Human Development
Magico-religious powers
Description:
Magical powers may be defined as the ability to cause a desired effect by means which mystify the beholder while being understood by the individual mastering the power; whereas religious powers also mystify the operator, perhaps the medium of some higher being who is presumed to understand the cause. Three main types of power are classified (Mircea Eliade): ecstatic, shamanic powers in which the individual attempts to leave his physical body; yogic powers, internally directed or enstatic, with the attempt to withdraw from the physical world; power of a liberated while living [jivanmukti].According to tantric explanations every being has contact, albeit unconscious, with the pure and subtle energy of the cosmos. Ecstatic or contemplative techniques may be used to abandon identification with the gross matter of mind and body and allow a subtle form to emerge that identifies directly with this subtle energy. The yogin is then no longer subject to the laws of the material world. This is mirrored in the images of dismemberment and subsequent phenomena of the shaman. Both yogin and shaman may use their powers, if they are sufficiently directed by compassion for others, to assist their communities and the world.
The following are two well elaborated systems of superknowledge and magical powers:
(1) the Buddhist [Abhidharma Pitaka] classifies six superknowledges - magical powers or [riddhi] deriving from concentration of the will and making possible thought transference, teleportation and the ability to see things from a distance; clairaudience; telepathy; memory of past lives; liberation, the cessation of mental defilement.
(2) The sutras of Patanjali indicate magical powers or [siddhis] achieved through yogic practices and the withdrawal of subtle energy from the gross physical world. They may be classed as (a) Extrasensory perception and mental powers, including the first five Buddhist superknowledges, plus heightened senses, knowledge of the cosmos, of the internal workings of the body and of the meaning of language and animal sounds. (b) Physical powers including powers of the body (to shrink to the microworld, expand to the macroworld, levitate, increase in weight, travel through the universe, control one's physiology and others' thoughts and actions; plus ability to transmit psychic energy, generate inner bliss, raise the dead, create mass illusions). (c) Wisdom and transcendent powers, including knowledge of reality, the absolute, subtle and causal realms, law, oneness, bliss, and so on. (d) Ecstasy arising from union with the divine.