by Ana L. Palles

Do you believe in the supernatural?

Oprah recently tackled this question by interviewing famous psychics, including Allison DuBois who is the real life inspiration for NBC's "Medium." A website poll that followed that show has some interesting but not surprising results.

As of this writing, the poll shows that 94.5% of 61,081 respondents believe in the supernatural. When asked if they believed sixth sense abilities are real, 95.8% out of 61,160 believed that they were. In spite of the fact that empirical evidence is difficult to find, we nevertheless overwhelmingly believe there is something to this. Check out the increase in metaphysical books, practitioners, course offerings, web sites and fairs. We are seeking advice through supernatural channels at ever increasing rates, and the best part about this is that much of it has joined the mainstream.

For some of us, belief in the supernatural is based on an inner gut level knowing. For others, it is a result of experiences that have had a transformational effect on us. Our community stories section features some of these real-life stories and there are books filled with similar encounters. For others, they represent questions and mysteries that keep them searching for answers either through their churches, alternative practitioners or through their own studies.

Many believe that people that have these experiences are open to them and as a result, they are frequently encountering the supernatural. The idea that we cannot see something unless a part of us believes that it is possible is a question that science has been exploring with quite startling results. Take for example that in spite of all the controls, scientists impact their experiments simply because of what they expect to see. The observer is found to be a participant.

There is a growing body of work that health and healing is often predicated by mind over matter. As Dr. Bruce Lipton states in his article, A Romp Through the Quantum Field:

... my research introduces a radical new understanding of cell science. The new biology reveals that we ‘control' our genome rather than being controlled by it. It is now recognized that the environment, and more specifically, our perception or interpretation of the environment directly controls the activity of our genes. This explains why people can have spontaneous remissions or recover from injuries deemed to be permanent disabilities... this new perspective of human biology does not view the body as just a mechanical device, but rather incorporates the role of a mind and spirit. This breakthrough is fundamental in all healing because it recognizes that when we change our perception or beliefs we send totally different messages to our cells, causing a reprogramming of their expression ...

But belief in the supernatural can be limited by the information we've received from our senses. "I want to see it to believe it!" Seeing what we expect to see is an idea that we have seen in action and perhaps the time has come for us to put it to work for our benefit, as the filmakers for the “Secret” would like us to think about. There is an oft repeated story that is dramatized in the film, “What the Bleep,” which speaks to this concept. It recounts how Native Americans at first where unable to see the tall ships of the new world explorers. This is because these ships were outside their experience. The tribe shaman, though, would look out and notice that there was a strange displacement in the water. He looked long and hard until suddenly, he was able to make out the tall ships approaching on the horizon. Once he saw them and described them to his people, they were now able to see the ships as well.

We know that we need to see our successes before we can accomplish them. But this can involve being open to supernatural experiences which can be quite scary. We have enough fears about facing our own selves, or worse yet, letting someone else look inside us in case they will see further than we ourselves are prepared to go. It also may mean shattering the structure within which we live our lives. If reality is not as solid and definitive as many of us want to believe, then what happens to everything we have built for ourselves? What happens to our understanding of the person we think we are and our relationship within the world?

Those of us who have experienced great loss have been through the process of having one's support structures eliminated. It is in finding ourselves amongst the ashes that we suddenly realize the depths of what is possible. We are no longer afraid of exploring the possibilities of what might be out there. Do you believe in the supernatural? Do you have a story to tell? Drop us a line!

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Shakespeare, Hamlet

Sources

In 1982, Dr. Lipton began examining the principles of quantum physics and how they might be integrated into his understanding of the cell’s information processing systems. He produced breakthrough studies on the cell membrane, which revealed that this outer layer of the cell was an organic homologue of a computer chip, the cell’s equivalent of a brain. His research at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, between 1987 and 1992, revealed that the environment, operating though the membrane, controlled the behavior and physiology of the cell, turning genes on and off. His discoveries, which ran counter to the established scientific view that life is controlled by the genes, presaged one of today’s most important fields of study, the science of epigenetics.