When we open our eyes as a newborn, when we close our eyes in death — we are learning.
Learning is the only human drive that both propels life and is also part of every moment within it. In this eternal process we have evolved infinite ways to teach ourselves about the world surrounding us.
Each modality, or approach to learning, carries with it a built-in linear structure, intrinsic to the current mainstream understanding of life.
We think first, act second, experience third. The same threefold structure is implicit in every human behavior. There is human + cause = effect. While we would love to detach ourselves from our observations, a marker of Western science, we can never extract our energy from that which we place our focus, our intention.
In traditional philosophy, the idea of teleology examines the inevitability of the cause/effect relationship in the universe and the underlying purpose governing the relationship. Events are understood to occur because of something, some rationale, and what results may be comprehended as a natural outcome based upon the contributing variables or forces at work.
The paranormal understanding of the universe implies a much more complex layer of meaning to the natural teleological structure our present society expects us to adapt.
The nature of the universe is currently understood (by mainstream science) as NON-teleological.
We are meant to understand that the big bang or some random series of occurrences led to our creation, without any purpose of any divine force. To this day, it is merely accidental that the Earth is able to function. We are lucky to be within a habitable zone of the solar system, just far enough from the sun to have liquid water, and just close enough to the sun to have the physical light that sustains us.
The clincher is: INTENTION
An apple falls from a tree, observes Isaac Newton in the 1680’s, helping to formulate the idea of gravity we now consider second nature. But gravity was always ‘first nature,’ always existing for humans without being externally “named.” So what forces, aside from gravity, were at work as Newton made his calculations, synthesized his deductions, and changed our understanding of physical mechanics on earth?
Nieztsche’s writing included the phrase “God is dead!” two hundred years later. This statement presented the growing belief that human beings might already have the intellectual, scientific means to discover everything about the universe. If G-d was the world of ignorance and darkness, the Enlightenment which began modern science was the light — mainstream science still presumes to be the only light of the world.
But going back to the 17th century, why was it Newton? Why then?
What allowed Isaac, at that time and place, to synthesize the PROPER information and change our concept of motion forever? Could we for one moment believe Isaac Newton to be a prophet, a psychic being given information without his external experience of it? Millions of men existed before him, and yet he is given credit for this construction of basic physics. Even if it had been posited before and only Newton was given credit as an established academic, it remains true that Newton was given credit above others for his synthesis of information at the disposal of every human being on Earth.
Psychics fit dangerously within the realm of science, because science only understands knowledge as linear.
Over the past three centuries, we have built education from the ground up in our society. There are primary or elementary schools, secondary or high schools, colleges, universities, and vocational schools. Learning is everywhere, and it is nearly always the main three steps:
OBSERVE (the teacher, the phenomenon)
THINK (process, study)
DO (act, understand, synthesize).
Psychics use this same process, but they appear only to exercise the latter two. What they “observe” is still a mystery, even to them. Most psychic people can explain the spirits, images, sounds, feelings, flashes, words, or symbols that present in their mind’s eye. But they can not scientifically break down anything precisely.
To do so would be to ask a painter exactly what guides his or her brush, or to ask an opera singer exactly how his or her vocal cords are moving during an aria. It is not possible to do so without disrupting the artistic experience.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that questions the acquisition of knowledge and its transmission. How do humans learn, and why do some learn in ways others do not?
Our society teaches us that the only route to information — the building blocks of “knowledge” — is through the external. We must go to school, gain information, take tests, read, write, and work. To gain prestige in our society, one must hold advanced physical degrees proving the successful demonstration of knowledge one has accumulated through a highly systematic learning track. WIthout this proof, we are considered uneducated, ignorant, and our ideas are devoid of merit.
Psychics present an epistemological conundrum:
While most must follow the threefold path to knowledge through the EXTERNAL (outside the body), the psychic gathers information and attains knowledge from an INTERNAL (within the body), non-specific source.
It remains no surprise that mainstream science would devalue and delegitimize psychic work. It invalidates what we are told to accept as natural. Learning is the assimilation of the external. To learn without it must be impossible, for how could we know something external through the INTERNAL.
In the age of the standardized test, outliers are expected to advance or fail exponentially in relation to the norm.
If we can all learn internally, our information is no longer a product, no longer universally accessible. Learning would become as much an art form as a science. We have yet to consider ourselves advanced enough for this type of earth-shattering evolution of humanity.