The student of occultism generally is pretty regular with the crass individual who assumes the cheap doubtful feelings to occult matters, which feelings he expresses appearing in his would-be “smart” remark that he “believes only participating in what his senses perceive.” He seems to think that his cheap wit has finally disposed of the matter, the implication human being that the occultist is a credulous, “easy” human being who believes appearing in the existence of things contrary to the evidence of the senses.
While the viewpoint or views of persons of this class are, of course, beneath the serious concern of any true student of occultism, nevertheless the mental standpoint of such persons are worthy of our passing consideration, inasmuch as it serves toward give us an object lesson regarding the childlike stance of the average so-called “practical” persons regarding the matter of the evidence of the senses.
These so-called practical persons comprise much in the direction of say regarding their senses. They are fond of speaking of “the evidence of my senses.” They also contain much toward say about the possession of “good sense” on their part; of having “sound regular sense”; and often they make the curious cover that they comprise “horse sense,” seeming to consider this a great possession. Alas, for the pretensions of this class of persons. They are more often than not found rather credulous regarding matters beyond their on a daily basis field of work and thought, and accept without question the most ridiculous teachings and dogmas reaching them from the voice of some claimed authority, while they sneer at some advanced teaching which their minds are incapable of comprehending. Anything which seems strange toward them is deemed “flighty,” and lacking in appeal to their much prized “horse sense.” But, it is not my intention toward spend time appearing in discussing these insignificant half-penny intellects. I cover simply alluded in the direction of them during order in the direction of bring to your mind the fact that to many persons the idea of “sense” and that of “senses” is very closely allied. They consider all knowledge and wisdom as “sense;” and all such sense as being derived directly from their general five senses. They ignore almost completely the intuitional phases of the mind, and are unaware of many of the higher processes of reasoning.
Such persons recognize as undoubted anything that their senses report in the direction of them. They consider it heresy toward question a report of the senses. One of their favorite remarks is that “it almost makes me doubt my senses.” They fail in the direction of perceive that their senses, at the best, are very imperfect instruments, and that the mind is constantly employed during correcting the mistaken report of the general five senses.
Not in the direction of speak of the familiar phenomenon of color-blindness, during which one color seems in the direction of be another, our senses are far from creature exact. We may, by suggestion, be made to imagine that we smell or taste certain things which do not exist, and hypnotic subjects may be caused in the direction of see things that have no existence save participating in the imagination of the person. The frequent experiment of the character crossing his first two fingers, and placing them on a small object, such as a pea or the top of a lead-pencil, shows us how “mixed” the impression of feeling becomes at times. The many ordinary instances of optical delusions show us that even our sharp eyes may deceive us–every conjuror knows how easy it is en route for deceive the eye by suggestion and false movements.
Conceivably the most frequent example of mistaken sense-reports is that of the movement of the earth. The senses of every creature report to him that the earth is a fixed, immovable body, and that the sun, moon, planets, and stars move around the earth every twenty-four hours. It is simply when one accepts the reports of the reasoning faculties, that he knows that the earth not simply whirls around on its axis every twenty-four hours, but that it circles around the sun every three hundred and sixty-five days; and that even the sun itself, carrying with it the earth and the other planets, in fact moves along during space, moving en route for or around some unknown point far distant from it. If there is any one particular report of the senses which would seem in the direction of be beyond doubt or question, it unquestionably would be this elementary imprint report of the fixedness of the earth beneath our feet, and the movements of the heavenly bodies around it–and yet we know that this is only an illusion, and that the facts of the case are totally different. Again, how few persons truly realize that the eye perceives things up-side-down, and that the mind simply gradually acquires the trick of adjusting the impression?
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