I'm struck by how casually most folks talk about - for lack of a better
word, let us say - paranormal experiences. I was reading another blog yesterday
concerning Alzheimer's Disease, and the lady who was detailing her experiences
with a family member who had been afflicted with and eventually died from the
disease mentioned ghostly experiences from her childhood. In no way was this the
overall point she was making, merely a discussion of certain childhood memories
that were taken for granted.
Of course as long time readers of my blog know, I was raised in a
Pentecostal form of Christianity, where the Holy Ghost was routinely "poured
out" upon eager seekers, manifesting itself in the forms of speaking in tongues,
interpretation of those tongues, "dancing in the spirit," visions, prophetic
dreams, and a very vivid demonology and angelology. Much of it I consider now as
absolutely absurd. Then there were those uncanny things that are a bit more
striking and if pressed for a naturalistic explanation I can only invoke the
catchall of coincidence.
When I was a youngster one of my hobbies (besides reading) was magic. Thus,
Houdini became a hero of mine, especially after I saw Tony Curtis' portrayal of
him in that eponymous movie. I had I don't know how many books about the life of
Houdini, and of course the last portion of his life was devoted to exposure of fraud in Spiritualism. I guess he was the
Randi of his day, and in fact James Randi was inspired by him in his own career,
both as magician and skeptic.
Well, from my study of Houdini and my sympathetic background to the
religion of Spiritualism because of my own religious worldview, I was led to
read more about the scientific study of Spiritualism. Interesting study,
although its popularity waned as the twentieth century wore on and is quite in
ill favor among the scientific-minded people of this day.
Yet still the common man and woman, I've noticed, have tons of lore about
ghostly tales and paranormal experiences. What's more troubling to me is that I
have had more than a few of these experiences in my life. That creates a bit of
unrest within me because I slowly moved in my twenties from a supernatural world
view to a naturalistic one. I tend to view my personal experience and those
others have shared with me in the light of certain psychological ideas.
The problem with all this anecdotal "evidence" is that it isn't
scientifically verifiable. I was once very close to a lady who suffered from
schizophrenia. I saw witnessed her having hallucinations, witnessed her occasional almost total
inability to distinguish between reality from unreality. Her world was
occasionally filled with people and things that weren't "out there" - or least
if they were I couldn't hear and see them.
My care for my father and his stroke-damaged brain was a study in
hallucination and distorted reality in itself. Yet never did he waver from his
conviction that the strange world he had entered was not real and that the
things he saw, heard and experience were real.
Still, despite the problems with anecdotal "evidence," when one experiences
these kinds of things first hand, they seem very compelling, especially when one
has no known pathological brain conditions. And if one has a religious worldview
that allows for the supernatural, experiences such as these don't cause a
terrible conflict with reality as represented in the modern scientific worldview
because science studies the natural and can thus neither confirm nor deny the
supernatural.
Every reasonable person knows our senses can mislead us sometimes and
for a variety of reasons. And memories are notoriously unreliable and subject to
revision. For instance, I saw my first "ghost" when I was 8 years old and it was
pointed out to me (curiously enough) by my six-years-older brother. All these
years later I'm not certain if I saw what I "remember" seeing: a formless but
clearly distinct faint green mist hovering over the floor gas heat unit. This
occurred in a darkened room in the early morning hours before the sun was up. I
don't put great stock in this memory, but it has had great staying power with
me!
It isn't the only "ghost" I ever saw. One of my sightings occurred in a
fully lit room. But that is a tale for another time. As it is I have run quite
long with this post and didn't even get around to the hotly debated subject of
UFOs.
Nevertheless, despite the problems with these fantastic anecdotes, the
thing that holds my interest about this subject is the fact they are universal.
And so many people all over the world have seen so many strange and ghostly
things for at least as long as there has been recorded history. Mythology and
folklore are made up of such things, and if it isn't evidence of an existent
spiritual dimension, then it strongly suggests to me something at least similar
to what Jung termed the collective unconscious.
Would any of my readers care to weigh in on this topic?
18 comments:
I've never seen a ghost or experienced any kind of supernatural activity, divine or otherwise. When I told this to a ghost-believing friend, he was absolutely shocked. Ghosts were as real to him and his family as furniture.
I have never had a memorial experience of this sort....so I am afraid I cannot add to the conversation.
Ah - ghost stories, the supernatural, et al. I have had some 'goosebump' experiences also, but for now relating them would divert from what I want to say about them.
Sometimes a computer (clean, no maleware) will start behaving in a fashion which we cannot explain. Even the power switch will not shut it off. Sometimes (alas, a rare sometimes!) simply pulling the plug, waiting a while, and then reconnecting will correct whatever was wrong.
But what was wrong? The problem got fixed, but what was it? Dunno.
Now how about the human brain. It seems a lot like a computer, with input, processing, and output. Sometimes it goes a bit haywire, just like a computer. Sometimes some of the malfunctioning creates an eidolon, something that we are convinced is real, but it isn't. What went wrong? As with the computer, dunno. But nota bene, the human brain has a tremendously greater number of connections and pathways than a PC, with a consequent greater potentiality for malfunctions of varying degrees.
True, the supernatural can be there - as yet proving some vague concept cannot exist is a fools errand. But a non - supernatural viewpoint is that sometimes complex systems foul up. Postulating the existence of the supernatural to explain that which can be explained without it adds an unnecessary component, contra Occam.
It is also worth noting that the supernatural experiences of religious people tend to confirm the particular religion of the person having the experience. Hmmm.
Them's my 2 cents worth. It gives my viewpoint, but still its possible for the proponent of the supernatural to claim I just refuse to see while I am claiming what she thinks she sees isn't so. Should neuroscience totally solve the 'dunno' of the above with empirical explanations (could neuroscience also find the supernatural - why not? if it is there), still there will be those unable to accept, just as there are some unable to accept the well supported concept of evolution by natural selection.
At any rate, an interesting phenomenon, man and his ghosts.
I've never seen a ghost, just the tooth fairy. However, I've talked with plenty of people who have. And they tend to see them in multiple places over multiple times. Either they have some ESP which allows this, they have a world view which creates these narratives based on unexplained experiences, or they have a propensity for seeing agency and patterns that others don't.
Well, I too have no science to back up my experiences with spirits not of the living kind. From my youth my experiences were always seen by more than just me, sometimes a room full of others--I have relatives with whom I recount as do they, of all we grew up around. It seemed to center around my great aunt who died at age 103. She and I spoke often of how she would visit me after she died. Over a year later--nothing. This fact baffles me. We were so close. Others 'came back,' but not HER and not to ME? I have always had only questions, never answers. It appears that is how it will always be. Our psychic family line has all died off, save me. And I want nothing to do with such things that I never understood, found suspicious and simply silly noises, visions, of common brain activity. More questions than answers and I'd rather stop asking.
-Diane J Standiford
You said,
"Mythology and folklore are made up of such things, and if it isn't evidence of an existent spiritual dimension, then it strongly suggests to me something at least similar to what Jung termed the collective unconscious. "
I think both spiritual dimension and collective unconscious are the worse of possible explanations for this. Instead, they seem to me to reveal the structure of the nooks and crannies of the unintelligently involved good-enough-to-pass-on-genes brains we have.
Appendicitis, Crohns Disease, Arthritis, BPH and much more which are common to all cultures only point at the unintelligent design of the human body, no a spiritual world that causes disease nor to a collective-Platonic disease-consciousness.
@ Ahab,
And I know so many people who are the same way. I think perhaps the lenses through which we view the world has much to do with this. Of course people who strongly disbelieve such things are rarely troubled with them, and when they are they suspect their mind is playing a trick on them. Believers see paranormal activity everywhere.
@ Don,
And no friends or family members who have?
@ Exrelayman,
I think your malfunctioning computer illustration has great explanatory value. Is it the complete answer? I dunno.
I also think you are exactly right that if somehow neuroscience someday pointed to something of a supernatural explanation there are those who would be unable to accept that in exactly the same way some will not now accept evolution. This is because emotions often drive "reasoning."
Finally, I do find it a tad amusing that skeptics make so much of Occam's Razor in this connection when William was a believer in supernaturalism.
@ DoOrDoNot,
I bet you could tell some great tales based on what you've heard. We tend to dismiss or take seriously these kinds of things based entirely on our overall understanding of how things supposedly work.
@ Diane,
So nice to hear from you again! I agree there are more questions than answers. Still, I can't help being fascinated by this subject. And as I wrote, when we experience things first hand, theory tends to take a back-seat - at least at first. Rationalizations come later.
@ Sabio,
I think you read more into my sentence than what is there.
Nevertheless, so you think brake failure, stalled engines, and transmission slippages, etc., point at the unintelligent design of automobiles?
Human minds, like human bodies, seem to work in universally similar ways. Whether that is by design or not is a whole other question.
"Finally, I do find it a tad amusing that skeptics make so much of Occam's Razor in this connection when William was a believer in supernaturalism."
2 points about this: 1) If the Pope made an important scientific discovery, it would be silly insists that skeptics are inconsistent to accept it because they disagree most of what the Pope believes, and 2) you do know that back in Occam's time it was hazardous to not profess Christianity?
A brief aside about Occam's Law: it does not say the simpler explanation is the better explanation. What it does is favor the explanation which does not introduce more factors UNNECESSARILY. Sometimes greater complexity is required to adequately deal with complex material.
@ Exrelayman,
Personally I think Occam and his razor are overrated. It can cut either way as to the question of the supernatural. But I see no reason to doubt that Occam was hypocritical about his philosophy and was really a closet atheist out of fear for his life. He was, after all, a friar. So if skeptics are inclined to use this as weapon against supernatural religion, I can't help but be amused.
@ Doug,
When you say anything as vague and woowoo as "an existent spiritual dimension", you invite some of us to "read more into my sentence than what is there."
I think you are right about mixing the question of design into the issue.
As I lecture to patients all the time, "Heck, if they'd have asked me in the design stage, even I could have designed this part better to avoid this condition."
I am sure the same with cars -- when something goes wrong, the next time, the design hopefully improves. And if you have an all-knowing being doing the design, you'd expect far less poor design.
I wasn't saying anything heavy -- common stuff for these sorts of discussions.
My point: If lots of folks in different places do something, don't mean you need to start looking for "Spiritual dimensions" -- which is what I think exrelayman may have been getting to in part.
@ Sabio,
Actually, I wasn't looking anywhere. I was stating my opinion that ghosts and such are likely either a reality or a projection of the human mind. Readers of my blog should know by now in which direction I lean. Even when speaking of my own experiences I put "ghost" in parentheses that way to indicate as much. I think "some of us" need to relax a little bit and not take life so seriously. : )
I take it all so serious
My mind can get delirious.
I know that what I know is so
Because - well just because I know!
And if you disagree with me,
I'll lay the charge of infamy.
Oh wait, lets lay this all aside
And say, "My what a mental ride."
And when it all is said and done
Was not the dialoging fun?
FWIW, one of my all time movie favorites is Ghost.
@ Exrelayman,
I absolutely loved the poem! Never would I have imagined that Ghost would have been an all time fav of yours. I enjoyed it, too, although I haven't seen it in years.
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