I
shot up from the couch as if I’d mistakenly sat on someone’s
lap. The morbid thoughts fluttered behind me, falling like a cloak from
my shoulders. Shivers rippled up and down my neck and arms. With a rush
of adrenalin, irrational thoughts of ghosts flooded my mind.
I wish
I could say that this little shocker was a turning point. The moment
it
finally dawned on me that I was attuned to psychic wavelengths — memories
and emotions — emanating from inanimate matter. But no, I admit that even
as I stood staring back at the old orange couch tufted with its golden fleurs-de-lis,
I still didn’t connect that physical object with the mental images I was
receiving. I was baffled by these thoughts that were so clearly not my own. Tellingly,
though, whenever I used the couch in the days following that incident, I deliberately
sat at the other end. Although it was more uncomfortable, it was at least free
of another person’s thoughts.
I have
no defense. I freely admit that in ordinary mental states I can be
as dull as old boots. No matter the mind-expanding experiences of precognition
and the Endless Waves of Time. Forget the booming disembodied voice that
incessantly
questioned my course in life. Not even the plain-as-the-nose-on-my-face sensory
data radiating from just about everything in my apartment. Not one single
extraordinary event tipped me off that something very bizarre was going
on. |
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My
occasional thick-headedness aside, I believe that many people have
extrasensory perceptions to one degree or another.
Clairvoyants and other psychic adepts who can access higher levels of
sensitivity are unfortunately pigeonholed as “special” (or
loonytoons, depending on who’s making the call). But type-casting
is patently inane, and in this case largely the result of ignorance of
our own real potentials. Because most of the Western world ignores the
existence of senses beyond the common five, there’s a likelihood
that reception of empathic or other psychic data can be misconstrued
by recipients and observers alike. But with the increasing number of
pharmaceuticals being marketed in the U.S., Britain, and Europe to enhance
or suppress unaccountable mind states, hope fades for distinguishing
chemically influenced mood swings from undiagnosed psychic abilities.
Continuous
sensitivity to people, places, or things, whether positive or negative,
sudden joy or sudden tears — any sort of non-causal state of mind could
be unidentified psychic input. But without widespread educational efforts by
psychologists, and other analysts properly trained in the mind’s paranormal
(or psi*) potentials, acknowledgment of the reality of human psychic energy will
likely remain in the gothic shadows of occultism. Real understanding of ourselves
will continue to be borderlined, and the very subject itself identified only
with those “psychic hotlines” of late night television.
*Pronounced “sigh.” Collective term for paranormal. From
the first letter of the Greek Psyché: Y
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