Adaequatio rei et intellectus.

"The intellect (of the knower) must be adequate to the thing (known)."  I recently learned this Medieval maxim from an article by William Braud, Ph.D. in the Parapsychological Association Bulletin (Winter 2011), and he was referencing E.F. Schumacher’s ideas from “A Guide for the Perplexed” (1978).

Braud writes, “…one’s inner eye [must] be trained and prepared to permit it to see clearly and well in the realm of psi experiences and events.”  He goes on to say that having psi experiences, and doing spiritual and meditative practices increase one’s adaequatio (adequacy, preparedness) for having more psi experiences.

I would like to emphasize that the positive practices Braud mentions are causing neurological changes as well as psychological and spiritual ones.  And I’d like to add that the less gentle path of neurological injury also may increase one’s adaequatio for having psi experiences.

So many psychics and medical intuitives had their expanded capacities develop *after* neurological trauma -- Edgar Cayce, George Anderson, Peter Hurkos, Laura Alden Kamm. How does that work, one wonders?

One theory is that psychic ability is natural and universal, but cultural conditioning makes it wither.  As Deepak Chopra says, “So if you don't have a concept or a notion or an idea that something exists, then your nervous system won't even take it in (lecture, May 1991).”  Neurological trauma might damage the neural substrate that is inhibiting psi, thus liberating psi.

It may be that damage to the brain forces the brain to develop work-arounds that are more psi-friendly, analogous to how people who lose their sight develop their other senses further than before.  It may be that neurological insult precipitates development of particular parts of the brain, such as, say, the pineal gland or the temporal pole, or causes a shift to more delta wave production.

I’m tending to think of the brain, and, indeed, the whole body, as a transceiver for identity, memory, and information that exists non-locally.  So, enhancing – or breaking and repairing – the transceiver may allow you to tranceive more.  Your AM transistor radio now picks up Radio Free Europe!