A major skeptical point concerning the paranormal is that it does not seem to be needed. We have senses to offer impressions of the world, and a mind to analyse those senses. No paranormality is required.
Within this system, a skeptical question would be: if paranormal powers exist, where are they? This is a valid point. Maybe the answer is that they used to be there, but are now somewhere else. Let me explain.
ALTERED STATES
There is an inter-religious discipline known as mysticism. A mystic puts himself into a trance to achieve what is collectively known as an altered state. In such a state the mystic speaks of being removed from the normal world.
What form of world does he enter? It is often described as a world of esoteric ‘information’; a state of ‘wholeness’ where everything is appreciated and understood. Once out of the state, this understanding is usually lost.
Is this ‘state’ related to the paranormal? It is well known that much paranormal activity occurs when trance, or near-trance states such as tiredness, is achieved. Could it be that paranormality is best achieved in trance, when we withdraw from outside information?
MIND BEFORE THIS ONE
The ancients seem to have lived in a different mind-state to our own. Early literature offers hints of a lack of subjectivity or individuality in the writer. It is as if a wider, more communal, mind was appreciated.
Early myths tell us that this earlier mind state could have been filled with super-beings holding paranormal powers. Were these symbols of mind-power and the reality of the paranormal in an early state of man?
Jung offers a description of what kind of mind these ancients could have had in his theory of ‘archetypes’ and the ‘collective unconscious.’ Minds were inter-related at a communal level, thus offering a more integrated way of thinking.
TOWARDS A THEORY
The purpose of this essay is not to prove paranormal powers, but to offer an understanding of why they are not necessarily with us today. And the obvious starting point is to say that the mind which allows such powers has evolved.
Intelligent man is said to have evolved due to a unique pelvis which allowed erect walking, freeing our hands for manual dexterity. However, is this incomplete? In order to become the technologist, he would surely have required a technologist’s mind.
Other species seem to be controlled by an all-encompassing instinct. Instinct is, of course, a response communal to all. And it seems to work on the level of inner-conditioning, rather than abstract understanding of ‘outside’ information.
AN EVOLVED MIND
In order to be a technologist, man would have to be able to think in the abstract. Hence, he would have had to analyse ‘outside’ information ABOVE instinct, and apply that information to the task in hand.
This would have required the ability to ‘concentrate’ on one thing at a time. In other words, a repository would have been required for ‘thoughts’ and impressions not needed at a particular time.
I would argue that the human mind was ‘whole’ prior to technology, but as man’s new way of thinking increased, the mind split into the conscious and unconscious, the former needed for concentration, the latter for storing unrequired thoughts.
AN ELASTIC MIND
We are devising a model for an evolved mind-state, incorporating conscious and unconscious mind. But this process can be extended. For instance, what would be the effect of ‘outside’ information increasing due to our technology?
Seeing that the split was required to analyse information, we can argue that as ‘outside’ information increased, the conscious mind expanded to process the data, and the unconscious repository became more and more inaccessible.
However, this is not the whole story. In dream-states and other states when outside information is reduced, we can argue that the two areas of mind move closer together, possibly even merge.
PARANORMAL MIND
This is a possible answer to the skeptics question concerning where is the paranormal? In normal technological/information mind-states, it is banished to the back of the mind. But in near-trance states, a merging of the mind brings such powers into use.
The above theory holds another possibility. Today, we live in an ‘information age,’ where the conscious mind would be enormous. Does this explain our present biases towards individuality, the material world and suspicion of the spiritual?
I pose this question for an important reason. Studies of the paranormal are said to be of no concern to normal life. The above theory suggests otherwise. Indeed, it shows that understanding the paranormal could be essential to who we are.
© Anthony North, April 2007
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