Copyright (C) 1998 by William Mistele.  All rights reserved. 


Initiation into Hermetics, Chapter 2, Mental Level

SUMMARY OF EXERCISE.  In the mental level exercise for the
second chapter, you practice concentrating on the five senses one
after the other.  The goal is to concentrate on a  sensory perception
from one of the five senses for five minutes without any mental
distraction or interference from another sense.  You accomplish this
first with your eyes closed and then with them open.
   Start with the sense of sight.  Notice something around you like a
pencil, a lamp, an apple, a chair, etc.  Then close your eyes and
visualize this object.  You exert your imagination so that the visual
image is completely real as if it is right there in front of you.  You
note distractions which occur while you practice.  At first, practice
no more than ten minutes but eventually work up to a half hour. 
Keep working with different visualizations until you can hold the
picture of an object clearly in your mind for five minutes.  
    Then you do the same exercise with your eyes open.  The object
hangs in the air in front of you.  You focus on it to the exclusion of
anything else such as the background or other nearby objects.  You
proceed to practice in this way with the other four senses also until
your concentration on each is equal to that of any other sense.

COMMENTARY

VISUALIZATION

"Of all the gifts we have received, of all our five senses, sight is
perhaps the most precious.  As the first among equals, sight imposes
order in the chaotic world of the senses.  Sight also has direct access
to the higher functions of the human brain and holds the key to the
hidden world of the unconscious.  The very fact that this thought
can be expressed in this way--using the metaphor of a key--is
because the sense of sight has allowed us to develop the powerful
language of symbolism."  Elizabeth Nash

Some individuals do not use visual images when they think.  One
individual I met fell asleep whenever she tried to visualize something
or even meditate.  I used to not think in pictures.  Working with the
Bardon exercises changed my thought process to where I now
visualize with ease.  It is perhaps easier for me to visualize an object
in front of me with my eyes opened than closed.
   Individuals often write me and say they have a lot of difficulty
practicing visualization exercises.  Bardon presents his exercises in a
straightforward and dry manner.  He explains to you what he wants
and expects you to work through it and then move on to the next
exercise. I find it is true that if you practice an exercise even for one
minute a day over the period of a month, a year, ten years, thirty
years, whatever, you will arrive at complete mastery in the end. 
Some of the Bardon exercises are like that.  You do them until they
become second nature.
    On the other hand, it is possible to play with all of these exercises
so you turn them into something enjoyable and even fun.  I used do
pencil drawings of individual's faces, animals, nature scenes, etc. to
help my visualization.  I notice, however, that my mind already is
extremely adept at visualization.  But if I try this chapter 2
visualization exercise by starting with a pencil or a clock as Bardon
suggests, it seems quite difficult.  On the other hand, if I recall an
emotionally charged memory, some event or encounter which was
dramatic and intense, I can visualize the memory as if I am again
within it.  
    Emotional involvement, mood, and enthusiasm, then, play a role
in the development of our senses.  You might try testing your visual
abilities in terms of seeing which memories are more clear in terms
of visual detail.  This kind of recollection serves to activate at least
temporarily the part of your brain which relates to visualization. Try
visualizing ordinary objects after you evoke some memories with
strong visual content.
   A Van Gogh painting of a chair, a table, or flowers exudes a
feeling of life.  If you bring to these exercises an artist's appreciation
of color, form, image, detail, texture, and composition, more of the
brain and emotions are involved in the exercise.  It then becomes
easier to get results.  If you watch TV, go to the movies, or play
computer games, you might try visualizing your favorite characters
and scenes.  Again, this should serve to remind you of the level of
ability you already possess.
    Neurolinguists like to tell us how individuals will use different
combinations of senses when they solve problems or work through
emotions.  If you recall someone, you may first see them in your
mind.  The picture then evokes a feeling of being in the other
person's presence. You may see the person as if you are there with
them and in the picture or perhaps from a third person perspective
in which you are not present.  This mental process may continue to
where you begin to talk to yourself about this individual so that you
describe what you feel or perhaps you recall their voice or a
conversation you had with him or her. 
    There are a great variety of ways individuals employ their five
senses in mental processing in everyday life.  An attorney may note
and be able to recall the body posture and facial expression of every
jury member when he argues a case in a court room.  When he gets
home, he may put aside his astute powers of observation and fail to
make eye contact with his wife or notice what his children are
feeling. 
   A movie director may exercise total command over his material. 
He can visualize what each camera on the set is recording and
imagine every scene in the script from a number of angles.  As the
shoot continues, he is already editing the film in his mind selecting
which shots to splice together to establish the mood and dramatic
presentation he is after.  But when he is at a party he acts timid and
vulnerable.  Other people seem to invade his personal space.  He
has switched from dominant visual and auditory senses to a feeling
mode. 
    My kids have an interesting way of visualizing the characters
when they read a novel. One of my children uses the same pictures
over and over again transposing the picture of a character from one
book to another book the way Hollywood uses well-known actors to
play parts in different movies.  Another of my children makes up
new pictures of the people in each novel he reads.  When I read, I
tend to visualize the scenery very carefully  and also I hear the
conversations as if they are spoken aloud but I usually do not go into
any detail in visualizing the characters.  I will do so from now on.
   Long ago, I once met a theosophist who told me he could look at
a table or a car in front of him and then shrink it down into a tiny
picture while the real object vanished from his sight.  I thought at
the time that this ability was very exotic.  I had trouble imagining
being able to do that. Now it seems perfectly natural to edit pictures
in my mind in any way I wish. 
    Over the years, I have noticed the cultural difference in how the
five senses were developed in different esoteric systems.  A Tibetan
lama would casually tell a student to go sit in the temple for six
hours and visualize the Tibetan writing for Om. This was no big
deal because the lama could visualize in his mind hundreds of
entities from different mandalas all at the same time.   In one
practice, individuals in the British Isles visualize an entire castle and
explore each room.  In doing pathworking in various systems such
as druidry, the individuals walk through forests, visualize groves and
stone circles and explore whole landscapes from nature during
meditation.  
    About six years ago, I took a class in the psychology of imagery. 
The teacher pointed out that she was one of the only two teachers in
the United States who taught this subject.  She tried to present the
whole gamut of what was available in psychological research
involving visualization.  This covered topics such as healing,
relaxation, various psychological experiments,  physiological
research, etc.  Since she had also been a Zen practitioner for
decades, she had a feel for the topic.  But I was still amazed at how
incredibly arrogant and uninformed conventional psychologists are
in regard to the encyclopedia of practices from around the world
which use visualization as a central component.  Psychology seems
to be preoccupied with the conscious mind and immediate
subconscious.  It is otherwise sweetly oblivious to the nature of
spiritual practice. 
    In ancient druidry, the bards would spend seven years training in
darkness.  Besides enhancing their sensitivity to sound, this practice
would allow them to visualize images which arises from deep within
the unconscious.  In a Tibetan practice involving dream yoga, the
students spend a number of days living in a house in complete
darkness.  This again enhances the ability to visual and in particular
to enter a dream state so that the images you are visualizing are real
to you.  
     Though the Bardon exercise in visualization is clear, you as a
student are free to practice visualizing anything you wish.  Colors,
for example, are part of the cosmic language in Quabbalah.  They
have a vibration and can be used to alter consciousness and evoke
different states of trance. You can practice visualizing objects and
shapes using the entire color spectrum in your beginning practices. 
   Though Bardon obviously wants the beginning student to practice
visualizing ordinary objects, you can also practice visualizing
symbols.  You can visualize Tarot cards, yidams and tantras, places
of beauty or great works of art.  For a man, a woman is a symbol of
attaining completion--she is the unknown, the part of himself he has
not yet met as well as being a companion, partner, lover, friend, etc.
Consequently, the right female image can influence, awaken, or
stimulate every aspect of his nervous system and chakras within his
body. 
   If you enter a meditative state in which you are relaxed and your
mind is clear, you can contemplate problems or experiences and see
them in symbolic terms.  Ira Progoff explores this approach.  There
are, for example, your inner and outer experiences in life.  You can
find an image for the outer and also for the inner.  
    You then take the two images and hold them in your mind
allowing them to interact in their own way until a third image
appears which represents their connection.  This third image offers
you new insight and clarity.  It grants new feelings and ways of
being alive.
   You can also visualize sigils, symbolic or occult diagrams which
represent the energy of spiritual beings.  If you visualize a sigil with
the correct color in front of you with energy and concentration, it
serves to connect you to the spirit.  If you have psychic ability or are
sensitive, you may be able to sense this connection.  If you use
enough force when you concentrate and imagine the sigil on the
physical, astral, and mental planes, this action can draw the spirit of
the sigil into your room. 
    The eye does not just receive impressions.  It transmits and
projects pictures, feeling, energy, and it forms connections.  In
martial arts, they talk about a hard versus a soft gaze.  If you are
tense, the tension narrows what you are able to see.  If you relax
and observe your environment from your Tan Tien or the center of
your abdomen, your observation is more alert.  You see more detail
and possibilities. 
    If you gaze from your heart, you project healing energy.  When
lovers are together, their eyes influence each others' auras.  Looking
at another with acceptance and love is like a prayer. It uplifts and
blesses. 
   Bardon mentions that visualization relates to the power of will. 
Obviously, having a keen sense of shape, location, and spacial
geometry enhances your sense of being able to manage your
environment.  You can think in terms of action, change, and
movement.  The power to visualize is like being able to say, "I see
things as they are now but I can also imagine them differently."  
    In effect, you extend your visualization beyond the spacial sense. 
You visualize things in terms of time.  You can then say, "At this
point in time things are like this.  At another point in time things can
be changed.  I can see how to get from here to there."
    For a magician who works with akasha, a visual image is not just
a picture within his mind.  Visualizing a person or spirit links the
magician's mind directly to the other.  The magician sees the other's
aura and energy on different planes.  With a slight shift in
consciousness, the magician not only links to the other but holds
within his consciousness the other's energy field. He identifies with it
and experiences it from within himself. 
   On a more simple level, images and visualizations can be used to
alter our outlook and understanding. Individuals' emotions often
limit their imagination to the present.  They can not visualize a
situation or relationship in a way inconsistent with what they are
currently feeling.  The imagination and heart are slaves to emotions.  
   Many traditions use various methods to get around this.  Jose
Silva outlines a concise method.  You visualize your situation or
problem exactly as it is right now.  You see this as a picture on a
white screen in front of you.  You move the screen, for example,
over to the right.  Now visualize a second picture.  This one is of the
same situation or problem when it is the way you would like it.  You
see the future right now and the problem solved.  You then move
this picture over to the right.  
    Now you visualize a third picture. In this picture, you see yourself
as being in a situation in the future where this problem no longer
comes up.  You have moved beyond it and are involved in another
stage of life.  The process of working with these three pictures is
that it enables individuals, through the process of visualizing, to feel
what it is like to be free of whatever is holding them back.  The
emotional bottleneck or feeling of being closed in is temporarily
overcome.  The mind is then able to think about how to bring these
situations about. 
   Sight relates to will also in that light is a function of fire.  Light
and fire are powerful, expansive, explosive, and dynamic.  They
refine and transform.  By visualizing, you illuminate the emotions
and the unconscious.  When you look at the world through the heart
of compassion or the eyes of divine love, you realize the astonishing
things which can be brought into being.  An image which is held
with powerful concentration gathers energy to itself and seeks to
manifest as reality. 
    
AUDITORY

"Hearing is the sense which binds the other senses together in
harmony.  It is also the sense most concerned with interaction
between human beings:  it is the foundation of language, which is
communication between minds, and music which is the
communication between hearts."   Elizabeth Nash

"Magick involves a great deal of listening and a little technique." 
Peter Beagle

"I sometimes fool deer.  They think I am one of them because I can
stand perfectly still for a half hour listening to the wind.  I
sometimes fool gnomes. They think I am one of their own because
it is clear that silence is my home.  I sometimes fool spirits of the
earthzone.  They think I am like unto them--a guardian of the
world--because in my heart is a void, an empty space where you can
hear the stars sing, the song in the wind, and discover the peace
from which the Earth dreams Her dreams."

You practice sounds in a similar way to visualizing a picture. You
concentrate on different sounds again seeking to be free of
distraction and from allowing other senses to interfere.  Take any
sounds from your environment and practice imagining you can hear
them one by one.  There is the song of the bird, the cat meowing,
the dog barking, the clock ticking, wind howling, lightning
thundering, different musical instruments,  etc. 
    Sound, like sight, also has psychological, spiritual, and magical
aspects.  Children who grow up in homes where the family often
sings are more adjusted and outgoing.  Song carries with it a sense
of joy and a willingness to express feeling.
    In a more magical vein, you can take a song or symphony and
reduce all your impressions and feelings about that song into one
note.  You then allow that note to be the only thing in your
awareness.  In practicing the cosmic language, the student adds
notes to the color and sensation concentrations.  
   Bardon also mentions how the undines practice tone magick.  By
singing one note, a undine can create a magical space of
enchantment and love.  A sylph suggested to me that in order to
better understand the mind of sylphs I should practice imagining a
different note for each weather phenomenon I observe.  The
thunderstorm has a note as do the trade winds , fog, clouds, the
mountain breeze as well as the entire sky.  Translating weather into
sound attunes your mind to the air element in which the sylph exists.   
    Also note that words are powerful. Words can command, bind,
illuminate, set free, and heal.  They can convey love and inflict pain. 
When we use our voice, we are free to speak from any or all of our
seven chakras, from our heart, from our mind, from our spirit
exerting our will or offering kindness and understanding.  
   Again, some individuals will find sound concentration exercises
easy and others will find them extremely difficult.  Just as someone
who paints portraits is more likely to observe and recall faces better
than other people, it is probably easier for a musician to recall tones
and sounds better than others.  Similarly, the dramatist who writes
dialogue has developed an ear for diction and spoken language.  Try
to recall as many different individual voices as you can. Start with
people you know and also actors you like. 
   In terms of professions, a skilled therapist, for example, is a
excellent listener.  He or she notices the subtle changes in voice.  By
noticing the loudness, speed, intonation, pitch, diction, and word
choice, the psychologist discerns changes in emotions and attitude in
the other individual.  A friend, for example, in listening carefully
creates a psychic space in which another person can feel safe and
accepted.  Listening is itself a magical power.  Like akasha, it offers
another a chance to grow and to discover who they are.
   Scientists have observed that the ear not only registers sounds.
The mechanism in the inner ear can transmit measurable sounds as
well.  If you think the notes of a song, your ear emits those notes
though the auditory signal is very weak.  
   There is a documented case of a blind teenager who makes clicks
with his mouth.  He then hears the echo of these clicks as they
bounce off objects around him.  Using this ability, he can ride a
bicycle through a parking lot around the cars and poles because his
mind fashions an accurate image of what is present.
    
TACTILE.  

"Only touch can make the world completely real:  it is the first and
last link which connects us to life and to each other.  `Keep in touch'
we say;  `Let us not lose touch.'  And if our emotions are affected
by something, we say that it is `touching.'  It is the most basic of all
the senses, the foundation:  it is also the most generous and
compassionate."  
Elizabeth Nash

For practicing the sense of touch, Bardon mentions concentrating
on sensations such as hunger, thirst, tiredness, etc.  One of the
special features of Bardon's system is his emphasis on the four
elements.  He works with these constantly.  In the most basic sense,
for the earth element you concentrate on weight; for air,
weightlessness; for fire, heat; and for water, coldness.  The heat and
coldness also produce phenomena relating to electricity and
magnetism.
    These four sensations are used in many ways in meditation.  If
you relax your muscles, the blood vessels open and the skin
becomes warmer.  Some Tibetan yogis can raise their body
temperature seventeen degrees and sustain that temperature even in
a freezing cold environment. In magick, by concentrating on these
sensations, you create energy fields which are, in effect, like the
domains where elemental beings such as salamanders, sylphs,
undines, and gnomes dwell. 
   As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have had the hardest time
concentrating on hot and cold sensations.  Finally, after visualizing a
universe full of fire I can evoke a heat sensation and sustain that
without using the other senses.  For the cold sensation, I have
actually practice holding ice cubes in my hands and doing this
repeatedly until my brain could figure out how to reproduce this
sensation through concentration.  It has taken me years to get
something so basic but now the concentration is easy and feels
natural.
   In exploring body sensations, we are opening the doors to our
entire nervous system.  Addictions, obsessions, and fascinations all
involve strong bodily sensations rooted in neurology and
biochemistry.  Nonetheless, these sensations are susceptible to
conscious control.  There are bodily sensations involved in any form
of bonding with others.  The more acquainted you are with your
body--your breathing, your ability to relax, the feel of your stomach,
your heart, your internal organs, and the whole spectrum of body
sensations from prenatal to adult--the more creative you can be in
interacting with others.  
    In shamanistic practice, individuals often imagine themselves as
various animals.  This serves to heighten sensory impressions. It also
introduces the individuals to the bodily sense and the drives and
desires within the animal world. In working with magick, we often
discover and meet within ourselves desires and instinctual energies
which are outside the band of normal consciousness.  We feel the
fire of the tiger, the acute alertness of the deer, the mesmeric
concentration of the snake, and the inner strength of the bear. 
Consequently, it is important not to ignore or underestimate the
influence of bodily sensations.  By knowing them well and working
through them with our minds, we strengthen our consciousness and
expand our ability to feel. 
   Some individuals have a remarkable sensitivity to touch and the
sensory perception it opens up.  Scientists have studied how some
individuals can sense earthquakes as or before they are happening. 
They sense the low wave frequencies earthquakes give off.  Some
individuals can sense changes in another person's body temperature
across a room.  Empaths can often feel the sensations in other's
bodies as pain, excitement, and strong emotions.  The other person's
sensations manifest in the empaths' bodies as if it is their own. 
    Touch grants a fantastic array of experiences when it is mastered. 
Mastering touch is almost like being able to relive any memory as if
you are there and it is happening right now.  You can enter any
dream or imaginary scene and live within it and experience it as real. 
The mind has this capacity but you learn to control it consciously
through practice. 
    In psychic terms, there is a rolfer who works with deep massage
on other's bodies.  He discovers that through only imagination he
can get the same results as he can when he physically manipulates
their bodies.  If he concentrates on another person and uses only his
mind to work on their muscles, he can present photos of the
individual before and after his work showing the way in which their
posture, musculature, and spine have changed alignment.  
    In clairfeeling, you extend your touch anywhere.  You can be
with another person who is not present.  Space and distance are
suspended.  But first it helps to be able to imagine any sensation you
can experience so clearly it feels real. 

TASTE 

The sense of taste can be explored magically in that you become
more sensitive to the food you are eating and prepare your body to
better digest it.  You sense in advance how a food is going to affect
you and what its quality and energy level are.
   In more mundane terms, taste and eating are very grounding. 
Like the sense of smell, taste strengthens the stability of your
consciousness.  Sight, sound, and touch can be used to take you
away into imaginary worlds but focusing on the taste of something
you are eating brings you back immediately to your body. 
    In one system of telepathy, the teacher pointed out it is probably
easier for most people to transmit tastes and smells to each other
than pictures or sounds.  These sensations engage a more primitive
part of our brains.  These sensations have a very strong connection
to our bodies and so they can also short circuit our thinking process. 
Eating and drinking have a remarkable ability to change mood
especially because they are so closely tied to pleasure and
satisfaction.
   A mediator I know once came upon a man and woman fighting
violently.  She acted on her intuition not knowing what to do and
went up and knocked on the door.  She told the man she had the
pizza he had ordered with anchovies and mushrooms.  If you think
about tasting a food, you can not remain angry.  The sense of taste
switches the mind from the picture of the other person's face and
the sound of the words being spoken.  Taste is not part of the
neurological process which anger utilizes to sustain its intensity. 
    There are a lot of cultural, psychological, and physiological
aspects to taste and our choice of diet. We often associate feelings
of well-being and festivity, family life and love with certain diets and
menus.  Switching to a different diet, an individual may get the same
or better nutrition but lose something in the process. 
   The mind may not pick up on it but the body is uncomfortable
with the change.  An individual may change diets for philosophic
reasons thinking its a great idea but he may sabotage his sense of
enjoyment by doing so.  The politically correct diet actually
produces more stress for his body because he has lost his childhood
sense of well-being and association with past memories.  To
overcome this, bring good feelings to the food you eat. 
   As you practice taste, try to notice your own cultural and
psychological preferences.  Notice too the vibration of the food and
the qualities conveyed through taste.  Working with gnomes, they
take me directly into minerals and elements so that my
consciousness identifies with the molecular and atomic vibrations. 
You can do this also with an apple, wine, vegetables, and so forth. 
You sense the vitality and qualities of the food you are eating when
it was in its original form on a farm.  You can sense how your
various organs and the digestive track respond to food as it is
breaking down and being absorbed into your system.  I used to tell
people what they had eaten during their last meal because my
stomach could feel what was in their stomach and I would then get a
picture of the food they ate.
    To some extent, Bardon's exercise of absorbing vitality into your
body through the pours of your skin relates to the sense of taste and
digestion.  You are turning your skin into a tongue and a mouth. 
Like the leaves of a tree which absorbs sunlight and carbon dioxide,
your body is gathering energy directly from the air.  Breathing and
digestion both provide usable energy and nutrition for the blood.  
    Though pranayama is often put in a mental or religious context,
as an exercise, there is a very primal and instinctual aspect of the
psyche which is being activated during this practice.  Pranayama
takes the ancient stalking and devouring of the prey by the predator
and transforms it into a very refined and spiritual activity.  Air
becomes a supplementary energy source. 

SMELL

Smell, like taste, serves to ground us.  Animals have a high
developed olfactory sense. They can discern a vast array of scents. 
   Incense is used in evocation, to supports states of trance, and it is
also used in aromotherapy.  In psychic work, some individuals may
learn how to smell energy.  You can smell when there is an astral
presence of a spirit or some other entity near.  They can smell the
vibration of a house or location.  In this way, the sense of smell
alerts an individual to the quality of the space they are entering.
   In another way, smell can take on a symbolic and intuitive
function.  "Something doesn't smell right," someone will say.  Their
intuition is using the sense of smell to convey a gut feeling or
psychic impression to the conscious mind.
    I don't know anyone who does this, but as I think about it I notice
I can smell an aroma for the seven chakras of the body of someone I
am concentrating on.  With each chakra, I discern a scent and also I
get a picture of the flower which goes with that scent.  The scent
offers me direct immersion in the other's energy.  It is not for
nothing that the chakras are sometimes referred to as lotus
blossoms.  They radiate energy but you can learn to perceive this
energy with any of your five senses.
    
The Five Senses

If you observe carefully different world leaders, you can notice
something they share in common.  Their voice, eyes, and face are
used in combination to extend their power and their ability to
connect to others.  One of these three things will often be very hard,
tough, and commanding.  Another will be very soft, gentle, and
inviting almost to the point of seduction.  The third may then be
neutral--it is steady and unchanging.  
   One individual may have a voice which is warm, empathic, and
almost hypnotic in its resonance. But his face is like a steel mask
while his eyes are clear, shiny, and affirming.   Another individual
has a harsh, argumentative voice but his face is warm like a teddy
bear while his eyes are vulnerable and shy.  
   It the combination which enables these leaders to reach out and
connect even to their enemies on an unconscious level without
compromising their own strength.  By studying how we and others
use our senses both to receive and to project energy,  we are
extending our magical skills.  In the earthzone, the spirit Amagestol's
eyes see oneness and love and his touch is kindness and acceptance. 
But he speaks with the voice of prophecy, of what shall be.  His
voice calls things into being.  It is a dynamic combination and
through working with this spirit, you can learn to approximate his
abilities which are fabulous for resolving conflicts and attaining
harmony.  The study of the human aura and the aura of spirits,
then, compliment each other.
 
Another aspect of the five senses is that the human brain has cells
for each sense which are located within areas of the brain relating to
the other four senses.  When you see, you are also hearing, tasting,
smelling, and touching and so on with each sense.  You can take,
therefore, any sense and get a sensory impression from another
sense to replace it.

    Men enjoy looking at women.  The sight activates the brain to
release endorphins and opiates into the blood stream.  They don't
just see women.  They feel an entire spectrum of emotions at the
same time.  
    This may seem rather mundane but there is a spiritual side to it. 
The Dalai Lama during the Kalachakra initiation invites the five
thousand individuals present to enter his body and pass through his
chakras.  His body serves as a vehicle of initiation for transforming
consciousness.  
   If you place your mind in the Dalai Lama's heart chakra, you
experience an infinite sea of compassion.  It is perfectly natural for
him to say, "As long as suffering remains to sentient beings, I will
remain to serve."  This is the voice of his heart chakra.
   I experience his compassion as a tactile sense--as being immersed
in a sea of water whose quality is love.  Tibetan monks, on the other
hand, practice visualizing the yidam figures of Avalokiteshvara
whom the Dalai Lama represents in incarnation and they practice his
mantra of Om Mani Padma Hum. In this way, they attune
themselves to enlightened compassion mainly through the use of
sight and hearing.  
    The point is that we perceive with our five senses in our
immediate environment.  Through training and concentration, we
can learn to use our senses to see spiritual realms and perceive with
illumination.  Then the ordinary and the spiritual become woven
together.  The entire universe is one energy field and we are all
joined within it.  

The senses also relate to akasha, that is, they each open to akasha. 
Practicing concentration with a sense is a way of refining that sense's
ability to perceive higher vibrations.  On the other hand, one way to
become psychic is to suspend the element related to that sense so
the sense no longer perceives in the physical world.  Freed of the tie
to the immediate environment, the sense then perceives on the inner
planes or through space and time.  
   If you stare at a crystal ball, you tire or wear out the fire in the
eyes so that your eyes then receive impressions from the astral
plane.  If you dance or listen to the right music, your ears lose their
air element and you then hear spirits speaking to you and so forth. 
This is kind of a tricky procedure since it may exhaust your nervous
system and be difficult to restore harmony when you are done.  If
you master the elements, you can replace the energy you use up in
this procedure.  You could also just concentrate into your eyes a
quality of light which is itself clairvoyant and then you accomplish
the same results or better.
   Buddhists like to point out that the five senses are empty, that is,
they have no inherent existence or intrinsic nature which sustains
their being.  Form and emptiness, matter and akasha are
interexchangable.  For Buddhists, the mind has no need to attach
itself to anything--it is pure, luminous openness.
   Undines know this according to their own element.  Water
extends the sense of touch through the entire oceans of the earth.
You can touch what is in front of you and you can touch what is
anywhere else.  They know that you can create love just by feeling. 
If you imagine the watery energy of love, sweet caresses, and
oneness, they come into being through the power of your mind and
heart.  Some undines are magical in that their aura automatically
creates love in and around whatever it touches.
     For the Taoist, the five senses tie into the vitality and organ
energy in the body.  By mastering them, you are gaining the ability
to conserve and refine the chi in your body.  Ideally, the Taoist
would use this saved life force to attain astral if not physical
immortality.
   For the poet, the five senses are gates of perception, doors which
open to infinity.  For the mystic, the senses exist so we can give and
receive circulating love with all other beings throughout the
universe.  For the magician, the five senses represent the power of
spirit to materialize its purposes.  You learn to use and master your
senses on each of the four planes. Then you are able to reach your
highest level of creativity.

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