A couple years ago, I would have blown this off as total bullshit, being a scientist and rationalist. But I had a pretty wild experience about 18 months ago that may involve some of these capabilities. It came with a series of mind-blowing epiphanies that have been quite useful and important to my growth. But noticing that I had sensory info beyond what is widely recognized was both scary and fascinating. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I was losing it, going nuts. And frankly I’m too embarrassed to mentioned much in the way of specifics, there is a ton of stigma around this stuff. So I guess I largely blew the experience off as BS. Ot at least, I never tried to cultivate it.
But especially after reading this, I’d like to explore it further and test its validity. But I have absolutely zero idea how to conjure the sense again. Should I just attempt to recreate the same conditions? Any tips on how to help open the mind up and dispel beliefs that hold us back?
A couple of years ago I would have blown it off as bullshit too haha. But we can’t unsee and unexperience things and as a result, we can’t continue to hold on to ideas that defy our experience.
Sounds awesome. Mini-epiphanies = seeing more clearly!
Re: the experience, I don’t really feel like I can comment on it with such little context. I think a first great step is always accepting and embracing what is. In this case, it’d be owning to yourself that you had this and all the feelings that come up around it. You’ll probably learn a lot by just going into all that about why you feel a certain way which can impact its emergence. It might also be interesting to learn more about it if you can find any books or videos on it. You can treat the education like an experiment in whether the ideas resonate or note. Hope that helps
As someone who has been exploring and experimenting with these “emergent/innate abilities, for decades I would encourage great patience combined with deep curiosity so that constant exploration and experimentation becomes habit.
That is the big picture. To get into specifics might be a little presumptuous of me, so forgive me, if any of this is out of line. I would suggest everything from retreats or other events that are specifically designed to unlock and foster the lost art in science Conscious living. For some, that might be as simple as lots of yoga, qi gong, tai chi, and bodywork sessions.
For others it could be, as elaborate as going to Peru for an ayahuasca retreat. Or Ayahuasca retreats as close to your home as you can find them. (I have attended exceptionally high-quality Aya retreats here in the US.) Just be careful to avoid the ones that are going after the money rather than being primarily of service to their fellow human beings.
And would highly recommend reading excellent books ranging from Michael Poulans How to change your mind, to a esoteric classic book like autobiography of a yogi by Yogananda.
Thanks Derek! Such a great point regarding the patience and curiosity. I’ve been cultivating / honing certain things for almost 3 years now and I’m still learning and evolving more. It’s so important to just trust the curiosity and unfolding vs expect some overnight change in experience.
Conscious living is where it is at! And to me, it creates the posture of openness to all possibility and unfolding : )
As an ecological scientist, I’m rather skeptical of the psycho-spiritual framing of this article. We clearly have the capacity to extend our cognitive capacity and through this, to emerge into new ways of thinking and being in the world. I challenge you though Scott — how can this same schema be applied to the way our tools extend our ability to act? How do emerging technologies fit into this narrative?
I’m not sure I understand the first question the way it is phrased.
I think right now our technologies are based on our depth of consciousness as a species and the people creating them. This is the context of their creation. This has and always been the case. It’s kind of hard for me to comment on emerging technologies broadly more than that since there’s so many seperate things being created. I know this is probably not a satisfactory answer but it is all that comes to mind right now.
I think expanding cognitive capacity in terms of intellect and thinking better is quite different than what I’m talking about. Faculties like intuition at the deepest level are going beyond the thinking mind. Self healing occurs at a deeper identification than the body and thoughts. It’s different
Thank you for your response. I asked that first question with special focus on the conceptual diagrams you incorporated into this article, with particular attention to the ways our words and concepts act as tools to extend our ability to recognize and describe phenomena in the world.
It’s beautiful to frame our technology as an anchor which frames the depth of our consciousness. And even when thinking about words as a component of technology, the point you raise about emergent human capacities certainly transcends the technological realm. Recognizing the whole Living context of Consciousness certainly entails going beyond the faculty of thinking and into a more unitive process of perceptive, empathic, and intuitive understandings we acquire through our growth and development.
Excited to see how you continue this line of thought beyond the transcendent realm of the human psyche and into the extensive realm of 4E (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended) cognition and the ecological context of the evolution of consciousness.
I want to respond more thoroughly to this when I’m in front of a computer, but one author who really had a big impact on my understanding of this idea is David Hawkins. His books power vs force and the levels of consciousness really made something click for me. Might be worth checking out. Ken Wilber has published a lot of interesting ideas that are different but similar idea with his integral theory
Thanks for your continued engagement. I am a big fan of Ken Wilber, although I’ll admit I’ve only read his Marriage of Sense and Soul. I see integral theory as a vibrant place through which mysticism and rationality, spirituality and ecology, theology and psychology can all be brought together.
I’ll have to check out David Hawkins, as I’m curious as to how his ideas fit in with Wilber’s spiral framework in the evolutionary development of consciousness.
This is one of your best issues ever, and that's saying a lot, Scott. This is such a clear statement of the tension between being ordinary (i.e. existing in an incoherent fog that we label "normal") vs. opening one's self to the miracles that exist all around us. I'm truly grateful to you.
Thanks Bruce! I appreciate it. I think the tension will continue to fade as more ppl have direct experiences and science gives people permission to open to a new narrative. It kind of sucks that’s even a thing.
What’s funny to me is that science was once considered “the new way of knowing” relative to the inner space. Clearly we’ve overtilted
I've been discovering and writing about similar things on my stack. I think you're right, and these capabilities and more are locked behind the firewall between the conscious and subconscious. With effort, we can bridge that, likely some better than others. Like the way unrelated parts of the brain can refrain to take over for damaged parts. People like Edgar Cayce went very far down this route. Great post!
Thank you for this post Scott. I agree 100% with the mental framework you have outlined here as a way to let our conscious awareness (with its attendant limitations) comprehend something larger than itself. What you have outlined here really resonates with me as well. In trying to explain some of these concepts to others, albeit not nearly as eloquently and succinctly as you have done here, I have used the same "world was once thought of as flat" metaphor. I really appreciate how you have tied together this model to also take into account the motivation of serving others. For me personally, when I came to the insight that my deepest purpose was rooted in serving others and helping to create more joy and alleviating unnecessary suffering it felt like a whole universe of experience opened up. Clearly calling out that learning to become more attuned to these other channels of information takes practice and refinement, like any other skill, is a really helpful way for me to frame a path forward to developing a more expanded awareness. Thank you for the great post (and podcasts!)
Thanks Tom! I love the name of your substack haha.
That's really cool to hear about your experience. I am also not surprised to hear about how serving others correlated with an opening. I once heard Rupert Spira talk about how the universe can provide unbounded support, but only when it the desire aligns with serving the whole. This intuitively made sense to me.
I did find it helpful, and you covered a lot of ground I was going to touch upon in one of my posts, but instead I can simply refer people to yours as I dive deeper into the science that can help explain some of this phenomena, which you can see here: https://awildride.substack.com/p/rethinking-how-to-think. (See last footnote)
This article was a lovely Russian nesting doll, I kept clicking the links to your other articles and sources explaining certain key concepts. An enjoyable jaunt, thank you.
A lot of the material here resonates with me. I am a psychology and counselling student and the idea of removing blocks to allow the natural growth process of humans aligns beautifully with the humanistic field if psychology (maslow, rogers etc). And the uncovering of unconscious patterns and development of emotional intelligence I see as very similar to attachment theory (bowlby, winnicott etc).
That's cool to hear that a lot of these ideas overlap with modern psychology. I've come to see how many different fields approach the same ideas with different names and nuances!
I completely agree. The more I learn the more I realise most people are saying the same thing with different delivery fir different peoples differinf ability to/ways of receiving
Love this breakdown, Scott. Super helpful and clearly laid out. I have been experiencing this kind of expansion and emergent sidhis (or at least glimpses of them) and it really helps to see your approach. It’s reinforcing, affirming, and inspiring. Thank you!
Great read as always man! "So if you think all of this is bullshit, that’s fine. You just will have a very limited experience relative to what is possible." Love it. I can relate in the past to being "too smart for my own good".
The other paradox I have observed in my own experience, is with knowing/feeling you have emergent capacities is that sometimes (not all the time) pushing and trying too hard to unlock those or 'efforting' too much around them can disrupt the natural unfoldment process. I find this happens to me since I've always had this intense excitement and drive with literally everything I do. Can't say I have a solution for it, but wanted to share that observation.
Thanks bud! I think that’s totally a great and congruent observation with my experience. The efforting / grasping is likely coming from a part of self that wants to get somewhere to be okay. This is not the deepest part of self. Kind of need to see what’s driving that compulsion for there to be more grace and paradoxically, more expansive outcomes
Really enjoyed this Scott and chimes with my own experience having been on a similar journey these last few years. The start point for me was reconnecting with inner wisdom and intuition and so much more has been unlocked! Highly recommend doing this work in community as it can be a bit overwhelming and challenging at times, as well as joyful and enlightening!
Fascinating!
A couple years ago, I would have blown this off as total bullshit, being a scientist and rationalist. But I had a pretty wild experience about 18 months ago that may involve some of these capabilities. It came with a series of mind-blowing epiphanies that have been quite useful and important to my growth. But noticing that I had sensory info beyond what is widely recognized was both scary and fascinating. Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I was losing it, going nuts. And frankly I’m too embarrassed to mentioned much in the way of specifics, there is a ton of stigma around this stuff. So I guess I largely blew the experience off as BS. Ot at least, I never tried to cultivate it.
But especially after reading this, I’d like to explore it further and test its validity. But I have absolutely zero idea how to conjure the sense again. Should I just attempt to recreate the same conditions? Any tips on how to help open the mind up and dispel beliefs that hold us back?
Thanks!
A couple of years ago I would have blown it off as bullshit too haha. But we can’t unsee and unexperience things and as a result, we can’t continue to hold on to ideas that defy our experience.
Sounds awesome. Mini-epiphanies = seeing more clearly!
Re: the experience, I don’t really feel like I can comment on it with such little context. I think a first great step is always accepting and embracing what is. In this case, it’d be owning to yourself that you had this and all the feelings that come up around it. You’ll probably learn a lot by just going into all that about why you feel a certain way which can impact its emergence. It might also be interesting to learn more about it if you can find any books or videos on it. You can treat the education like an experiment in whether the ideas resonate or note. Hope that helps
Beautiful. Thanks.
As someone who has been exploring and experimenting with these “emergent/innate abilities, for decades I would encourage great patience combined with deep curiosity so that constant exploration and experimentation becomes habit.
That is the big picture. To get into specifics might be a little presumptuous of me, so forgive me, if any of this is out of line. I would suggest everything from retreats or other events that are specifically designed to unlock and foster the lost art in science Conscious living. For some, that might be as simple as lots of yoga, qi gong, tai chi, and bodywork sessions.
For others it could be, as elaborate as going to Peru for an ayahuasca retreat. Or Ayahuasca retreats as close to your home as you can find them. (I have attended exceptionally high-quality Aya retreats here in the US.) Just be careful to avoid the ones that are going after the money rather than being primarily of service to their fellow human beings.
And would highly recommend reading excellent books ranging from Michael Poulans How to change your mind, to a esoteric classic book like autobiography of a yogi by Yogananda.
All the best to you on your journey!
Thanks Derek! Such a great point regarding the patience and curiosity. I’ve been cultivating / honing certain things for almost 3 years now and I’m still learning and evolving more. It’s so important to just trust the curiosity and unfolding vs expect some overnight change in experience.
Conscious living is where it is at! And to me, it creates the posture of openness to all possibility and unfolding : )
As an ecological scientist, I’m rather skeptical of the psycho-spiritual framing of this article. We clearly have the capacity to extend our cognitive capacity and through this, to emerge into new ways of thinking and being in the world. I challenge you though Scott — how can this same schema be applied to the way our tools extend our ability to act? How do emerging technologies fit into this narrative?
I’m not sure I understand the first question the way it is phrased.
I think right now our technologies are based on our depth of consciousness as a species and the people creating them. This is the context of their creation. This has and always been the case. It’s kind of hard for me to comment on emerging technologies broadly more than that since there’s so many seperate things being created. I know this is probably not a satisfactory answer but it is all that comes to mind right now.
I think expanding cognitive capacity in terms of intellect and thinking better is quite different than what I’m talking about. Faculties like intuition at the deepest level are going beyond the thinking mind. Self healing occurs at a deeper identification than the body and thoughts. It’s different
Thank you for your response. I asked that first question with special focus on the conceptual diagrams you incorporated into this article, with particular attention to the ways our words and concepts act as tools to extend our ability to recognize and describe phenomena in the world.
It’s beautiful to frame our technology as an anchor which frames the depth of our consciousness. And even when thinking about words as a component of technology, the point you raise about emergent human capacities certainly transcends the technological realm. Recognizing the whole Living context of Consciousness certainly entails going beyond the faculty of thinking and into a more unitive process of perceptive, empathic, and intuitive understandings we acquire through our growth and development.
Excited to see how you continue this line of thought beyond the transcendent realm of the human psyche and into the extensive realm of 4E (embodied/embedded/enactive/extended) cognition and the ecological context of the evolution of consciousness.
I want to respond more thoroughly to this when I’m in front of a computer, but one author who really had a big impact on my understanding of this idea is David Hawkins. His books power vs force and the levels of consciousness really made something click for me. Might be worth checking out. Ken Wilber has published a lot of interesting ideas that are different but similar idea with his integral theory
Thanks for your continued engagement. I am a big fan of Ken Wilber, although I’ll admit I’ve only read his Marriage of Sense and Soul. I see integral theory as a vibrant place through which mysticism and rationality, spirituality and ecology, theology and psychology can all be brought together.
I’ll have to check out David Hawkins, as I’m curious as to how his ideas fit in with Wilber’s spiral framework in the evolutionary development of consciousness.
This is one of your best issues ever, and that's saying a lot, Scott. This is such a clear statement of the tension between being ordinary (i.e. existing in an incoherent fog that we label "normal") vs. opening one's self to the miracles that exist all around us. I'm truly grateful to you.
Thanks Bruce! I appreciate it. I think the tension will continue to fade as more ppl have direct experiences and science gives people permission to open to a new narrative. It kind of sucks that’s even a thing.
What’s funny to me is that science was once considered “the new way of knowing” relative to the inner space. Clearly we’ve overtilted
I've been discovering and writing about similar things on my stack. I think you're right, and these capabilities and more are locked behind the firewall between the conscious and subconscious. With effort, we can bridge that, likely some better than others. Like the way unrelated parts of the brain can refrain to take over for damaged parts. People like Edgar Cayce went very far down this route. Great post!
Thanks Billy! I agree that our subconscious is the gateway to much of this coming online.
Edgar cayce is someone I’ve heard a lot about but haven’t studied as much. I’m very curious and hope to do someday!
Thank you for this post Scott. I agree 100% with the mental framework you have outlined here as a way to let our conscious awareness (with its attendant limitations) comprehend something larger than itself. What you have outlined here really resonates with me as well. In trying to explain some of these concepts to others, albeit not nearly as eloquently and succinctly as you have done here, I have used the same "world was once thought of as flat" metaphor. I really appreciate how you have tied together this model to also take into account the motivation of serving others. For me personally, when I came to the insight that my deepest purpose was rooted in serving others and helping to create more joy and alleviating unnecessary suffering it felt like a whole universe of experience opened up. Clearly calling out that learning to become more attuned to these other channels of information takes practice and refinement, like any other skill, is a really helpful way for me to frame a path forward to developing a more expanded awareness. Thank you for the great post (and podcasts!)
Thanks Tom! I love the name of your substack haha.
That's really cool to hear about your experience. I am also not surprised to hear about how serving others correlated with an opening. I once heard Rupert Spira talk about how the universe can provide unbounded support, but only when it the desire aligns with serving the whole. This intuitively made sense to me.
Glad you found this helpful : )
I did find it helpful, and you covered a lot of ground I was going to touch upon in one of my posts, but instead I can simply refer people to yours as I dive deeper into the science that can help explain some of this phenomena, which you can see here: https://awildride.substack.com/p/rethinking-how-to-think. (See last footnote)
Awesome. Love to see science supporting a lot of this. Great stuff
This article was a lovely Russian nesting doll, I kept clicking the links to your other articles and sources explaining certain key concepts. An enjoyable jaunt, thank you.
A lot of the material here resonates with me. I am a psychology and counselling student and the idea of removing blocks to allow the natural growth process of humans aligns beautifully with the humanistic field if psychology (maslow, rogers etc). And the uncovering of unconscious patterns and development of emotional intelligence I see as very similar to attachment theory (bowlby, winnicott etc).
Thanks Lauren! I appreciate you stopping by : )
That's cool to hear that a lot of these ideas overlap with modern psychology. I've come to see how many different fields approach the same ideas with different names and nuances!
I completely agree. The more I learn the more I realise most people are saying the same thing with different delivery fir different peoples differinf ability to/ways of receiving
Love this breakdown, Scott. Super helpful and clearly laid out. I have been experiencing this kind of expansion and emergent sidhis (or at least glimpses of them) and it really helps to see your approach. It’s reinforcing, affirming, and inspiring. Thank you!
That’s awesome man! I’m glad it’s helpful. I think the open + experimentation mindset is pretty amazing for just about anything : )
Absolutely! I'm a big fan of the scientific method ;)
Great read as always man! "So if you think all of this is bullshit, that’s fine. You just will have a very limited experience relative to what is possible." Love it. I can relate in the past to being "too smart for my own good".
The other paradox I have observed in my own experience, is with knowing/feeling you have emergent capacities is that sometimes (not all the time) pushing and trying too hard to unlock those or 'efforting' too much around them can disrupt the natural unfoldment process. I find this happens to me since I've always had this intense excitement and drive with literally everything I do. Can't say I have a solution for it, but wanted to share that observation.
Thanks bud! I think that’s totally a great and congruent observation with my experience. The efforting / grasping is likely coming from a part of self that wants to get somewhere to be okay. This is not the deepest part of self. Kind of need to see what’s driving that compulsion for there to be more grace and paradoxically, more expansive outcomes
Excellent post Scott. Thanks so much for your great work!
Thank you!
Expand towards the absolute🙏
That’s right!
Really enjoyed this Scott and chimes with my own experience having been on a similar journey these last few years. The start point for me was reconnecting with inner wisdom and intuition and so much more has been unlocked! Highly recommend doing this work in community as it can be a bit overwhelming and challenging at times, as well as joyful and enlightening!