We've all heard that seeing is believing right? What if what we see is not all there is? When I say 'seeing', I really mean perceiving with our senses of sight, sound, touch and all the other 5 physical senses.[1] These senses are the way our brain makes 'sense' - excuse the pun - of the world around us. From locating food and avoiding predators, to finding a partner and regulating our internal balance. These senses have worked out pretty well for us in our evolution.[2]
So now the question is: have we reached the pinnacle of human perception or are we merely well suited to the reality we are presented with? I'd argue that we are in the latter category.
Considering our current range of perception, the human eye only perceives light wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers or between the rainbow colours violet and red.[3]
- That's it. Never mind seeing in infrared like the snake[4] or in ultraviolet (UV) like the bee[5]. That's a terribly narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum shown below.
Image by Vecteezy.com
Or take hearing for instance. We can only hear frequencies in the range of 20 to 20 000 Hertz (Hz) or cycles per second.[6] That's an audible range between rumbling thunder and high-pitched bird chirping. As you can see, our perception goes only as far as our need for survival. Although, currently, many members of our human tribe have climbed out of survival-mode and into thriving and self actualization-mode, according to Maslow.[7] Wouldn't there then be a whole new range of experience to be had, assuming there is more to reality?
Now let's extend the definition of perception from just the senses to experience, incorporating our thoughts, emotions and extrasensory perception (ESP).
Is there a limit to what we can feel and perceive and what causes those limits? If you think about your human experience, there are some events and experiences that are confusing or defy causality as we understand it. For instance have you ever thought about someone, and then they give you a phone call? Or had the feeling that someone was watching you and look back to see a person staring right you? Freaky! I know right?! These are considered examples of extrasensory perception or ESP. Other examples are seeing visions of the past or future and communicating with trans-dimensional intelligences.
As far back in history as we can gather, there have been individuals who have exhibited ESP abilities such as telekinesis (moving objects non-physically), intuition, clairvoyance (visions of the past, present or future) and remote viewing (visions of non-local sites and targets). Some of these people are myths and legends and some are recorded cases. Some examples are:
1. The Pythia or Oracle of Delphi (1400 BC), who answered people's various questions of future events and outcomes.[8]
2. Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) (1503 - 1566), the famous physician and astrologer
who predicted the rise of Napolean, Hitler and both world wars.[9]
3. A final historical example is Edgar Cayce (1877 - 1945) also known as the "sleeping prophet"
who, from a relaxed sleeping state, could connect with higher consciousness and answer
questions ranging from medical prescriptions and dream interpretations to the secrets of the
universe.[10]
More modern examples include:
1. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (1921 - 2020).[11] A South African traditional healer, artist and
mystic who predicted the 1976 student uprising and in 1979 even painted the 9/11 attack of a
plane flying into the World Trade Center towers.
2. Ninel Sergeyevna (Nina) Kulagina (1926 - 1990), a Russian woman with an incredible psychokinetic ability to move, float and bounce various objects with her mind.[12]
3. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which conducted remote viewing experiments in
Project Stargate[13], among their many other dubious experiments.[14]
Allow me to be so bold as to assume that you know of some local examples of people who have exhibited these abilities or even had some experiences of your own.
From my own experience and investigation, I have had many uncanny moments of intuition and inspiration which are beyond me. I have also had some minor success with moving objects at a distance and out of body experiences. I'll share some of those in a later post.
As you can probably tell, there is quite a lot happening just beyond the reach of our senses. By thinking a little bit about this, some natural questions come to mind like: Is this real? What kind of people can do these things? Are these natural abilities or skills honed over time? Lastly, what mechanism or frame of investigation cause these seemingly supernatural events to occur?
My goal with this post, is not to convince you of anything but rather to shed light on the human potential for great things. In addition, I would like you to keep an open, inquisitive and skeptical mind to research and experience the answers to these questions for yourself. Hopefully, you see that there really is more to life,
beyond the senses.
[1] https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/your-8-senses
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/comments/6s2zeu/evolution_of_the_senses_how_the_senses_evolved/
[3] https://www.thoughtco.com/understand-the-visible-spectrum-608329
[5] https://beeswiki.com/bee-vision/
[6] https://www.nuheara.com/news/human-hearing-frequency-range/
[7] https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-actualization.html
[9] https://books.google.co.za/books?id=0OHRRwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y
[10] https://www.edgarcayce.org/
[11] https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_credo_mutwa04.htm
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50585549832_40d50cff76_b.jpg
[13] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/search/site/remote%20viewing
[14] https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-weirdest-cia-programs.php