Halloween, which falls today, October 31, is all things to all men. Celebrated as a time when the veil between the spiritual and the earthly realms can be lifted.

It is enacted in many parts of the Western world, often as a jokey event, most commonly in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Ireland.

The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe’en, is shortened from All-Hallows-Eve, as it is the evening before “All Hallows’ Day” (also known as “All Saints’ Day”).

In some places, Halloween is more often associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical and when magic is most potent.

It coincides with the Celtic festival of Samhain when the veil between the spiritual and the earthly realms could be lifted. Once it was a floating festival with the actual date depending on astronomical variations. It’s said to be a good time for facing up to whatever you are afraid of.

We sometimes republish Andrew Cohen’s weekly email quotes here, especially when they strike a particular chord. This week’s certainly does. It develops Andrew’s ideas of “evolutionary enlightenment”, the notion that the whole of the manifest world is a straining for greater consciousness on the part of the unmanifest.

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Reaching for the Unattainable
The traditional, premodern notion of enlightenment was all about coming to an end, a final state of perfection or a complete attainment. But when we redefine enlightenment in an evolutionary context, there is no longer an end–development is constant. Of course, the unmanifest ground of all being, which is the foundation of traditional enlightenment, is inherently full and perfect as it is and will never change or develop. But in evolutionary enlightenment, we awaken not only to that unmanifest ground but also to the evolutionary impulse that is driving the manifest, evolving universe. And that impulse is only interested in higher and higher development. That is its nature. So if our goal is to become a living expression of that impulse, which is what evolutionary enlightenment is all about, we as evolving individuals would have to become very interested in the notion of perpetual development, and let go of any emotional or philosophical investment in the idea of attaining perfection any time soon.

As evolving human beings, we are inherently imperfect and we’re not capable of reaching perfection, because we are in a constant state of development. But the path to evolutionary enlightenment is paradoxical, because I have found that the most appropriate posture for consistent higher development is one of ceaselessly reaching for perfection while knowing full well that we’ll never be able to achieve it. Only reaching toward that which is absolute–ever striving to attain the unattainable–puts the self in a position to consistently evolve. And it’s a lot to ask of any human being, because our nature is to seek comfort, security, and rest. But when we reach that point in our own spiritual journey where our attention is no longer primarily focused on our own comfort and security or even on our own enlightenment, but has become dedicated to the evolution of consciousness itself, we will find the courage to bear the creative tension of ceaselessly extending ourselves toward the unattainable.

Andrew Cohen

Spiritual healing has rarely received the attention it deserves from the medical profession. It’s mostly regarded as something akin to witchcraft by learned doctors of the chemical healing we apply to today’s diseases. Famous healers like Harry Edwards (pictured left) have been dismissed by most medical practitioners.

However, that tide is turning and turning fast. Scientists in the U.S. and UK have begun to put together all the evidence that’s out there and compiled it into a very persuasive dossier.

One of the earliest experiments was on the flipside of healing: the curse. In the 1960s, American scientists subjected some mould to a vindictive curse. Out of 194 mould cultures subjected to the curse, 151 exhibited retarded growth.

The cardiologist Dr Randolph Byrd at San Francisco General Hospital discovered that heart patients who are prayed for by Christian groups needed less intervention and suffered fewer complications.

Professor Walach of Northampton University in England recently set up a massive analysis of all the evidence and data and arrived at the conclusion that spiritual healing really does work. Many other workers in the field are supporting him.

Dean Radin, a parapsychologist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California has found compelling evidence that positive healing has a noticeable impact on another’s mind and body. The results of his tests on cancer pathients were startling. At the precise moment a partner transmitted the healing thoughts, remarkable changes occurred in the mind and body of the ailing person.

The UK National Health Service employs spiritual healers to comfort and help seriously ill and dying patients. One of them, Ruth Kaye, says : “Patients who use things like spiritual healing often use fewer drugs and are less reliant on antidepressants or sleeping tablets. In short, they are less of a drain on an over-stretched NHS.”

One of her patentis said : “Ruth has a special gift. I simply closed my eyes when she was healing me and I saw loads of bright lights. I felt as if I was having my battery recharged.”

The wealth of anecdotal, as well as experimental, evidence shows that some individuals do have the gift of spiritual healing.

In a new study to examine what he calls “extended mind”, Dr Rupert Sheldrake states that people often know who is calling when the telephone rings :

“By far the most common apparent kind of telepathy in the modern world occurs in connection with telephone calls — when you think of someone for no apparent reason and then they ring and you say, ‘That’s funny I was just thinking about you.’ Is it a mass delusion or is something really happening?”

Extended mind is a phrase used often by Sheldrake, the Cambridge biologist, to explain all kinds of paranormal phenomena. He believes that this mind stretches out beyond us and accounts for the way some of us know when another person is looking at us.

Try watching people on the street as they walk past from a high window. The number who suddenly look up directly at you shows that they “know” they are being “pinged” by you. The only way it could happen is if there is a continuity of “mindstuff” between the two people.

Sheldrake conducts many experiments in this field, with remarkable results. His book, The Sense of Being Stared At, is a classic of the genre. As an accredited scientist, his experiments are always well designed and hard to fault.

His controversial research paper was presented at the British Association’s Festival of Science in Norwich, England.