Consciousness and the paranormal ...
For example, I read Jane Robert's Seth Speaks in High School. It supposedly contains "revealed knowledge" from a spiritual being. At the time I really didn't know what to make of it. Today, I think she was essentially talking to herself. I don't have the impression she was a charlatan like J.Knight who allegedly channels the being Ramtha, although she could have been. I think she had convinced herself of something and suffered delusional thoughts and was enabled by those around her to essentially produce works of folk performance art.
Has anyone ever used their consciousness to contact the paranormal and come back with actionable information that doesn't sound like dime-store philosophy full of pretentious religious imagery? In other words, is there anything to suggest that revealed knowledge through paranormal means is anything more than the work of the human mind?
Is that a fair question for the thread?
For sure a fair question. I will answer - maybe others will as well - but I suspect my answer won't be the kind of answer you want. In your run-down there is so much emotion around certain ideas like philosphy and religion - 'dime-store', 'pretentious' - that I'm not sure I can 'answer' your query satisfactorily for you. But here I go anyway....
Rather than pass judgment pro or con on Jane Robert's 'Seth Material', or any other channeled corpus of work - like 'The Urantia Book' or 'A Course In Miracles' or Alice A. Bailey's work - I am more inclined to offer comment on where one places one's focus. While phenomena are interesting, even fascinating, it's more compelling - imo - to look at the processes that lead to such occurrences. What is 'true' - and relevant - sifts out naturally.
Perhaps what is most obvious to the interested observer is the degree to which the phenomena (and content) are driving the debate around 'suprasensory' experiences. In such an area where phenomena outstrips knowledge to the point of befuddlement, it makes sense to search out the knowledge of advanced souls who have had the capacity to articulate the nature of the processes of suprasensory perception.
The forever-answer is always self-knowledge. Observation of human nature in both oneself and others. From an ancient text:
"Intelligence is impartial: no man is your enemy: no man is your friend. All alike are your teachers. Your enemy becomes a mystery that must be solved, even though it take ages: for man must be understood. Your friend becomes a part of yourself, an extension of yourself, a riddle hard to read. Only one thing is more difficult to know — your own heart. Not until the bonds of personality are loosed, can that profound mystery of self begin to be seen. Not till you stand aside from it will it in any way reveal itself to your understanding. Then, and not till then, can you grasp and guide it. Then, and not till then, can you use all its powers, and devote them to a worthy service."
I offer here some paragraphs from the afterward of an occult manual articulating a way of self-knowledge. For those who can hear, it will be obvious what the writer of this text is saying. The italics is by the author. The bolding emphasis is my own. [If anyone would like me to 'translate' what is being said in the below quote, I will do so, just ask. I am aware that it may be an obscure text for those not familiar with certain concepts.]
"Practicing the second of these meditations makes it clear - and later meditations makes it even clearer - that this path of the soul decisively rejects all so-called clairvoyance associated with bodily illness or abnormality. The path of soul described here excludes all visionary or mediumistic phenomenon arising from such conditions.
Even sensory perception and the thinking based upon it represent a higher realm than the inner state from which such soul contents come. For in perception and thinking, a person lives more fully in the suprasensory realm, and depends less upon the body than when a disordered soul life leads the soul astray by presenting the content of processes originally intended to serve the body. These processes deviate from their natural tasks in a distorted way, leading to ideas that are neither in objective perceiving nor in active willing.
"
Among the soul functions of normal consciousness, only thinking can free itself from perception and lead to independent activity unconditioned by abnormal, bodily processes.
Clairvoyant vision, as I use the term, does not sink below thinking into deeper organic processes; rather it
rises to realms that begin with thinking when thinking is inwardly illuminated by the soul and controlled by the will. From such self-controlled thinking, the soul develops clairvoyant vision as it is meant here. Thinking is the paradigm for vision.
"What these meditations describe as
suprasensory vision is, however, essentially different from ordinary thinking and leads to an experience of suprasensory worlds that thinking alone cannot enter. But
the life that unfolds in such vision is none other than the life developed within thinking. The soul must live within it's suprasensory visions and illuminations with the same consciousness with which it lives within a thought and moves from one thought to another.
"
The relationship of the soul to these visions is essentially different from its relationship to ordinary thoughts. Certainly, suprasensory vision has a psychic connection to its corresponding reality that it is recalling. But
during the activity of supersensory seeing, the power of memory itself plays no role in the soul. What you have once
imagined, you can remember again, even if the imagination is pure fantasy. Still,
unless you have developed another power of vision, one that allows you to recreate in the soul the same conditions that led to the vision, what you experienced in clairvoyant vision disappears from consciousness the moment the vision ceases. You can remember the conditions and, through them, repeat the vision, but you cannot directly recall the vision.
"Whoever has attained the necessary insight in these matters can use it as a means of cognizing the reality that corresponds to the vision. You can recall a perception or an experience without having the experience or the perception again when you remember it. Similarly, when you remember a vision, the remembered vision does not itself contain the real content of the vision.
From this, you can recognize that the suprasensory reality corresponding to the vision is no more illusory than perception is to sensory reality.
"
People can easily fall into error here if they have not familiarized themselves sufficiently with the nature of such visions
and therefore
judge the reports of these things on the basis of their preconceptions. They think that what arises in clairvoyant consciousness has to do with the play of fantasy or an interweaving of ideas overflowing from the unconscious depths of the soul like vague memories. Those who make such judgements do not know that genuine clairvoyant consciousness exists only in contents of the soul that, by their nature, cannot go down into the organic depths and that, as soon as they arise, resist being grasped by the power of memory.
"
The natural course of clairvoyant life differs from that of ordinary soul life in important ways. In everyday soul life, for instance,
practice, or familiarity, plays a fruitful role. Repeated performance of an act increases the ability to perform that act skillfully. How could we progress in life, art, or any kind of learning, if we could not increase our proficiency through practice? But this is not the case with clairvoyant vision.
Someone who has a suprasensory experience does not become that much more skillful a second time. In fact, precisely because someone has had an experience once, that experience in the future will be elusive.
The experience, in a sense, tries to flee. Therefore,
in order to repeat a suprasensory experience, one must undertake specific exercises to strengthen the powers of the soul. The soul must be stronger the second time than the first. This is a source of bitter disappointment for beginners on the path to the suprasensory.
"Those who undertake the exercises for strengthening the soul's powers [...] can easily have suprasensory experiences. [... but] they will soon notice that they cannot repeat the same experiences. [...] However difficult it is,
one must win through to the realization that the laws of suprasensory experience are often different from, even contrary to, those of physical experience. But one must not therefore conclude that knowledge of suprasensory experience can arise simply by thinking about the corresponding sensory processes in reverse.
How things stand in each case must be discovered through suprasensory experience in each individual case.
"Another characteristic of suprasensory experience is that these visions light up for clairvoyant consciousness for only a barely measurable moment. One could say that the instant they arise, they are already gone. This means that
only a quick awareness, an agile adjustment of attention, leads to noticing a genuine vision. Those who have not developed in their souls this agility of consciousness, coupled with an attitude of attention, may have visions, but they will have no knowledge of them. That is why so many people deny the existence of the suprasensory world. Suprasensory experience is really much more widespread than people usually think.
Interaction with the spiritual world is actually something quite common and universal. But the ability to follow this interaction cognitively, with one's power of consciousness working swiftly, is won only with difficulty.
"
You can prepare yourself for this capacity if you practice forming a rapid overview of the consequences of certain life situations and then acting accordingly. The habit of repeatedly reconsidering and hesitating over a decision ('Should I? Or shouldn't I?') results in lost time and procrastination, and it leaves one ill-prepared for observing the spiritual world. But
for those who develop the capacity for maintaining in life the appropriate presence of mind will bring something essential and necessary to suprasensory experience.
"
If we were to gain and use the faculty for suprasensory experience without changing ourselves first, then we would be unable to fulfill our daily tasks. Only when they develop out of a healthy life in sensory reality can suprasensory capacities be acquired in a healthy way. If you turn your back on that life or believe you can approach the suprasensory world through eccentric peculiarities, you are on the wrong path.
"
True clairvoyant vision has the same relationship to the processes of normal consciousness as normal consciousness has to the sleep consciousness whose content arises before the soul as dreams. Just as unhealthy sleep disturbs and undermines normal consciousness, so healthy clairvoyant vision cannot rest upon the foundation of a negative or an impractical attitude toward normal life. The more firmly you stand in life and the more you understand your tasks in intellectual, feeling, moral, or social existence, the healthier will be the soul capacities that you can then bring to an experience of suprasensory worlds.
"The meditations [here] speak of that kind of healthy, clairvoyant vision. You will find nothing that is visionary, diseased, or fantastic in the usual sense on this path to knowledge of the suprasensory world."
? Wasn't there anything in the video I posted you'd rather discuss? Hefferman seems like an interesting and intelligent lady with a healthy perspective on how people with differing views can work together toward a common ground. Or maybe something related to the topic of the thread? Or would you rather just keep criticizing me personally? Maybe you're right and I should see a shrink who can explain why I feel it necessary to come here and expose myself to all the negative waves ...
