Brains. What big wonderfully strange lumps of goo.
Brains are, for sure, filled with things like chemicals and electric sparks but there is only consensus among those scientists who study brains that thoughts are located inside of it, and even some of those scientists disagree. I’m not here to debate whether thoughts, consciousness, etc. exist solely as chemical reactions, at least not today. I am here to examine how thoughts would interact with the world of the supernatural if those thoughts are not simply signal transduction mechanisms within that gelatinous gland in our head.
The most common form of “supernatural” communication, which is practiced cross-culturally around the world, is prayer. The concept of thinking thoughts which will bridge the gap between the physical and non-material has been performed throughout human history and in a variety of fashions. Religious individuals, many who believe “cavorting with spirits” to be “evil” perform prayer daily. If we are to conclude that an invisible supernatural realm populated by Goddesses, Gods, Angels, Demons, and Others exists and they are capable of receiving our thoughts, via prayer, then it should be commonly understood that these non-corporeal denizens can indeed read our thoughts.
If we believe in the power of our thoughts and prayers, and we focus those thoughts, in order for them to be heard we are admitting that our brains and their contents can be discerned by those who are not limited by the biology in which we seem to find ourselves contained. So, if there are ethereal beings who can read our minds why do we believe that it’s only a small group of beings that can do so? If an angel to one person is a guardian angel to another is a ghost to another and a spirit to another then it seems as though these non-physical beings have access to our thoughts, memories and all other unspoken ideas.
There are, of course, prayers, thoughts and chants meant to be spoken aloud. There are ancient rituals both publicly performed and sung with enthusiasm that are meant as a way of establishing communication with the unseen world. Yet it is the silent, internal thoughts that we most often find ourselves dealing with.
We have, what seems to be, an internal monologue that is almost always speaking to us. These everyday thoughts are so common and natural we often do not even realize we are using words to speak to ourselves. People sometimes forget how weird it is that we actually speak, to ourselves, inside of our own head.
There is also a non-verbal communication that happens within each of us that seems born from evolved instinct. We’ve learned to call that communication “intuition” or our “gut-feeling” and many times don’t know what is actually triggering that form of self-communication. In any of these cases we can recognize that we communicate, internally, with ourselves more often than not.
Speaking out loud to yourself has even become the trope of someone who has “lost their mind”. That phrase, so casually thrown about is interesting as well since it implies that someone speaking out loud is recognized to have lost the ability to speak internally to themselves, which, as we all are supposed to know, is where the mind resides.
Now that those comments are out, (in the aether), we are faced with the experience of trying to communicate with, what people generally call, “ghosts.”
When people are interested in communicating with unseen “spirits” or “ghosts” there are a wealth of ways to do so. Using recording devices, both audio and video, spirit boards, broken radios, televisions turned sideways, seances, are only a few of the ways that people try and interact with those thought to inhabit the “spirit-world.” In almost all of these practices the participants, (currently in-body), speak out loud.
“Can you tell me your name?” say thousands of ghost hunters.
“How did you die?” chant a multitude of night-vision camera-carrying paranormal researchers.
Sometimes, it seems as though, an answer is received.
Sometimes there is only silence, save for the voice of the investigator asking the question.
In the majority of instances people ask their questions aloud. In speaking they create the waves necessary for sound to be received by a listener…if that listener has ears. As far as we know sound needs a receiver to be heard or recognized. In humans our ears do most of the work, although our nervous system can also pick up the vibrations created by the air pressure changes, due to the sound waves. Yet, as far as we know “ghosts” do not have the physical requirements to hear sound.
It may seem as if I’ve wander far from the point and maybe I have but to me this line of thinking reveals that external sound, words shouted or whispered have very little to do with communicating with unseen non-corporeal entities. The idea, the thought, of the word or sentence seems vastly more important than the speaking of it.
I’ve performed hundreds of experiments wherein I have tried to communicate with an unseen entity and never once spoken aloud. I focus on my questions and internally chant them. I’ve gotten “responses” as often as I do when I speak aloud and sometimes the answers are more precise. Sometime I’ve even run a voice recorder while thinking my question, heard a response in my head, written it down on paper and then checked the recorder and got the same answer! All without speaking. It’s an area of study to be investigated and you’ll probably never see it on TV because it would just be people sitting around in the dark not talking.
Whether or not we speak out loud it seems very much like our heads protect our brains but not our thoughts.