What if the sense of smell did not exist? After all, no one can hear, touch, or see the aroma of new ground coffee beans, or the misty balm of jasmine blooms. Without the sense of smell we would never know that scents existed. In fact, were there rumors of such things, we would dismiss them as myths.

But what if a few people had the sense of smell? Many would label them liars or lunatics. And those who believed them would be scorned as simpletons.

This is the way it is with the things of the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us, “The natural man,” the person who believes only what may be experienced with the five external senses, “cannot discern them. They are foolishness to him, because they can only be spiritually discerned.”

After completing her monumental analysis of the world’s great mystics, the British psychologist and philosopher…