How to write about a part of reality which many people nowadays believe non-existent? Cause physicalism is their faith? Let’s imagine, that there are people who disbelieve in the existence of Australia. That they think Australia does not exist and they laugh or show in a gesture the person "has a screw loose" when someone mentions Australia. How to convince them? Verbal argumentation is futile – they laugh. Pictures, movies, maps – all that is fake for them. Inviting someone who was born and lived in Australia? “- Lunatic!” – is their answer. No way of argumentation can prevail – simply, they know better.
What one can do, to make them change their minds? Take them to Australia, of course. Let them see, touch, smell. But even then, if you would take them to Australia by plane or ship, they could still insist that this is no Australia! They could say, this is just an island in the Pacific or the coast of Africa! What could possibly prevent them from doing so? To leave them no space for arguing or denying, one would have to put them into a high altitude aircraft (or a spacecraft), so they could see the shape of the Australian continent during the flight. Finally, the slow approaching and getting lower till landing would left them no possibility for denying. Effortful and costly solution, isn’t it? But that’s how it should be. Changing one’s worldview cannot be easy.
This is a thing to remember: for a materialist (physicalist) to believe in supernatural is a fundamental change of the worldview. So, if you happen to be a physicalist, don’t expect to be shown the truth effortlessly. You will have to seek it yourself hard. Very hard. Obviously, it is much easier to stay lazy: “I know, there is nothing to be found, so why to trouble myself with trying to find anything?”. And so, the deep conviction that you’re right prevents you from finding out that you’re wrong. Wisdom is given to those, who seek it. If you wait for it, to come to you by itself, you shall wait forever.
All that I can do in this text is to give some guidelines. Directions. And warnings. Below I enumerate some ways of “getting in touch” with supernatural. This list is by no means complete. There are thousands of ways, and new ways are still being invented. The list is only to show many available possibilities. By the way, isn’t it astonishing how much has been invented to contact ‘the non-existent’?
As you can see, this list contains things considered quite innocent and pretty dangerous. I do not want to judge which is more risky. In many cases, it is obvious. Sometimes a practice seeming innocent at first glance, may still have very harmful consequences. It depends strongly on the supernatural side.
We, people of the West, tend to seek for power in the supernatural reality. Be it supernatural abilities, answers to questions or life tips. They all result in some advantage over others – that is: some power over others. This is always harmful, there is always a price. People of the East, who disregard supernatural gifts, are somehow ‘shielded’ against most of the bad influences. But not totally.
The experience of the supernatural is usually very overwhelming. Especially, for the people who disbelieved it. It changes the worldview, personality, lifestyle. Everything. You really become a different person. Whatever your plan might be at the beginning, it will change. Because you will change. If your entering supernatural is successful, you won’t keep promises given to yourself, to treat it as “an experiment”, or “just taste it and don’t go too far”. The subjective feelings of enlightenment, of accessing enormous possibilities, of entering an entirely new, better life; they are all so powerful, overwhelming, that you simply cannot resist. Imagine it, to be like a drug addiction. However, quite different.
Some basic guidelines.
There are people tall and short, strong and weak, wise and fools. These are natural differences. Similarly, there are people naturally “opened” to supernatural and, on the other side, naturally “resistant” to its influence. Most of us is somewhere between these extremes. If you are rather “opened” – you don’t need much to achieve ‘noticeable’ results. But if you happen to be highly “resistant” – you may never experience any supernatural. At least, in a noticeable way. Conclusion? Act in a group. Several persons trying together to reach the supernatural achieve much better results. Even if one or two of them happen to be rather “resistant”.
Find a guru. It is quite straightforward to enter the supernatural reality of a mentor. It saves lots of time. Who is “a guru”? Someone “wide open” to supernatural. Such persons are called occultists, spiritualists, mediums, healers, witches, shamans, and so on. Of course, there are many people who only pretend to be a guru – to rob you of your money. Real gurus, if they agree to help you, can provide a proof of their power. They let you taste supernatural at the beginning.
What can you expect? Unfortunately, anything. Practices like tarot, mind control, out of body experience, they promise some specific results: access to the supernatural knowledge (source of information), some supernatural abilities, supernatural experiences. Usually, it happens so. But not always. Anyway, unless you are very “resistant” to supernatural, you will notice, you will feel something happens. Something unexplainable – simply: something supernatural.
Natural vs. supernatural.
What is “natural” and what is “supernatural”? What is the difference? The total mess in this subject had been caused by Enlightenment. The epoch, which contrary to wisdom and knowledge gathered for centuries, declared: “Everything is natural. Supernatural is non-existent!”. So, now we have this mess of notions, ideas and incomprehension. But it is easy to clean it up: “natural” is simply innate – what comes from our body. And “supernatural” is not-natural. Simply unnatural: what comes from outside, what is not our innate ability. The supernatural abilities come from the non-physical world.
Let’s see some examples of the natural, first. Head-carrying: there are regions of the world where people had been carrying heavy burdens on their heads. For centuries. Result? They are born with the ability to easily carry burdens too heavy for other people. There is a tribe in the Andes which for generations had a special way of celebrations: first, they were feasting for many hours, then they started running. And they ran for 30-50 hours without rest. Without any break. Even the best marathon runners cannot compete with them. Other people are unable to run for more than 10-15 hours without break. Jews had been studying Torah for many centuries. Many of them had been masters of juggling interpretations of the Law for their own purposes. Bending the Law without breaking it. And now they are hard to beat as lawyers, traders and so on.
The natural abilities trained for many generations can be developed to higher levels. Today we know, it is genetics what stands behind it. And what about supernatural? Did the centuries of practicing yoga, tai-chi (and many others) brought any visible results? No. The observable differences are of cultural or environmental background. Nobody is born a yogi. Of course, centuries of practicing yoga made people more able to quickly improve the physical – exercise aspect of yoga. But yoga is not about physical exercises. They are a tool to achieve spiritual advance – the advance of mind. No visible progress on this level. The differences in thinking, feeling, in mentality are the result of cultural differences. Differences in worldview. They are the same kind of differences as differences between Europeans and Africans, Africans and South Americans, South Americans and Muslims of the Middle East.
Practices aiming at spiritual advance had been known in every culture. Especially, primitive cultures are eager to harness the supernatural powers. Tribes of every continent – Africa, Australia, both Americas, Asia; even in Europe – berserkers for example. Thousands of years, thousands of practices, hundreds of worldviews – all in vain. Their grand-grand children developed no better supernatural abilities. The conclusion can be one, only. The reality of (accessible) supernatural does not allow any advance for us, in general. This is not a reality in which we can grow, develop as “a species”, as humanity. We can access it, use it, but only at the human lifetime level. No improvement can be passed to next generations.
That world is simply supernatural, unnatural, outside of our competences, influence and any advance. Many people of the West have tried to prove this wrong. There were many pseudo-scientific attempts in the XVIII, XIX and XX century. Experiments with children: special kindergartens, schools; experiments with adults, military experiments – all for nothing. Nevertheless, there are still people eager to repeat these futile attempts. Cause they think themselves wiser than those in the past, they know better, they won’t make mistakes. Funny. But typical. They are the children of Enlightenment. Unable to accept anything that is outside of the human control. So, they will keep trying.
The other group are people who disbelieve in the existence of the supernatural reality, until it is “proved” existent to them. It’s like they would say: “I won’t believe in Australia, until I see it from the roof of my house!”. Am I exaggerating? Not at all! In both cases there is the same amount of laziness, naivety and weakness of mind. Laziness – because the proof has to come to them. They won’t lift a finger to find it themselves. Naivety and weakness of mind because they don’t understand people, world and what they ask for. They are like children who want the world to be as they want it to be. They want supernatural to behave as they want it, or they won’t accept it.
What is the proof they expect to get? Do they expect the Dawkinses and Hawkings to say: “We were totally wrong! Supernatural exists! Excuse us, please!”. Really? Are such expectations naivety, or sheer foolishness? How to call such miscomprehension of the human nature? Do they expect our Western world to deny the fundamental paradigm of Enlightenment, that everything existent is physical and can be explained by science? Do they believe this paradigm non-existent? Or perhaps they believe in precedence of objectivity in the world of the contemporary science? That economists, for example, seeing economics internally contradictory and based on non-verifiable assumptions would announce loudly that it is not a science? That their doctorates are worthless? That they don’t deserve their place at the universities? That they don’t deserve the money they are being paid? Really?
They expect many famous, important, influential people to admit they were fools and to join with their ridiculed opponents. And they think their wish is reasonable. As we know, our world is full of VIPs who eagerly resign and abandon their careers and positions simply because they realize they’re wrong.