Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: can I move things around me by just imaging it in my mind? Would GOD give me that talent?

A: I don't believe it has ever conclusively been proven that human beings have this power. A lot of very realistic demonstrations make it look as if this is possible, but slight-of-hand "magicians" are very clever in making illusions seem real -- like David Copperfield being able to pass through the Great Wall of China or to make a passenger plane disappear. Does he actually do these things? No, not at all, but they look real to us, our eyes deceive our minds. Does Uri Geller actually bend spoons with his mind -- not that I'm aware. Again I think it's an illusion and a trick that appears real.

An Indian guru was once asked by one of his students if the guru would walk across the lake over to the next town. The guru replied that it didn't seem like a good use of time to practice for 15 years to be able to do this when he could easily take the row boat.

The world isn't supported on a foundation of magic -- reality is logical and rational. We can do spectacular things with our minds, but we're given hands and feet for moving things. Would God give you that talent? If it were possible to move things mentally it would be due to your unique hereditary endowment that made your brain somewhat different from others. God would not bless or curse you over your fellows since God does not play favorites.

May I recommend that if you're not already signed up that you consider subscribing to the Quote of the Day. It's a free service from our site that offers a daily quote from the incomparable teachings of this marvelous book with an audio clip and a beautiful and inspiring image, a great way to start one's day as well as to begin to understand the teachings of the book -- a book like noneother regarding the nature of reality. To subscribe click on the Quote of the Day link on the left side of our home page and follow the instructions.

Labels: God, logic, magic, mind, power, proof, quote of the day

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Thursday, January 19, 2006

What does The Urantia Book say about pyschic abilities?

Q: What does The Urantia Book say about pyschic abilities?

A: As with some other terms, the use of the word "psychic" in The Urantia Book requires the student of the text to keep the term in context with the topic the book is presenting. When we think of pyschic we usually think of a sense or ability outside of the normal ones or a mystical experience. The Urantia Book speaks of seven psychic circles of spiritual and mental development which don't readily relate to the concept we usually entertain for psychic ability.

I believe that science has proven that all normal minded humans naturally have psychic ability to some degree and that some people have psychic ability more fully developed than others do, just as some people are more musically inclined than others are. There are classes one can take to help develop psychic ability. Still, The Urantia Book warns against over emphasis of or involvement in mystical practices as they tend to lead one away from the path of true spiritual development.

I've extracted several paragraphs from the text that may help explain what The Urantia Book teaches about psychic abilities.

Paper 91 Section 2 Para 2 Page 995 Line 43 Para 8
Both prayer and magic arose as a result of man's adjustive reactions to Urantian environment. But aside from this generalized relationship, they have little in common. Prayer has always indicated positive action by the praying ego; it has been always psychic and sometimes spiritual. Magic has usually signified an attempt to manipulate reality without affecting the ego of the manipulator, the practitioner of magic. Despite their independent origins, magic and prayer often have been interrelated in their later stages of development. Magic has sometimes ascended by goal elevation from formulas through rituals and incantations to the threshold of true prayer. Prayer has sometimes become so materialistic that it has degenerated into a pseudomagical technique of avoiding the expenditure of that effort which is requisite for the solution of Urantian problems.

Paper 100 Section 4 Para 2 Page 1097 Line 36 Para 7
Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.

Paper 100 Section 5 Para 4 Page 1099 Line 11 Para 2
Most of the spectacular phenomena associated with so called religious conversions are entirely psychologic in nature, but now and then there do occur experiences which are also spiritual in origin. When the mental mobilization is absolutely total on any level of the psychic upreach toward spirit attainment, when there exists perfection of the human motivation of loyalties to the divine idea, then there very often occurs a sudden down grasp of the indwelling spirit to synchronize with the concentrated and consecrated purpose of the superconscious mind of the believing mortal. And it is such experiences of unified intellectual and spiritual phenomena that constitute the conversion which consists in factors over and above purely psychologic involvement.

Paper 100 Section 5 Para 6 Page 1099 Line 25 Para 4
If one is disposed to recognize a theoretical subconscious mind as a practical working hypothesis in the otherwise unified intellectual life, then, to be consistent, one should postulate a similar and corresponding realm of ascending intellectual activity as the superconscious level, the zone of immediate contact with the indwelling spirit entity, the Thought Adjuster. The great danger in all these psychic speculations is that visions and other so called mystic experiences, along with extraordinary dreams, may be regarded as divine communications to the human mind. In times past, divine beings have revealed themselves to certain God knowing persons, not because of their mystic trances or morbid visions, but in spite of all these phenomena.

Paper 100 Section 5 Para 10 Page 1100 Line 4 Para 1
The more healthful attitude of spiritual meditation is to be found in reflective worship and in the prayer of thanksgiving. The direct communion with one's Thought Adjuster, such as occurred in the later years of Jesus' life in the flesh, should not be confused with these so called mystical experiences. The factors which contribute to the initiation of mystic communion are indicative of the danger of such psychic states. The mystic status is favored by such things as: physical fatigue, fasting, psychic dissociation, profound aesthetic experiences, vivid sex impulses, fear, anxiety, rage, and wild dancing. Much of the material arising as a result of such preliminary preparation has its origin in the subconscious mind.

Paper 110 Section 4 Para 3 Page 1207 Line 13 Para 3
Certain abrupt presentations of thoughts, conclusions, and other pictures of mind are sometimes the direct or indirect work of the Adjuster; but far more often they are the sudden emergence into consciousness of ideas which have been grouping themselves together in the submerged mental levels, natural and everyday occurrences of normal and ordinary psychic function inherent in the circuits of the evolving animal mind. (In contrast with these subconscious emanations, the revelations of the Adjuster appear through the realms of the superconscious.)

Labels: magic, meditation, prayer, psychics, The Urantia Book

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