The Ten Senses: How to Engage the Spirit Realm

Years ago I watched a movie called The Sixth Sense. Bruce Willis. A boy who could see dead people. The film sold the idea that maybe there is one extra sense beyond the five we already know. I want to tell you something better. There are not six senses. There are ten. God gave us five physical senses for life in 3D land, and five spiritual senses for life behind the veil. If you only use five, you will live a much smaller life than the one God designed for you.

When I was a little boy I used to wake up at night and see demons with my physical eyes. It terrified me. I would run into my mother's room and ask her to pray, and she would pray in the name of Jesus, and they would go. That is one of the reasons I have known since childhood that the name of Jesus carries authority in the spirit realm. The spirit realm is not make-believe. The Bible says we wrestle "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12). If the warfare is happening in a realm we cannot touch with our hands, God had to give us a way to engage it.

I have heard Christians say, "Leave that alone. The spirit realm is for the occult. We just need to pray." Stop and think about what you just said. Prayer is contact with a Spirit. You are talking to a God you cannot see. Worship is the same. Jesus said in John 4:24, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Christianity is the most spiritual thing on the planet. The carnal version of it we have settled for is not what God designed.

God built spiritual warfare into our assignment. He blessed us with "every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 1:3). The works of God begin in the spirit and end in the natural. The works of the wicked one do the same thing. If we are going to destroy the works of the wicked one, we have to be able to engage where those works begin.

The Bible says you are spirit, soul, and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Your body lives in 3D land. Your soul is the conscious mind, will, and emotions. Your spirit is on the other side of the veil and is your point of union with God. Hebrews 4:12 adds another word: the heart. The heart is the subconscious, the lowest part of the soul, where it overlaps with the spirit. Proverbs 23:7 says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Your heart is where your real belief system lives.

Ecclesiastes 12:6 gives a picture of how this is meant to work. There is a fountain (God), a well (the Holy Spirit), a wheel (your spirit), a pitcher (your heart), and a golden bowl (your soul). The fountain pours into the well, the wheel draws living water through the well, the pitcher fills, and the pitcher pours into the bowl. That is how the influence of God moves from His realm into your mind, your emotions, and your life. If your heart is full of muck, the water cannot get through. You can have access to the fountain and still be dry, because the bucket is full of something else.

Hebrews 5:14 says strong meat belongs to those who, "by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Which senses? Spiritual ones. Here they are.

Spiritual touch. In Zechariah 3, Joshua the high priest is in heaven receiving a change of clothing. You cannot wear clothes that do not touch you. Angels can touch people (Daniel 9:21), hold swords (Numbers 22:23), and write in books (Malachi 3:16). Human spirits have a sense of touch too.

Spiritual hearing. Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 13:15 that the multitude's "ears are dull of hearing." They had just listened to Him preach for hours. So what was He talking about? Their spirit ears.

Spiritual sight. Same passage, same idea. "Their eyes they have closed." They saw Him with their physical eyes and still did not see Him. The spirit has eyes of its own.

Spiritual taste. Hebrews 6:5 talks about those who "have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come." Psalm 34:8 says, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good." When you sit under a real word from heaven, you walk away full. That is not metaphor. Your spirit eats.

Spiritual smell. Philippians 4:18 talks about a financial gift from the Philippian church and calls it "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God." They did not spray perfume on the coins. There was a spiritual aroma in heaven. I have been in worship services where my natural nose actually picked up the scent of incense that no one in the room was burning, and I knew the angels had brought it.

You start by getting your heart clean. The whole reason most believers cannot perceive the spirit realm is that the pitcher is too dirty to pass living water. Repent of what God wants out of there. Let Him write on the fleshy tables of your heart. Then begin to identify with your spirit, the part of you that already lives in the realm of God, and let the Holy Spirit teach you to discern.

This is not occult. Astral projection sends the soul out of the body. That is the counterfeit. The genuine is your spirit, joined to the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:17), engaging the spirit realm while your soul stays anchored in the body. As your senses come online, the enemy can no longer hide his work from you, and the kingdom of God becomes something you do not just believe in. You start to walk in it.