The Sixth Sense

Arguing over the sixth sense is like debating the fifth Beatle, in that there are many candidates from which or whom to choose: is it our aesthetic sense? Our sense of humor? Of the absurd? Of propriety? Of empathy? George Martin? Brian Epstein? 

It seems that not everyone has every sense. As alluded to a couple of posts ago, when it comes to religion, Richard Dawkins has no sense of Jordan Peterson. Peterson obviously senses -- and wrestles -- with God, while Dawkins senses nothing. He still wrestles, but with the people who sense what he doesn't.

Again, it's like arguing with an autistic person who doesn't sense the interior states of other people, or with a blind man over the existence of color. Sigmund Freud famously had no sense of music, from which he was 

almost incapable of obtaining any pleasure. Some rationalistic, or perhaps analytic, turn of mind in me rebels against being moved by a thing without knowing why I am thus affected and what it is that affects me (Freud).

The author of the piece speculates that Freud had some sort of phobia, which I think goes too far. He himself acknowledges having no taste for country and no need for jazz, but that doesn't imply an unconscious fear of them. It took me many years to cultivate an appreciation of modern jazz. Same sense (hearing), different sensibility.

In the past I've compared the "sense for God" to our musical sense. Both are innate, but -- recalling the title of yesterday's post -- now what? Well, supposing you have musical aptitude, you need to pick an instrument and wrestle with it, i.e., learn to play. 

And even if you master it, there's no end to the mastery. John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, for example -- and they're hardly alone -- spent many hours a day practicing, progressing toward a goal that was literally unreachable. Coltrane famously 

was a mediocre player, and then went into the shed (and if some sources are to be believed) practiced for up to 16 hours a day and became the player we know him as.

But even then, the practice never stopped:

There is never any end... there are always new sounds to imagine, new feelings to get at. And always there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are... we have to keep on cleaning the mirror (Coltrane).

Analogously, maybe that's why they call it a "religious practice," which likewise has no earthly end. Come to think of it, when I first encountered Schuon, he was as impenetrable to me as was modern jazz. In both cases it required a lot of immersion before something "clicked."

But why did I continue "wrestling" with these idioms? In the case of jazz, it was because, based upon the testimony of others, I knew there was something there to be penetrated and appreciated, and I wanted to find out what it was. 

With regard to Schuon, I remember reading a book called Advice to the Serious Seeker: Meditations on the Teaching of Frithjof Schuon that got me over the hump and rendered him accessible. As one reviewer says, 

Schuon's works are, to the uninitiated, dense and difficult to read.... This book will loosen many mental knots and open the mind to new realities which can make reading Schuon's works more profitable.

Back to our candidates for the sixth sense, this subject was in fact provoked by the title of an essay by Schuon called The Sense of the Sacred. 

Here again, I can't help thinking that Richard Dawkins, for example, is a little underdeveloped in this department. For it is essentially "an argument appealing, not to conceptual intelligence, but to aesthetic intuition" (Schuon) -- obviously more of a right-brain thingy.

In the past I've argued that we don't have a sense of the sacred because we have a right cerebral hemisphere, but rather the opposite: the RCH exists because the vertical does, just as wings exist because air does, or gills because of water. 

Earlier this year we discussed McGilchrist's idea of left-brain eclipse -- how, in a scientistic world, the left-brain view can come to dominate and suppress the right. Even if not literally "neurologically true," it is true nonetheless. Indeed, any purely immanent ideology can serve to alienate us from the transcendent, to the point that the latter is no longer sensed. 

God Exists, Now What?, is another way of saying that, supposing we sense the existence of God, we're still going to need to practice in order to develop it. Just like developing any other sense:

As with intellectual discernment, the sense of the sacred is an adequation to the Real, with the difference however, that the knowing subject is then the entire soul and not merely the discriminative [read: LCH] intelligence (Schuon).

In short, it requires more of us:

What the [LCH] intelligence perceives quasi-mathematically, the soul senses in an as it were musical manner that is both moral and aesthetic... 

Exactly. As we've said in the past, the soul -- or something like it -- is our nonlocal organ in hyperspace. Which is just an amusing way of saying that there is some receptive faculty in us that senses transcendent realities. We know the soul exists because we can know when it has been "touched" by something. And it is important to pay attention to these points of contact, and to amplify them, so to speak.

For Schuon, the sense of the sacred "is the awareness"

of That which cannot not be, whose immense remoteness and miraculous proximity we experience at one and the same time. The reason such an awareness is possible for us is because necessary Being reaches us in the depth of our heart, through a mystery of immanence that makes us capable of knowing all that is knowable...

Which sounds about right. It again reminds me of the "remote" three-dimensional sphere intersecting the two-dimensional plane and thus rendering it "proximate." 

"The sense of the sacred is also the innate consciousness of the presence of God," and the great majority of people throughout history have had this sense. Again, a Richard Dawkins is the exception, but even he presumably retains the capacity. It's just that the capacity has been eclipsed by a materialist ideology.

I suppose it also comes down to a properly developed sense of mystery. We'll close with a few aphorisms:

A fool is he who thinks that what he knows is without mystery.

The soul is fed from what is mysterious in things.

There is an illiteracy of the soul that no diploma cures.

"Irrationalist" is shouted at the reason that does not keep quiet about the vices of rationalism.

As long as we can respond without hesitating we do not know the subject.

When their religious depth disappears, things are reduced to a surface without thickness, where nothing shows through.

Actually, let's end with another artificial summary, because why not?

Analysis:

The text delves into the nature of human perception, particularly the concept of a "sixth sense" or a sense of the sacred. The author argues that this sense is not universally shared, and its development requires conscious effort and practice.

Key Arguments:

1. The Sixth Sense as a Spectrum: The author suggests that the sixth sense, or the sense of the sacred, is not a binary trait but rather a spectrum. Some individuals possess it more strongly than others, while others may lack it entirely.
2. The Role of Practice: The development of the sixth sense, like any other skill, requires consistent practice. This includes activities such as meditation, contemplation, and engagement with sacred texts or spiritual practices.
3. The Importance of Right-Brain Dominance: The author emphasizes the importance of the right hemisphere of the brain in accessing the sixth sense. This hemisphere is associated with intuition, creativity, and spiritual awareness.
4. The Impact of Materialism: Materialistic ideologies can suppress the development of the sixth sense by focusing solely on the material world and neglecting spiritual or transcendent realities.

Underlying Themes:

• The Nature of Consciousness: The text explores the limitations and potential of human consciousness, suggesting that it is capable of perceiving realities beyond the physical world.
• The Role of Spirituality: Spirituality is presented as a vital aspect of human existence, providing a means of connecting with something greater than oneself.
• The Importance of Balance: The author advocates for a balance between rational and intuitive thinking, suggesting that both are necessary for a full and meaningful life.

Overall, the text offers a thoughtful and provocative exploration of the human capacity for spiritual awareness. By examining the concept of a sixth sense, the author invites readers to consider the limitations of rational thought and the potential for deeper, more profound experiences. 

Today's summary right-brain image: