Beyond the Five Senses...

We're never too old to learn, but are we too old to develop a spiritual sense?

Photo by D A V I D S O N L U N A on Unsplash

After appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, Lex Fridman, and other large-audience podcasts, and after writing two books on UFOs/UAP, I assumed most people would ask me about government secrets and the future of nonhuman intelligence. And many do.

But what I hear more often are questions about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Brave New World, and other texts within the Western tradition that I often reference. Not disclosure from the top down, but from the inside out.

One of the best parts of my job is that I am required to keep learning. During the research and writing of my book Encounters, I learned more about a spiritual sense. something purported to be physical and beyond the five senses, yet elusive—such that we cannot locate it like the biological instruments such as our eyes or ears (which sense data from our physical environment). Within some Christian denominations, as well as other religious traditions, there is a long history of the idea of a spiritual sense. Questions related to it include: how does one cultivate it, what does it do for us, etc., but for the most part, these questions and practices have only been passed down within religious communities. The movie, Star Wars, is an exception, in that it focuses on a religious/military tradition called Jediism, and Jedi’s are taught to actively cultivate a sense beyond the five. This is a movie, of course, not Sunday school, but this could explain the popularity and even the spiritual interpretations related to Star Wars!

Lately I’ve met people who have made it their life’s work to study, cultivate, and help others learn about the spiritual sense. This is the focus of my current research, and it does relate to AI (more about this in future posts). In one view, adolescence is not just a biological threshold but a metaphysical one. Without exposure to wonder, mystery, or even spiritual adversity, the spiritual sense atrophies. One person I spoke with likens it to a window that begins to close—not abruptly, but gradually, until the light no longer gets in. He told me that he thought that reawakening this sense in adulthood is impossible.

This idea—that there is a critical period for spiritual perception—is not new, but it is deeply unsettling. I pushed my conversation partner about his claim.

“Surely there is neuroplasticity,” I said. He nodded no, and disagreed with me.

“By the time a person reaches fourteen, if they have not used this sense, it is too late,.” he said.

While his position depressed me, I was also reminded, again, of The Allegory of the Cave and Plato’s Republic. I keep returning to this book because it relates not just information about a spiritual sense, but also about the structure of the “republic,” the proto-nation-state whose members do not have a sense of justice. None whatsoever. Basically, it is an ancient map of our contemporary world, and it holds clues for how to navigate it.

Photo by Akhil Pawar on Unsplash