PARAPSYCHOLOGY, MAN AND SUPERMAN

SANJIVA DEV

Life is a chiarcscuro of being and becoming. Man emanates in being and culminates in becoming. From being to becoming the path is a dynamic process, an unfoldment of human psyche and an awakening of man’s latent potentialities. It is the transformation of man into superman; to him life is light and death a delight!

Modern man is privileged to live in an age in which there exists no conflict between physics and metaphysics, between psychology and parapsychology, between matter and spirit and between empiricism and transcendentalism. Modern age is an age of abstraction in every sphere of life–abstraction in art, abstraction in science and abstraction in life. Abstraction is a process of metamorphosis of the gross into the subtle and thus it is a mode of refinement, a way of turning the low into the lofty.

Parapsychology is not an abnormal psychology but it is a refined psychology, a super-psychology in the same way as the superman is not an abnormal man but a refined man free from every normal limitation both temporal and spatial. As there are sub-humans with less developed faculties than those of humans, there are also super-humans with more developed faculties than those of humans. This is but the order of evolution manifest in the cosmic creation. What is a limitation to the under-developed is an expansion to the well-developed; what is a bondage to the former is a liberation to the latter.

The PSI phenomena in parapsychology such as telepathy clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, incorporeal personal agent etc., would liberate man from the fetters of the thraldom of time and space, from the narrow cells of sense-perceptions. Such a liberated man is a superman who perceives everything devoid of any sensory aid.

Man exists on the physical plane, lives on the biological, feels on the psychological, thinks on the intellectual and eventually on the intuitional plane he delights. On the physical plane life is mineral, on the biological plane life is vegetable, on the psychological plane life is animal, on the intellectual plane life is human and on the intuitional plane life is superhuman. From the inanimate existence of the mineral kingdom, traversing the living vegetable kingdom, the feeling animal kingdom, and the thinking human kingdom, man ascends the delighting superhuman kingdom.

Man is essentially a rational being; but his rationalism is not opposed to parapsychology, for the latter is not anti-rational but super-rational. The frontiers of reason are not confined to the phenomenal existence and thus they touch the realms of the noumenon. Whatever is supra normal is not irrational. What the mind fails to perceive could well be perceived by telepathy; where the eye could not see, could be seen by clairvoyance; that which could not be heard by the ear could be heard by clairaudition. Thus extrasensory perception is not an irrational function.

When human psychology unfolds itself into parapsychology, man expands himself into superman. Man is not consummate at all unless and until he spreads out into a superman. Parapsychology extends the frontiers of human faculties to the limitless and through these infinite faculties man is metamorphosed into a higher man, into a stronger man, into a finer man, into a superman.

To be a man is indeed a boon while to spread out into a superman is more than a boon! Where humanism decreases, increases devilism; where humanism increases, flourishes super-humanism.

In the subconscious, man is devil; in the conscious, man is man; in the superconscious man is superman.

In the subconscious, rationalism is dormant; it fails to distinguish between what is true and what is false; in the conscious, rationalism is fully awake while in the superconscious, rationalism is transformed into intuition.

In superhumanism, intellect transforms itself into intuition.

Siddhartha was a man while the Buddha was a superman.

Jesus was a man while the Christ was a superman.

What was it that had transformed Siddhartha into the Buddha and Jesus into the Christ?

What was it that had elevated them from the conscious to the superconscious?

That was their cosmic love and infinite compassion.

That was their selfless sacrifice.

That was the release of their parapsychological faculties.

The devil would never hesitate to cause harm to those who helped him. Man would never render harm to those who helped him. But the superman would never hesitate to render help even to those who caused him harm.

For man, to live in humanism is a glory, because many live in devilism. But man should not remain for long in humanism; he ought to step up into superhumanism.

In the evolution of life, humanism has been simply a resting stage and not the destination itself.

It would be a delusion if one halted at the resting stage and deluded himself by believing that the stage itself was the destination.

If compared with the luminous virtues, with the infinite faculties and the unfettered freedom of the superman, the virtues of man appear dim, the faculties of man seem finite and the freedom of man is felt to be fettered!

That is why the aim of man ought to be superhumanism in order to render the imperfect humanism perfect.

PSI cognition could immensely help man in achieving this glorious task of stepping up into super humanism. It is bliss itself to transgress from the psychological life of man to the para-psychological life of superman.

The power of the senses is extremely limited. The eye cannot see beyond certain distance and it is the case with ear as well as other sense-organs. Even the mind cannot know beyond the immediate. Man suffers immensely in every sphere of life–both pragmatic and ideological–at these limitations of his potentialities at these shortcomings of his conquering spirit and at these barriers imposed by the incapable senses.

How can he aspire to become a superman by having been surrounded by all these sensory limitations? His psyche hankers to spread out enormously but his feeble senses stand in the way obstructing the psyche’s expansion towards the cosmic infinite. The physical barriers of time and space render man unable to rise above himself, to move beyond himself and to become greater than himself. Unless space spreads into infinity and time melts into eternity, man cannot liberate himself from the confinement of these phenomena. But it is the man who ought to transcend the horizons of time and space and not the latter. A man who cannot transcend the physical limitations of time and space can never dream of becoming a superman. But his senses with their limited capabilities would obstruct him to transcend time and space. He desires to be extra-sensory in his perceptions and then alone he is able to rise above time and space. Extrasensory perception could make him rise above himself, move beyond himself and become greater than himself–man into superman.

Parapsychology, in one form or another, has been as old as humanity itself; but in the past it had been an art instead of a science. Its emergence as a science had been in the last quarter of the last century. In this sense parapsychology is a new science, a modern investigation into the unknown. In its initial enthusiasm is mostly dealt with the post-mortem aspect of life, the incorporeal or the discarnate existence of the departed spirits. But later its emphasis shifted to post-natal life or the incarnate existence of living man. The incarnate existence is more concrete than the discarnate one and hence the former is more pliable to scientific Investigations than the latter.

Eschatelogy or the study of life after death has not so far been fully probed into; it has still remained more or less a sealed book despite numerous investigations carried on by individuals and institutions alike. So far no positive results of objective certainty have emerged out of these psychic researches in the field of eschatology. But there is greater need to investigate into life after death than into life before death, for life is more concerned with death than with life itself.

It is true, in one sense, life is more mysterious than death, but in another sense death is more mysterious than life. From time immemorial man has been immensely inquisitive to have a fuller knowledge of death and to view what exists beyond the mysterious veil of death. But so far no objective truth has been revealed regarding the mystery of death. Then alone the mystery of life could be unravelled when that of death is disentangled.

In the name of spiritualism many a fraud has been committed in the form of materialization under ectoplasm, levitation of objects in the seance room, voices of the alleged disembodied spirits, etc. Thus the mediums as well as seances of the school of spiritualism aye created a confusion in which it has become difficult to distinguish between what is fact and what is fraud.

Parapsychology alone is the most potential means through which the eschatological aspects of life could well be perceived, for no sense-perceptions could penetrate the other side of death. PSI cognition alone could perform this hard task.

Does death mean complete extinction of life? Is immortality of soul a reality? Does life survive bodily death? What about reincarnation? Such vital queries do always annoy the layman and the expert alike. But so far no definite answers from anywhere. In this direction everything still passes through a state of flux.

Investigations are being conducted in several countries as to reincarnation by parapsychologists but the results are still elusive. The various evidences gathered in every country regarding reincarnation are still to be proved to be free from fraud. But there is hope that before long these experiments would produce positive results.

The frontiers of the universe are being extended day by day. Traces of life are being discerned on other planets too. Man has become a space-traveller. Man has left behind him the palaeolithic, the mesolithic and the neolithic ages; he has also traversed the copper age, bronze age and iron age; man now, lives in the atomic age which fits in every way to parapsychology, for the powers of both of them are infinite and thus nothing is impossible for them. So, now ours is an age of inter-planetary communication, an age of abstract art and nuclear science, an age of parapsychology and an age of superhumanism.

In such a marvellous age parapsychology, the science of the sixth sense, has to play a magnificent part in moulding the man into superman. Tributes are to be paid first to Dr. Josef Banks Rhine of Duke University, North Carolina, for his experimental researches in various branches of parapsychology. He is the modern scientist who undertook to investigate scientifically into the depths of this supernormal science of the sixth sense. Dr. Pratt’s experiments too have been highly remarkable.

To understand the functioning of ESP is very difficult, if not impossible. Several parapsychologists have offered their own interpretations in this regard. Whately Carington has been one of them. He made experiments in reproducing drawings produced by others at a considerable distance. He founded a theory in explaining the working of telepathy known as the Association Theory of Telepathy. According to Carington, the human minds are not separate but they are fused into one in the deeper strata of the subconscious. So, if there rises a stir in the common joint subconscious it is reflected in the individuals separately. In such a case telepathy is not a transmission from one mind to another but it is “a diffusion of information from the common subconscious to the Individual consciousness” as D. J. West puts it.

Such a theory of Group Mind was also advocated by the celebrated psychiatrist, the late Dr. C. G. Jung. Dr. Jung, though an analytical psychologist, was immensely interested in parapsychology. He called the Group Mind as Theory of the Racial Unconscious. Dr. Jung had had numerous experiences of ESP in the life. Of one such experience he narrates as follows in his autobiography entitled “Memories, Dreams, Reflections.”

“At that time I had to deliver a lecture in B. I returned to my hotel around midnight. I sat with some friends for a while after the lecture, then went to bed, but I lay awake for a long time. At about two o’clock–I must have just fallen asleep–I awoke with a start, and had the feeling that someone had come into the room; I even had the impression that the door has been hastily opened. I instantly turned on the light, but there was nothing. Someone might have mistaken the door, I thought, and I looked into the corridor. But it was still as death. ‘Odd’ I thought, ‘someone did come into the room!’ Then I tried to recall exactly what had happened and it occurred to me that I had been awakened by a feeling of dull pain, as though something had struck my forehead and then the back of my skull. The following day I received a telegram saying that my patient had committed suicide. He had shot himself. Later, I learned that the bullet had come to rest in the back wall of the skull.”

After narrating this ESP experience, Dr. Jung says that by means of a relativisation of time and space in the unconscious it could well be that he had perceived something which in reality was taking place elsewhere. This is due to the collective unconscious.

Of all the PSI phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, etc., precognition is the most difficult task and the explanation of its functioning also is most unsatisfactory. Telepathy and clairvoyance belong to the present, whereas precognition does to the future which is not born as yet. Of course, there is a precognitive clairvoyance. How could one know the shape of things unborn? Unless the events of future are predetermined one cannot precognize them non-inferentially. Precognition is non-inferential and hence guessing has nothing to do with precognition. If the future is predetermined it is fatalism and hence there functions no free-will of man. In this condition man remains a slave of his destiny; such a destiny-bound man cannot become a superman. A superman should be free from fatalism and hence he is a master of his own destiny. Circumstances could not enslave him and on the contrary he enslaves the circumstances.

Cosmic law does not belong to determinism and thus nothing is predetermined in the life of our universe. So, in such a world where nothing is predetermined, how is it possible for precognition to function? Even if we postulate that time, in the ultimate sense, is one and the same with no divisions of past, present and future, we cannot think that precognition is feasible. Because even in the divisionless eternal time how could one know about things which have not yet taken place?

Yet, in spite of all these adverse considerations of a theoretical nature, precognition has been proved to be as true as its other sisters, namely telepathy, clairvoyance and psychokinesis. Many have offered their explanations in favour of precognition and all of them have been fractionally rational. Several of them have tried to argue that precognition is not inconsistent with free-will and that predeterminism is not required for precognition. Some events though logically and epestemologically inconsistent, are ontologically real.

Now let us take psychokinesis which has fascinated the humanity since prehistoric times. Psychokinesis is opposed to epiphenomenalism which advocates that mind is dependent upon the body. Thus epiphenomenalism is somato-psychic whereas psychokinesis is psychosomatic. According to psychokinesis the mind can influence the matter. This direct influence of mind over matter can force the inanimate objects to behave in tune with the volition of man. Experiments in psychokinesis have been conducted at Duke University in the form of dice throwing. In throwing the dice, the person should exercise his influence non-physically and enable the dice to fall on the particular face he desires to. Such psychokineitic experiments have borne some positive results.

Hypnotism is a sort of animate psychokinesis in which a person could influence the other person and make him behave according to the former’s will. But here both the subject and the object are living beings, whereas in psychokinesis the subject is an animate human and the object an inanimate object. Psychokinesis has not so far gained the same functional vigour as gained by telepathy and clairvoyance.

It has been experimentally proved beyond doubt that these PSI phenomena do exist. But do these paranormal faculties congenitally exist in persons? Can they not be generated and developed by proper practice in those persons in whom they do not happen to exist congenitally? It is said artists and poets are born and not made. But this is only a partial truth. Artists and poets are born as well as made. Those who are not born as artists have in their later life shone as talented artists by dint of constant practice, keen observation and aesthetic introspection.

Faculties of PSI cognition could be developed by proper practices such as concentration, contemplation, etc. Yoga is the mightiest instrument for developing such PSI faculties. The awakening of Kundalini, the serpent power, in man could enable him to attain magnificent powers of PSI cognition. A man in whom Kundalini awakes becomes a superman.

The normal five senses of vision, audition, smell, taste and touch have got their physical organs in the forms of eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin, respectively, whereas the sixth sense of PSI cognition has got no such physical organ simply because its functioning itself is non-physical; its perception is extra-sensory. Physical sense-organs would often fail to properly function when the mind is diverted. We often fail to see what happens before our very eyes when our mind is heedless. But the sixth sense which is devoid of any physical sense-organ is beyond such faults. It can perceive anything and everything–phenomenal or noumenal. Sixth sense, when properly cultivated and developed, begins to perceive the PSI phenomena and thus nothing is beyond its perception. Nothing is concealed from its cognition.

Another branch of PSI cognition known as psychometry through which the sensitive is able to know the details of a person by concentrating upon any object that belongs to the latter is an interesting one. The sensitive, through concentration on that object, creates a rapport between himself and the person on whose object he concentrates. Such PSI phenomena sometimes may fail to offer adequate explanations in regard to their occurrences and yet they occur.

There have also been some physical interpretations of the non-physical PSI phenomena. But these views have been repudiated by D. J. West, of the Society for Psychical Research, London, who writes, “In recent years there has been much talk of ‘brain waves.’ Tiny rhythmic variations of electrical charge go on all the time in the brain, and can be registered on a very sensitive instrument known as an electro-encephelograph. This has led some theorists to suggest that telepathy, at least, could be explained in physical terms without having to imagine non-existent sense organs. The electrical activity of one brain might influence that of another by some sort of direct sympathetic action, the result of which would be that both persons think of the same thing at the same time. Dr. Grey Walter, a leading expert in the field of electro-encephalography, has recently pointed out that such mutual influence of different brains is inconceivable. The electrical disturbances within the brain are so small that an inch away from the surface of the head they are physically indistinguishable.”

Thus PSI phenomena can never be explained on any familiar physical formula. Similarly it cannot be explained through any theological approach. Materialism and theology are two extremities from whose contact parapsychology ought to keep aloof. Parapsychology should concern itself with anthropos (man) rather than with theos (God). Even when we say that man should become superman, it does not mean that superman is a synonym for God. Superman means a highly developed man in every human faculty, a free man not bound by the limitations of sense perceptions, an unselfish advanced man who is master of his destiny. That is why parapsychology should be based on the anthropological conceptions instead of theological ones. Even the great leaders of the Theosophical movement such as Madam Blavatskey, Col. Olcott, Bishop Leadbeater, etc., who are believed to be adepts in occultism and esoteric sciences, did never tie parapsychology to theology. These Theosophical leaders had rendered great service to the cause of Parapsychology, indirectly, though in a vague manner.

When man by means of parapsychology expands himself into a superman, hatred, malice, cruelty, war, hysteria, parochialism, chauvinism, etc., would cease to exist and instead, love, benevolence, compassion, peace, universal outlook, etc., would reign supreme. Superman is pan-human. There would exist no terrestrial celestial boundaries in human life.

Then telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudition, precognition, psychokinesis, psychometry, incorporeal personal agency, extra-cerebral memory, materialization, etc., would no longer remain remote aims of humanity but they are concrete realizations.

Then man cannot rest contented with the normal phenomena of the finite, the limited reason of the intellect, the varying passions of the emotion.

Emotion fades

Intellect wanes

Intution wakes

Sapce spreads into infinity

Time melts into eternity;

The song of the infinity is audible

from behind the clouds

from beyond the horizons.

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