7.1.07

thoughts on telekinesis

I've had the occasional dream about telekinesis in my youth. It always took a lot more effort and was far less effective than it was for characters in all the fiction I've read. Today though, I was examining my prospects for touching something I'd rather not.. and thought, probably like many other people, wow if I were telekinetic, I wouldn't have to be touching this now, I could just be moving it by thinking about it. But that's very misguided.

Here's an alternative way to think about telekinesis in a much more realistic (I probably shouldn't use this word here, it's bound to confuse, I mean illustrative when I say realistic) sense:

To move something with your mind is a more intimate act than to move it with your hand. Just as moving something with your mouth is much more intimate than moving it with your hand. There's a lot of places you would put your hand that you would never put your mouth. We instinctively protect ourselves from external influences. In fact encompassing something or someone itself is highly intimate. (Think hugs) It is also something that we try to avoid when having to deal with something we would rather not. When you have to pick up a large dirty object, even once you're sold on the idea of picking it up, you will still try to pick it up with the least physical contact possible. Unless you sell yourself entirely on getting down and dirty in order to finish the task more quickly--hence avoiding net contact over time with the object.

Now, we've established that you are dealing with something so repugnant that you'd like to rule out both minimal contact, and maximal contact in exchange for minimal time, let's just use our mind and move it from a distance. Now just because telekinesis doesn't require physical limbs doesn't mean interacting with a physical object will be any different. In a way, you would be wrapping your mind around this repulsive object. You'd want to minimize even (I would think especially) your mental contact. The real point here is that who knows what kind of other senses you might have about the object by embracing it with your mind, just like putting it in your mouth would let you taste and smell it in addition to feeling it the way your hand would.

Seeing as how you would kick something you wouldn't touch, I'm guessing you would touch something every time before you would move it through telekinesis.. assuming such was possible.

Now, couple this with what all of the Rabbis in the Talmud, Zohar, and Chassidut say about our thoughts. Simply thinking about something repulsive actually makes our minds more repulsive, the atmosphere around us more repulsive. When we encompass some thought with our minds, we are thoroughly exposing our minds and all the relevant senses therein to whatever that thought entails. When we think holy thoughts, our minds are permeated with holiness. Likewise the reverse.

Officially, telekinesis does exist as far as the truth of Judaism, I believe R' Aryeh Kaplan mentions it in one of his books on meditation; but how many people do you think approach any mental discipline with this kind of discipline, this awareness of your mind as your most sensitive (while at the same time) most effective sense?

It seems scarily shuttering to a scientific mindframe where anything can be examined theoretically, where there's no harm in thinking about something. The great Torah sources all agree however that our thoughts have a profound and direct impact on the world at large, not just our immediate environs.

I still doubt this, still want to be free in my mind to examine anything, simply because that's my background. But, I know it's true.

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