as from modernist philosophic
and scientific endeavors.
This mix of Situations was so cemented in place
that even when advancing quantum studies began revealing phenomena of
non-locality and non-Matter realities that might have implications for
Consciousness, such phenomena were only very tacitly connected up with super
sensitivity probabilities or potentials.
In this author's thirty some odd years in super
sensitivity research, no one, including himself, could imagine anything of
sufficient magnitude that might shift this complex Situational cement to any
significant degree.
Then, voila!
Mirror "telepathic" neurons are discovered in premotor cortexes of
brains – in which, albeit yet undiscovered, are supposed to be the Seats
of Consciousness, Seats of Minds, Seats of Memory, as well as other possible
Seats yet undiscovered or imagined.
So, how about Seats of Super Sensitivities? This, of course, is just a vague question here.
In the PHYSICAL brain,
no less – hence a
Situation scientific, albeit a New one, unexpected, but implying all sorts of
ramifications, including biogenetic ones, innateness, Gosh, probably more, such
as a new Sum or all Fears – efficient mind-reading if it proves
trainable.
And where there is one
brain-confirmed super sensitivity critter roaming about, it there is likely
to be others – as
the old saying somewhat goes. And
so some Situational shifts along such lines might be anticipated.
Perhaps the biggest Situational shift has to do
with the failure of the Matter-Is-The-Only-Reality thing. Of course Matter itself is not going to
shift. But the implications of
Stuff interpenetrating Matter, such as multiple dimensions realities, etc.,
would result in new types of science in addition to the material sciences.
Thus, a shift from one exclusive type of science to
multiple types of it - such as is happening already, albeit in a sort of infant
stage of development.
Those living exclusively
within and fixated by the contexts of gross, objective material realities
would not be affected by such
scientific shifts – unless it turns out that interpenetrating multiple
Stuffs and dimensions have interacting informational exchange potentials that,
as it might be put, LEAK into and out of each other.
It may be possible that such interpenetrating
information leakage might have something like subtle energetic holographic
forms that might be detected by certain innate super sensitivities innately
designed to do so.
In this case, such might give evidence, say, as to
how future information leaks into consciousness in holographic forms, even if
only in dreams, visions, intuitions, gut-feelings, etc., and sometimes on a
quite large scale.
NOTE:
One of the best surveys of this kind of leakage is found in
PREMONITIONS: A LEAP INTO THE
FUTURE by Herbert B. Greenhouse (1971) - which might be studied in connection
with THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE by Michael Talbot (1991).
In the sense of all
of this, it might turn out that approaches to super sensitivity training
might focus on holographic leakage
phenomena, but do so in ways that are consistent with the signal-to-noise ratio
embodied in Information Theory – accompanied, of course, by the distinct
probability that innate Consciousness is innately possessed of super
sensitivity capacities that detect and interact with such leakages.
**
SUGGESTED
SOURCES THAT DOCUMENT
EXPERIENTIAL SUPER SENSITIVITIES
COMPILED EVIDENCE OF
SUPER SENSITIVITY LEAKAGES:
THE STORY OF PROPHECY by Henry James Forman
(1940). (Rather amazing if not
mind-blowing! Also an excellent
and gripping read.)
THEY FORESAW THE FUTURE: THE FACINATING STORY OF
6000 YEARS OF FULFILLED PROPHECY by Justine Glass (1969).
COMPILED EVIDENCE OF
EXCEPTIONAL HUMAN EXPERIENCE:
EXCEPTIONAL HUMAN EXPERIENCE: STUDIES IN THE PSYCHIC, SPONTANEOUS,
IMAGINAL compiled and edited by Rhea A. White, published between 1994-2001 by
Exceptional Human Experience Network, 414 Rockledge Road, New Bern, NC 28562,
in seventeen volumes consisting of two issues each. Contact routes:
ehe.org. Also
252-636-8734. (Extremely
professional, abstracts, etc., an extensive encyclopedia of super sensitivity
experiencing, the only one in existence so far.)
AN EXPLORATION OF THE "INNER" AND "OUTER" SPACES
OF THE
SUPERCONSCIOUS STATE:
BREAKTHROUGH TO CREATIVITY: YOUR HIGHER SENSE PERCEPTION by Shafica
Karagulla, M.D. (1967). (A
down-to-earth, easy to read, clinical narration of super sensitivity dynamics – absolutely
terrific.)
Can't help mentioning that the motor cortex is
located at top of the brain, the location of the famous Crown Chakra. Google It.