Extra-Normal Capabilities

     Ordinary consciousness is "normal" only in the strict sense of "statistically most frequent," not inherently "good" or "natural" as the term is sometimes misconstrued to mean. When contrasted with supernormal consciousness experienced by some people, our current rigid, intellect-based awareness is highly abnormal and unnatural.

     The conspiracy to reduce consciousness to intellectual awareness of the physical world has been in evidence for at least five thousand years. Over the centuries the spiritual powers that Perennialist savants possess have been filtered out of most people, so that we now assume that our narrow, tightly-bound consciousness is normal and natural.

     Our psychic powers have become forgotten and atrophied from neglect because the vast conspiracy of the ideology of Mammon (material wealth as the highest value) has conditioned untold generations to believe that mind-bound consciousness of the physical world is all there is. Non-ordinary states were said to be "psychotic"--evil, abnormal and debilitating. Persons who even spoke of spiritual or psychic powers were classed as weird, insane, and perverse.

     Human beings possess a whole range of dormant, "hidden powers" of which they are usually unaware. Experience of these latent powers occurs accidentally or to those who learn the necessary procedures. These powers include inspiration, clairaudience, clairvoyance, psychometry, precognition, and telepathy. Perennialist teachers instruct in how to activate such powers for the completion of our individual potential and for participating in human evolution.

     Current brain research shows that in every human brain, there are as many neurons as there are galaxies in the known universe--about 100 billion, drawn from 10,000 different cell types and woven into a three-dimensional tapestry, with threads of neural interconnections that number in the trillions. We have discovered that in the womb, brain cells increase at a rate of 250,000 a minute and that the total doubles after birth. By age 3, a child's brain, on average, has twice as many neurons and neural connections, and is twice as energetic, as an adult's.

      During the intervening years till the person has reached adulthood, something occurs to reduce the number of neural connections by half! Some neurons thrive, while others atrophy for want of exposure to particular kinds of life experience. Because of the lack of specific experiential stimuli, brain cells are eliminated at a rate of thousands per second. By adulthood, more than half the neurons a brain possessed in early childhood will have died.In this competition, the forces of variation and selection that shape a species also sculpt each brain, neuron by neuron, creating the biological truth of individuality.

     Depending on the kinds of experience and learning persons encounter--deliberate and non-deliberate--they develop different kinds of brain cells--hence divergent types of mental and psychic capabilities.

"Sensing is the intake of data and perceptions, pure unprocessed information. Sensing is based on the five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching It is the dominant function of 'normal waking consciousness.' Without sensing there would be nothing to think about, nothing to feel, no basis for actions. "The development of sensing begins with birth as we slowly start to open our eyes and orient our self to the world. The development of the five senses continues at an accelerated rate for the first few years. Then it stops prematurely because the perception of most of the child's instructors, the parents and teachers, is so limited. The child soon learns to ignore and forget the perceptions which are not verified and accepted by the adults. Soon the child altogether ceases to perceive in a "non-adult", that is "un-stunted" way. They learn to focus into the narrow con sensual reality consciousness in which they are raised. The trance screens out all other perceptions. "Although our senses are somewhat stunted in childhood - how much so depending in large part upon our family and education - they are never killed altogether. All of us can still sense to some degree, and our senses can be reawakened and grow. The larger world we started to perceive in childhood can be revived. We can awaken from the culture trance. There are many exercises to do this. Art and music can also be used in this way. Many of the phenomena of 'extra sensory perception' may actually just be the normal, un-stunted functioning of the senses. We can all be much more aware than we are now. The seemingly incredible abilities of artists and athletes, as well as psychics, show this to be true. The singer with perfect pitch, the batter who can see the stitches on the baseball as it flies at him at 90 miles an hour, the quarterback who can see the open receiver in a crowded field, the telepath who hears a thought, or the clairvoyant who sees a future event. All this hints at what is possible when our sensing is purified, trained and strengthened." R.C.L., "Laws of Human Consciousness"

     The terrestrial domain serves as a training ground in learning how to die to the elements in us which keep us from ascending to a Higher Consciousness.