Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00185)

 [I'm sending this a second time because the first didn't appear to
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 received it.]

Replying to JRC

What a neat post. Though I'm not fully clairvoyant myself, I seem to have
enough awareness of other senses and other possibilities to appreciate
the isolation and repression that children with these sorts of faculty
generally experience.

> I guess I believe that this ought to be completely re-thought, and
> updated to more effectively serve a very different world.

Absolutely.

I'm glad you shared your more personal thoughts and feelings about the
responses you got from other theosophists. I'm quietly campaigning
against that sort of negativity myself, especially with regard to some of
the younger people coming into the TS here. The cautions are valid, but
let's identify and let go the weird repressive stuff that slips in with
the good intentions.

> ... what if, for instance, there were all sorts of *other* senses
> that we are potentially wired for, but that fall off during those first
> few months .. that, in short, the presence of "abilities" does not come
> about because of something *added* to the normal human brain, but is
> rather the result of something that, for some reason in some people, is
> not genetically supressed?

There's a faculty called "perfect pitch" in music whereby you can tell
exactly what pitch a note is, from just hearing it. That is, without going
to an instrument (including your voice) to test it, or without consulting
your pitch memories of for example the sound of an open string of a violin.

Research in acoustics has shown that there's a time window in most
children's lives during which this faculty can be developed if it is
stimulated and sympathetically appreciated in the environment. If not
cultivated in this time, the chances of developing it are much smaller.

Only about one in 10,000 adults have perfect pitch, if I remember
rightly. Probably less than the number who have a bit of clairvoyance
or other superphysical sensitivity.

Furthermore, the phenomenon of synesthesia, where some people experience
colour and form when they hear a sound, or other cross-sense couplings,
would seem to be a case of neural circuits that didn't get entirely burnt
away in childhood.

What else are we missing out on?

Murray Stentiford
murray@sss.co.nz