Something extraordinary happened in 2020. One of the leading research organizations in the area of higher levels of consciousness began a new experiment involving seekers. But, when we measured the people who came into the experiment, nearly half of them were ALREADY in higher levels of consciousness – many just didn’t know it! The education they provided as part of the experiment made these people realize it. Most were absolutely stunned!

Many of these individuals had been long term seekers. They had practiced many different techniques, often off and on for years. At some point, they had transitioned — but not noticed.

Now, you might be asking yourself how that’s possible! Among researchers, it’s actually a well known phenomenon. Many research subjects over the years have told scientists that it took them a while before they realized that they’d transitioned. And, scientists had also seen it in their experiments. They talk about there being many times where their data very clearly told them that someone had transitioned, and other Finders around the person noticed it, but the person him or herself did not seem to.

Most people are looking for some sort of powerful or overwhelming transition to higher levels of consciousness. Some kind of night and day experience. The reason for this is that it’s what’s often written and spoken about by spiritual teachers, authors, and other influencers.

But, research in this area shows that these types of experiences are in the minority. Here’s the hitch, though. The people who have them are more likely to shift their lives and become teachers, authors, and so on. So the marketplace of ideas is biased towards their type of transition experience, even though it’s actually in the minority.

Most people who are trying to transition to higher levels of consciousness using things like meditation or prayer have quite gentle transitions. So gentle, that they can be missed. What often happens is that these practices raise the people’s wellbeing over time, prior to their transition. By the time the transition comes there isn’t enough of shift for them to notice.

That may sound incredible, but even world renowned experts and famous teachers and authors related this from their own experience. One long time practitioner and teacher, someone responsible for the transition of over a thousand other people, has admitted that he didn’t notice his own transition at first. One day a couple of weeks after he assumes it happened, he was standing in the street talking to someone else about what to be on the lookout for regarding higher levels of consciousness, and as he described each item he realized that he was actually experiencing it! That’s how this highly recognized and experienced expert with decades of background in this came to realize his own transition!

People can also be from a specific tradition that gives them a set of markers to look for in their own experience. Sometimes, those markers are based on just one person’s experience. In those circumstances few if any in their system ever reach the same “level” or “type” of higher levels of consciousness that the original person did. In other words, they don’t have the same experience.

Of course, that’s exactly what one would expect. Everyone has a different nervous system. The odds of having the exact same experience in the exact same way as another person is incredibly unlikely.

Historically this situation produced a wide range of sects within religious and spiritual traditions that focus on higher levels of consciousness, with corresponding disputes about what is “right” that often carry on to this day.

These traditions can also bring other issues related to this. The reality that most academic scholars acknowledge is that it is virtually impossible to know what someone was referring to in their lived experience hundreds or thousands of years ago. The languages are mostly dead or substantially changed, the contextual meaning from the culture of their day inaccessible, and so on.

Scholars often demonstrate that we often misinterpret American texts that are written in English from just 100 or so years ago. Those are materials that are written in our language, from an older part of our own culture and yet we can barely grasp their meaning. The culture they were written in is, in reality, long gone and unless someone does a Ph.D. to try to go back and gain an understanding of it, it’s nearly hopeless.

So, it’s not surprising that this is, even more, the case involving religious and spiritual texts talking about the phenomenology of higher levels of consciousness, and what someone should be on the lookout for. Nonetheless, what often happens is that someone falls into this or that sect or school of ideas, and spends their time simply looking in the wrong direction. The result is that they typically fail to realize when they have actually transitioned.

Researchers have seen this enough over the years to realize that it is a common occurrence, but what they didn’t realize until 2020 was the wider implications. They’re now wondering just how many people in the so-called “seeker” community are actually Finders and don’t know it. And, they suspect that it is a lot more people than have ever been thought possible before. One leading research center has started a new research project to try to find out.

Part of that involves a simple survey people can take, as well as educational materials that help individuals to better reflect on their inner experience and figure it out for themselves. The survey is available here. If you’ve got some meditation or related experience under your belt, you should check it out and see what it says about where you’re at. The reality is that you might already be a Finder, and not know it.

One thing this type of material seems to do is help people lift the veil and see it. There’s a simple reason for that, and it’s covered in Myth #3.