confusing the senses, senses delusion

Confusing the Senses in Many Ways

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“Perhaps the most familiar example of mistaken sense-reports is that of the movement of the earth. The senses of every person report to him that the earth is a fixed, immovable body, and that the sun, moon, planets, and stars move around the earth. … It is only when one accepts the reports of the reasoning faculties that he knows that the earth not only whirls around on its axis every twenty-four hours, but that it circles around the sun every 365 days. …

“I am not trying to make any of you doubt the report of the five senses. That would be most foolish. … Instead, I am trying to acquaint you with the real nature of these five senses, they you may realize what they are not, as well as what they are; and that there is no absurdity in believing that there are more channels of information open to the ego or soul of the person.” ~William Walker Atkinson

Confusing the Senses

It’s curious that there are still people who will say they believe only what they can perceive with the five senses, and nothing else, when there is so much evidence that the senses can be confused or tricked.

Atkinson mentions one of the most common of these illusions. If we are moving in a car at 80 mph (128 k), we feel the speed. Our senses tell us we are moving. But when we are sitting still in a chair, we are actually moving about 19 miles or 30 kilometers per second around the sun. The senses are fooled because the whole planet is moving at that speed. We seem to be still because our sense work relative to the earth and to what we see around us.

Have you ever been sitting in a plane or train that is not moving, then the one next to you starts moving. You feel a strange sense of movement because your senses are confused. They don’t know which plane or train is moving and which is sitting still.

Optical illusions are another one. A favorite of mine in recent years is the sidewalk drawings that are done so that they appear to be 3-D objects.

3-D Sidewalk Art

Other senses can be fooled as well. Real estate agents will tell you that certain scents like apple pie make a house more appealing. The house would be exactly the same if it smelled like boiled cabbage, but it wouldn’t sell. Continue reading “Confusing the Senses in Many Ways” →

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confusing the senses, senses delusion

Physical Senses Perceive and Deceive

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“The student of occultism usually is quite familiar with the crass individual who assumes the cheap skeptical attitude toward occult matters, which attitude he expresses in his would-be ‘smart’ remark that he ‘believes only in what the senses perceive.’ He seems to think that his cheap wit has finally disposed of the matter. …

“While the opinions or views of persons of this class are, of course, beneath the serious concern of any true student of occultism, nevertheless the mental attitude of such persons are worthy of our passing consideration. … These so-called practical persons have much to say regarding their senses.

“They are fond of speaking of ‘the evidence of my senses.’ They also have much to say about the possession of ‘good sense’ on their part; of having ‘sound common sense’. …

“Alas for the pretensions of this class of persons. They are usually found quite credulous regarding matters beyond their everyday field of work and thought, and accept without question the most ridiculous teachings.” ~William Walker Atkinson

Senses Perceive and Deceive

First, let me remind everyone that what Atkinson calls “occult” is the same as what most of us call “spiritual” today. Unfortunately, the world “occult” still invokes ideas of sorcery that are not true. He attitude toward that word is part of what Atkinson is talking about.

Those of us who have awakened to some degree have learned to look beyond the five senses for truth and knowledge. Yet even we tend to trust the physical senses too much.

A good example of this is something I have written about before on this blog. Most of us have had the experience of driving down an empty country road at twilight and seeing something ahead on the side of the road. It may appear to be wolf, or a bear. But when we get closer, we see that it is just a rock or tree stump. Now suppose we had never moved closer. We would go on believing that it was a wolf, when it wasn’t. And many of us never move closer, but trust our senses and beliefs. We forget that it is not really the five senses, but the brain that assembles that information, filters it through beliefs and teachings, then give us the result. So in truth, we don’t even know what the five senses perceived, only the brain-mind opinion of them. Continue reading “Physical Senses Perceive and Deceive” →

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region of bliss, multi-sensory human, soul birth, Archetype of Man

Multi-Sensory Humans in a Five Sense World

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“We are evolving from five-sensory humans into multi-sensory humans. Out five senses, together, form a single sensory system that is designed to perceive physical reality. The perceptions of a multi-sensory human extend beyond physical reality to the larger dynamical systems of which our physical reality is a part. …

“We, as a species, have been asking the questions, ‘Is there a God?’, “Is there a Divine Intelligence?’, and ‘Is there a purpose to life?’, for as long as we have been able to articulate questions. The time has now come for us to expand into a frame of reference that allows these questions to be answered.” ~Gary Zukav

Multi-sensory Humans

In a sense, it is true that a kind of evolutionary process is taking place today that is awakening us to a greater perception of reality. But this is not all that new. St. Francis and Jacob Boehme awakened to it hundreds of years ago. Jesus and Buddha used it thousands of years ago. But today it is not just the one in ten million who is awakening. It is more like one is ten thousand.

Of course, the number of people trying to awaken, or pretending they already have, is more like one in 500. But pretending doesn’t make it real and it is clear from the things most of these people post on social media that they are not awakened and are not yet Multi-sensory people.

Beyond Five Senses

Usually when people speak of going beyond the five physical senses, it is assumed that they are talking about psychic abilities generally called the sixth sense. But it is clear (to me anyway) that what Zukav is talking about is spiritual senses, which is another level beyond and above the psychic. These senses are in the spirit and soul. We can’t make use of them, however, if we allow those spiritual faculties to lie dormant. So the first step to becoming a multi-sensory person is to awaken those faculties. And once awakened, they must be continually developed. Just like the body and mind, they don’t develop themselves.

Physical Reality

The physical universe is part of reality. But there is much more to the universe than the physical. What Zukav doesn’t mention in the quote is that the physical “reality” is illusion. It is something real. But the reality of it is far different from what it appears to be. Solid,liquid, gas are really all just different frequencies of light. Everything is just frequencies or nodes of light and energy. The solid universe of matter is just slowed-down light. Part of the task of the spiritual people is to speed it up again until it returns to its original state of spirit. Continue reading “Multi-Sensory Humans in a Five Sense World” →

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reverence for all

Reverence for Life and All Creation

Posted on by Harold Boulette

“We see that when the activities of life are infused with reverence,they come alive with meaning and purpose. We see that when reverence s lacking from life’s activities, the result is cruelty, violence, and loneliness. The physical arena is a magnificent learning environment. It is a school within which, through experimentation, we come to understand what causes us to expand and what causes us to contract. …

“When the physical environment is seen only from the five-sensory point of view, physical survival appears to be the fundamental criterion of evolution. … The basis of life becomes fear. … We have formed our present understanding of evolution as a process of ever-increasing ability to dominate the environment and each other. … Our deeper understanding leads us to another kind of power.” ~Gary Zukav

Infused With Reverence

Most of us think of reverence as something found in religion. You have reverence for God. You have reverence for saints, or other holy beings. But outside of religion, few think of reverence as applying.

In actual fact, reverence does apply elsewhere. Even those who are not religious can have reverence. We can have reverence for life, even if we limit it to physical life. We can have reverence for nature and her laws.

Lacking Reverence

In most places, we can look around us and see the results of a people and a society without reverence for life or anything else. We see people harming and killing others. We see businesses being robbed with no regard for the fact that it is being run by an elderly family who themselves are having difficulties. On the other side of that coin, we lack reverence when we sell products that we know are harming people rather than helping them. Even when the products don’t harm others, they lack reverence when they don’t actually benefit the person they are sold to.

We lack a reverent attitude when we say we want immigrants kept out of our country. We got here first, so the hell with anyone else. But we don’t own the world, or any part of it. It wasn’t created by us, therefore we can’t claim to own it. If we lack reverence, we will anyway. Continue reading “Reverence for Life and All Creation” →

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