Donald h. Wolfraim - The Gnostic Path to Spiritual Reality-2011-60pp 2
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gnostic...
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2011
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ISBN: 978-0-9810331-1-2
The Gnostic Path to Spiritual Reality Contents
Introduction Chapter One: Perception and Reality The Multidimensional Universe Perception as a Neurological Construction The Doctrine of Realism Reality and Common Sense The Kantian Revolution Reality and the Imagination Gnosis – Perceiving Spiritual Reality Samyama and Spiritual Cognition Jung and the Individuation I ndividuation Process Goethe’s Method of Spiritual Cognition Rudolf Steiner’s Method of Gnosis
Chapter Two: The Mystery of the Self Exploring the Mystery of the Self The Search for Self-Realization Self-Realization Psychological Realism and the Self Neurological Realism and and the Self Resolving the Mystery of the Self
Chapter Three: The Spiritual Cognitive Faculties The Nature of Clairvoyance Remote Viewing Secrets of Telepathy Blind Vision Blind Vision and Light Remote Viewing and Light Jung and Ultraviolet Light Chapter Four: The Enigma of Consciousness Consciousness and Epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism Consciousness beyond the Brain: Prenatal Consciousness The Near-Death Experience Twelve Years in a Haunted House The Reach of the Mind Intention and the Imagination Imagination Psychoanalysis and the Transpersonal Realm Seeking an Explanation Experiencing the Transpersonal Mind
The Gnostic Path to Spiritual Reality Contents
Introduction Chapter One: Perception and Reality The Multidimensional Universe Perception as a Neurological Construction The Doctrine of Realism Reality and Common Sense The Kantian Revolution Reality and the Imagination Gnosis – Perceiving Spiritual Reality Samyama and Spiritual Cognition Jung and the Individuation I ndividuation Process Goethe’s Method of Spiritual Cognition Rudolf Steiner’s Method of Gnosis
Chapter Two: The Mystery of the Self Exploring the Mystery of the Self The Search for Self-Realization Self-Realization Psychological Realism and the Self Neurological Realism and and the Self Resolving the Mystery of the Self
Chapter Three: The Spiritual Cognitive Faculties The Nature of Clairvoyance Remote Viewing Secrets of Telepathy Blind Vision Blind Vision and Light Remote Viewing and Light Jung and Ultraviolet Light Chapter Four: The Enigma of Consciousness Consciousness and Epiphenomenalism Epiphenomenalism Consciousness beyond the Brain: Prenatal Consciousness The Near-Death Experience Twelve Years in a Haunted House The Reach of the Mind Intention and the Imagination Imagination Psychoanalysis and the Transpersonal Realm Seeking an Explanation Experiencing the Transpersonal Mind
The Imaginal Realm Quantum Physics and the Imaginal Realm
Chapter Five: Rediscovering Rediscovering Gnostic Science Science The Psychophysical Unity of Reality The Thought Experiments of Nikola Tesla Exploring the Spatiality of Mental Images Photographing Mental Images The Creation Of Ghosts and Tulpas Living in the Light Creating Protective Thought-Forms Thought-Forms
Chapter Six: The Magic of Perceptual Integration Secrets of the Alchemists Living the Spiritual Life Rediscovering the Religious Experience Encountering the Divine Some Perceptual-Integration Exercises: Cloud Busting – with your Mind The Art of Spoon Bending Gnosticism and the Divine Imagination Following the Gnostic Path
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Introduction
Today, we live in a broken world in which only the physical aspects of our existence are generally recognized while the underlying spiritual nature of reality remains cognitively missing. Since the 17th century, the spiritual vision of man has been deeply entombed beneath the rubble of Newtonian physics, which indoctrinated the western world into believing that all that exists is a meaningless, mindless universe of matter and that the miracle of our existence is due entirely to fixed mechanical laws. st
Even at the dawn of the 21 . century, we continue to be mesmerized by this scientific myth that we live in some kind of magical world of matter - a world from which living miracles mindlessly arise from some mysterious depth of dead, uncaring matter. We envision molecular messengers traveling the inner highways of the bloodstream scurrying about with vital information that would simply remain meaningless without some semblance of consciousness to comprehend its significance. Molecular genetic material is naively believed to have the magical power of being able to single-handedly create a perfect living fetus entirely from the interaction of inert chemicals guided by mechanical necessity ne cessity.. Since the development of quantum physics we now know that the existence of the physical world is extremely unsubstantial - that matter consists mostly of empty space and that the energy
comprising its material form manifests from the emptiness of a quantum vacuum, momentarily appearing in a billionth of a second and disappearing just as quickly back into the microcosmic source from which it was created. Like a swiftly moving river, the appearance of the physical world might seem to remain the same from moment to moment, but this perceived continuity of matter in physical space and time is simply an illusion. Like the Greek atomists, Sir Isaac Newton an English physicist, (1643-1727) perceived the essence of matter to be passively inert. Matter was incapable of acting on its own without some kind of external interference, remaining at rest until moved by an external force. He envisioned the solid, massy properties of external objects as being essentially identical to the internal atomlike constituents of matter. Thus the inert, materialistic clock-like world was the same inside or out, both strictly obeying natural laws of cause and effect. No longer was the world perceived as a living organism imbued with divine purpose, but a dead, mechanical, uncaring one. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) shared Newton’s view of reality declaring that only matter exists. The consequences of adopting such a materialistic worldview is that we live in a world that is unaware of its own existence, as well as ours. The chair you are sitting in, the car you are driving and even the cells comprising your heart and brain, all remain completely oblivious to your personal existence. Material realism presents us with a bleak picture of an unaware universe lacking any spiritual meaning. But if mindless matter is all that exists, then how do we account for our ability to perceive an objective world? How can perceptual awareness be derived from dead inert matter, which by its very nature is completely unaware that an external world exists in the first place? Neurologists have tried to dispel this mystery by claiming that the ionic activity of neurons present in the nervous system adequately explains how information gathered by the physical senses is transformed into an authentic replication of the external world in the biochemical substrate of our brain, which is somehow capable of be coming consciously aware of itself. A popular alternative to material realism is monistic idealism, expounded for example, in Amit Goswami’s book: The Self-Aware Universe, in which consciousness itself is perceived as the basic element of reality rather than matter. The ancient gnostics, including those who lived during the early centuries of the Christian era, discovered a way to redeem this broken vision of the world, restoring it to its primal unity by consciously experiencing both its physical and spiritual aspects together through a process of perceptual integration. The practice of gnosis, which is discussed in detail throughout this book, is a way of knowing that transcends the limited physical senses, manifesting as a sudden intuitive realization of the essence or meaning of something, or the direct experiential knowledge validating the existence of the divine or supernatural. It is identical to intuitive or epiphanic knowing, which allows one to directly experience spiritual reality using one’s inner cognitive faculties.
The gnostic path to spiritual reality is the path to spiritual awakening through personal inner experience. It is a profound realization that can engage one's whole being with an insightful knowledge of transcendent realms that exist beyond the physical dimension. Rather than concentrating the mind inwardly, as is done in conventional meditative techniques, archetypal imagery is projected outwardly upon the external world, thus uniting inner and outer reality into a single experience of gnosis or ‘knowing’ that transcends them both, often with magical results. The ancient gnostics included charismatic philosophers and teachers living in the second century A.D., who believed that true knowledge could only be found through inner revelation rather than hearsay and endless theological speculation; a belief that seriously challenges Christian doctrine even today. They also believed that the creation of the physical world was seriously flawed from the very beginning but that by acquiring true knowledge through inner experience this mundane physical dimension of reality could be transcended to comprehend higher transcendent realms of existence. Different forms of Gnosticism gradually developed during the past three thousand years including the Jewish kaballah, esoteric Christianity, hermeticism and alchemy, and more recently Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. In this book, I will be primarily concerned with the gnostic techniques of perceptual integration used by the alchemists and the interaction of the imaginal upon the external physical world. In Chapter 1, I examine some of the problems encountered with sense perception within the context of material realism and the Kantian revolution, and discuss how the practice of gnosis can account for the missing attributes that we experience as existing ‘out there’ which the physical senses are incapable of providing. Gnostic techniques of perception adopted by Goethe and Rudolf Steiner are covered in detail, providing readers with a step-by-step procedure for experiencing the power of perceptual integration for themselves. The mystery of the self is explored in Chapter 2, challenging the belief that the embodied self is only a neurological construct - a mere epiphenomenon created by the physical brain and nervous system. What the nature of the personal self actually is can be readily determined by observing what it is actually capable of accomplishing – such as directly interacting with the objective world and perceptually transcending the limitations of physical space and time. As the practice of gnosis is based on inner perception, the existence of our spiritual cognitive faculties is discussed in detail in Chapter 3, beginning with an examination of clairvoyant vision, remote viewing and telepathic perception. A step-by-step procedure for experimenting with telepathic cognition is included for those who wish to de velop their inner vision. In Chapter 4, the nature of consciousness is explored, including paranormal modes of perception that transcend the limitations of the physical senses, extending into transpersonal realms of awareness and the imaginal world of the gnostics. Modes of awareness and memory that exist beyond the brain, such as prenatal and after-death states of consciousness are also examined.
The psychophysical unity of reality is explored in Chapter 5, particularly as it relates to the gnostic principles inherent in the practice of alchemy. The gnostic belief that knowledge regarding the nature of reality could be accurately attained through inner experience was based on the fact that a congruency exists between inner mental imagery and the experiential world that those images represent. Also included are detailed instructions on utilizing the alchemist’s ‘Light of Heaven’ to create protective thought-forms. In Chapter 6, the gnostic method of perceptual integration used by the ancient alchemists is explored in depth revealing how the imaginative powers we have been given can be used to spiritualize and transform the world. A guide to living the spiritual life and the gnostic path to religious experience is also discussed. Several exercises have been included to provide the reader with an opportunity to experience first-hand how the projection of one’s inner spiritual vision can directly affect the physical world.
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Perception and Reality Most of us share a common faith in our ability to observe and comprehend the nature of our existence because of the possibility of obtaining a deeper knowledge of reality using the scientific approach, which has proven so successful in the past. But what is overlooked is that scientific methodology is confined to its own materialistic concerns that preclude any possible recognition of a spiritual reality existing beyond the physical senses, which is not subject to experimental observation or physical measurement. During our normal state of consciousness our knowledge of the physical world, which we obtain through the evidence of our five physical senses, is generally regarded as being the ‘true measure of reality’ as it alone is believed capable of providing us with an authentic awareness of what really exists. Consequently, most individuals believe that the only aspect of reality that we need to be concerned with is the material world revealed by our physical senses. Our cognitive boundaries of existence are thereby narrowly confined to the particular way our physical senses are capable of interacting with what is ‘out there’ and the sensations we experience as a result of how the brain and nervous system interpret this incoming sense data. Although we might believe that our physical senses are capable of accurately informing us about the real nature of the external world, our limited sensory organs tell us a different story. As the physical senses can only respond to a very limited range of energy frequencies that are present around us, they can only convey a mere fraction of the information that is available regarding the objective world. Thus our knowledge of reality is invariably confined to the meager information our physical senses are able to provide. For example, the only world we can see with our physical eyes is a mysterious world of light comprised of wavelengths between 300 to 800
nanometers. Out of sixty octaves comprising the entire range of electromagnetic radiation, only one is visible. Therefore the belief that the entire universe can be known using this limited perceptual range of sensory data is merely a common misconception. The Multidimensional Universe The multidimensional nature of reality has remained an important subject of enquiry throughout my life because of the many experiences I have had that contradict the general belief that the only reality we can ever experience is a four-dimensional space-time world perceptible through our physical senses. Although our knowledge concerning the nature of reality is grounded in experience, there are indeed other ways of knowing which transcend the limitations of sensory perception, such as the gnostic technique of spiritual cognition called gnosis.
One of the paradoxes challenging scientific materialism today is the awareness of the existence of other dimensions of reality based on an increasing number of scientific studies on nonsensory modes of perception that do not depend on the physical senses at all - such as clairvoyant vision. As a result, there is a growing scientific acceptance of the possibility that human consciousness does have access to psychic and spiritual realities beyond the outer fringes of the physical world. Science is presently confronted with some unfathomable mysteries that have necessitated the gradual development of a multidimensional science. Largely responsible for this changing worldview are new theoretical developments, such as the discovery of cosmic black holes, as well as Bell’s theorem and the phenomena of 'time reversal' in quantum physics etc. It has become quite clear that many contemporary scientific problems in quantum physics, paraphysics and parapsychology now require the expansion of traditional scientific boundaries to include a multidimensional worldview. With recent developments in quantum physics, the scientific worldview now extends far beyond the limitations of Einstein’s four-dimensional worldview. Today quantum physicists have conceptualized a ‘string theory’ that mathematically envisions many space-time dimensions of reality that are presently being theoretically explored, even though they cannot be directly observed. However, such a multidimensional vision of reality in quantum physics contains theoretical entities that are not only imaginary but also impermanent and invisible. For example, in order to mathematically express the mass of a quantum particle in physical terms, strange imaginary integers with magical properties have to be employed for these equations to work. Like the conventional decimal place, these imaginary numbers used in the conjugation of complex numbers have no reality in the external world but are nevertheless useful for describing such things as quantum ‘wave functions’ associated with electron behavior. In addition, virtual particles, which momentarily exist and then don’t exist, are perceived as emerging from a realm of nothingness called a quantum vacuum, for a billionth of a second or so and then disappearing back into it again. These quantum particles having such a brief life span are never directly observed but only assumed to exist by photographing tracks of mist that they create as they pass through a Wilson cloud chamber.
How then are we to comprehend the nature of reality – this experiential world of ours comprised of such a strange mixture of physical objects permeated by the invisible presence of the imaginary? Indeed, we cannot even begin to describe the nature of an external world without also considering its invisibility, which tends to obscure any clear vision of the truth. However, if we wish to personally experience spiritual reality here in the physical world, we need to acquire a much deeper understanding of how these visible and the invisible aspects of reality are interrelated. The nature of reality envisioned by Jung and the alchemists consists of two interpenetrating dimensions – a visible physical reality and an invisible imaginary one that together form a single integrated world of mind and matter called the Unus Mundus. Normally, our perception of the external world is so tightly compartmentalized that the visible and the imaginary remain completely isolated from each other, thus creating an artificial separation between inner and outer, mind and world. Today, we have many different theories that have been proposed to explain how it is possible for a physical brain to perceptually construct an accurate representation of an objective reality. Some academics continue to spend time debating whether in fact an external world exists at all! But when we examine these different theories, we discover that something very important is missing in all of them, and that is the recognition that without the participation of both our physical senses and inner cognitive faculties we would not perceive any objective world at all. The gnostic approach to perception however is something quite different, as it provides this missing element that is essential to adequately explain how it is possible to perceive an objective world in the first place. But before introducing this gnostic theory of perception, called gnosis, lets review some of the conventional approaches that have been offered in the past in an attempt to solve this problem. Perception as a Neurological Construction Modern science presently views consciousness and our perception of reality as a neurological phenomenon, a mere by-product of electrical and chemical activity occurring in the brain and nervous system. Such an explanation has been popularized in recent books, such as Dan Dennett’s Consciousness Explained and Francis Crick’s The Astonishing Hypothesis.
Back in 1961, Alan W. Watts suggested in his book Psychotherapy East and West [1] that our sensory experiences are only states of the nervous system. Consequently, all that we are able to perceive are states of ourselves. For Watts, our consciousness of an external world is entirely determined by the way our physical senses, brain and nervous system responds to an influx of external sense data. Watts does not deny the existence of an objective reality but insists that the observer or ‘experiencer’ is identical to the experience. The only thing that is seen is the act of seeing and there is no one, other than the nervous system to experience it. For Watts, you are your nervous system and its interpretation of some external reality is all that you can ever experience, thus the real nature of reality can never be known. Our field of vision, which appears to be outside of us, is in fact within us, because it is simply a mental representation of external reality created by
optical and neurological activity. According to Watts, what we are really seeing are merely states of the organism or states of ourselves. Similarly, we do not hear a sound; the sound is the hearing, otherwise it remains a silent vibration in the air. As a consequence of accepting a neurological theory of perception, Watts concluded that there is no self to experience anything and that all knowledge of our existence depends upon the capacity of the brain and nervous system to be aware of its own electrochemical activity. However, he fails to explain how such a state of awareness is possible. In Mind and Nature, [2] Gregory Bateson suggested that there is no objective experience as such. For Bateson, all experience is subjective, as neurological processes in the brain create the images that we perceive. The sensations we experience, which we believe accurately represents the nature of external reality, are mediated by our physical senses and nervous system, which unconsciously creates a ‘representation’ of objective reality for us that is simply not out there. Bateson came to this conclusion while attending a series of experiments conducted by Adalbert Ames Jr. an ophthalmologist working in New York, which proved beyond any doubt that we use clues of parallax to guide us in creating the appearance of depth. Also Bateson discovered that these images that our unconscious mind constructs could be altered at will by adjusting the experimental equipment. In other words, the manner in which the objective world appears to us, according to Bateson, can be manipulated by altering the clues the unconscious mind uses to construct a representation of reality that we perceptually experience. For most physicists today, the word ‘real’ refers only to a specific type of experience which individuals are able to share in common. Such a consensus reality is believed to accurately define what we can scientifically claim to be real, based on the evidence of the senses. Scientific theories rest upon the assumption that such a consensus reality actually exists, that it endures through time, and that it will repeatedly yield the same experimental results independently of who is observing it. But consensual knowledge based on sensory experience is for the most part dualistic, inferential and entirely symbolic. For the rational mind, the reality of the world therefore appears split into opposites of knower and known, thinker and thought, subject and object. But does our physical senses really reveal what is real or merely what appears to be real? The Doctrine of Realism The certitude of human observation that underlies scientific thinking today is based on the doctrine of realism, which assumes that a physical objective world exists independently of our knowledge of it and can therefore be passively observed without mentally influencing it in any way. Adopting this materialistic view of reality, one’s perceptual experience is regarded as being identical to the objective world being experienced, while at the same time ignoring the possibility that we could be unwittingly participating in constructing our perception of that world, due to personal biases, beliefs and expectations.
Physical reality is believed to be absolute and completely predetermined according to fixed immutable laws. Thus we all experience exactly the same reality and although it can be perceived differently under varying conditions, we do not create that objective reality or cognitively alter it in any way. Rather, it is believed to remain self-consistent with its own
inherent nature in spite of any theoretical context we might use to comprehend it or the particular method we might use to observe it. Reality and Common Sense For most individuals, their only guide to truth and reality has always been just good old ‘common-sense reasoning’ based on actual experience. Common sense tells us that an objective world actually exists ‘out there’ and that it includes physical objects such as clouds, trees and rocks. We know from hard experience that hot objects can burn us and that if you kick a boulder it could break your foot. In other words, common sense tells us that the objective world is real because we continually interact with objects and events extended in time and space that produce very real consequences. But does this objective world really exist completely independent of human consciousness as the realists claim or does the human mind in some strange way participate in its construction?
Einstein once remarked that common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18 and are formed within the context of one’s cultural beliefs and customs. Consequently, there have been many common sense prejudices that have persisted for thousands of years that were eventually proven to be in error, such as the firmly held belief that the earth was flat and that it was positioned at the very center of the universe. As common sense is based on our perception of the familiar, it will often fail us in strange, unfamiliar circumstances, such as suddenly being immersed in a foreign culture. As common sense does not yield the same conclusions from individuals of different backgrounds or experience, our common sense view of things may prove to be extremely unreliable when trying to interpret and cope with unfamiliar ideas, events or circumstances that we have never encountered before. More importantly, a strict adherence to a common sense worldview based on one's limited experience will exclude other important aspects of reality that are beyond the reach of the physical senses - such as a psychic dimension or the existence of a spiritual world. Today we know that any perception or scientific observation is never free of subjective factors including such things as unconscious biases, beliefs and expectations held by the experimenter, both in the choice of experiments to be performed as well as the interpretation of the results of those experiments. For example, quantum mechanics has experimentally demonstrated that the human mind not only participates in determining the type of phenomena perceived, such as the wave or particle nature of light, but also that the mind of an observer has a direct influence on the outcome of all such experiments. The confirmation of Bell’s inequality theorem has further revealed that a nonlocal awareness is present in quantum energy particles acting at a distance. Other experiments have repeatedly verified the fact that we cannot observe phenomena on this quantum microcosmic level without at the same time interfering with what we are observing. The Kantian Revolution One of the most crucial problems challenging realism today is the fact that many of the qualities and characteristics we perceive as existing ‘out there’ in the objective world do not physically exist and therefore are really not there. Therefore, the real nature of objective reality, as we
actually experience it to be, cannot be accounted for entirely in physical terms. Galileo, an Italian physicist and astronomer (1564-1642) suggested that a distinction should be made between the primary and secondary qualities of objects. The primary qualities were of special interest to science, such as weight, shape and motion, as these could be objectively measured. On the other hand, the perception of secondary qualities, such as sensations of color, taste and temperature etc. existed only in the mind and were therefore considered to be less real. The primary qualities Galileo observed and measured during his experiments were found to be consistently reliable and mathematically predictable, thus capable of serving as an empirical basis for the future development of science, while perceived secondary qualities were not. This incongruence existing between our perception of reality and its actual underlying nature was a problem that the philosopher Immanuel Kant spent many years trying to resolve. Kant was born in Konigsberg Germany in 1724, the son of a saddle maker. After serving several years as a private tutor and lecturer he was appointed professor of logic and metaphysics at Konigsberg University, a position he held until his retirement in 1796. Kant believed that there is a distinct difference between our perception of reality and the physical world being perceived. For Kant, an individual’s perceptual experience of objects as existing objectively in the external world was referred to as phenomena, while noumena represented the underlying reality - the 'things-in-themselves' giving rise to those perceptions. For Kant, sense perception is preconditioned by synthetic a priori categories that are responsible for structuring the way we experience a world of time, space and causation, which are functionally similar to Jung’s archetypes. Both refer to how the psyche or unconscious mind preconditions the way we perceive reality, which is essential for us to experience anything at all. Kant concluded that we could never know the ultimate nature of reality because the mind itself creatively participates in creating and projecting those secondary qualities that we attribute to objective reality. Thus the underlying noumenal nature of the physical world must remain completely unknown to us because it simply doesn’t exist ‘out there’ independently of our conscious awareness. But for the gnostics, the nature of Kant’s noumenal world is not something that must remain forever beyond all human knowledge. Their profound belief in the existence of an absolute transcendent reality is based on the fact that it can be directly known through inner experience. When we attempt to describe the physical world purely in terms of perceived sensations, we discover that any such description is not equivalent to the physical reality they are given to represent. For example, when looking at an apple I may perceive the sensation of 'redness' yet the colour red does not physically exist out there. In fact, our perception of an apple includes far more than the attributes of its visible surface. It also includes different perspectives and parts of the apple that are presently invisible as well, such as the whiteness of its interior pulp and the blackness of its seeds. Here the imagination, which is a cognitive faculty of inner vision, can be seen actively participating in structuring our perception of an apple largely based on one’s previous experience.
As Kant reminds us, there is a distinct difference between our perception of reality and the underlying nature of what is being perceived. All that we can experience is a limited range of physical sensations generated by our brain and nervous system, while the 'thing-in-itself’ the noumenal world, was regarded by Kant as something unknowable. So the scientific realist, in denying the existence of a spiritual dimension of reality is at the same time overlooking the fact that sensory knowledge alone is not capable of revealing the real nature of objective reality either. Rather it only provides us with a psychological representation of reality, in the form of images, sensations and sounds taking place in the thea tre of our own mind. According to Kant, to account for our perceptual experience of an external world we must include something else - the constructive imagination that actually functions as a spiritual cognitive faculty that actively participates in revealing the hidden nature of reality through the perceptual process itself. Reality and the Imagination Just as materialists attempt to reduce everything to matter, subjective idealists attempt to reduce everything to mind. It was George Berkeley, an Irish bishop and philosopher who suggested in the 18th century that because the perceiving mind is the only thing that exists, there is no external world without a perceiver. Objects out there, such as flowing rivers and falling trees, simply cease to exist when they are not being perceived by a human mind. But, because of philosophical difficulties in trying to use human observation to sustain the existence of the universe, Berkeley introduced an idea borrowed from Vedantic Brahmanism, that it was God's omnipotent presence and awareness that was responsible for sustaining the existence of the world.
The philosophy of Mentalism, popularized by Paul Brunton in his writings, including The Hidden Teachings Beyond Yoga, [3] is simply another version of subjective idealism, which denies the physical existence of a material world and even energy, such as electricity, by replacing it with thought-forms created by the mind. Not only is our perception of an external world a construction of the imagination but everything existing in the world ‘out there’ is also. Brunton uses the example of a train engine, claiming that in spite of its apparent substantiality including its spatial attributes and massive weight, it is entirely a mental construction or thoughtform having no independent existence apart from our perception of it. Just as the realists believe that everything in the external world is made of matter and identical to the way we perceive it to be, subjective idealists believe that the appearance of an external physical world merely exists in the perceiving mind. Kant, on the other hand, suggested a more realistic approach in his transcendental idealism, in which he sought to combine phenomenalism and realism by claiming that although real objects are independent and separable they are also the phenomenal images present in perception. For Kant, what we perceptually experience is a seamlessly integrated subjective-objective world. David Bohm, a quantum physicist, believes that subjective and physical processes originate from some identical underlying source simultaneously manifesting together in a way that cannot be understood without integrating them into a single psychophysical process. For Bohm, the
manifestation of a physical world and one's perception of it are merely different aspects of the same thing. This claim is supported by the fact that on the quantum level of reality the observing mind is able to reach out into space and time and influence the nature of what is being observed. But if Kant is correct in assuming that the imagination actively participates in constructing our perceptual experience of an external world, then how is it possible to determine what actually exists and what does not? If everything we experience is a mental representation created within the brain, how do we explain how sense data is transformed through neurological processes to become a conscious experience of a vibrant, objective four-dimensional world? Gnosis: Perceiving Spiritual Reality Gnosis is a method of perceiving the spiritual dimension of reality based on one’s inner experiences; a ‘knowing’ that transcends all the physical limitations associated with the physical senses. In the following sections we will examine some examples of gnosis, including the Hindu concept of Samyama and techniques of spiritual cognition used by Goethe and Steiner. The gnostic path to spiritual reality practiced by the ancient alchemists can still be realized, by learning how to perceptually integrate these divergent multidimensional aspects of reality effectively restoring them to their original underlying unity.
The only veil that separates the subtle spiritual dimension of reality from the physical one is perception itself. As we possess both physical and spiritual cognitive faculties of perception, what we are able to experience depends on the faculties we are using. When we learn to integrate them into a single act of perception, then any distinction we might make between spiritual and physical reality simply disappears. Samyama and Spiritual Cognition Pantanjali, who lived about 800 B.C., is considered to be the founder of Raja Yoga, a Hindu school that teaches a method of attaining spiritual development based on 195 short instructions, which are now referred to as the ‘Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali.’
In book three, Pantanjali describes Samyama, as an intuitive way of discerning the spiritual nature of reality transcending the limitations of the physical senses. He refers to this new organ of intuitive cognition as the ‘imagination’ that enables individuals to directly perceive the subtle, imaginal level of reality permeating the physical world. But Pantanjali is not referring here to imagination as we normally associate it with fantasy and unreality, but rather it refers to a mode of inner perception in which we can become directly aware of the inner spiritual essence of things, by expanding our consciousness intuitively. In Samyama, the individual seeks to penetrate the hidden subtle nature of reality through a process of concentration, meditation and visualization in which any distinction between subject and object disappears. The object of spiritual cognition can be something that is physical in nature or anything that can be perceived imaginatively. In the practice of Samyama, the imagination, being a spiritual cognitive faculty of the subtle body, is able to perceive the objective spiritual dimension that interpenetrates the physical world. This new way of seeing, which Pantanjali calls Samyama, is achieved through the conscious integration of both our physical and spiritual cognitive faculties - by projecting one’s inner vision
onto the outer landscape of the physical world. As a result of directly interacting with this imaginal realm, we are able to obtain new insights into the hidden spiritual essence of things as they respond to our participatory presence. Jung and the Individuation Process In Jungian psychology, the Individuation process is a technique in which the active imagination is used to project unconscious archetypal contents onto the external world, which is essentially regarded as being just as real as objective reality itself. By consciously interacting with this projected archetypal imagery one is able to experience the merging of inner and outer reality, resulting in therapeutic benefits for the patient.
The purpose of this psychoanalytic technique used by Jung, was to transform the patient’s consciousness by objectifying and confronting the unconscious content of one’s projections. This was accomplished by exploring the projected archetypal imagery further through creative activities such as dancing, music, painting, and even by playing in a sand box. Goethe's Method of Spiritual Cognition Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German writer and scientist. He was a master of poetry, drama, and the novel, spending 50 years writing Faust, a two-part dramatic poem first published in 1808. As well as conducting scientific research in botany he also held various governmental positions throughout his life.
Goethe recognized an important difference between thinking about isolated objects perceived in physical space and time and the imaginative spiritual perception of their 'coming into being' which by its very nature transcends any perception of their physical existence that we might have of them. He believed that we have two different perceptual faculties – the intellectual mind using the physical senses and the intuitive mind using higher spiritual organs of perception. The intuitive faculty of perception (the imagination) allowed him to perceive the inner nature of an object or phenomena. Using Goethe’s method allows us to go beyond the limitations of the physical senses, which perceives only fixed objects temporarily frozen in physical space and time. He recognized that direct sensory experience of phenomenon is the foundation for understanding nature but he was also aware that the information the senses provided was incomplete. His scientific approach was to understand the wholeness of existence rather than just observing its segregated parts, but to do this he believed that the limitation of the physical senses had to be transcended by perceiving reality in a new way. Goethe, who was a practicing alchemist, did not really invent a new method of ‘seeing’; he was simply using an ancient method of perceptual integration that was familiar to gnostics even during his lifetime. The goal of Goethe’s method was to integrate the physical and spiritual (imaginal) cognitive faculties into a single act of observation. Using both his physical and spiritual cognitive faculties he found that he could perceive qualities of the phenomenon being studied which the senses alone could not provide. Perceptual integration permitted Goethe to cognitively enter that imaginal, spiritual dimension of the physical world and mentally interact with it as he participated in its enfoldment in physical space and time. By combining his physical and spiritual
faculties of perception Goethe was able to experience a far deeper, more direct contact with the hidden spiritual nature of things. Here is Goethe's Method of Perceptual Integration. 1. Using your physical senses, study any physical object intently without subjectively imposing theoretical concepts on what you are observing, thus making it possible to directly receive intuitive insight into its nature. Goethe’s method is to move one’s attention away from the influence of the rational mind, its judgments, concepts and theories and learn how to 'just see' the inner qualities of the phenomenon directly.
2. Mentally internalize the object by visualizing its dynamic form, that is, imagining it as being part of a whole process that is moving through space and time as it comes into being, thus freeing it from its present static condition. In doing so, the observer is no longer confined to the present moment but is free to internally visualize the phenomenon taking place over an extended period of time; such as observing the growth of a plant from a seedling into a blossoming flower, giving us a glimpse of the whole of which it is a part. The real nature of anything can never be grasped when perceptually confined to a present moment in space and time. 3. Next, mentally externalize your inner vision by projecting it onto the objective physical object that is being studied, thus integrating your physical and spiritual perception into a single unified experience. Your perception of the object has now becomes an integrated vision which includes both the spiritual and physical nature of what you are observing. These different stages of Goethe’s 'Exact Sensorial Imagination' are intended to occur simultaneously, that is, when perceiving something with your physical senses you have to simultaneously perceive it through your imagination or inner vision as well. These are merely different aspects of a single act of seeing resulting in the integration of one’s physical and spiritual cognitive faculties. The curious thing about the perceptual integrative process is that it is not passive but dynamically responsive in nature. When we imaginatively participate in the spiritual aspect of nature using Goethe’s method, we will often experience some kind of response – either in the form of a marked change in consciousness or as an actual physical event. With the expansion of consciousness one might experience an oceanic feeling, charged with emotion and intuitive significance having an overwhelming reality of its own. It is like moving into another space – an imaginal realm that is experienced as being more real than the physical world. This can result in a profound self-transcending experience in which self and world are no longer separate but form a single dynamic unity - you suddenly become aware of yourself as being part of a larger whole, in fact the entire world. Rudolph Steiner’s Method of Gnosis Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) an Austrian philosopher, educator and the founder of Anthroposophy, was greatly influenced by Goethe’s spiritual epistemology and his contribution th to the development of 17 century physical sciences. Steiner edited Goethe’s complete scientific
works while living in Weimar prior to moving to Berlin in 1897 and becoming the editor of a German magazine. In 1891, Steiner submitted his thesis, Truth and Knowledge at the University of Rostock in Germany and was granted a doctorate in philosophy. In his paper, Steiner rejects Kant’s concept of a ‘noumenal world’, which he considers to be an illusion. Steiner believed that it was pointless to seek the foundation of our existence beyond the known experiential world. For Kant, all we perceptually experience are mere appearances, or mental representations of an external world, which simply can’t be relied upon. For Kant, true knowledge could only be obtained by beginning from a point-of-view based on a priori judgments that were completely independent of experience itself, as well as being free of all presuppositions. Kant defines a priori knowledge as that kind of knowledge which is held independently of all experience, whereas empirical knowledge is possible only through experience. He believed that mathematics and the natural sciences, being based on a priori knowledge was a good place to start. Steiner points out that Kant’s claim that mathematics and the pure natural sciences are based on a priori knowledge is itself a presupposition, which invalidates Kant’s intended criteria for attaining a transcendental understanding. Steiner suggested that our search for true knowledge should begin, not from searching for a priori knowledge, but rather based upon the nature of cognition itself, as knowledge emerges from participating in our own perceptual activity. Prior to any conceptual thinking, nothing really exists for us because we lack the mental pictures that allow us to distinguish between rocks and trees, good and evil, cause and effect, mind and matter etc. Although we do not create the content of the world, Steiner believes that it is initially incomplete and undefined; a world waiting for us to determine its meaning and what its characteristic features will be. This process of thinking that Steiner is referring to is an imaginal spiritual ‘picture making’ facility that functions independently of the physical senses, which presents us with a worldview that our concepts represent; a process that begins with the activity of the creative imagination. In order to explain a given phenomena or identify an object, we create a picture in our mind, label it and file it in our memory so that we can refer to it again in the future. Photons, muons and electrons did not exist for us until a physicist envisioned their existence in his mind and decided to name them that way. For Steiner, as all observation is theory laden, truth does not exist until we perceptually create it ourselves. This however does not mean that we create reality. What is implied here is that whenever the given is perceived with the physical senses it always remains incomplete. There is always some aspect of its existence that remains hidden that has not yet been perceptually revealed to us. This hidden secondary aspect of the world, such as the colour of a rose, is intuitively revealed to us through what Goethe and Steiner called the imaginative faculty of the soul. It is our imagination that participates in providing the mental pictures of all the concepts our perceiving mind requires in order to organize and identify what it is that we are feeling, hearing or looking at. Steiner recognized that perceiving the external world, the way we actually experience it to be, requires that the conceptual structure of our inner mental pictures must conform to the nature of
the objects they represent. That is, in order to perceive a tree, the inner mental image we have of it and its physical counterpart must share the same qualities and spatial structure, otherwise we would not be able to identify what it is that we are aware of. This fact suggests that our perception of an external world is not entirely structured by the physical presence of external things. Rather our perception of the external world is also structured by the inner images or thought-forms perceived by our inner spiritual vision that determines how reality is experienced. The nature of our inner world and the objective world we perceive around us equally share the same perceived qualities and characteristics, such as colour, beauty, meaning, and spatial attributes etc., not because of the way our physical senses respond to the presence of external things but because these attributes are perceived by our spiritual cognitive faculties, revealing aspects of reality that would otherwise remain unknown. Both modes of perception obey the same laws and principles in constructing an integrated inner-outer vision of the same world.
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The Mystery of the Self Many individuals living in western society have never experienced any urgent need to question their beliefs regarding who or what they believe they are – whether they are spiritual in nature or merely a physical epiphenomenona resulting from neurological activity occurring in their brain and nervous system. Most are passively content with their perception of a self that is physically embodied and entirely dependent on biological processes for its very existence. Consequently, they believe that when all biochemical and neurological activity ceases, one’s conscious awareness as a living indwelling self must come to an end as well. Many others however have at sometime experienced a vague awareness of a greater truth – that their personal identity is really spiritual in nature, a soul perhaps. But even if a spiritual self does exists, does it really have any practical significance for us as long as we are still physically alive? As you read this book you will begin to realize that your spiritual self really does exist because its presence does make a difference; that it has a direct impact on your daily life ‘right now’ and that its activity is not just relegated to some heavenly existence encountered in the distant future, which some religious teachings would have us believe. In The American Religion: The Emergence of The Post-Christian Nation, Harold Bloom, a Professor of Humanities at Yale University, defines Gnosticism as the experience of knowing that one’s personal identity is a duality - of a physically embodied self as well as an uncreated spiritual self; a self within a self. The gnostics of antiquity reported experiencing a profound awakening as a result of becoming aware of the fact that one’s authentic self has never been born – that it has always existed and therefore independent of one’s physical
body. And what they realized through direct inner experience is that to know oneself at the deepest level of one’s being is to discover God. The great secret of gnosis is that the spiritual self and the divine are identical in nature. Throughout this book we will be following the gnostic path to spiritual reality and personal empowerment, particularly regarding the magical ability of the spiritual self to transform the physical world we live in through through the perceptual process itself. Exploring the Mystery of the Self I can still recall when I first began to seriously question conventional scientific beliefs regarding the nature of consciousness and the perceiving self. It was during a cold winter night while trying to sleep on a speeding train headed for New Brunswick. As I lay there in the dark listening to the sound of clicking tracks and the rushing wind outside, I began to think about the duality of the human cognitive faculties and the possibility of perceptually transcending the limitations of my physical p hysical senses.
What, I wondered, is the real nature of the perceiving self? Is it really imprisoned in my physical body as it now appears to be, or is it capable of transcending its biological limitations and even space and time itself? If If the self is really disembodied, as some religious doctrines claim, and which parapsychological experiments have repeatedly demonstrated, then I should be able to perceptually experience everything that is presently occurring in the wintry countryside countryside outside the train as well! As our ability to perceptually experience the external world is believed to be entirely limited to the location of one’s physical body and sense organs, relative to the surrounding environment, it is usually assumed that the self must be entirely confined to one’s bodily existence. This of course is what neurologists steadfastly believe - that the self if it really does exists at all, is simply a byproduct of neurological processes taking place within the brain and nervous system. We have then, different contradictory perceptions of the self. If we are indeed spiritual beings residing in a physical body, then perceiving at-a-distance is not just a possibility but also an established fact that has been demonstrated in ‘remote-viewing’ experiments conducted in research facilities throughout the world. On the other hand, if self-consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon created by the physical brain, then according to Owen Flanagan, Daniel Dennett and others, we are nothing more than soulless animals trapped within a physical body. The first vision of the self promises us freedom, spiritual empowerment and selfdetermination, while the second reflects the prevalent demoralizing materialistic view of man that now permeates scientific thinking and western society in the twenty-first century. The Search for Self Realization How then can we hope to obtain an authentic perception of the self? Does the self really exist as an independent entity, or is it, as the Buddhists claim, a mere illusion? Does the self really survive the demise of the physical body and if so, what is the purpose of our earthly
existence? These are very important questions that have far reaching implications for us all. Although the presence and uniqueness of the self remains beyond question, it is not something that we can perceive directly. Rather we often peer into the eyes of others with the hope of finding oneself reflected there. The particular concept of selfhood that we adopt, based on a set of beliefs and assumptions regarding the nature n ature of reality and our place in it, is a perception that changes as we grow older, which alters our vision of who we are and what we might become. So we search for something or someone capable of reflecting our selfhood back to us in an authentic way. We tend to depend on others to recognize us as we recognize ourselves, thereby providing a sense of certainty about who we are based on the authority of someone one el else's e's pe persona onal op opinion. But the existence of one’s authentic spiritual self is not in anyway dependent on how others might care to perceive us. Rather, a deeper knowledge of our real self can be gleaned in a very simple way - through the perceptual process itself, which ultimately reveals the spiritual nature of our being as a soul dwelling in a physical body struggling to express itself according to its own truth. Psychological Psychological Realism and and the Self Self Just as scientific realists believe in the existence of the theoretical constructs they use to understand the physical world, so also do psychological realists believe in the existence of the theoretical entities they use to explain mental phenomena. For example, psychological constructs, such as the Self, Soul, Id, Ego and the Unconscious mind, are believed to have a reality reality of their their own, either embodied embodied or existing existing independe independently ntly of biologica biologicall proces processes. ses.
By positing such theoretical concepts, psychologists attempt to understand the real nature of the self within the context of a particular theory. As there are different psychological theories, we also have different beliefs about the nature of our being. And, just as we find in physics, there are also skeptics, referred to as instrumentalists, who consider that all these theoretical entities, although useful in conceptualizing our inner nature, really don't exist at all. The basic problem is that there is no real consensus as to where self-consciousness is actually located. Descartes believed it resides in the pituitary gland, whereas the Japanese pointing to the navel area claim that it resides there. Most individuals in the western world believe that the mind is in the head; in some hidden recess of the brain in which consciousness appears as a mere byproduct of neurological processes. But the mind, psyche or spiritual nature of man can't be so conveniently localized. The paradox is that mind appears to exist everywhere and yet nowhere in particular. J. Krishnamurti, speaking about the interrelatedness of things, agrees with the Zen perspective of the self by proclaiming: "I am the world". According to Vedantic philosophy, many of our western concepts actually don't exist at all. For example, there is no such thing as a personal self; in fact, all sensory experiences of reality are simply Maya, or an illusion. Western psychology generally leans toward the idea of a self, soul or psyche, which exists as an entity in its own right and can make demands and claims.
Buddhist psychology recognizes no such entity. The Buddha nature is simply the fact that the universe lives in us and we in it. This i dentity of self and cosmos is the ultimate foundation of Zen ethics. [1]
For the Zen Buddhist, the fountainhead of consciousness is Jnana, the universal or primordial mind. Chitta is the perceiving cognizing mind of normal awareness, while Alaya roughly corresponds to the unconscious, both of which are manifestations of Jnana the cosmic mind. Here we find no separation between inner and outer, mind and matter, or between self and world. Unlike Descartes, who thought that body and mind were two separate things, Zen Buddhists claim that mind and body form an inseparable functional unity, each dependent upon the existence of the other. Great importance is therefore placed on maintaining a state of harmony between them. Yet mind is more than the body and greater than it is conceived to be. For Buddhists, the inner realization of mind is the realization that ‘you and the universe are one'. Mind is no other than mountains and rivers and the great wide earth, the sun and the moon and the stars. [2] Phenomenologists, like Edmund Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, also believed that self-awareness is embodied, embedded in the world itself. Even in the Jungian school of psychology we find this subtle merging of psyche and matter, self and world. For Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, the Unus Mundus was the potential, eternal ground of all being, unifying psyche and matter and therefore representing the underlying unity between the essence of human existence and the world itself. Jung believed that there was no separation between the inner and outer world and that by studying one it would reveal the nature of the other. The psyche cannot be totally different fr om matter, for how otherwise could it move matter? And matter cannot be alien to psyche, or how else could matter produce psyche? Psyche and matter exist in the same world and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible. If r esearch could only advance far enough, therefore, we would arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts. [3]
Throughout Jung's writings, he recounts many instances of synchronistic events that indicated to him that meaningful connections exist between mind and matter. These synchronistic experiences encountered in his practice encouraged Jung to postulate the existence of an underlying unified reality, the Unus Mundus, which could explain how such meaningful coincidences could arise simultaneously both within the mind and as a physical events in the outer world. In order for the psyche and the physical world to participate in the same meaningful event, something underlying both mind and matter must be manifesting in the same meaningful way in both the inner and outer world at the same time. When we compare Jung's concept of the Unus Mundus with the Buddhist concept of Sunyata and the modem scientific concept of the quantum vacuum, we cannot help but notice that they are all trying to describe the same underlying source of creation; a virtual state of nothingness from which everything manifests. In fact, an Indian yoga master informs us that the inner gateway to God, or this creative cosmic void, is the 'third-eye' through which one can experience a sense of pure being.
But when we enter this inner domain, we discover that the inner has suddenly become the outer and the outer has become the inner and that we have attained some marvelous ability to see distant places and events in the outer physical world, as well as experiencing other psychic abilities that we never knew we had. It is as if we have momentarily become the universe, for we appear to be no longer hampered by physical space-time boundaries. For the Dhyana school of Buddhism, we have now become aware of our true identity, encountering our 'original mind', our original face before we were born. Neurological Realism and the Self In the West however, we have a different, more materialistic view of the self, based on the belief that all psychological concepts, such as consciousness and the self, are merely illusions constructed by neurological processes occurring in the brain. In his book: The Problem of the Soul , [4] Owen Flanagan envisions a new 'mind science' or neurological psychology based on the assumption that the self is embodied and entirely dependent for its existence upon neurological processes. Consequently, Flanagan perceives human beings as being nothing more than soulless animals. The existence of a personal self or soul is simply an illusion because self-awareness is identical to the neurological activity responsible for creating such an experience.
Flanagan's so-called ‘mind science’ reflects a totally impoverished view of man's nature. Since when does neurology replace psychology, the study of the psyche - the existence of which Flanagan denies? Neurology can't explain what it doesn't believe exists, such as the self or soul. But Flanagan does concede that a conscious mental state arising due to neural events will never result in an experience without a subject to experience it in the first place. So what is the nature of the subject? Flanagan claims that it is philosophically irresponsible to believe that we have souls as well as personalities or that we are continually reincarnated. Religious beliefs are illusions and meaning and purpose are entirely based on evolutionary processes. Only the natural material world exists. There are no spiritual beings and neither is there an after-life or even a personal free will. For Flanagan, there is no divine creator, as God doesn't exist. Meaning, morality and purpose are merely byproducts of evolutionary processes and can be explained within the context of the scientific neurological image of man. Flanagan however admits that there are no strict laws in neuroscience. Physical laws are of no use in explaining functions of human bodies. Causal laws can't be applied to mind science, as there are no causal laws regulating mental events. There are no strict deterministic laws governing perception either. If no strict causal laws exist that are able to explain this new mental science, then upon what is it based? It only assumes that principles of causal determination apply. But assumptions are not good enough to serve as a foundation for a neurological psychology. How can a biochemical process become a conscious experience, particularly when there are no known causes that can account for it? He also reluctantly agrees that no systematic and unified theory has emerged in the 'decade of the brain'. And I personally believe it never will. If this is so, then how can a neurological
psychology be flaunted as a new mind science? How can we possibly accept Flanagan's scientific psychology based on physical brain processes when there is not the slightest shred of evidence available to support such an assumption? It is only assumed that for every mental effect there exists a set of causes that are sufficient to produce that effect. What these causes are, if they do exist, will never be known, as they are nothing more than the creation of an overactive academic imagination. How then can we possibly arrive at a true understanding of the nature of the self? The answer is that rather than trying to evaluate all these conflicting theories, which lack any substantial experimental evidence, there is a much better, more direct way of arriving at the truth regarding the nature of the self. The method I will be using is not based on metaphysical speculation but rather on actual experimental evidence available to us regarding what the spiritual self is actually able to accomplish - such as accurately perceiving distant locations thousand of miles away and mentally interacting with the objective world. Let us then see what this mysterious self can actually tell us about itself by observing what it can actually accomplish and then redefining its nature based on that experimental evidence! Resolving the Mystery of the Self In attempting to understand the real nature of the perceiving self we must abandon any attempt to reduce everything to either matter or mind, which has previously proven to be a complete waste of time. We also know that any theory of perception that relies completely on the physical senses and neurological processes to provide an answer is also doomed to failure.
The nature of the self is only a mystery because of our reluctance to recognize that human beings are both physical and spiritual in nature and c onsequently have two distinctly different modes of perception; a fact that has been recognized in the eastern world for countless centuries. We not only have our five physical senses, which informs us about the external world, but we also have spiritual faculties of perception which Henry Corbin describes as the Active Imagination. [5] Corbin however is not referring to imagination as pure fantasy or something unreal, rather it is a subtle faculty that we all have that allows us to perceive spiritual qualities present in the external world that are imperceptible to the physical senses. In attempting to solve the mystery of the observing self, we know that any explanation of perception that relies completely on sense data and neurological processes to provide an answer will not work, as the physical senses alone cannot account for the way we actually experience the world. A reality perceived by our physical senses alone would be a strange place indeed - appearing as a bleak undifferentiated nothingness, which Kant referred to as the noumenal world, which is completely devoid of any secondary qualities, such as colour, value, beauty or meaning. What then is missing? Our conscious awareness of an external world filled with all kinds of subjective secondary attributes is only possible because of the unconscious integration of sense stimuli and the inner imagery provided by our spiritual vision. It is through this mutual participation of subjective content and the sense data provided by our physical senses that a conscious experience of an external space-time world can occur at all.
While the physical body perceives the external world through our sensory organs, the spirit utilizes what Ibn 'Arabi calls the Heart , or active imagination, which is a spiritual cognitive faculty situated in the subtle body that not only perceives the spiritual dimension in the form of reflected images within one's inner vision, but also unconsciously projects thought-forms onto the external world during normal perception in the form of qualities and attributes that objectively appear extended in physical space and time. In the materialistic age in which we live, we have become alienated from the spiritual nature of the self and therefore unable to perceive whom and what we really are. We have carelessly forgotten our spiritual inheritance, which is always there for us to consciously reclaim by simply becoming aware of it again. Consequently, the importance of our subtle perceptual faculties has remained unrecognized and undeveloped, resulting in a sense of self that is fragmented, incomplete and relatively powerless due to the lack of the conscious perceptual integration of one’s physical and spiritual cognitive faculties. We are no longer in touch with the spiritual reality in which we live and it is only by consciously integrating these two perceptual faculties once again that we can regain a true vision of the self and the multidimensional nature of the world we live in. The perceptual process, once correctly understood, is the key that reveals how the spiritual self and the physical body participate together in creating the reality that we experience every moment of our lives. If they did not, the world the way we actually experience it to be, would simply cease to exist. What needs to be understood is that both our physical and spiritual cognitive faculties continually work together as co-creators of everything we experience. It is a sad fact that in the materialistic age of the brain, the scientific community has failed to provide us with pathways to the spirit based on their latest theories and experimental findings. Today, many scientists, psychologists, neurologists and psychiatrists mistakenly believe that anything we call mental or spiritual is merely an epiphenomenona created by the blind activity of biochemical processes occurring in the brain. For them, the spiritual self or soul is merely an illusion - it simply doesn't exist. But for many more enlightened scientists, consciousness and the spiritual self are not regarded as illusory but rather something transcending the physical brain altogether. Recent developments in quantum physics, parapsychology and transpersonal psychology have now experimentally confirmed that our western belief in a physically embodied self is simply not true! Science, for example, has finally rediscovered the existence of the transpersonal self and the nonlocal nature of consciousness. The main reason why many scientists now recognize the fact that the self is spiritual in nature is because of what it is capable of accomplishing - such as creating telesomatic effects in others, perceiving external events at remote distances, psychokinetically affecting the external world, as well as its proven ability to leave the body during out-of body and neardeath experiences. Consequently, any theory that seeks to confine the self to a brain and nervous system simply
cannot account for its miraculous powers, such as the ability to perceive the same objective world by either ‘looking out’ using the physical senses, or by ‘looking within’ using one's inner vision. There is no way a neurological theory of perception could possibly explain how an unconscious patient is able to perceive in great detail the activities and conversations taking place in an operating room from a remote point-of-view near the ceiling. Many such out-of-body reports have later been confirmed and found to be correct in every detail. Based on both my personal experience and the research findings of many others, I believe that the spiritual self is always present and perceptually active in our daily affairs and that our inner perceptual faculties are able to see, hear and know things that are beyond the normal ability of the physical senses to acquire. Consequently, the existence of extrasensory perception and other transpersonal phenomena is both a celebration and an acknowledgment of our spiritual nature. In the chapters to follow, we will be discussing these remarkable abilities of the spiritual self in greater detail.
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The Spiritual Cognitive Faculties Although different cultures throughout the world have described the spiritual cognitive senses in different ways, they have all agreed that the subtle organs of perception are associated with a nonphysical spiritual body. Essentially, the ‘subtle body’ is perceived as an energy field permeating and surrounding the physical body that exists in an objective imaginal realm. Serving as an intermediary between the physical and spiritual world, the subtle body is visible to one’s inner vision or by means of Kirlian photography. The early Greeks recognized the subtle body as being the soul, capable of existing independently of the physical body and possessing its own cognitive faculties, including vision and hearing, as well as taste and touch. Today these spiritual cognitive faculties are associated with specific chakra centers in the auric field, such as the Third Eye located above and between the eyebrows. Ibn ‘Arabi, a Sufi mystic (1165-1240 AD) called the spiritual organ of perception the ‘Heart’ which does not refer to the physical heart as such, but rather a psycho-spiritual faculty capable of inwardly perceiving the mundus imaginalis or world of spirit. For Ibn ‘Arabi, every human being is suspended between two worlds – a meeting point between the spiritual and physical world. As the human heart is a space in which our physical and spiritual cognitive faculties operate, it is possible to be in both worlds simultaneously by consciously integrating them. In more recent times, C. G. Jung described the subtle body as a medium of realization comprised of neither matter nor mind, but being a part of the imaginal realm, it serves as a bridge between the physical and spiritual world. Consequently, there is no need to distinguish between the
psyche and the physical body as they were already conjoined in what he referred to as the Unus Mundus, a unitary ground that contains both. As our spiritual cognitive faculties play such an important role in our perceptual awareness of reality, by providing the missing qualities and attributes that the physical senses are unable to provide, it is important to have a good understanding of how our physical and subtle senses participate together to create a single integrated representation of our experiential world. Clairvoyant perception can best be understood as being a nonlocal field of awareness having no rigid boundaries preventing access to realms of reality beyond the reach of the physical senses. Here the observing self enters into a subtle dimension of reality in which the physical senses are transcended altogether. The Nature of Clairvoyance Clairvoyance means ‘clear seeing’ or perceiving reality with the mind without sensory obstructions or veils. Although Descartes attributed the source of this inner vision to the pineal gland situated between and behind the eyebrows, it actually exists as a subtle energy center or sixth chakra in one's subtle body called Ajna, a Sanskrit word meaning 'command'. It is also referred to by a variety of other names depending on the language being used, such as the Tibetan term Shivanetra or the Eye of Shiva.
Some physiological theories have claimed that clairvoyant vision is only possible because the pituitary gland is sensitive to electromagnetic light, just as the physical eyes are. But how can ordinary light penetrate the human skull, particularly at a great distance, to the extent that a perception of something external could result from it. Since Descartes, it has been popularly believed that the third eye and pituitary gland are the same thing, which is not correct. The third eye, like the Sufi heart, is not a physical organ at all, but is a perceptual faculty of the subtle body. Further, what is perceived through inner vision completely excludes any possibility of being limited to any kind of physical process, as one is able to perceive aspects of reality that are not bound by any limitations of matter, space or time. Just as the physical eyes can perceive the electromagnetic frequencies of energy comprising the physical aspects of the world, the third eye is able to perceive the subtle non-physical energies that form the ethereal counterpart of the physical world. Consequently, to perceive reality using only the physical senses is to perceive only a fragment of it, with the most important part remaining hidden. Thus it is the clairvoyant eye that can perceive the subtle aspects of the world at a distance, while the precognitive eye is able to see into the future. Psychometry, another form of clairvoyance, is the art of using one’s spiritual senses to perceive subtle energy patterns imprinted on physical objects and geographical locations in the world around us. For most individuals in the western world, the third eye remains inactive due to the fact that hardly anyone is aware that it exists and consequently no attention is given to it. In old Tantra texts we are told that conscious attention is the very food upon which the third eye thrives, so by paying attention to it - it can become alive and active once again. Jung believed that clairvoyant vision and our normal physical vision competed with each other
and that these different perceptual orientations could not be experienced at the same time. But through personal experience, I have found that both sensory and clairvoyant modes of perception can be experienced simultaneously. This is due to the fact that the human mind can experience a merging of different states of consciousness in which one can be fully aware of one's physical surroundings while at the same time being consciously present elsewhere. It is my personal belief that the spiritual nature of man is always present and perceptually active in our daily affairs and that our mind, psyche or spirit is able to see, hear and know things that are beyond the normal ability of the physical senses to acquire. Consequently, the existence of clairvoyant perception is both a celebration and an acknowledgment of the spiritual nature of man. Remote Viewing To help clarify the dual nature of perception, which includes both our physical and spiritual cognitive faculties, I would like to begin by using the phenomenon of remote vision to demonstrate how it is possible to perceive the external world by using one's inner spiritual vision.
The actual term ‘remote viewing’ was not used in the West until the 1970's when two American physicists, Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff adopted this name, even though Targ thought at the time that a more accurate definition should be remote sensing as it includes smell, sound and touch as well as sight. However, remote viewing is not some modern discovery. In fact, it was referred to in ancient Hindu Yoga texts thousands of years ago, as a sidhi, a psychic power that could be developed by anyone. An early example of remote viewing is the well-known case of Emanuel Swedenborg (16881772), a Swedish scientist, philosopher and mystic. While attending a dinner party in Gothenburg, Sweden, he described a fire that had broken out in his hometown of Stockholm. Two days later, it was discovered that his vision was correct with the fire stopping just three doors from his own house. Frederic W. H. Meyers, who conducted many remote-viewing experiments during the nineteenth century, observed that the phenomena often appeared to be a combination of telepathy, retrocognition, precognition and clairvoyance, as events often did not follow any logical time sequence. That is, the viewing target was often clairvoyantly perceived before it was randomly selected. Later, in the early 20th century Upton Sinclair an American writer, and Rene Warcollier a French engineer, conducted a number of remote-viewing experiments accumulating data that was later used in 1972 by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff in their research. Although the available material on the history of remote-viewing research is too vast to cover here, there is however one well known research project that warrants our attention. During the 1970's, under the sponsorship of the CIA, Harold Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Ca. conducted extensive experiments on the potential use of remote viewing for military intelligence gathering. [1] Between 1969 and 1971, American intelligence sources reported that the Soviet Union was
deeply engaged in psychic research, concentrating on the field of Applied Psychoenergetics, which included remote viewing experiments. By 1970, it was estimated that the Soviets were spending about sixty million rubles a year on it, and over three hundred million by 1975. Obviously, the American government needed to evaluate the possible future consequences of this emerging Russian capability of spying at-a-distance. One of the participants in this CIA research project at the Stanford Research Institute was Ingo Swann and the results of the experiments he conducted were quite remarkable. He could, for example, describe a distant location simply by being given the geographical coordinates. One target given was 15" North and 120" East. Ingo Swann responded by describing this location as "land with jungles and mountains that resembled peninsular-type mountains." The target area was actually the west coast of the Zambales' mountains, a peninsular formation in the Philippines. In another experiment Swann was able to breach the security of a remote subterranean military installation, which he was able to sketch in great detail. [2] There have of course been many other individuals who have made significant contributions to this research, but the information provided above demonstrates the fact that human beings have two entirely different cognitive faculties, one physical and the other spiritual. To help us understand the nature of this subtle cognitive faculty of 'seeing' we have to keep in mind that it is the perceptual power of the imagination itself that Swann is using to perceive the objective world at a distance. Secrets of Telepathy One of the most debatable subjects that has continued to reappear in heated discussions over the years is the existence of telepathy. Does it really exist or is it merely a figment of the imagination? Rather than endlessly debating this subject, I prefer to encourage others to prove that telepathy exists for themselves by conducting a simple experiment. Telepathic perception is a very normal and natural function of the perceiving mind present not only in human beings but in other life forms as well.
How does one 'see' telepathically, that is, without the use of the physical senses? Although the actual process of telepathic perception is not yet completely understood, the appearance of inner images are similar to those perceived through sensory perception. For example, images perceived telepathically obey optical-like laws, which are identical to those experienced in normal vision, particularly in regards to their left-right orientation. To demonstrate the existence of telepathic perception requires no special talent or elaborate experimental equipment. You can prove to your own satisfaction that a telepathic mode of perception exists, providing you are willing to spend a few minutes at your kitchen table with someone interested in assisting you. Here’s how it is done: 1. Go to your kitchen cupboard drawer and pick out a spoon, a knife and a fork. These will be the target objects you will use, as they are readily familiar to everyone and will be easy to recognize when one of these objects appear within your inner vision. 2. Position a chair at opposite sides of the table and place a piece of cardboard or some other type of screen in the middle of the table to help prevent you and your partner from observing what
each other is doing. Actually, either you or your partner could be situated in another adjacent room if that is easier for you. The first thing is to decide who is going to be the sender and who is to act as receiver. 3. For the purpose of explaining the experimental procedure, we will assume that your associate has agreed to send the telepathic image. Spread out before him or her is a spoon, a knife and a fork, which must be well illuminated. Don’t try to perform this experiment in a dimly lit room; a good light source is essential. As it is up to your assistant to decide which of the three items mentioned will be used in the experiment, you will have no way of knowing which item has been chosen. The only way you will know is by actually seeing a picture of it appearing within your inner vision when your eyes are closed. 4. Receiving telepathic images is really quite easy. As you sit there, your only task is to concentrate on the darkness before your closed eyes, watching for an image to appear either in the form of a spoon, knife or fork, which are easily recognizable. What you will see is the image of the object the sender has mentally chosen and is concentrating on sending you. Don’t try to guess! The whole point of this exercise is to learn to 'see' with your inner vision. 5. The role of the sender is to mentally choose one of the items without physically removing any of them. Concentrating on that item, the sender tries to project that image outwardly towards the receiver. It is important to remain relaxed without any mental straining. As the most important factors in telepathic communication are your intention and the belief that you can accomplish it, try to avoid having any friendly skeptics in the room during the experiment, as their presence could be detrimental to your success. 6. To prove that you are receiving the image telepathically and not directly perceiving the object through distant-viewing, simply turn your chair around so that you are now facing away from the sender. As a result, the image you are now perceiving will be completely reversed. If for example, the handle of a spoon first appeared on your left it will now appear on your right, which clearly demonstrates that inner images are optically similar in nature to those perceived with the physical eyes. Blind Vision Some skeptics question the existence of the spiritual cognitive faculties on the grounds that if they really did exist then the physically blind could continue to perceive their immediate environment. But, to their surprise, they have discovered that this is not a valid argument at all because the blind can in fact learn to perceive their immediate environment using their inner vision, with some specialized training.
Ingo Swann once remarked that although most clairvoyant experiments have been conducted with subjects who could see, many experiments have also been conducted using blind individuals. According to Swann, sixteen totally blind volunteers at Rosary Hill College in Buffalo, New York, undertook an ESP experiment in colour perception. After eight weeks, upon the completion of the experiment, most of the volunteers could perceive the difference between white and black as well as red and green. One of the blind volunteers actually began to see outlines of doorways and furniture.
Douglas Dean, a parapsychologist and former president of the Parapsychological Association, and a teacher at Newark College of Engineering , statistically evaluated this research with blind people and found that the results far exceeded what could be expected due to pure chance. He also found that there was a learning process taking place in which the subjects, although blind, learned to discern the different colours of these targets. The question that arises from this research however is this! How is it possible for a completely blind person to learn how to perceive different colours and to distinguish the outlines of furniture and doorways? Based on actual experiments, it has been discovered that our inner spiritual vision is in some way able to utilize the presence of light – just as the physical eyes do. Blind Vision and Light An interesting case that supports this conclusion, reported by Swann, involved a 21 year old woman who had her eyes covered with goggles and Kleenex and her hands placed in a box, the contents of which she would not be able to see even if her eyes were uncovered. She was able to tell the difference between blue, yellow and green construction paper - but only if there was a light on them.
C. B. Nash published an article in The Journal for Psychical Research in which he reported a case of eyeless vision, which is also referred to as synesthesia or dermo-optical perception. A subject had a box placed around his head to prevent him from picking up visual clues and was able to consistently distinguish different coloured paper, such as black and red. The different colours could still be detected when the test papers were covered with thin plastic but not when covered by glass. It was concluded that the subject’s sensitivity was due to the cutaneous perception of infrared light and was not due to physical touch or any ESP ability on the subject’s part. However, if the subject’s ability to detect different coloured papers using the fingers or hands depended on the presence of ultraviolet light, then placing a piece of plastic over the paper would not make any difference. However, because glass filters out ultraviolet light, there was no interaction with the molecular surface of the coloured paper and consequently the subject could no longer detect it. Here is another example! Remote Viewing and Light In January, 1972, Ingo Swann conducted a series of remote viewing experiments for the Society for Psychical Research, during which he was asked to identify a series of colored symbols placed inside a lighted box suspended on a platform near the ceiling. While sitting in a chair with his eyes closed, Swann was asked to perceive these images through a small hole in the front of the elevated box. This he was able to do repeatedly, except on one occasion when he couldn't see anything in the box at all. Using a ladder, the individual supervising the experiment examined the box and found that the light was out; a fact that clearly demonstrates the dependence of inner vision on the presence of light.
At other times, Swann had complained that reflections from glossy surfaces within the box were obscuring his vision. After experimenting with different lighting setups, it was found that the use
of light absorbing construction papers and diffused overhead lighting worked best. It was also found that the use of primary colors of red, green and blue were more clearly perceptible than pastels. These facts clearly demonstrate that for successful remote viewing the presence of light is involved, however, it is not just energy in the electromagnetic spectrum that is being perceived. Rather, because of the dual nature of the interaction of light and matter, subtle energy is also emitted that is clairvoyantly visible. According to this theory of quantum electrodynamics two entirely different images are created - an electromagnetic image perceptible by the physical eyes and an etheric image of the same external world perceptible through clairvoyant vision. Jung and Ultraviolet Light As ultraviolet light plays such an important role in clairvoyant vision, as demonstrated in the experiments mentioned above, I would like to include some additional background information on ultraviolet light that will help to provide a deeper understanding of its importance in the perceptual process itself.
Carl Jung, the founder of analytic psychology (1875-1961) was deeply interested in establishing a scientific foundation for his psychological theories regarding the nature and dynamics of the psyche. Through collaboration with quantum physicists Wolfgang Pauli and Heisenberg, Jung intuitively sought to unify the ancient concepts of alchemy with the emerging theoretical findings of quantum physics, both of which he found useful in developing his psychological theories. One of the startling conclusions that Jung and Pauli came to was that an archetypal or divine energy existed, which was capable of operating in a meaningful way in organizing both the inner and outer world and which adequately accounted for the manifestation of synchronistic events. At this archetypal, psychoid level of existence, which Jung called the Unus Mundus, psyche and matter were only different aspects of this divine energy. The surprising thing however is that Jung and Pauli claimed that this archetypal energy linking spirit and matter was located in the invisible ultraviolet end of the electromagnetic spectrum, emanating from our sun and the cosmos. If this were true then both mind and matter existed objectively at this quantum level, which Jung called the objective unconscious. This tendency to try to discover a physical explanation for psychological phenomena was not surprising, as Pauli was a professional physicist and Jung was eager to establish scientific recognition for his analytic work. Although Jung was deeply involved in studying alchemical texts and using alchemical concepts to develop his analytic psychology, he failed to mention that Akhenaten, an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled from 1347 to 1364 B.C.E. had provided a solution to this ultraviolet mystery. Akhenaten recognized the visible sun as the ‘one thing’ the source of all creative energy, which he called Aten. But more importantly, he recognized that the underlying nature of the world we live in is multidimensional. He realized that the electromagnetic energy emanating from the sun, manifesting as light and heat also contained subtle energies, which were not only invisible and
intangible but also divine and everlasting. In other words, solar energy was perceived as having a physical and spiritual polarity that simultaneously manifested in the physical world. Thus for Akhenaten and his followers, the solar energy of the sun represented the ‘one thing’ or ultimate source from which everything both spiritual and physical manifested. Consequently, everything that exists on earth reflects both a physical and an etheric or spiritual image of itself, created by the absorption and emission of light from matter. A flower, for example, can be either viewed from a physical perspective using the physical eyes, or from a spiritual or astral perspective using clairvoyant or inner vision. The same etheric reflection of the physical world is also perceptible during an out-of-body experience or astral journey. Both polarized dimensions of spirit and matter exist together sharing the same cosmic origin, which according to Akhenaten, Jung and Pauli, is the sun. This perception of a dualistic multidimensional world is not mere idle speculation but, as we have seen, is based on actual experimental evidence. All matter, being composed primarily of light, exists simultaneously in both a physical and spiritual dimension. When solar radiation is absorbed and emitted by matter, dual images of objects are radiated out into space - one consisting of an electromagnetic image of the external world that can be perceived with our physical senses and an etheric image of the same world perceptible through one’s inner vision.
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The Enigma of Consciousness The primary reason why the nature of consciousness still remains such a mystery is due in part to the prevalent conflicting worldviews that exist between scientific materialism and an emerging transcendental spiritual perspective of consciousness based on current research findings in quantum physics, parapsychology and psychoanalysis. Scientific materialists attempt to reduce human consciousness to measurable biochemical events based on the assumption that every mental state, such as a thought, emotion or sensation, is ultimately caused by a corresponding neurological event occurring within the brain. But any biochemical correlation that is assumed to exist between neurological states and conscious experience is now seriously questioned as this correspondence theory of subjective experience completely fails to shed any new light on the underlying nature of consciousness itself. On the other hand, research in transpersonal psychology suggests that consciousness exists both locally and nonlocally, that is, it is not only embodied but also disembodied and even capable of transcending physical space and time altogether. A great deal of evidence is also presently available supporting the fact that consciousness not only exists
during one’s biological lifetime but is also present prior to one’s birth and that it endures beyond the demise of the physical body. In western society, consciousness is usually defined within a biological context - as a subjective state of awareness enabling living organisms to sense, perceive, act, and to establish informed relationships with inner and outer reality. As conscious awareness of an objective reality is limited to an organism's ability to experience bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts and other mental activities, it is not surprising to find a wide spectrum of conscious states in different animals, insects, plants and human beings, producing entirely different conscious experiences of the same objective reality. During normal states of consciousness, the self is perceive as being confined within the boundaries of a physical body, aware of a four-dimensional space-time world of matter, experiencing one’s own individuality and immediate environment and sharing common experiences with others that are assumed to be identical to our own. Our physical senses are generally regarded as being the ‘true measure of reality’ as they alone are believed to be capable of providing us with an authentic awareness of what really exists. Therefore, most individuals believe that the only aspect of reality they really need to be concerned about is the material world revealed through their physical senses. Although our need to understand the nature of consciousness is based upon a much deeper need to understand the nature of the perceiving self, it is not a simple task to find a single definition of consciousness that equally applies to all possible states of awareness. Particularly to those extending into transpersonal realms of spiritual reality; which makes it difficult to comprehend how consciousness could possibly be merely an epiphenomenon created by electrochemical processes taking place in the brain. Consciousness and Epiphenomenalism Neurological activity within the brain is believed to create a kind of neurological space that accurately represent the objective world - a neurological map of everything that exists out there. According to this identity theory, which maintains that mental states and brain activities are identical, a biochemical representation of objective reality is believed to be faithfully imprinted on the gray matter of the brain and directly accessible to consciousness during the perceptual process.
Although most neurologists believe that someday the nature of consciousness will become completely comprehensible in terms of these neurological interactions within the brain, the fact remains that our subjective states cannot be weighed or measured; the essence of mind can never be plotted on a graph. In The Stone Monkey Bruce Holbrook challenges the validity of these neurological assumptions by pointing out the following: There is no way that a chain of neurons running from a sensing-neuron to the brain can encode information specifying the location or nature of the original input. And reciprocally, there is no way a chain of neurons running from the brain to a motor-neuron can encode information specifying the nature of the message and its intended destination. [1]
That being the case, the chemical firing of a neuron becomes in itself absolutely meaningless. As the nervous system is not capable of processing precise information it is simply impossible for these inert chemical processes to be informed of what is going on elsewhere in the body and to know how to adequately respond. To believe that this is possible is to stretch the human imagination to the limit for it asks us to blindly believe in the magical power of lifeless matter. Descartes believed that while matter comprising the body was extended in physical space, the mind was not; mind and space were mutually exclusive categories. However once we accept the idea that mind is also nonlocal in nature, then a host of difficult problems become solvable, such as explaining clairvoyant perception, remote viewing and other parapsychological phenomena. Any neurological description of consciousness based on the evidence of the physical senses must remain incomplete, as our normal state of consciousness is only one of many possible states of awareness that can be experienced. Examples of awareness beyond the reach of our five physical senses include such things as telepathically perceiving another person’s thoughts and feelings, or being clairvoyantly aware of distant places and events. Other altered states include sharing dreams, hypnotic-trance states, as well as precognition - the ability to know the future, as well as psychokinesis - the ability to affect matter such as random physical processes at a distance. Such paranormal states of consciousness can best be understood as comprising a nonlocal field of awareness that has no rigid boundaries preventing access to realms of reality that are beyond the reach of the physical senses. Here the observing self enters into a subtle dimension of reality in which the physical senses are transcended altogether. The realization that your mind is not something imprisoned within your physical body is a remarkable revelation that can be personally experienced. For example, some individuals have reported imagining that they are at a distant location, such as a friend's home many miles away, and found that they were able to clairvoyantly perceive what was taking place at that location. Also, reciprocally, the host being visited has reported being aware of the visitor's presence in that particular room at that particular time. In a sense, what was being perceived could be called a 'ghost of the living' as the projector, although still alive, was perceived as being spiritually present at that remote location. Such occurrences continually demonstrate the nonlocal nature of consciousness and its ability to transcend the normal limitations of physical space and time. Consciousness Beyond the Brain Perhaps the most revolutionary discovery regarding the nature of consciousness is the fact that prior to birth and after death, when the central nervous system and brain are not functioning, consciousness is nevertheless still present, accurately recording details of what is occurring in the immediate environment. Remarkably, consciousness predates one's physical conception and even continues after death when all neurological activity within the brain and central nervous system has shut down.
Prenatal Consciousness Although recent studies reveal that many children and adults still retain prenatal memories of their birth from the moment of conception, the fact remains that the physical brain does not begin to function until much later. The cerebral cortex, which is associated with consciousness, thought and emotion does not become active until somewhere between 22 to 34 weeks when sensory messages are first detected reaching the cortex, indicating the beginning of brain life in the unborn fetus.
The thalamus, which receives sensory input to the brain, relays impulses traveling up the spinal cord to the appropriate regions of the cortex by means of projected neurological fibers, which only start developing at 17 weeks and are not permanently connected to the brain at all until at least 22 weeks after the child is conceived. Although ionic exchanges in nerves during cell growth produce measurable electrical activity at 6 weeks, this does not mean that the brain is functioning. Rather, what is being recorded on the electroencephalogram are reflex reactions of peripheral nerves communicating with the spinal cord. Although at this stage withdrawal reflex activity and facial movements can be observed, it is due to the automatic reflex activity of the nervous system rather than something being controlled by the brain itself. How then are we to explain the fact that many individuals when hypnotically regressed, can recall detailed memories of prenatal events that occurred before their physical brain was developed enough to record such memories? Regressed patients remember being just as consciously alert before their birth as they are now, able to perceive their embryonic environment, including all the thoughts, moods and emotions that the mother is experiencing. Many of these prebirth memories even predate biological conception itself. Thomas Revelry, a psychiatrist on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, claims that such memories can be stored on a cellular level, allowing an ovum, sperm or fetus to record prenatal memories of events occurring in its environment. However, John Schroeder, a cardiologist at the Stanford Medical Center concluded, based on his years of experience in performing medical organ transplants, that Revelry’s cellular-memory theory is not plausible as individuals receiving a heart transplant do not suddenly inherent memories of the donor's previous life experiences. Rather, Schroeder believes that memories of prenatal experiences can only be stored in the brain. But as we have already discovered, this theory cannot be correct either as prior to 22 weeks the undeveloped brain of the fetus is physically unable to record such memories. Another possibility is that the unborn child's memory is nonphysical. That is, the permanent storage of prenatal memories could be a function of the child’s spiritual body rather than the physical brain, beginning prior to one’s birth and remaining even after the brain has ceased to function altogether. If so, we are not just a byproduct of biological processes but rather a living stream of consciousness temporarily inhabiting a physical body, complete with its unique individuality and unconscious memories of previous lives.
My personal belief is that our present self identity develops during one's lifetime and is due to the integration of both possibilities, which however does not alter the nature of one's authentic prenatal self but only our present conceptualization of who and what we believe we are. Our complete experience from cradle to grave arises from the integration of the spiritual and physical aspects of our being, including their associated cognitive faculties. The Near-Death Experience Additional evidence that human consciousness can exist independently of brain activity is the out-of-body experiences individuals have reported having in operating rooms after being declared clinically dead. NDE's occur when the patient’s heart has stopped beating and the physical brain is no longer functioning, yet after being resuscitated many patient are able to provide a detailed account of everything that transpired within the operating room during the time when they were no longer physically alive. Such reports have included a detailed description of the instruments being used as well as an accurate account of conversations taking place between the medical staff.
The term 'near-death experience' was first used by Raymond Moody, Md. in his revolutionary book: Life after Life, published in 1975, in which he recounts over one hundred cases of near-death experiences. Since then, many additional books have been written on the subject, including Heading Toward Omega by Dr. Kenneth Ring, an eminent American research psychologist, and Closer to the Light by Dr. Melvin Morse, an authority on NDE's in children. Both books not only document individual cases but also focus on the impact that such experiences have had on people's lives. In addition to near-death experience, there have been many studies conducted over the years involving individuals who have reported having memories of previous lives. For example Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia, interviewed hundreds of children from all over the world who still retained vivid memories of past lives. In order to verify the accuracy of these childhood recollections Stevenson traveled to the villages and homes they reported having come from in their previous existence and was able to verify that a significant number of these reports were accurate in every detail. Twelve Years in a Haunted House Many skeptics deny that the clinically dead can have memories of their passing. Rather, in their attempt to find a rational explanation for such a claim they believe that the whole thing must be nothing more than a product of someone's imagination. But what about frequent encounters with the departed that continue over a period of many years; experiences that prove beyond any doubt that one's personal identity, consciousness and memories continue after death. Here is my personal account of such an experience.
In May 1974, I was involved in the purchase of eighty acres of land on a lake in north central Ontario, which was licensed by the county for the development of a large campground. As part of the agreement, the broker included an old house on the property for an extra two
thousand dollars, which appeared to be a real bargain at the time. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the pentagrams and bundles of garlic present in the house, intended by the previous occupants to magically ward off any uninvited guests. After moving in and proceeding with renovations, it soon became apparent that something was not quite right – in fact, the house was haunted. Unknown to us, the husband of the previous owner had committed suicide in the basement three years earlier. Consequently we experienced an assortment of parapsychological phenomena as well as occasionally feeling that some invisible presence was watching us. It was enough to convince any sane person that it might be a good idea to pack-up and leave. After a period of time, a relationship is established between a ghost and a living person, which is accomplished through an intuitive understanding. It can be either a good relationship or a bad one, and the kind of phenomena experienced is largely determined by the nature of that relationship. The first thing that a ghost often wishes to do is to make its presence known - usually by making a lot of noise. In this old farmhouse, noises began to emanate from the west side of the building where this person had taken his life in the basement. The noises sometimes took the form of 'breaking dishes', or loud sounds starting at the TV antennae on the roof and vibrating down the wall. Occasionally, things like a toilet seat would come slamming down. On one occasion, an electric fuse sitting on the top of the fuse box in the basement was flung across the room hitting my son in the leg. According to scientific thinking, such ghostly phenomenon could not be real as these reported events fail to conform to the theoretical parameters of consensus reality recognized by science, which insists that nothing can be confirmed as being 'real' unless witnessed by qualified observers under controlled scientific conditions. Actually, ghostly activity is not curtailed in the least by anything scientists might believe. Needless to say, there are many witnesses who observed this phenomenon and who can testify to the authenticity of these spiritual manifestations. As the campground was now under development it was difficult to decide what to do, but as I have always had a lifelong interest in the paranormal I decided to stay, treating the whole thing as a learning opportunity - one that very few individuals have ever had or wish to have! Over a period of twelve years living there, I gradually became familiar with aspects of the relationship that exists between the physical world and what is referred to as the 'other side' and some of these insights have been included in this book.
The Reach of the Mind During the past twenty-five years, William G. Braud, a research psychologist associated with the Mind Science Foundations in San Antonio Texas, conducted extensive experiments studying interactions occurring between consciousness and the external world, which revealed that a fundamental interconnectedness exists between the human mind and all of nature.
In his book, Distant Mental Influence [2] Braud details his research findings, which suggest some rather startling conclusions. One of them being that the mind's ability to directly affect the physical world, even at remote distances, demonstrates that consciousnesses is not actually confined to any particular place or time but is in fact nonlocal. We all know from personal experience that a profound connection exists between one's mind and physical body. We know that our negative thoughts and feeling can have a direct impact on our psychological and physical well-being, creating all kinds of illnesses and symptoms ranging, for example, from anxiety, high-blood pressure, depression, stomach ulcers and many other medical problems. But Braud discovered something else - that our mental processes not only could affect us but others as well. Through well-controlled laboratory studies he found that an individual's thoughts, imagination, feelings and intentions could directly influence the mental and physiological processes of another person, even when that individual is shielded from all extraneous environmental influences and is completely unaware that any such attempt is being made. Not only could participants in his experiments clairvoyantly perceive distant physical objects and phenomena that were not accessible to the physical senses, but more importantly Braud discovered that they could actually mentally affect them as well. These experimental targets were not only biological systems such as blood cells and plants, but also included inanimate random-event generators and mechanical systems as well. During the last thirty-five years, William A. Tiller, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, dramatically extended Braud’s research findings by demonstrating that human intentionality could imprint subtle energies stored in physical devices that could be transported to distant locations and still be capable of affecting measurable changes in the immediate environment, including living organisms, physical phenomena and processes. He also made the remarkable discovery that space itself could be intentionally imprinted by the mind to affect similar changes and which could maintain its influence on the external world over an extensive period of time. In his book, Some Science Adventures with Real Magic [3] professor Tiller provides solid experimental evidence supporting his claim that human consciousness and intention can significantly influence the external environment. He provides a detailed account of his revolutionary laboratory experiments, which provide an empirical framework for a new theoretical model that explains the nature of psychoenergetic phenomena and its ability to directly affect the external world. Intention and the Imagination If the consciousness of an individual is directed toward a particular object with the intention of carrying out some kind of purposeful behavior, then how is such an intention actually structured? Although the motivating force underlying an intention may arise from some thought, desire, need or emotion, the fact remains that prior to initiating any intention we are first confronted with an inner image of what it is that we intend to do. Prior to doing
anything, such as making a cup of coffee, we experience a fleeting glimpse of going through the motions of accomplishing it. Inner imagery always plays an essential role in the process of realizing what we intend to accomplish. An intention simply does not arise within a consciousness that lacks a clear vision of the immediate future. What we imagine always expresses some kind of intentionality within the context of our relationships with things in the physical world, so what Braud and Tiller both discovered is the intentionality of the imagination and its ability to directly affect the external world. In the following sections we will examine this interactive psychoenergetic process initiated by the imagination in greater detail. Psychoanalysis and the Transpersonal Realm In Jungian psychoanalysis, a phenomena know as transference is regarded as the essential factor necessary in the primary clinical task of helping a patient. It occurs when the analyst becomes the object of an unconscious content projected by the patient. The term countertransference on the other hand, describes the same phenomena when it is occurring in the opposite direction, from analyst to the analysand.
By becoming aware of the contents of the patient’s transference, such as feelings of anxiety, depression, anger or despair etc., the analyst seeks to provide the patient with valuable insights into the nature of what is being unconsciously transferred into their relationships. Usually, the emotional content of the transference that is being experienced by the analyst signals the presence of conflicting and unassimilated feelings within the patient originating from some past experience that is distorting the patient's perception of the analyst and the present situation. But what exactly is the fundamental process upon which transference rests? Transference is just another name for unconsciously projecting a 'psychological reality' onto a person, object or situation, which perceptually embellishes what actually objectively exists with qualities or value that it simply does not have. In psychoanalysis, projections can actually produce very noticeable effects on both the analyst and analysand, without anyone being aware that a projection is occurring. The only way that one can know that transference is happening is by experiencing its effects, which can include a wide range of feelings, imagery, and even physical sensations. However, through continued discussion in an empathetic environment, both participants in the analysis can eventually become consciously aware of the nature and significance of the projection and because it has now become conscious will not be projected again. But it is a well known fact that you don't have to be involved in psychoanalyses to experience the subtle impact of the projections of others, which although unreal in any physical sense are nevertheless capable of producing a wide range of effects from unexplainable feeling of anxiety to vague physical sensations referred to as telesomatic effects. This can occur when someone perceives you, not as you are, but as they believe or think you are. That is, when they are imaginatively attributing qualities to you that you do not possess or denying that you have the qualities that you really do posses. In short, projections occur when other
individuals imaginatively create a false identity for you - creating a psychological reality that is silently imposed on you that neither reflects the reality of the situation or your true nature. Seeking an Explanation A major problem that has occupied psychoanalysts, including Freud, Jung and Nathan Schwartz-Salant and others, is seeking a theoretical explanation of how the projection of an imaginary reality can have such a direct affect on the target of that projection, as well as comprehending the nature of the mechanism by which such an interaction is able to take place.
Nathan Schwartz-Salant, a Jungian analyst, director of the Center for Analytical Perspectives in New York, agrees with Jung's original insight, that because there is no direct physical interaction taking place between the analyst and the patient, there must be a 'third thing' - a subtle dimension of reality in which these psychophysical interactions are able to take place. The alchemists were also well aware of the existence of this subtle realm, which they called the Mundus Imaginalis, an imaginal realm that is just as real as the world perceived by the physical senses. This represented to both the alchemists and Sufi mystics an intermediate realm permeated with the thought-forms and psychological realities that mankind has imaginatively created down through the centuries. Based on his own analytic practice, as well as the insights of Jung and the alchemists, Schwartz-Salant introduced the concept of an objective interactive field of energy existing between the analysts and patient, in which all transference phenomena takes place. In his book, The Mystery of Human Relationship he clarifies this concept of a field existing between individuals in the psychoanalytic process: Rather than seeing a relationship as something two people did to one another, or as a kind of partnership, I began to see a relationship as a field that both people engaged and which most mysteriously moved and molded the process both individually and together, as if these processes were mere waves upon a larger sea. [4]
This interactive field of energy that two people create in relationship includes both subjective and objective dimensions and because it intersects the collective unconscious and the realm of subjectivity, it possesses both indefatigable energy and intelligence. The collective unconscious is a term Jung used to describe the objective psyche that is an inherited psychological structure shared by all human beings, which is objective and transpersonal rather than subjective and individual. It consists mostly of archetypal contents that structure many of our psychic experiences, yet is not something that is individually acquired. Whereas, the personal unconscious is similar to Freud's concept of the Id containing complexes and memories originating from past conscious experiences that have been repressed and now forgotten. Schwartz-Salant provides us with another useful concept of the unconscious - the Somatic unconscious, which refers to a physically embodied form of unconscious expression experienced as physical sensations, including the telesomatic effects created during
transference, as well as vague feelings of tension, constriction or physical discomfort etc., that can unconsciously originates during transference in the patient or during countertransference in the analyst. Jung perceived a connection between what the alchemists referred to as the 'subtle body' or breath soul and the unity of psyche and matter, a concept, which he used in his psychotherapeutic bodywork. Schwartz adopted Jung's insight that the interactive field or 'third thing' is similar to a subtle-body realm that is neither material or spiritual but rather mediates between them. Psyche and body were perceived as being merely two different aspects of a subtle dimension of reality that the alchemists called the Unus Mundus or one world, in which psychoanalytic transference phenomena takes place. In the following group exercise the nonlocal nature of consciousness is clearly demonstrated as individuals mentally interact with other participants, creating physical sensations and telesomatic effects at a distance, which symbolically conveys important information that is unconsciously responded to. Experiencing the Transpersonal Mind This is a group experiment that requires at least three or more participants. The exercise is based on the fact that most living organisms readily respond telepathically to both real and imagined threatening situations that could potentially endanger their survival.
Cleve Backster’s research with plants clearly demonstrated that this form of communication could take place between plants and human being. He discovered by measuring the electrical activity of plants that they actively responded to imaginary threats, such as being burned or otherwise mutilated. Birds and animals also demonstrate this ability of intuitively knowing beforehand of a forthcoming forest fire or other natural disaster and are able to respond to this information before it occurs. [5] As human beings, we also share this intuitive ability to respond to a real and present danger – even if that danger is only imagined. Here is how you can experience this for yourself. 1.
Select a member of your group who is willing to spend some time imagining the presence of something threatening in the center of the room – something which would normally constitute a very real and present danger to the group’s physical survival, such as the presence of a dangerous animal, a fire, flood or other natural or man-made disaster. Whatever it is, it must be kept secret and not shared with the other participants. Another important point is that once the sender has chosen a particular imaginary situation to project into the room, don’t change it to something else. Rather concentrate on externalizing one particular imaginary situation for several minutes until the other members of the group begin to physically experience the effects of what you are projecting.
2.
The other members of your group should try to sense the exact nature of the dangerous situation being projected into the room by the sender, paying attention to any physical sensations, thoughts or vague feelings that might
arise. One experiment involved projecting an imaginary fire occurring in the center of the living room. After two or three minutes, all the members of the group began to feel very warm and experienced breathing problems; some were even able to perceive the actual imagery of the ‘thought-form’ being created. 3. Finally, before ending the experiment it is important to dissolve the projection by assuring members of the group that the danger that once threatened them no longer exists. The fire has been extinguished. This is necessary in order to eliminate any lingering fear or tension that has accumulated in the group as well as clearing the room’s atmosphere of any psychic residual energy that could linger, affecting family members in the future. How are we to explain the inherent power of the imagination to actually produce imagery and physical sensations in other individuals in the group that would normally be experienced during a real fire? To answer this question we need to take a closer look at the alchemist's concept of the imaginal realm. The Imaginal Realm Henri Corbin (1903-1978) a French Islamic mystic and interpreter of Arabic and Persian texts, first introduced the term Imaginal to describe an Imaginal Realm which Ibn’ Arabi, AlSuharawardi and other Medieval Persian mystics referred to as ALAM AL-MITHAL and what Jewish Kaballists call the OLAM HADEMUT. [6] The imaginal realm is a spiritual astral dimension of reality that is readily accessible to human consciousness.
Corbin used the term Imaginal to differentiate between the imaginary, which normally refers to fantasy or something unreal, and an intermediate world existing between the physical and spiritual worlds, which can be perceptually experienced, not with the physical senses but with the spiritual cognitive faculties of the soul that the Sufi mystics call the heart. Referred to as the ‘eighth climate’ or Na-Koja-Abad, this imaginal realm is often referred to as the ‘lost continent’ or the ‘land of no-where’ which, although it is not an identifiable place in relation to physical space and time it nevertheless has a definite geographical topology, including cities, people and landscapes that have been repeatedly seen by those who have traveled there. For the Sufi mystics, this is a world of subtle spiritual bodies of ethereal matter, which serve as an essential link between pure spirit and the physical world. The ‘heart’ refers to a psychospiritual organ of cognition associated with one’s subtle body that provides direct perceptual access to this imaginal world, providing one is familiar with a reliable technique for getting there. These subtle cognitive senses, which exist independently of our physical body, include all the same cognitive functions as our physical senses do, including hearing, smell, taste and touch etc. If this Sufi vision of the imaginal world is true, then how is it possible for anyone to experience it with one’s subtle senses, particularly since it is described as a ‘land of no-
where?’ Fortunately, Corbin’s translation of Ibn’ Arabi’s writings provides some important clues as to its location and how to consciously travel there. In order to explain what might otherwise remain unexplainable, the image of a sphere is used to represent the entire cosmos, called the Ninth Sphere. The imaginal realm is assigned to the convex surface of this sphere while the concave side represents the material world in which we live. Thus, for the Sufi mystic this spiritual reality, which is comprised of light, surrounds and contains everything that is external and visible in the ph ysical world. To simplify the relationship that exists between the convex and concave side of this cosmic sphere let’s transfer these surfaces to a Mobius strip which merges both of them into a single continuous surface, by rotating one end of the strip and attaching it to the other end. By unifying the internal and external surfaces of the sphere representing the imaginal and the physical aspects of reality we are now in a position to explain how our physical and spiritual cognitive faculties are related. What the Mobius strip reveals is that because the internal and external aspects of reality form a single unity, we cannot physically perceive the external world without including our imaginative spiritual cognitive senses that equally participate in the perceptual process. Conversely, it also tells us that when we close our physical eyes and internalize our vision using our subtle senses we could end up perceiving the outside world. So what Ibn‘ Arabi is trying to tell us with his graphic representation of the convex and concave surfaces of a cosmic sphere is that the perceived separation between internal and external reality is an illusion, being merely different perspectives of the same thing depending on whether we are using our physical or spiritual cognitive faculties to experience it. Quantum Physics and the Imaginal Realm The existence of an imaginal realm is not something that just Sufi mystics have recognized but some scientists as well. Arnold Mindell provides us with one of the most comprehensive scientific explanations we currently have regarding the relationship between the physical and psychological aspects of reality and the perceptual process itself. In his recent book Quantum Mind [7] Mindell, who is both a Jungian psychologist and a physicist, begins by referring to a distinction Einstein once made between sense perceptions that are common to a particular culture and those that are not.
The first represents ‘consensus reality’ which is based on the perception of primary qualities that are collectively regarded as being physically real, while ‘non-consensus reality’ includes our private subjective experiences perceived as secondary qualities such as colour, beauty or pain, as well as all virtual non-physical aspects of reality encountered in quantum physics and parapsychology. Mindell successfully unifies these outer and inner aspects of reality by utilizing the concept of conjugation, a mathematical process of multiplying real and imaginary numbers used by quantum physicists to understand the quantum world. For example, all modern scientific mathematical formulae, which accurately describe quantum processes such as the ‘wave function’, are obtained by multiplying complex numbers by their corresponding imaginary
values or complimentary numerical reflections. As well as demonstrating that the real and the imaginary are essential aspects of quantum reality and normal perception, Mindell also claims that the conjugation of complex numbers also underlies nonsensory modes of perception, including telepathy and clairvoyance. Thus, the philosophical differences that have historically existed between a realist’s and a constructivist’s view of reality may finally be resolved. Both views are essential aspects of a single perceptual process, which must equally be recognized in order to comprehend the underlying nature of inner and outer reality and the mind that perceives it.
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Rediscovering Gnostic Science Why did the gnostics regard the insights revealed through ‘inner revelation’ as something beyond question? Perhaps this certitude was based on a deeper knowledge of the divine mysteries that have now been essentially lost. However, some of the techniques the gnostics used, even prior to the early Christian era, can still be found in various forms of Gnosticism, such as alchemy, that has managed to survive. In this chapter we will explore some of the fundamental principles of alchemy that will help explain the relationship that exists between inner imagery and objective reality. Understanding these underlying psychophysical principles will shed some light on why gnostics believed with such certainty that absolute knowledge about the nature of reality could be obtained through inner experience. The alchemists believed that inner and outer reality were merely two different aspects of the same thing. Based on this insight, there was no need to question whether the external world they perceived ‘out there’ was real or not, or whether it was merely an illusory construction created by their own mind. They were well aware of the fact that the images they perceived of both the physical and spiritual worlds were indistinguishable from what those images represented. One of the basic insights of the alchemists was the realization that reality consists of patterns of mind and patterns of matter that are complementary, each reflecting the nature of the other. We cannot separate these underlying psychophysical patterns because, like the wave-particle duality of light, they are merely different aspects of the same thing. If that is the case, then mental
images should be expected to function within one’s mind just like physical objects do in the external world. In the following sections we will discover that in fact they actually do! The Psychophysical Unity of Reality Roger Newland Shepard, a cognitive scientist and author of Towards a Universal Law of Generalization for Psychological Science was one of the first scientists to explore the mental constraints of inner images and their relationship to the structure of the physical world. Shepard wondered - how is it possible for an organism to accurately interpret often incomplete and ambiguous sense data in order to create an accurate perceptual experience of the external world? He suggested that the perceiving mind is only able to do this because it reflects the very same principles that govern the universe, as a result of internalizing environmental regularities through an evolutionary process.
The Environmental Invariants Hypothesis [1] that was developed from this research suggests that the governing principles inherent in the laws of physics, such as spatiality, momentum, friction, centripetal force and gravity, found in the physical environment, are also actively present in the mental imagery comprising our perception of objective reality. For Shepard, we could not perceive an external world if this isomorphic congruency did not exist between external physical objects and the perceptual images we have of them. By experimentally manipulating mental images, Shepard and other researchers have established credible scientific evidence that such a relationship does exist and that our mental imagery is subject to the same universal constraints that regulate the physical universe. In the following sections we will explore this psychophysical congruency in greater detail. The Thought Experiments of Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (1857-1943) was an amazing man, who it is said, invented the twentieth century single handedly. Tesla revolutionized electrical technology with his development of alternating electrical current and the subsequent development of the AC motor and generator, which formed the basis of the electrical system upon which our modern civilization depends.
But most importantly were Tesla’s experiences of 'light', his profound visions, and his deep awareness of a spiritual reality. Most remarkable was his ability to visualize, design and actually run his experiments in his own mind. Tesla described this ability in the following way: To my delight, I found I could visualize with the greatest facility. I need no models, drawings, or experiments. I could picture them all in my mind. Before I put a sketch on paper the whole thing is worked out mentally. In my mind, I changed the construction, make improvements and even operate the device. Without ever having drawn a sketch I can give the measurements of all the parts to workmen and when completed all of these parts will fit. It is immaterial to me whether I run my machine in my mind or test it in my shop. The inventions I have conceived in this way have always worked with not a single exception in thirty years. [2]
Tesla was able to use his imagination to create and test his inventions before they were physically constructed, which proved to be identical both in functional design and measurements. This suggests that the distinction we habitually make between the nature of inner images and the physical objects they represent is entirely unwarranted. The only way Tesla could successfully test an invention in his mind is if it behaved exactly the same way as an actual physical model
would function in his shop - that is, if they both obeyed the same regulatory constraints and universal laws and principles that govern the physical world. Exploring the Spatiality of Mental Images The practice of perceiving hypnagogic images, which are perceptible during that period of drowsiness between wakefulness and sleep, is one of the best ways to experience the regulatory constraints that apply to our inner imagery. Just before falling to sleep, pay attention to the blackness that you see when you first close your eyes and simply take time to watch these inner images develop, giving them your full attention until an emerging image is fully formed.
It is important to remain in a relaxed state and simply observe these images emerging from the unconscious without interfering with their development in any way. It has been found helpful if there is a dim light source available, perhaps through a window or from another room. If you persevere, you will reach a point where the image will appear three-dimensionally and perceptible with your eyes either open or closed. For example, one of my early experiences was the perception of an exquisite piece of black and gold furniture of Persian design, which I believe actually existed in the past. It appeared three-dimensionally in the room conveying a sense of presence and grandeur that transcended any dream experience. Hypnagogic images have a tendency to exteriorize themselves by escaping from the inner realm of the unconscious and appearing very real in objective three-dimensional space. They could be images of almost anything, from objects or events from the past, or they could represent something that presently exists somewhere in the external world. However, in what sense can we claim that these inner images are real if they are not confined to a physical space-time dimension? For example, if an image is perceived of someone who has passed on, does it mean that this individual still exists in some spiritual dimension or is the image simply imaginary or a memory from the past? Although these dreamlike images emerge from the unconscious mind, this does not necessarily mean that they are meaningless figments of the imagination, completely unrelated to reality. According to gnostic science, our perceptual knowledge of both the physical and spiritual world appears to us in the form of precepts that correspond in nature to the objects they represent. So in this sense, our perception of reality is always meaningful although we might not be consciously aware of what an unfamiliar image symbolically represents. Photographing Mental Images Thoughtography, which is a method of directly photographing mental images, clearly demonstrates that they have spatial properties that can physically interact with photographic film. As far back as 1910, Tomokichi Fukurai in Japan was scientifically investigating pictures produced by the mind. He was able to capture very clear thought-images transferred directly to dry photographic plates that were securely wrapped and handled under scientifically controlled conditions.
In 1963, Jule Eisenbud, a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School in Denver, happened to meet a very gifted forty-five year old psychic by the name of Ted Serios who was living in Chicago at the time. During the following three years, Eisenbud investigated and proved beyond
any reasonable doubt that Serios could repeatedly produce recognizable mental images of distant buildings, landscapes and objects, simply by staring into a Polaroid camera. This was done in front of many reputable witnesses under the strictest ex perimental controls, which prohibited Ted from even touching the camera. Yet he was able to produce hundreds of recognizable pictures simply by imaginatively projecting these mental images that appeared on the developed photographic film. In an experiment conducted in the early 1960's by the Delawarr Laboratories in Oxford, England, a mental image of an aluminum jack-knife appearing on a photographic emulsion was later analyzed and found to contain aluminum atoms in the photographic emulsion. As aluminum is not normally present in photographic film, how do we explain how the aluminum atoms got there? [3] Could it be that if we set aside for a moment the concept of mass that we would find that mental images and physical objects share the same underlying energy patterns? If so, then the photographed mental image of the jack-knife and its physical manifestation as an actual object are merely two different versions of the same thing, each sharing the same organizing principles but exhibiting different degrees of embodiment or mass. While material objects have a measurable mass, mental images are different, being similar to photons of light having a zero rest mass with the inability to acquire a 'relativistic mass’ that increases with velocity within a particular space-time frame of reference. We can therefore begin to envision how a subjective image can physically affect a photographic film, or conversely, how a physical object can appear as a mental image in the mind. As they are merely different manifestations of the same underlying archetypal energy pattern, they can appear in either form. This fact provides us with some insight as to how Sathya Sai Baba a Hindu guru, was able to materialize physical objects out of thin air. One of the original pioneers in this research was Dr. Ruth Drown, a medical practitioner who produced pictures of events taking place at a distance. In 1939 experimenting with equipment designed by Dr. Abrams, she was able to produce a photograph of a patient's affected organ and later produced a picture in her laboratory in the USA of a surgical operation occurring in a hospital in London England. This was the beginning of what is now known as Radionics, which was further developed during the 1950's by George De La Warr of Delawarr Laboratories in Oxford, England. [4] An interesting experiment conducted in this lab involved the use of a photographic negative of a field plot that was infested with insects. Using a specially designed radionics instrument, this photographic negative was exposed to a magnetic field that was adjusted to duplicate a specific archetypal energy pattern that affected only the selected field plot, effectively eliminating the infestation of insects that previously had been there. This phenomenon exemplifies the inherent connectivity that exists between an image and the physical object or location it represents. But what if the image is merely a creation of the imagination? Does such an image have any connectivity with the objective world? Oddly enough, it is possible for such an image to manifest over a period of time as a thought-form capable of interacting with the physical world.
The Creation of Ghosts and Tulpas During the 1970's, the Toronto Society for Psychical Research began investigating the possibility of mentally creating and manifesting the presence of a ghost, which they called Philip. In Conjuring up Philip, by parapsychologist, I. M. Owen, the author provides us with a detailed account of how this was successfully accomplished. A small group of eight individuals met once a week with the initial task of inventing a fictional character with a detailed historical background, talents, characteristics, likes and dislikes etc. Familiarizing themselves with the details of the Philip story the group members concentrated on visualizing Philip as a real person who once existed. The purpose of these weekly meetings was to make this imaginary individual as real as possible and very quickly Philip began to acquire a real personality in the minds of the group members. [5]
One evening the group began to hear raps coming from within the table and using a code to represent yes and no answers, were soon communication with Philip about additional detail of his life, which always remained self consistent with the identity the group had imaginatively created. Eventually, due to an increase in poltergeist phenomena, which began to manifest even in the group members homes, the research project was abandon ed. Some Tibetan Buddhists still practice the creation of Tulpas or the materialization of human thought-forms. In Alexandra David-Neel’s book on Tibet, she claims to have imaginatively created a projection of a monk that took on a solid form and looked and behaved so real that other individuals, who also observed him, thought he was a Lama. This thought-form developed an independent personality of its own, exhibited hostility and was completely beyond the control of its creator. It took several months of concentrated effort to dematerialize him. Such is the incredible power of the human mind and its ability to physically manifest thought-forms. Living in the Light According to Tibetan and Mahayana Buddhism, there are three worlds. First, there is a physical world perceived by the physical senses and an intermediary world, which Henri Corbin calls the Mundus Imaginalis, which is perceptible through clairvoyant vision. Then there is a higher world that is known as the Dharmakaya, which in the Tibetan Book of the Dead is referred to as Sunyata, the pure light of the void. This is a formless world of pure spiritual radiance, which is constantly present at all levels of reality. Because this divine radiance has no form it is neither within nor without, in fact it is everywhere and nowhere. Ibn 'Arabi, a Sufi mystic, once described the true servant as a person who, while still in a state of veiling (by the body) is already like the light of the sun illuminating the earth.
In ancient Jewish texts, the visible manifestation of the divine presence of God was called the Light of Shechinah, which was perceived as the indwelling radiance of the feminine aspect of God, both within the individual and the physical world. Even today, in the Hebrew religion and in quaballistic meditations, the Shechinah remains an important concept in religious ritual and daily devotion. Although this divine radiance of God's presence is physically invisible, it can be perceptually experienced through inner vision. The consequence of consciously imagining this otherwise invisible reality is that it has a marked effect on both the individual and the external world. In a sense, the mere act of perceiving this
indwelling radiance of the Shechinah vitalizes and awakens it, through the simple act of consciously recognizing its presence. In so doing, we are not imaginatively creating something that would not otherwise be there, rather we are seeing with the 'inner eye' the radiance of God's presence in our lives. For Jung, light was the central mystery of alchemy. In his commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower he describes the Light of Heaven as the Tao, which dwells between the eyes, or the sixth chakra called the Ajna or third eye. According to the Hui Ming Ching, the most important secret of the Tao is that human nature and life are contained in this Light of Heaven. In the Bardo Thodol or the Tibetan Book of the Dead , this light is also recognized as dwelling within the 'square-inch' space between the eyes, but it is a light that exists not only within our inner vision but in the external world as well. In the "Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" written sometime between 300 and 800 B.C., we find the same alchemical concept of the heavenly light of God in the world. It was the same light encountered during out-of-body experiences and according to the Egyptians, during the transitional moment of death. Earthly and heavenly light are indeed one, uniting our embodied consciousness on earth with the spiritual world. The most important secret of the alchemists was that this Light of Heaven was the one supreme force that exists in both spiritual and physical reality. For the alchemists this light was the heavenly presence of a spiritual energy, which could be worked with as a medium of transformation. As we have already seen in our study of perception, light is the common link between sensory and clairvoyant vision. Through a process the alchemists called projectio the union of inner and outer reality is accomplished by imaginatively projecting this inner light onto the objective material world. This method is similar to the active imagination in Jungian psychology in which unconscious contents are consciously projected onto the external world and perceived as reality. In a more accurate sense, it is a process in which consciousness imaginatively perceives or recognizes the divine reality that already exists within matter and us. It is through this process of recognition that this divine light becomes increasingly accessible to the alchemist as a transformative force that can be worked with. Light is the very foundation of all possible worlds. Creating Protective Thought-Forms One of the most remarkable properties of this invisible light which surrounds us and permeates our being is that by recognizing its existence it is capable of protecting us from illness and physical harm. Here is how it is done:
As the outer light of nature emanating from the sun and the earth is inseparable from the inner light of the spirit, there is a light present within us that is a far greater power than the sun itself. Although we are not normally aware of it, the physical body actually glows with a divine radiance which once consciously recognized and imaginatively perceived can bestow some marvelous benefits, such as divine guidance and protection. But what is this marvelous light that dwells within the world and each of u s?
Recognize this divine light for what it actually is - the Toa, or the Light of Heaven, which penetrates and surrounds everything you see in the physical world. Everything on earth is aglow with this heavenly luminous presence. Although it can’t be seen with your physical eyes, this energy does exist and can be accessed and accumulated through yogic breathing exercises. For example: as you breath in, synchronize the movement of your breath with your inner vision, mentally pulling this light down from above your head, watching it moving down through your body to your solar plexus. As you exhale, imaginatively push this light from your solar plexus down through your legs and out the soles of your feet. With a little practice you will begin to actually feel this energy moving through your body. The important thing to remember in doing this exercise is that the movement of this energy will always follow your imagination, so it is important to be imaginatively aware of its movement as it flows through your body in unison with your breathing. There are of course many different versions of this exercise you can use, such as breathing in this energy from the atmosphere, imaginatively perceiving every cell in your body being filled with this divine living light. After mastering the above exercise, visualize the Light of Heaven present within and around you, actively searching for any cold or flue germs that may be present within your body and imaginatively watching viruses literally exploding when they come into contact with the light. Very simply, it is a matter of asking the light to protect you from whatever may be presently threatening your health, and if you believe it can, it will do so. You can also use this technique to protect yourself while traveling in an automobile. Visualize the same light energy surrounding your car, protecting you during your journey. Before getting into my automobile I often check things out first by visualizing this light around it and if I have difficulty doing so, I know that something is wrong, either with the car or my intended travel plans. Once, when I had trouble visualizing this light around my automobile, I spent some time trying to locate the problem without any success. As it happened, an hour later my brakes failed while slowly leaving a neighborhood gas station. So if this protection and guidance is always available, why not consciously use it to protect yourself and your loved ones. But more importantly, your personal interaction with the divine radiance of God's presence in the world will enable you to grow spiritually by helping others who are ill, in danger, or less fortunate than yourself. Utilizing the principles of gnostic science outlined above, you can develop your ability to transform your world by utilizing the isomorphic congruency that exists between your cognitive inner imagery and the objective world. How is this done? This can be accomplished by consciously altering your perception of what it is that you would like to change, through a process of perceptual integration, which is discussed at length in the next chapter.
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The Magic of Perceptual Integration For the alchemists, the gnostic path to experiencing spiritual reality was achieved through the practice of perceptual integration, which allowed the practitioner to enter a state of conscious awareness or ‘inner knowing’ that transcended the limited perspective of reality normally provided by the physical senses. Gerhard Dorn, an alchemist who lived in the second half of the thirteenth century, believed that everything in the physical world contains divine qualities that could not be seen with the physical eyes. Outwardly, we can only perceive the physical characteristics of objects, but when we perceive the same thing using our imaginative cognitive faculties we are able to contact this divine essence hidden within the material world and experience the inner life of things. Through this simple act of imaginatively perceiving the hidden divine nature of inanimate objects and living things, we can make a magical contact with it, which can result in producing transformative and sometimes even miraculous effects. For Dorn, this magical contact with the divine essence within matter was accomplished through the spiritual faculties of perception. Henry Corbin, a French philosopher (1903-1978) believed that the active imagination sympathetically united the invisible spiritual world with the visible one. He believed that we could spiritualize the world by raising it to the rank of a theophanic image of the divine; that is, by perceptually investing what we see around us with spiritual qualities that the physical senses are unable to discern. As the perceptual integration of our physical and spiritual faculties of perception can literally transform the world we live in, it provides us with a well-trodden path for us to follow to empower our lives. Imagination is the key to understanding how everyday objects can be transformed into 'sacred beings' - a young girl glimpsed on the street becomes the very image of soul. The whole world is trembling on the edge of revealing it s own immanent soul, which we see in moments when our perception is raised by imagination to vision. [1]
We can use the imaginative powers we have been given to spiritualize the world by perceptually recognizing its spiritual nature, thereby consciously raising it to a higher level of existence. As we have previously seen, the gnostic art of alchemy depends on this ability to imaginatively recognize the existence of a higher dimension or a divine presence perceived as a heavenly light in the mundane affairs of the world. We can learn to use the power of our inner spiritual vision (imagination) to experience spiritual reality and creatively manipulate the inherent probabilities that exist relating to our future health and the fulfillment of our dreams, thus enriching our own existence as well as the lives of others. Secrets of the Alchemists Most of the information available on alchemy today centers on the interpretation of archaic alchemical symbols which were intentionally designed to conceal their real meaning and the secret art of alchemy. Volumes, for example, have been written on the nature of the
'Philosopher’s Stone' using ambiguous images and endlessly confusing interpretations to disguise its true nature. Indeed, as Jung discovered, a thorough understanding of the hidden meaning of alchemical symbols requires many years of intensive research and speculation. Yet this concealed gnostic wisdom of the alchemists does contain something of great value for our spiritual development, and for that reason the essence of this secret knowledge should be simplified and made available to the general public without the necessity of wading through endless manuscripts and books in the vague hope of comprehending it. Consequently, I will not pursue this endless debate on the hidden meaning of alchemical symbols but will instead concentrate on revealing the underlying philosophy and general principles which comprise the real essence of practical alchemy, particularly as it relates to the sun. The earliest known alchemical text appeared in China some 4,000 years ago in The Yellow Emperor’s Book of Internal Medicine known as the Nei-Ching and later appearing in Greece, Arabia, Egypt and the Roman empire. Known as the Royal Art, the origins of alchemy is traditionally attributed to the Emerald Tablet of Herms, which was reportedly discovered in the Egyptian tomb of Herms by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. This emerald tablet, inscribed with the secret teachings of Herms, was translated by Alexandrian scholars and later put on display in ancient Egypt. In the medieval ages, the first alchemical writings can be traced back to 1471 when Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum - a collection of seventeen documents reportedly containing conversations between Herms and his disciples. Like the Egyptians, the alchemists were preoccupied with the presence of subtle energy emanating from the sun and its relationship to the etheric or spiritual body. This subtle, spiritual energy present in sunlight permeated the atmosphere and was perceived clairvoyantly as dancing lights and pinpoint explosions. This subtle manifestation of sunlight, which gathered like a mist or dew, possessed magical properties that could be used for healing and the transformation of matter. This magical solar essence became known as the Ros of the alchemists. The alchemists believed that spirit and matter were not separate things but were rather inherent aspects of the same reality. This meant that physical and psychic energy were attributes of the same underlying energy of the sun, and if that was the case, then mind could not be something totally subjective but must also exist in the material world as a 'nonlocal' mind, which Jung called the 'objective unconscious'. This subjective approach to alchemy was based on the belief that the universe was reflected as a microcosm within one’s self, and therefore no real distinction could be made between inner and outer aspects of reality. The source of all existence was attributed to unconscious psychophysical forces that were present both subjectively and in the external world. From this perspective, alchemy did not consist entirely of an objective approach, which entailed heating and mixing chemicals in a retort. What was essential prior to successfully undertaking this 'great work' on the physical level was that the alchemist first had to transform his personality through inner work into a magical self that was capable of accomplishing it. One of the important insights underlying the secret art of alchemy down through the ages was the discovery of the 'one thing' – the subtle energy or magical Ros emanating from the sun, which
comprised both spirit, matter and consciousness, and from which everything in our galaxy originated and is still being created. Through countless centuries, alchemy remained the only science of the time, in spite of the fact that the work usually had to be undertaken in secret because of possible persecution by the th church or state authorities that were in power at the time. Yet alchemy endured well into the 15 century because it was believed to be consistently capable of accomplishing miraculous effects based on alchemical principles. It is interesting to note that Isaac Newton, a renowned scientist of the seventeenth century, was the last great alchemist. In 1680, at the age of 39, while he was a Lucasian professor at Cambridge University in England, he was reported to have discovered the secret of the Philosopher's Mercury. As a result of his alchemical experiments, which ended with his death in 1727, Newton developed laboratory equipment and scientific methods that are still used in modern laboratories today. The alchemist’s perception of matter was entirely different than the way we imagine it to be. It was the prima materia, which was something alive, capable of manifesting as material existence from the divine power or creative potentiality of God’s presence within it. The alchemist, working within the context of a psychophysical worldview, in which psyche and matter comprised a single unity, believed that the subtle, psychic aspect of matter could be influenced by the imagination. It was through this inner divine connection with God that the alchemist was presumably able to transform lead into gold. Jung’s notion of a 'psychoid' represented a level of reality in which the psyche and matter formed a single unity, which he described by borrowing the alchemical term Unus Mundus. Like the alchemists, Jung was convinced that matter and the psyche comprised two sides of the same coin. This most ancient, yet revolutionary idea that the collective unconscious resides both within us and objectively in the physical world has some very important implications. If mind and matter actually form a single unity at the psychoid level of reality then there is no real distinction between subjective and objective reality. This means that because inner and outer energies have no distinct boundaries, our inner self is not something that can be completely isolated from the outside world. What Jung defines as the real self, is a divine spark found in the very depths of the psyche, a part of God’s divinity. For Jung, this divine image, the archetype of the self, which exists in the objective unconscious in the macrocosm of external space, is also a microcosm within us. For the alchemist, the transformation of the self – from an ego that was essentially powerless, to a magical self that could perform alchemical feats, was an essential priority that could be accomplished through inner meditative exercises using the imagination. Marie-Louise von Franz, in her book Alchemical Active Imagination describes this process of self-transformation for us. When God said, "Let t here be Light" there was light, but when man says the same thing, nothing happens. If however a man through religious meditation can get close to God within himself, then he can, so to speak, get some power by which God can just will or
wish things and they attain material reality, then the soul acquires some of that ability. It is on this assumption that self-transformation and alchemical activity is based. [2]
The work of the alchemist was not simply playing the role of chemist, heating and mixing things in a retort to transform them into something else. More importantly, the essential work that first had to be undertaken prior to the transformation of matter, was the transformation of one’s own personality into a potent magical one, which unlike the ego could possess the magical power required to accomplish such tasks. Although both the inner and outer aspects of the alchemical process were equally important, the real goal, kept hidden from medieval church authorities and the general public, was the transformation of the self, by becoming one with the divine creative principle in matter itself.
A great deal has been written throughout the centuries about the mysterious powers of the medieval alchemists and their apparent zeal for transmuting lead into gold. But hidden beneath this carefully guarded practice is a very simple secret of transformation that has largely remained unrecognized. Essentially, the alchemists discovered that by integrating their sensory and imaginal modes of perception they were able to transform the world by consciously projecting the spiritual qualities that appeared reflected in their inner imagination. And because of the dynamic spiritual nature of these images they could directly affect changes in the physical world. Unlike modern psychoanalysts, the ancient alchemists discovered the secret of transforming the world by consciously projecting the imagination and emotionally responding to a new integrated vision of reality comprised of unconscious and conscious content. It is important to remember that simply holding an image in your mind will fail to produce any effect unless it is consciously superimposed upon something existing in the external world. Another important point is that the practitioner should always emotionally respond to the realty of what is being projected. I have included some simple exercises that you can use to experience the power of perceptual integration for yourself. The reason why the nature of reality remains such a mystery is because most individuals believe that their perception of reality relies entirely on their physical senses to reveal its nature. Although the inherent wholeness of reality is always present, they fail to recognize that all of their experiences result from the unconscious integration of both their physical and spiritual cognitive faculties. If we wish to understand the true nature of reality, we first need to understand the dual nature of the perceptual process itself, through which both the physical and spiritual world is revealed. This perceptual process, once correctly understood, is the key that reveals how the spirit and the physical body participate together in creating the reality we experience every moment of our lives. Without this unconscious integrative process of our physical and spiritual cognitive faculties, the world as we actually experience it would simply not exist. Experiencing the presence of spiritual reality in the physical dimension can intentionally occur when we consciously integrate these two perceptual faculties. That is, by objectively projecting what the 'inner eye' or the soul is seeing (imagining) onto the physical world being perceived with the physical senses. Thus the nature of experiential reality can be radically transformed by
integrating both modes of perception into a single vision - of seeing with a single eye. At last, the nature of reality is revealed, as it actually is - one that is both spiritual and physical in nature. What happens when we do this? The spiritual and physical components of this unified perception interact producing very real phenomena that would not otherwise occur. For spiritual energy to be present and interact with the physical world it requires consciousness to channel it into the physical dimension through the perceptual process itself. The conscious participation of inner vision becomes the very conduit required for spiritual reality to actively manifest on earth. The inner images themselves become doorways to the spiritual world - a connection that operates both ways. We can use these images to consciously explore the spiritual dimension that they represent or they can become channels through which spiritual reality can manifest in our consciousness, or as physical phenomena in the objective world. Living the Spiritual Life What does it mean to live a spiritual life - to grow spiritually? It simply means learning to recognize the existence of a unitary spiritual-physical reality by combining these two different modes of perception and thereby manifesting spiritual reality in one's everyday world. "If thy eye be single then thy body (the world) shall be filled with light."[3] The effectiveness of all forms of spiritual healing, including therapeutic touch and distant healing, all depend on seeing with a 'single eye' thus manifesting the spiritual on the physical plane, for example, channeling the subtle energies required to heal the patient.
One of the tragedies of the post-modern world we live in is that nothing seems to have any real significance anymore. In a materialistic age, we have become so accustomed to things as they appear to be that they are simply taken for granted; the mystery has gone and so has the meaning. How then do we find the meaning that is lacking in our lives? The task of rediscovering the significance of ones life and the reality that we live in doesn't depend on seeking new challenges but rather on having new eyes. Rediscovering the Religious Experience Many skeptics are convinced that religious beliefs and practices are nothing more than an orchestrated creation of the human imagination - from the authoring and interpretation of ancient scriptures to the secular stage performances taking place on Sunday mornings. Thus, from a materialistic point of view, the religious experience is perceived as something objective rather than being an inner experience, or gnosis – an encounter with a spiritual reality that would otherwise remain hidden and unknown.
But this tendency to externalize religious forms of worship is not something new but can be traced back to the early years of Christianity when the inner meaning of sacred rituals, such as baptism and the eucharist, gradually became lost beneath the glaring outer garments and objective rituals of emerging organized religion. Consequently, the very inner essence of the religious experience recognized by the early gnostics became forgotten or ignored. What is being overlooked is the fact that the spiritual aspects of religious worship cannot be experienced through the physical senses alone, but only become meaningful when one’s physical and spiritual faculties have become consciously integrated.
Consequently, an effective method of spiritual development is to practice perceiving one’s immediate environment from a spiritual perspective rather than a physical one. To do this, your inner vision or imaginal faculties will have to be used initially to begin perceiving reality in this way. But by meditating on the nature of the spiritual dimension in which you also live, you will find that it will gradually reveal its presence in your everyday affairs, allowing you to experience the gnostic path to spiritual reality. Truly, we sleep surrounded by miracles, blind to the spiritual essence of creation and our inherent ability to experience a true vision of reality. As co-creators, we can use the alchemical powers inherent in intention, belief and imagination, to perceive the hidden spiritual nature of things in their wholeness and in doing so perceptually transform the mundane and the insignificant back into what it really is - something of great spiritual value and divine significance. This is the mystical path of the gnostics that you can follow in order to access the spiritual dimension and interact with it. Let me give you and example! Encountering the Divine One beautiful summer day while reading in the garden, I found myself visualizing the crucifixion of Christ taking place on a cross-shaped clothesline pole. As the visualized scene progressed I began to emotionally respond to the reality of what was taking place at that moment, with deep feelings of sorrow and sadness. It was as if I were participating in the enfoldment of this historical event, watching individuals replaying the roles they once played almost three thousand years ago. Upon returning from the garden, I was momentarily overcome with a profound feeling of love that surpassed any human effort on my part to evoke, while at the same time completely losing any sense of my personal identity. For a brief time, my consciousness merged with external reality and I became one with everything else around me. Some Perceptual Integration Exercises Imagine, for a moment, being an actor performing on an empty stage, imaginatively projecting the scenery and circumstances into empty space, creating an imaginary world that you intend to temporarily dwell in. Acting can be a very difficult undertaking when you have to create a psychological reality and emotionally respond to it as if it were real. Acting demonstrates how the projections of an actor can affect an audience and how it can reciprocally affect the actor as well. Both actor and audience find themselves temporarily suspended in a psychological reality of their own making, evoking emotional and even physical responses from a shared unconscious level. This is similar to the transference phenomena experienced during psychoanalysis, only now it being consciously initiated. A good beginning exercise is to pretend that you are an actor creating an imaginary environment to perform in and experience how it affects you, as well as other individuals around you. Cloud Busting - With Your Mind Here is another example of how perceptual integration can directly affect the external world. The art of 'cloud-busting' has a long recorded history, going back to the early North American Indians who used to entertain their children by playing with cloud formations in the sky, reshaping them into different animal forms and dissipating them again. William Reich, who discovered Orgone energy back in the 1930's, experimented with long metal tubes grounded in water, which Reich claimed not only dissipated cumulous clouds but also could actually create them out of an empty
sky. Perhaps the most well know 'cloud buster' was Dr. Rolf Alexander from New Zealand, who successfully demonstrated the dispersion of fair-weather cumulous clouds in Devon England in 1956 and in Orillia Ontario during the 1960's. In each case, newspaper reporters, radio and televisions crews were there to document this psychokinetic feat. Dr Alexander, a one-time student of Gurdjeff, would have the public believe that his ability to mentally alter cloud formations required years of studying secret teachings in India and Tibet, however nothing could be further from the truth. With a few minutes of instruction, I have found that almost anyone can easily do this. Further, I believe that the forces involved are of a more natural order than as Alexander claimed, due to higher powers of a mystical or occult nature. To dissipate a cloud, here is all you have to do. Choose a bright sunny day for your first experiment, when the wind is low and there are lots of fluffy clouds floating gently in the sky. Choose a cloud and pick a small section of it that is readily distinguishable. This will allow you to easily monitor any changes taking place. As you look at the cloud, visualize the chosen portion of the cloud breaking up and see in your imagination the blue colour of the sky beginning to show through. As you visualize these changes taking place, believe that they are taking place just as you imagine them. Almost immediately, the part of the cloud you have chosen will begin to respond by gradually disappearing. How is this done? According to quantum theory, the energy comprising the moisture in the cloud is made up of energy forming hydrogen and oxygen atoms that according to Bohm are associated with quantum-like fields of information that informs and guides their activity. But what exactly is the nature of this field of information affecting quantum phenomena? Perhaps a more comprehensible theory is that this quantum activity is occurring in the invisible dimension of the physical world, known as the quantum vacuum, making it possible for the mind of an observer to interfere with the results of the physical experiments he is conducting by collapsing what physicist call a probability wave-function. If the mind of an observer can actualize a given quantum event in this way, then it must have direct access to these guiding quantum fields of information underlying the structure of matter, which actually exists in the imaginal realm Jung called the Mundus Imaginalis. The nature of this imaginal realm was discussed in chapter four. The Art of Spoon Bending Does the creative imagination really have a transformative effect on reality? The alchemist’s claim that the imagination is able to affect metals is usually regarded as some kind of myth, which has never been substantiated. But what would you say if you could learn to do this yourself? I don’t mean changing lead into gold but rather something a little simpler, like bending a spoon with your mind!
Although spoon bending is a very real phenomenon, it has acquired a questionable reputation due to unfair claims of fraudulence made against some stage magicians, including Uri Geller. However, the true test to determine the genuineness of spoon bending is to simply to do it yourself! You may not be able to convince your friends, but at least you will have an opportunity
to personally experience how perceptual integration is able to directly affect matter. Here is how you do it! A spoon will never bend if you continue to perceive it as something hard and non-resilient. You have to visualize it as being soft, mushy or jelly-like before any structural change will begin to take place in the metal spoon. As you hold the spoon with your left hand move the fingers of your right hand slowly and gently back and forth over the spoon handle. As you do so, visualize the metal of the spoon becoming soft and mushy, just as if it were made of soft butter. Both the transference of energy from your hands and the projection of your imagination are essential to initiate a physical response from the metal spoon. Once the process has been started, you can just leave the spoon on a table and it will continue to bend on its own for several minutes. I have witnessed many individuals successfully performing this task; so if you don’t succeed on your first attempt keep trying until you do. If you fail to produce any results at all, perhaps you are either trying too hard or you need to increase your energy level through yogic breathing exercises. For an exercise you can use to increase the level of subtle energy you have to work with see ‘creating protective thought-forms’ in chapter five. How do we account for such magical psychokinetic effects created by the projected imagination? According to the Sufi mystic Ibn’ Arabi, the imagination is a subtle organ of perception called the heart, which acts as a spiritual eye, allowing us to clairvoyantly behold the intermediate realm of the imaginal world. But also, the heart’s mysterious power, referred to as Himma, is responsible for a wide range of parapsychological phenomena, including the creation of living thought-forms and the ability to mentally interact with the external physical world. But how do we begin to explain these miraculous powers of the heart that are not attributable to one’s biological existence? Ibn’ Arabi believed that the magic of the human imagination can be explained within the context of a divine imagination that transcends our personal existence altogether. Gnosticism and the Divine Imagination Many gnostics, including the alchemists, believe that a cosmic imagination exists and that it is the underlying creative power responsible for the birth of our experiential world. God imagines the universe and in doing so brings it into existence. But according to Ibn’ Arabi, it is not only God who has the power to manifest reality through the imagination, but man as well. The divine imagination dwells within us, empowered by the same universal energy of Himma that God utilizes in manifesting and maintaining his creation.(4) We are co-creators participating in manifesting God’s divine imagination on earth. We cannot separate the creative powers of our personal imagination from the cosmic creative powers of the divine, as they are inherently identical in nature.
In more recent times, Douglas Fawcett, in his book The Zermatt Dialogues and the Oberland Dialogues published in the 1930’s, explores the relationship that exists between the human imagination and the divine imagination of God. He employs the term consciring to define the conscious creativity of the cosmic imagining, which is also present within us. It was the gnostics, and particularly the alchemists, who learned how to tap into this inner creative power by
consciously integrating their spiritual and physical cognitive faculties. For the gnostics, the imagination is the creative power of the human soul dwelling in the imaginal world of spirit. The energies radiating from God’s uncreated light continually flows through the human imagination creating the patterns that determine how these divine energies will manifest, both in how we perceive reality and the way our personal presence can affect the physical world around us. It is important to realize that we are in some strange way a part of the cosmic creative process and that we are responsible for playing a meaningful participatory role as a living channel for the manifestation of the divine imagination here on earth, transforming the reality of our experiential world by simply perceiving the spiritual qualities that are already present within it. The redemption of our broken world ultimately depends on us. It is the power of man’s spiritual vision that is able to spiritualize the world, transforming the meaningless and insignificant into something of great import and value. Through its power the weak are empowered and given strength, the useless and unsightly revealed as something of beauty and wonder, and the lives of the lonely and depressed transformed through a momentary act of loving compassion. Following the Gnostic Path By following the gnostic path to spiritual reality you can begin to experience life from a higher level of consciousness - by perceiving the physical world as transcending how it might momentarily appear to your physical senses.
Man stands at the pinnacle of the cosmic creative process because it is the presence of the divine imagination within us that enables the human mind to perceive the kind of world that God intended for us to experience in the first place – a world of color, value, beauty, harmony and love. It is here in the inner realm of the divine imagination within us that the spiritual reality that surrounds us is finally revealed. Truly, we sleep surrounded by miracles, blind to the spiritual essence of creation and our inherent ability to use our cognitive faculties to perceive the invisible spiritual existence of things in their wholeness. Using the principles of perceptual integration presented in this book, you can begin to intentionally transform reality by seeing it through the eyes of compassion and love, within the context of a divine and timeless background.
References Chapter One: Perception and Reality [1] Alan W. Watts, Psychotherapy East & West (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969). [2] Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature (New York: Bantam Books, 1980). [3] Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teachings Beyond Yoga (London: Rider, 1969).
Chapter Two: The Mystery of the Self [1] [2] [3]
David Brazier, Zen Therapy (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995) p.35. Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen (Toronto: Beacon Press, 1967) pp.143 & 205. Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, CW9 , 11 (New York: Princeton University Press, 1959) p.261
[4]
Owen Flanagan, The Problem of the Soul (New York: Basic Books, 2002).
[5] Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi (London: Routledge, 1970).
Chapter Three: The Spiritual Cognitive Faculties [1] Russell Targ & Harold Puthoff, Mind-Reach (New York: Dell Publishing, 1977). [2] Ingo Swann, To Kiss Earth Good-bye (New York: Dell Publishing, 1975). For further information on remote viewing see also: -Russell Targ and Keith Harary, The Mind Race (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984).
-Jim Schnabel, Remote Viewers (New York: Dell Publishing, 1997).
Chapter Four: The Enigma of Consciousness [1] Bruce Holbrook, The Stone Monkey (New York: William Morrow Co., 1981) [2] William Braud, Distance Mental Influence (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Pub., 2003) [3] William A. Tiller, Some Science Adventures with Real Magic ( Walnut Creek, Cal: Pavior Pub., 2005) [4] Nathan Schwartz-Salant, The mystery of Human Relationship (New York: Routledge, 1998) [5] Peter Tompkins, The Secret Life of Plants (New York: Avon, 1972) [6] Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi ( London: Routledge, 1996) [7] Arnold Mindell, Quantum Mind (Portland Oregon: Lao Tse Press, 2000)
Chapter Five: Rediscovering Gnostic Science [1] For further information on The Environmental Invariants Hypothesis: refer to research conducted by Timothy L. Hubbard at TCU, College of Science and Engineering, Dept. of Psychology. http://www.psy.tcu.edu/hub_download.html [2] Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man out of Time (New York: Dell Publishing, 1981) p12 [3] Langston Day, Matter in the Making (London: Vincent Stuart Publishing, 1966)
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