The Sixth Sense: Its Cultivation and Use — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Sense Rooted in Evolution

Brent’s argumentative strategy is to naturalize the mystical by rooting it in evolutionary theory. He writes that the five bodily senses originally were 'one sense—the sense of touch,' and that sight is 'extraordinarily sensitized touch' enabling distant objects to 'come bowing to our feet.' Hearing, smell, and the rest are specializations of this single tactile origin. The Mystic Sense, he contends, follows the same pattern: it is a specialized form of perception that has evolved to apprehend moral and spiritual realities. This move allows Brent to claim that cultivating the sixth sense is not esoteric but a continuation of natural development. He avoids supernatural explanations, instead presenting the Mystic Sense as the faculty that makes human activities 'human.' The reader is invited to see inner perception as a biological inheritance that requires deliberate exercise.

Critique of Sensationalist Culture

Brent is sharply critical of contemporary literature and journalism, which he believes corrupt the Mystic Sense. He argues that 'the psychologically false story' and 'hectic' imaginative writing leave 'unhealthy blotches' on the mind. His example is pointed: Santa Claus, harmless as a 'Spirit of Christmas,' becomes dangerous when treated as a literal 'chimney god' to whom prayers are offered. He recounts a tragic anecdote of a child dying in a fire while petitioning for a toy—a 'burnt sacrifice to Santa Claus.' Brent also takes aim at William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, faulting it for focusing on abnormal cases while ignoring 'the great stretches of healthy religious experience.' He compares this to a physiologist studying only people with mismatched eye colors. The critique reveals Brent’s preference for the normative over the sensational, and his concern that the Mystic Sense be fed a steady diet of sound, proportioned material.

Character as Habitual Vision

For Brent, good character is not mere conformity to moral codes but the result of the Mystic Sense 'habit visioning' and the will 'claiming the excellent.' He distinguishes character from morality: character is dynamic, always seeking 'a more excellent way' and launching into 'noble freedom' that selects the option farthest from selfish considerations. The Mystic Sense does not disregard conventional ethics but uses them as a foundation, then 'individualizing it for personal use' and submitting improvements to social conscience. Brent likens this process to natural selection in the moral sphere—a slow, organic refinement rather than a tribunal’s decree. This section shows his emphasis on active, aspirational virtue over passive rule-following. The language of vision and claim underscores his belief that perception precedes action: one must first see the excellent before one can will it.

Guarding the Inner Faculty

Brent concludes his argument with practical advice: every person who respects their mind must 'guard his Mystic Sense from defilement' and provide it opportunity for development. He draws a direct analogy between mental and physical diet: 'reading anything that comes to hand' produces the same result as 'eating anything that comes to hand.' Education, he insists, should stress proportion and subject matter not only in youth but throughout life. The Mystic Sense requires 'the same safeguards and stimulus that we afford our physical senses.' This closing section reinforces the book’s core metaphor—the sixth sense as a faculty that can be strengthened or damaged by what it consumes. Brent’s tone is urgent but measured, urging readers to be as deliberate about their inner perceptions as they are about their physical health. The emphasis on discipline and discernment ties together the evolutionary, cultural, and moral threads of his argument.

Brent’s The Sixth Sense is best approached as a work of moral psychology rather than mysticism. Readers should attend to how he uses evolutionary language to legitimize spiritual perception, and how his critiques of popular culture and academic psychology reveal his commitment to the normal over the abnormal. The book rewards those who read it as a series of linked essays, each testing the same central idea against a different domain of life.

I kept thinking about how Brent says the mystic sense needs guarding, like something fragile but sturdy at once. It reminded me of Luther’s quiet insistence on plain, grounded faith—no spectacle, just daily trust. That old catechism feels similarly patient, almost like a hand on your shoulder. A gentle companion for the same inward work. Martin Luther's Large Catechism, translated by Bente and Dau — Context and Discussion lingers the same way.