By Peter Perkins

Part One

I felt this article come to me when Liz sent me a comment about one of my other articles.

I thank you for your response as it helped me find another article within me that was waiting to be written.

There are many times I feel like I am the semi-blind in regards to the metaphysical. As many of the things I have experienced or learned have been intuitive or come from within. As I was growing up I didn’t have anyone to teach me about spirituality and metaphysics at all. While I did attend church, that was not a place very conductive to asking questions.

There are many people infinitely more well read in the metaphysical than me. Though I am fortunate to have friends share with me their books, and in so doing I find similar experiences to my own.  It is a nice verification for me, to see other people have experienced some of the same things I myself have.

It is not like in the distant past where a shaman would come along and help explain or interpret the things I was experiencing. In ancient times these shamans were respected and acknowledged within their tribes and within their cultures. Often revered as being able to perceive and interact with the spirit world.

I am not sure exactly when this changed around. Indeed in some parts of the world shamans or people very like them have not lost the ability to perceive clearly these other aspects of reality. They have also not lost their place of respect.

Somewhere along the lines though, things changed. Progress or the rise of science, or perhaps even the rise of the major religions might have been responsible, but at some point those who could see became persecuted. It became dangerous to speak about such things as communication with spirits, or learning herbal wisdom from ancestors or gods and goddesses of nature. Any number of people who could see spiritually became hunted sometimes outright killed. Many who had the gift to see the spiritual hid their abilities for fear of what would happen if people found out.

We truly did enter a dark age; a dark age not only of education, but of spirituality.
People were taught not to trust themselves but to trust in the church; to trust in their local lord. Indeed personal responsibility and enlightenment were replaced somehow with obedience, conformity and dogma. People began to close their eyes to the spiritual world.

It wasn’t this way everywhere in the world, there were still places where shamans and seers and visionaries and those who taught these ways to others could still be found. Still for a great many people this was an age where being blind to your own experiences and blindly accepting leaders either nobles, royals or religious leaders replaced peoples natural tendency to trust in themselves and their own senses and experiences.

The years rolled by and blindness persisted because no one knew that they were blind. The people who could see were often regarded as primitives, or out of touch with the world, when these people were indeed very in touch with the world and with themselves.

The ways of accepting religion and leaders swept the world further and more people who had the ability to see spiritually fell under persecution. It became a time to remain secret about such things and so, sadly even as the age of scientific enlightenment swept the world. Spirituality dimmed. Science sought to explain everything, religion was being replaced and spirituality was thought of as largely unnecessary to the educated man or woman.

Thankfully the sparks of spiritual enlightenment didn’t fade away completely; leaving us in the darkness, blind to our own truths and the universe around us even as science and technology rose to distract us. Indeed how could one claim to be blind when science showed us new wonders with every passing year? It was full steam ahead for science and religion was being replaced as science pressed onward sweeping the world the way religion had before it.

Leading to this age we are all in. Science has pushed so far that they have discovered things known by shamans, Tibetan monks, visionaries and seers for years. We are not alone, nor have we ever been alone. There are other universes, other dimensions, the world about us is an illusion and god or a creative force must indeed exist.

Even as scientists are starting to use science to prove things known and never lost to many people, it is amazing that many of these discoveries are not better published and available to people through the media. While it is true that books are being released on many new aspects of quantum physics it is rare to see these things spoken about on prime time television spots.

It seems many like sitting in the darkness of spiritual blindness. After all they can’t be blind, can they? Not when they get to vote on American Idol, they just can’t be blind, they get to vote people off the island! How can we possibly be blind, we receive news from around the world send pictures and email in a few seconds and hear all about the wars every night.

I am speaking of a blindness of spirituality. If you will, a willful closing of the third eye.

Yet there are people who are starting to see again and unlike ages past, while they may still be ridiculed or persecuted the age of killing people over such things, as having spiritual visions and seeing spirits is very rare.

People are starting to open that third eye again to perceive the truth behind reality. It is a gift, that even though many turned their back on their own spirituality, their own divinity; that our spirits, our higher selves and guides have never turned their back on us. The truth has always been there, patiently waiting for us to set the distractions aside and look within.

I feel very much like I am semi-blind. I am a product of modern America.
I like fast food on demand; I can be distracted by the latest shiny gadget to come along. Yet somewhere along the line I started setting the distractions aside.

When I was younger I could see more clearly, and seeing ghosts was something not uncommon for me. I blinded myself to such things but time and again my third eye would open and give me peeks beyond the three dimensional world we all find ourselves in.

I am starting to see again and though my spiritual vision is starting to clear up it is hard to explain some of my experiences. Indeed describing this new sense, this ability to perceive spirits, and energy is very much like feeling vibrations.

It is to me, a new sense, something that is hard to describe to others. In some of my experiences I have seen worlds where everything is the same bright white glow and yet it is very easy for me to make out objects and people within, yet to the normal vision of sight in our world it would be like seeing nothing but pure white. So it is that this new sense, this new ability to perceive, can distinguish vibration and energy.

How does one describe a new sense to those who don’t perceive with that sense?

I liken it to the following.  Imagine if you will the whole world was blind. Suddenly sporadically and briefly you could see. Sometimes fleeting, sometimes lasting longer. You want to tell other people what you are experiencing, what you are seeing. Yet you have to describe it in words they would understand. With everyone being blind, you can’t describe things as colors, and other things which are strictly the provision of sight. You have to explain these wonders with words that people who can hear, smell, taste, and touch can comprehend. Then they will understand.

It is sometimes frustrating as you want to truly share what you are experiencing, in the words that you are now defining for yourself. Sometimes when enough people say they can’t understand what you’re describing, you wonder if these brief bouts of vision are real.

If they are real, how come no one else can understand what I am experiencing, how come no one else can see?

I was lucky to run into other people who could see. I was lucky in finding books and videos where people brave enough to speak out, about their own spiritual experiences; their own ability to perceive with this new sense was shared with others.

Thankfully I am not the only one who is lucky, for we are all living in a day and age, where we can go out and find others who can perceive the things we are experiencing. Even if you have never remembered any of your own experiences of spirituality, it is a great boon to be able to read about others experiences and perhaps sparks from those writings, and sharing will ignite the fire of our own sense and light the way for us to see.

So here I am, the semi-blind, getting glimpses of the spiritual. Unlike the shamans of the past my spiritual eyes are not wide open. I am still coming to grips with my own experiences and trying to learn what lessons I can from them.

Yet I have been asked, what do I see when I talk about, spirits, guides, angels and other non-physical entities. I will do my best to answer that but please realize I am trying to describe a new sense using words that may be better suited for other senses.

Next week: Peter continues with Part Two of ‘The Semi-Blind Leading the Blind’ – where he describes how he perceives non-physical entities.

5 Responses to “The Semi-Blind Leading the Blind, Part One”