Is Reading a Psychic Phenomenon?

 In one sense, anything we do with our minds is a psychic phenomenon. True, psychic phenomena stand out as in some way unusual and powerful. The reason I’m posing the question is the news that in America fewer people are reading books.  Moreover, young people are not learning how to read.  I can understand why this is happening, in part, the ease and fun of getting online with a computer screen.

                  But I do think reading affords us the greater psychic challenge. Suppose you chose to read a novel, say by Mark Twain or Virginia Woolf or Dostoyevsky.  You must feel and imagine what you’re reading.  The words are there, but you as reader must bring them to life.   Reading forces you to actively use your mental faculties such as your imagination.  It also favors the use of your critical mind. The screen experience appeals to the lazy part of the soul. Now and then you poke a button or shoot around hitting on lots of buttons. This is not to deny the easy access to useful information or some of the fascinating forays into the world of YouTube.

                  But the screen experience, in its many contexts, is strong on manipulation. Ads of one sort or another are omnipresent in the digital universe. Wanted is your money, your time and your consciousness. And under the new AI establishment, real and pseudo-real can be hard to distinguish.  So, in this increasingly intrusive and manipulative environment, I’ll stick with my own mind to engage with  the wars and wonders, the rants and raptures of the written universe.

                  Reading can be a training of the will, a sharpening of the critical sense, and an exercise of the creative imagination. To hold your attention on the content (of whatever) is a skill that needs to be cultivated. You can’t do it if you have machines buzzing in your face all the time, interrupting you and trying to capture your consciousness. The ability to direct and hold your attention on something of interest and value can make the difference in the quality of everyday life.  I catch myself passing without thought among things worthy of notice, scenes of mirth and pathos, of a child’s spontaneity, of a homeless soul cramped in the doorway of a closed store.  We ‘read’ not only written words. We can read the meaning of somebody’s stooped head or the mood of some protestors against the latest fascist stunt or the mendacity of some greasy politician.  Reading invites us to draw on our intuitive potentials as well as our respect for matters of fact.  

                  And let’s not forget the obvious: that by reading we can mentally engage with some of the great minds or even, if we are curious, with some of the worst characters of history, like Adolf Hitler, in his book, Mein Kampf. But thank goodness, we can an also read and converse with the ideas of Zoroaster, Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, and countless other extraordinary human spirits remote from us in time and space. So, to answer the question: Is reading a psychic phenomenon?  Yes, I would say, if it is done with a free, open, and active imagination. The internet is a wonderful information tool but not at the price of losing the soul that can read the hidden depths of reality.