Science has afforded us an immense knowledge of physical, visible reality. Yet, many an eminent scientist has recognized that the scientific world picture is very restricted. They say the greater part of reality is still unexplored. Logically, then, there is nothing to contradict the idea of a reality beyond the physical. There are indeed many types of phenomena that manifest themselves in the physical but originate in energies of other kinds than the known physical ones.
Let us survey these phenomena.
Telepathy shows that different individuals (also animals and plants) have a direct communication between them. Information is transferred between individuals without the need for an intercession of the senses of the organism.
Clairvoyance is the ability to apprehend such things as – always or just temporarily – are out of reach of the senses, for example at a great distance. Using clairvoyance you "see" also other forms than those normally visible, the psychic atmosphere surrounding all living beings, for instance.
Remote viewing is the ability to perceive such things and events as – permanently or temporarily – are beyond the reach of the physical senses, at great distances in space and time, for instance.
Projection (or out-of-the-body experience) is the term for a phenomenon where people (usually in near-death states) have felt they were leaving their unconscious organisms, were outside them and were able to observe their surroundings. Upon awakening they have been able to correctly describe what happened around them during the time when no bodily senses were functioning.
Psychometry is the ability to read off the past of an object directly in your consciousness, as though there were a contact between it and some sort of "memory of nature".
Precognition (premonitions, prophetic dreams) demonstrates that some part of our consciousness has a wider perception of the present and thus extends farther into the future than does our normal waking consciousness.
Psychokinesis is the ability to move or affect things in other ways by thought alone. A special kind of it is levitation, the ability to make one's body hover in the air. Other kindred phenomena are materialization and de-materialization, the ability to form things apparently out of nothing, and to dissolve them, respectively.
Even though some of these faculties are unusual, that fact is no argument against their existence. It just demonstrates that they exist as mere potentials where most people are concerned. Nor is it a tenable argument that "they conflict with the laws of nature". They conflict only with our present, all too narrow conception of the laws of nature. Levitation, for instance, has been well attested in historical as well as in modern times. One of the more well-known cases is that of Italian friar Giuseppe da Coppertino who literally flew in his church before a congregation including the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the Duke of Brunswick.
Telepathy seems to be extremely common, especially between close relatives, such as a mother and child. The fact that telepathy has not been studied much is probably due to its being so common. We are quite simply not aware of when we are thinking ourselves and when others are thinking in us. We should ask ourselves whether understanding does not have an important element of telepathy, common and shared consciousness, and whether a lack of understanding is not partly due to the absence of telepathy. All of us certainly have experiences of such phenomena as perceiving people's kindness or unkindness as "radiation", when neither words nor glances have been exchanged. Also herd behaviour and special instincts in animals can be explained by telepathy.
The fact that projection phenomena are very common is seen in the fact that many people now dare to speak openly of their experiences of it. Until recently, not many people have had the inner strength to defy mockery from both public opinion and science.
In this connection there is occasion to say some words on that dogmatism which regrettably still compromises science to a great extent. To believe you know without having examined the case carefully is dogmatism. To refuse to examine something, claiming that it "conflicts with the laws of nature" is dogmatism. To reject facts of reality, claiming that they do not fit in with the prevalent hypotheses, is dogmatism of the worst kind, the belief in your own omniscience and the impossibility of new discoveries that knock over the present hypotheses, which are always temporary. In fact, the entire history of science is the story of how worse, more restricted hypotheses constantly were forced to yield to better, more inclusive ones.
In summing up it may be said that the super physical phenomena described here demonstrate clearly that consciousness can act with a much higher degree of independence of the physical body than materialism assumes:
(1) Consciousness can apprehend reality directly, without the need of using the physical senses. (Clairvoyance, projection.)
(2) Consciousness has a considerably wider range in time and space than have the physical senses. (Clairvoyance, psychometry, precognition.)
(3) Consciousness is not individually isolated or separated but can be shared between individuals. (Telepathy.)
(4) Consciousness can exist independently of the physical body. (Projection.)
(5) Consciousness can affect matter directly. (Psychokinesis.)
If consciousness can exist independently of the physical body, then it should be able to survive bodily death. "There is no death" is what spiritualists assert, and from an impartial standpoint there is more to say for that idea than against it. The spiritualist phenomena are convincing. The spiritualist hypothesis is a plausible explanation of them. Still, many people have an aversion against life in the "spiritual world" as spiritualists describe it. It is trivial, vapid, too human, and does not satisfy our longing for the truly spiritual. This very fact, however, affords spiritualism the impress of truth. Why should man become nobler and wiser just because he has put off his mortal frame?
Spiritualism shows us a new life "beyond the veil". But this life has not much more meaning than physical life such as materialism views it. A very different, larger, and more positive perspective is obtained from the idea that life is a school for winning experiences, for developing consciousness. And then one earthly existence will not suffice. The idea of re-birth, reincarnation, has spread more and more in the West in recent years.
A serious researcher, Professor Ian Stevenson in the United States, has investigated people who claim they remember former lives. He has documented twenty cases suggestive of reincarnation.
Everything we have said so far is more than enough to explode the one-sided materialist world view. It can also serve to introduce a more tenable world view and life view. Such a view will cover a larger portion of reality than heretofore. It is a view that allows consciousness to play a greater, more independent part in the drama of the universe.
There are those who think that science will evolve this new world picture from within it. The new world view is fully developed already, however, and has existed for some 2700 years.
