Intuitive Knowing
Jamie Kessler

"A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows." —William James.

The founding concept of most religious traditions originates from one place, a mystical connection to the divine. The mystical experience has been described as: a feeling of unity, a sense of sacredness, a deeply felt positive mood, objectivity to reality, paradoxicality, transiency, and "beyond words." This feeling of being beyond words is of particular interest.

Masters throughout human history have described to us an energy that permeates all things. This energy can be seen in nature as a luminous body/field that has been described almost identically all over the world. This energy has many names such as: prana, chi, mana, élan vital, animal magnetism, bioplasma, odic force, magnetic fluid, luminous body, and the life field.

For thousands of years in the East, Yogis have been developing techniques to fine tune their will and master control of the body's energy. In India, the ancient doctors were also known as great sages, and their cardinal belief was that the body is made of consciousness. This implies that by the will and the intention we place upon ourselves, we can affect our bodies directly.

"I maintain that cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research"—Albert Einstein

The earliest observations of "prana" were written about in 5,000 BC within the Indian Vedas. Although no reference to a human energy field was made, there are many parallels between observations made by mystics and those that scientists have recently begun to make. Solid experimentation didn't begin on the human energy field by physicists until the 1800's. Although it is worth noting that Pythagorean literature, dated in 500 BC, talks about how light energy had various effects on the human body, including the cure of illness.

One can experience the phenomenon of the energy body on their own. Masters tell us that through the practice of stilling the mind we allow ourselves to develop new sensitivities.

We find ourselves using new language to communicate our new experiences. Terms like "bad vibes" or "the energy there was great" are becoming household phrases. We start noticing and giving more credence to experiences like meeting someone and instantly liking or disliking them without knowing anything about them. We can tell when someone is staring at us, and we look up to see who it is. We may have a feeling that something is going to happen, and then it does. We sense that a friend is feeling a certain way, or needs something, and when we reach out to fulfill that need and we find we are right about our perceptions.

We begin to listen to our intuition. We "know" things yet we don't always know how we know. All these experiences have a reality in the energy field. Our old world of solid concrete objects is surrounded by and permeated with a fluid world of radiating energy, constantly moving, constantly changing like the sea.

This initial feeling of energy flowing through our bodies is a profound moment. It changes our entire awareness, because we realize another layer to our reality completely unknown to us. It can be both awe inspiring and mind boggling for most westerners having these experiences. There is a "knowing" that what we are experiencing is real but we are equally bewildered that our social institutions have somehow missed explaining this experience altogether. We are reduced to having mere "faith" in what we know because there is no solid body of proof behind it. Yet by looking only through a lens of reason we limit our ability to look beyond what has been defined by it.

Traditions exist that explain this realm of knowledge but popular western science is slow to back up what spiritual seekers are finding. However, if we attempt to walk the middle path between what the East and West both have to offer in this field of knowledge, we could find ways to explain the "phenomena" happening in even the ordinary person's experience. And with science, we can prove what we are experiencing, even though there is little proof in mainstream knowledge. If these innate abilities in humankind were explored seriously, perhaps the mysteries of human consciousness could be explained...