ONE OF my favorite comic book characters in my youth was Superman, a product of the fertile imagination of two Americans, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Superman first appeared in comics form in Detective Comics (DC Comics) in 1938.

What was the enduring appeal of Superman in the public’s mind? Why didn’t he fade away like the other heroes of yesteryears, such as the Phantom, or Mandrake the Magician, or Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon?

I believe that one reason for Superman’s enduring appeal is the sneaking suspicion in every person’s mind that in every bungling and weak earth man, like Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, lies a strong hidden persona from another world that is strong, just and invincible. We only need to know the key to transform us into the super heroes we truly are.

I have always believed, since I was very young, that there are tremendous powers hidden in every man or woman’s constitution.

Why such powers remain hidden for most of humanity, I do not know. What enabled these extraordinary people to tap into those hidden powers? Why can they do things that most people cannot do? What makes them different from all of us?

Several extraordinary people with superhuman powers come to mind whenever I think of these untapped powers. For example, there was this English medium named Daniel Douglas Home, who demonstrated his power to levitate or float on earth. He has never been proven to be a fake.

Neither was the Catholic Saint Joseph of Cupertino, who would levitate whenever he would pray or meditate. His fellow priests used to tie his legs whenever he prayed so he wouldn’t float too high in the sky.

There was the Brazilian psychic named Thomaz who could make metal cups, spoons, forks, knives and water jugs on the table bend or twist or get deformed, merely by looking at them from a distance of about five feet.

The famous Israeli psychic, Uri Geller, had to hold or touch the spoons before he could bend them, which made some researchers suspect he was merely engaging in trickery.

Extraordinary things

But I have seen Geller do other extraordinary things, like germinating radish seeds placed in his palm without moving his hand or touching them with his other hand. I saw him do this together with a thousand other people during a conference in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1986.

There are people who can see far into the future, even centuries hence, like Nostradamus of France who lived in the 15th century. Some of his famous predictions included the two World Wars and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

I have seen many Filipino psychic surgeons open up a patient’s body with their bare hands, take out tissues or clots and close the incision without any trace at all. I have medical laboratory proof of at least four cases of these psychic surgeries. The others, I cannot tell if they were genuine or not.

In South Korea I saw a 75-year-old female shaman stand barefoot on two upright sharp bolos while in a trance. While standing on these two blades without getting hurt or wounded, she would point randomly at people in the audience and make predictions or diagnoses of their health condition.

There are mediums, like James Van Praagh and others, who can see and talk to the dead relatives and friends of people in the audience and who confirm the messages to be true. How can he see and talk to the dead? What part of his brain is at work here?

Are there secret areas or parts of our brain which only a few can tap, which give them such extraordinary powers? Or can this be done by anybody, given the right technique or training? I believe it is possible for every human being to tap hidden areas of the brain and make him or her a superman or superwoman.

I have been told that the characters in Marvel Comics, later made into the “X-Men” movies, were based on real living individuals with various superhuman powers. Of course, in the movies, such powers are exaggerated for dramatic effect.

Perhaps people with such powers represent the next stage of human evolution, which I have discussed in a previous article. The fact that more people all over the world are beginning to manifest such powers somehow shows this theory may not be far-fetched.
The next ESP seminar will be on June 18-19 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Rm. 308 Prince Plaza I, Legaspi St., Greenbelt, Makati City. For more details, call 8107245, 0998-9886292.