by peartreed » Sun May 21, 2017 5:51 pm
Much like standard scientific research methodology has proven problematic in measuring and assessing psi phenomena, which involves emotion, anecdotal evidence has been unreliable by virtue of its vulnerability to the same human subjectivity. Neither science nor anthropology can fully verify its existence.
Like most of our beliefs, our world view is a result of our experiences with it.
My own awareness of extrasensory perception began in childhood while vacationing at our summer cottage in Ontario wilderness, where my grandfather, a Spiritualist Medium and Minister, had established a camp for his congregation along the Muskoka River. Back then, in the fifties, telephone and electrical lines and running water utilities were rare luxuries in rural forests, and our campground was cut off. We hauled and drank spring water from buckets, built our own outhouses and relied on each other for spoken and written communication and most “outside” news.
One day my Mom had taken the family car to go shopping in Bracebridge, the closest town several miles away. Shortly after she left my Dad called out to us, his four children, to meet him at our boat dock on the river. We all piled into the old rowboat and he took us upriver to an uninhabited area where he suddenly pulled us to shore and had us follow him up a forested slope, through uncleared, tangled underbrush. After bushwacking our way through wild terrain we eventually came upon a road. There, struggling with a car jack and a flat tire, was Mom – very happy to see us.
Dad just somehow “knew” Mom needed help and he “knew” where she was. Mom, in turn, had called for Dad the only way she had at hand – using her mind – in the same way they had always been linked since I knew them. To us, it was normal.
While I could recall and cite several other examples of apparently extrasensory perception within my extended family that I thought of as routine at the time, my adult rationale recollects the operative element was likely need – an absence of alternatives, an urgency, and a requirement for instant transmission. The other factor was familiarity, an intuitive comfort and confidence in the connection.
Our family lineage was linked by general acceptance of the paranormal as real. We hadn’t yet been conditioned to be cynical, skeptical and suspicious of psychic phenomena, and we were raised and surrounded by believers and practitioners.
The primitive world, including all our ancestors, once relied on survival instincts. Our intuitive impressions and feelings were less cluttered, confused and diluted by sensory distractions and alternative modes of messaging. Our “gut” kept us alive.
To me, that critical “mind” perception surpasses the five senses processed by the brain and extends a sixth sense into the unexplored realm of spirit, soul and nonphysical survival. We just haven’t activated it to its full potential because our reliance upon alternative inputs has rendered it mostly dormant and undetected.
