Systems of new age and/or old wisdom often include exercises designed to enhance one’s imagination, “see” things at a distance and determine diseases and other problems others may be suffering.

These experiments always represent a practical application of the day’s lesson inasmuch as true understanding and mastery require more than reading about a technique or method.

I’ve seen a lot of these experiments over the years and have enjoyed both the successes and failures of following the recipes. However, I balked at one of them, one in a book I read in junior high school with a title I no longer remember. I started out several times and always stopped, not because I thought it wouldn’t work, but because I thought it would. I’ve never had the courage to go back to it.

Basically, you’re supposed to sit in a chair in a room at one end of your house, calm yourself, and then get up and walk to the other end of your house, turn around, and go back to the chair.

Next, you imagine doing that, thinking of everything–doors, shelves, furniture–you see en route. Pretend to walk from one end of the house to the other and return to the chair.

Then do it physically. Then do it in your imagination. If you do this long enough, you will supposedly return to the chair and find yourself already sitting there.

It’s a good experiment, I think, but I never could face the possibility that it might work. Something just bothered me about that. What about you? Have you seen this experiment? If so, have you tried it.

I’ll be curious to hear your results.

—Malcolm