The Mental Highway
	The Psychology Of The Borderland <  Previous Contents Next  >

Mind, its nature, its methods, its states, its powers, and its relationships, enters any study of psychology. All movement of mind is from within outward. The solution of all mental phenomena must turn upon a study of the mind itself. The origin of all experiences must be in the mind.

We think, feel and know, and communicate these results called ideas as thoughts and words. Likewise we receive such communications from others. These are everyday experiences, so common that we lose sight of the fact that we are exchanging ideas by means of symbols. The mind in one is communicating with the mind of another using conscious mental forms and mental symbols. In all ages, people have spoken into the unseen, directed their thoughts to the Infinite, and have received some reaction — often so definite as to preclude any other idea than that they have prayed to a Spiritual Being who has heard and answered their prayer.

Many students of psychology have experimented in sending mental messages without the use of any material medium, with results so specific that they do not doubt that they have communicated with their friends by purely mental agencies. What they call telepathy or thought transference is largely a theory to one who never made it work. However, it is an established fact to the patient investigator, who has both sent and received specific messages without the chance of collusion, coincidence or fraud.

These accepted experiences of mind warrant presuming a mechanism in us by which these and all other possible mental phenomena occur. If one mind dwelling in the flesh can communicate with another dwelling in the flesh through material media, if two such can communicate without any such material means, if we in the flesh can communicate with God who is pure Spirit, and if He, being pure Spirit, can reach from the realm of Spirit and make known to us truth, then it is possible for an intelligence dwelling in the flesh to communicate with one not in the flesh.

In every age prophets and seers have received vibrations from the realm of the unseen, and have translated them into statements of greater or less value. When certain elements of truth are apparent in them, we compile them into a book and call them a revelation. Many others have received what purported to be messages from other intelligences in the unseen world, some of them having general application, but mostly having a personal reference, sometimes valuable, often whimsical and often downright ridiculous. It matters not as to the element of value in the communication. Psychology is not so much interested in the value of it as in the fact of it.

Whatever happens in the realm of mind, does so because mind operates by definite methods called laws. Whatever happens is caused by some power operating through the laws of mind. If a thing happens once then it can happen again, if the power acts within the law. However, if it does not happen again, then we have not found the law of its happening, or it never occurred in the first place.

A common mental law evidently underlies the lowest form of mental phenomena, from the Ouija board, table tipping, automatic writing, clairvoyance, clairaudience, trances, materialization, levitation, and all such experiences up to the most ecstatic vision of the inspired prophet. The student of these messages is struck with the many purely human material and extraneous elements in most of them. They bear the marks of subconscious stuff arising from the medium’s own subconsciousness, or unconsciously drawn from the subconsciousness of the sitter or circle through telepathic means. Many investigators at first thought that they could account all phenomena of that kind in that way. Nevertheless, many now conclude that powers and materials in the subconscious do not account for certain phenomena.

Apparently people who have such experiences have a strongly developed subconscious, while many of them have comparatively developed few of the objective conscious mental powers. They have always had the power to "know" things without study. The vast majority of sensitives have not developed that culture of mind resulting from systematic study of the arts and sciences and philosophies. Thus, an accounting for the character of much of the material that comes through these crude mediums is not difficult. It is further conceivable that if these sensitives could have adequate objective mental training, their messages might rise to the superconscious dignity and beauty of an Isaiah or a Paul.

We find the source of sensitivity to these subconscious and spiritual activities in the psychological level — a borderland between the realms of superconscious, conscious and subconscious functioning. In one person this level is low so that he has no such experiences, rarely has even a "hunch," and is seldom conscious of having dreamed. Another, in whom the level is normally high, is a great dreamer, has daydreams as well, and can report activities in both the subconscious and superconscious realms of mind.

We have observed that this psychological level is variable, so that one day a sensitive can report vibrations from some high realm of mental life, while the next day he or she will be unable to do so at all. Correspondingly, we find that prophets did not exercise the prophetic function steadily but as occasion required, when the prophet was "in the Spirit." So it should not surprise us that so many sensitives should have the same variableness in their power to register and reproduce reports of other-world activities.

Conceivably we could acquire the ability to balance our activities at this borderland so that we could not only see and hear of things in the unseen realm but could classify and judge their meaning and value. We cannot do this by the ordinary mind in a time or two of practice, for it often requires months of steady effort to be able to arrive and stop at the border. After we do that, we face a still more delicate task, acquiring the habit of "listening in" superconsciously and thinking about what we hear consciously. For the vision fades under too much objective attention, while too much surrender to the sweep of the vision shuts out the conscious attention and we wake in the morning.

Night is the best time for such practice, when we are through with the day’s work, and the mind is composed for sleep. Suggest to yourself that you will consciously track your journey to the land of sleep. Then follow each stage as you sink to sleep, with the purpose that you will stop when you come to the borderland. At first you will get about so far, and will wake up in the morning. Yet if you persist, you will succeed. Usually the first experiences are fragmentary because maintaining your ground of balance is difficult. As time and effort have their effect, you will acquire facility and ability to hear very clearly while thinking consciously about what you hear and see.

This sort of development will lead to another form of experience. You will be able mentally to reach this borderland anytime or place during your waking hours for light on matters known to your superconscious or subconscious, but not reporting in consciousness. In this way we solve problems and find lost things. We merely give the superconscious or subconscious a chance to register their information. Inspirational speaking and writing consist in being able to maintain a mental state near the borderland so that all the wealth of the superconscious arises into view and passes through the analyzing classifying powers of the conscious which arranges and clothes it with words.

Other factors enter this study of the borderland. Many of the body’s activities are purely automatic. They arise from inner and unconscious stimuli, and set up activities that have no conscious nor volitional element. We see examples of these automatic actions in such experiences as when we are asleep or in a perfectly quiet state, and "jerk" so hard that we shake the bed or chair.

The personal interest of the one who engages in these experiments is still another factor. People usually undertake these unusual experiments because they desire light or comfort. They are so interested that they are unable to exercise judgment regarding the value or genuineness of what they receive. We see or hear what we can see or hear, and what we really desire to see and hear. So clear and insistent is this demand that people may not note any discrepancy between the reported message and the common experiences of humanity, so they greatly impair their judgment. The materials for practically every message received are already in their own subconsciousness or that of others with whom they in touch. Their own subconscious mind will project images from that material, and messages of whose source they are not consciously aware. We can see the material parallel to this mental phenomenon by looking for a moment at an electric light, then turning away or closing the eyes, we can see the image of the light. Perception is purely a mental power, as unlimited as mind itself. Yet in human life it functions through the eyes, ears and other senses. The instrument that it uses limits it. The circle of vision range can report an image in only an arc. In other words the rays of light from behind or at the side do not fall upon the organ of vision.

We may extend each sense to such a degree that we may, for instance, see beyond the ordinary range of vision. When we watch a bird in flight, we can continue to see it when another person would be unable to site it. We may inhibit the senses by turning the whole attention to seeing so that our ears do not report any sound, or pay attention to hearing so that our eyes do not report any image of what passes before them. We may abstract the attention to some thought or idea so that none of the senses report.

The Bible records many incidents of this supernormal seeing and hearing. Elisha saw the unseen at Dothan, the chariots of fire ringing the Assyrian hosts at the siege of Samaria. Jesus saw Nathaniel around a material corner. Stephen saw the risen Lord standing to watch his own martyrdom. These and many other cases show that normal people occasionally found themselves able to exercise a power of perception entirely beyond the reach of the physical senses.

It is more than probable that God has constituted the human brain as a sending and receiving instrument of thought vibrations. Thought is a vibration in mind itself. It rises into conscious form and classification and expression through the instrumentality of the brain. Our brain may catch and formulate his thought and radiate it throughout the body and through space, and may receive the reports of action and reaction in the body and classify them. It is reasonable that the same instrument is available to catch the vibration of other minds, either in the flesh or out of it.

It is a reasonable presumption that mind can communicate with mind without any material instrument whatever. In those recorded cases of the perception of truth and thought, which lie entirely outside the range of material limitation, it may be true that a human mind may communicate with other human minds, in direct mental contact. Also we may communicate with mind in any realm or under any condition in which mind is in active possession of knowledge.

Psychology is not so much concerned with the question of such communication, as it is with whether the mind has capacities, powers and functions for such communication. These statements of psychological truth do not exhaust the possible treatment of the subject, but show the method of its study, and how to guard the mind against deception, prejudice and bigotry. We suggest a purely psychological method here, by which anyone can patiently and sanely settle the whole question.