Filters and Reflections

This anthology of seventeen papers is built around an original 2004 essay by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne entitled 'Sensors, Filters and the Source of Reality', and which is included in this volume as its starting point. Essentially, Jahn and Dunne argue that the human being, mind and body, is immersed in a vast 'intangible reservoir of potential information' they refer to as the Source, and say that we need to acquire a greater understanding of 'this cosmic sea of existence in which our mortal Source-ship is travelling, and of its navigating consciousness'. The paper presents the view that there is a two-way flow between the human mind/body and the Source, and that the myriad of humans involuntarily engaged in this primordial interaction can not only be changed by the Source but can also cause changes to it, 'for better or for worse' – a sobering thought. What, then, are our channels of interaction with the Source? The authors list the five basic senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and the technological extensions to those senses. Befitting of the parapsychological pioneers that they are, Jahn and Dunne then point out that there are also subtler channels such as inspiration, intuition, and extra-sensory perceptions (psi) which nowadays initially manifest mainly in the unconscious mind. Jahn and Dunne correctly indicate how all these channels –sensory/technological and subtle— are filtered by mental, cultural, and physiological factors that govern what we glean and use from the inflow through them. The authors observe that the subtler channels have been virtually censored out of our current worldview; that though some of the key architects of the 300ish-year-old scientific tradition were also alchemists who acknowledged the role of consciousness, today's scientific paradigm has reduced itself to an unyielding materialism. They deplore the narrowness of this mainstream intellectual climate, accusing it of placing grave limitations on our culture's understanding of reality. The contributions that follow orbit around the concerns of this opening paper, tackling them from many different viewpoints. Essays involve topics such as philosophy, semiotics, art, psychotherapy, 'intersubjective experience' or relational approaches, Reichian emotional and somatic armouring, ecopsychology, psi experiences, the role of the observer of physical systems, acoustical resonance, and much more. It is all something of a hotch-potch of approaches and writing styles, yet somehow manages to form an engaging exploration of how we might mitigate some of the problems regarding the filters affecting our perceptions of reality. This book (which can be bought from online bookshops or directly from www.icrl.org) represents another brick chipped out of the wall that currently blocks our culture's advancement toward an expanded science that will be able to engage with the concept of extended mind. Hang on in there everybody, that wall will come down.