Why the Paranormal is Normal
Deepak Chopra - July 17, 2008

An article in the Washington Post On Faith section in response to their question:
Polls routinely show that 75 percent of Americans hold some form of belief in the paranormal such as astrology, telepathy and ghosts. All religions contain beliefs in the supernatural. Is there a link? What’s the difference?

In general, it's fair to say that the popular belief in the paranormal falls outside the official picture of reality. The official picture is grounded in science, rationalism, and materialism. It takes a definition of "natural," after all, before "supernatural" can exist. God was natural in the medieval world, and thus miracles, healings, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, stigmatics, and so on, were considered natural. At the moment, it doesn't matter how many people believe in the supernatural. Until the official picture changes, astrology is bogus, astronomy is legitimate. Ghosts are bogus, apparitions of the Virgin Mary are -- well, that's the rub. Religious people are allowed to cling to a different model of reality, tolerated by the official gatekeepers but not believed in. This gives rise to the curious phenomenon of religious scientists, who manage to hold on to two totally conflicting worldviews at the same time.

Any of us can hold conflicting viewpoints at the same time -- it's called compartmentalization. If the various compartments are tight enough and separated by thick walls, a whole range of phenomena can be believed in without making them consistent. I can imagine a cell biologist who is Catholic, has seen a UFO, reads the astrology column in the newspaper, and hopes to go to Heaven when he dies. It would be far better, however, to promote a consistent worldview, one that allows the walls to come down so that official reality might open up to unofficial reality. And vice versa, since popular belief in certain kinds of totally unproven folk cures, for example, can do harm, just as the official insistence on pharmaceuticals and surgery does its own brand of harm at times.

The only consistent worldview that I've ever discovered places all phenomena, natural and supernatural, on the ground of consciousness. The noted Australian neurologist Sir John Eccles pointed out a truth that materialists, including both scientists and ordinary people, don't remotely grasp. There is no sight or sound 'out there' in the world, Eccles declared, no touch or taste, no beauty or ugliness, no sensation of light or objects. All these things are created in subjectivity, which is to say, they exist only in consciousness. The fact that your hand seems solid is an illusion. A neutrino passes through the entire Earth without encountering an obstacle. Every atom in your hand is 99.9999% empty space. Measured in proportion, the distance between the electrons and nucleus of an atom is greater than the distance between the Earth and the sun. At the next level of reality, atoms disappear into energy waves and then into pure potential, the ghostly state of so-called virtual reality. Only perception makes a hand solid. and perceptions are interlinked to create the world you and I inhabit, so that color, light, sound, smell, solidity, etc. all fit together.

In my view, paranormal events are neither fringe nor unreal. They are simply things not yet admitted into consciousness by our official belief system. Reality has this curious habit of keeping certain things under wraps until the human mind is willing to look at them, and then all at once they appear, changing the world when they do. Germs and gravity were once waiting in the wings but now stand center stage. In ancient India, astrology was center stage and now has retreated again, for the coming and going of phenomena works both ways.

Even so, consciousness never retreats. In the darkest ages, people know that they are aware, and from that basic premise they create a personal reality, and when enough individuals agree, then collective reality comes about. Trying to base common reality sheerly on material objects has been wildly successful in the West, but that means little about ultimate reality, which transcends individuals and groups. In the ultimate reality there is only pure consciousness, which can be conceived of as the modeling clay or box of paints that Nature provides, adding the simple instruction: Use as you please.

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May your awareness be perfection

The paranormal is NOT normal. That a lot of people think it is so, now that's the really interesting question. Why, one must ask, do so many people believe so many things that -- on a rational basis -- are known to be false?

Well, we've been praying to gods since before written history began. We've believed in an afterlife nearly as long (witness "grave goods").

I think the answer is two-fold:

1. Our tremendous fear of the unknown (presumably, humans are the only animals on earth that actually know that they are inevitably going to die, and that dying quite regularly includes suffering).
2. We crave, because of our great intelligence, self-understanding. Once again, we are the only creatures we know of that can be introspective, to think about ourselves, to think about thinking.

It is those two things, I am certain, that make us believe that there must be something beyond ourselves. We seek answers from the unknown, the unknowable, gods, tea leaves and the universe itself, when there's no other good source of information. Even the atheists (whether they admit it or not) mutter the occasional "silent prayer," if not to God then at least to whatever force might possibly be listening. Yes, even atheists cross their fingers (and there's another one -- why would crossing your fingers bring you luck?)

As usual, of course, Chopra goes too far, and makes claims for which he hasn't any shred of evidence. But even he would have trouble answering the question about why every consciousness we have ever encountered has been built on a physical substrate, and never have we found a consciousness that does not have this feature, and so why, why, why do he and others assume that consciousness came first and created the physical substrate?

And the answer is: because he wants to. And that's as "scientific" as Chopra will ever get. I suppose when he next wants to fly somewhere, he'll repeal the law of gravity and save the airfare. After all, why not, if he wants to?

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

E.H., you wrote: so why, why, why do he and others assume that consciousness came first and created the physical substrate?

I did not get that belief out of his article....maybe I over looked it. I believe consciousness and the physical arise simultaniously. There has to be something to be conscious or unconscious of.....creation.....that which is perceived and that which is not perceived.

I think you seek proof in something that can not be proven. It's like saying if I don't see it...it does not exist. Or if science has not found it yet...it does not exist.

With other words...how can you know...what you don't know?

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May your awareness be perfection

There are at least eleventy-eight gazillion things that I cannot prove. My not being able to prove them does not make them exist, however.

I would like you to explain how you think consciousness and the physical arise simultaneously. Are they connected? How do they "arise?"

The trouble I have is that most people seem to make some pretty wild assumptions about what they cannot possibly know -- and then go one step further and say "because I was able to think of it, it must be true."

I prefer Darwin, when he stated the obvious:

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

The trouble I have is that most people seem to make some
what do you think the point of making such a statemtent would be..and why does it make some irate ....it is as said before ....there are plenty of things that can not be proven and get said on a regular basis....

Do you think someone like Depak is trying to just make money and has no care to what he says...do you think he is sincere and trying to be help ful but just is a nut..or do you not like that he does not fit in your box..and just from where you sit because it is unprovable it is almost absolutly false....i think times we live in has a advatange people are not as afraid to share there off the wall thoughts...true or false what ever they may be...just what comes to mind...but then it does leave the individual to tak or leave it..or study to understand it...

"It is those two things, I am certain, that make us believe that there must be something beyond ourselves."
With all due respect, EH, if you had ever seen and felt what i did on one occasion, you would know -- without any doubt whatsoever -- that something "beyond ourselves" most certainly does exist.

To 'see' a light brighter than any carbon-arc, and to feel what can best be described as a waterfall of Love would leave you in no doubt.

I truly hope that you experience this one day (or night).

Meditation may be one way to achieve it.

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The Peaceful Place: http://www.agedhippy.plus.com/

"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

Interesting read Vivamis....

i don't necessarily buy into all paranormal reports, but don't disbelieve either, put them in the possabilites file.

Normal and paranormal are both two sides of a coin....both appear in consciousness (consciosly and unconsciously) To experience anything one would have to be conscious...beyond consciousness...there is no experience.

Every experience is subject to a person perceiving it. No person...no experience. What one perceives is subject to what one sees "possible". You can not see...or perceive that which your mind has claimed impossible. Your mind set makes it so. Nothing happens beyond the mind.

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May your awareness be perfection

Well, as you know, I have not experienced anything like that. And as it turns out, the vast majority of people on earth have never had such an experience, either.

Now, there are many possible reasons that this may be true. For example:

1. Maybe Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (Left Behind) and the other rapturists are right, and such knowledge and salvation is reserved only for the few, the "elect." It isn't fair, and nobody knows how you get to be "elect" but who said god or the universe needs to be fair?
2. Maybe "normal" is what the vast majority experience (or don't) and experiences such as yours have other causes. We've discussed this before, but it seems pretty clear to many researchers that when somebody has "an experience," even when it is hallucinatory, it is real enough to them (since it occurs in the same brain as experiences caused by external stimuli, and therefore feels the same) that those have the experience refuse to accept that it wasn't real.
3. Maybe the vast majority of people haven't evolved as far as the very privileged few, who have tapped into another level. Good luck proving that one.

Bottom line, most people never experience such things. What does it mean? I have my own suggestions, you have yours. I guess we'll never know.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

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this i think most would agree with....

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this one...do you not think perhaps this is not so much that they have not..or dont speak of because we are such a world of judgment...that is not safe to speak of experiences and to only have them speculated away..not always there i also think is very good reason for some expereinces...but all...i would lean towards there being many unaswered happenings ...and many things in life seem to take years and years to find answers with many not being found and yet many found to later be found to be untrue...so circles back...we dont know..maybe we will maybe we wont one day know...