“So can you help me open my third eye?”

In my ten years or so of facilitating esoteric courses, this is one of the things that comes up the most in conversations with beginners on the Path, right up there with “I need a love potion ASAP, can you whip me up some of that mojo?” I guess we have “Charmed” and its ilk to thank for the MTV generation becoming so enamored with psychic abilities and powers beyond those of mortal men. Now there’s nothing wrong with being just your garden variety Homo sapiens sapiens, mind you. It’s just that everything on TV and in the movies point to Homo sapiens superior as having a better chance in all aspects of life. And we all know that, while the boob tube and the silver screen tend to exaggerate things to high heavens, these mediums have always been excellent barometers of the public pulse, and that pulse is saying that most people have this need to feel special in some way and to have an advantage over their fellow men.

Now a lot of people get interested in the occult and the paranormal and end up enrolling in esoteric courses hoping to develop extrasensory abilities. And clairvoyance happens to be one of the most popular choices available from the smorgasboard of psychic powers. But it’s not as simple as going to your neighborhood shopping mall, picking out a fancy pair of sunglasses, putting them on and getting instant etheric vision.

Have you ever seen the movie “At First Sight”? Val Kilmer’s blind character is given a chance to regain his eyesight via surgery after losing it during his early childhood. Just because his eyes could now see, it didn’t mean that his brain could automatically make sense of what he was seeing. So he had to learn to see, and he found the whole experience to be deeply disturbing.

A friend of mine went through a similar ordeal. She badgered my late teacher, an incredibly gifted psychic and healer, into opening her third eye via the process of shaktipat, despite his admonitions that the process could become traumatic for her. Seeing his warnings fall on deaf ears, and realizing that the only way she would see his point is if she experienced it for herself, he went ahead and administered the shaktipat, but cautioned her to be careful for the next few weeks as she grew accustomed to her new ability.

The adjustment period was expected to be rough, but nothing like the hell of a learning curve she went through trying to get used to her newly acquired clairvoyance. For one thing, it proved to be totally uncontrollable, turning itself on and off at unpredictable times. Once, she was giving a seminar on hatha yoga, when suddenly, everyone turned into blobs of light right before her eyes. Imagine trying to maintain eye contact with your students when that happens. Another time, as she was crossing the street, her etheric vision switched on without warning and she was suddenly confronted with huge spheres of light zooming towards her. Fortunately, I was able to pull her across safely before she merged with a gigantic yellow globe that was actually a massive eighteen-wheeler. It’s been five years since these incidents, but she’s still struggling everyday to turn her “curse” into a “gift”.

Now this post is not meant to be an argument against the development of psychic abilities. It is only intended to inform the seeker on the Path that the pursuit of paranormal powers is fraught with dangers that are usually glossed over in Hollywood productions that choose, instead, to focus on the glitz and glamour of it all. The glamour is the illusion, while the danger is the painful reality. Tread wisely, fellow seeker.