Brushes with the unexplained

"In my years of writing about all aspects of the world of the weird I have often been asked if I myself have ever seen something I could not explain or if I have ever had my own strange experiences or encounters. I have typically always been rather vague and evasive on this point, not really giving a clear answer to this, and certainly not divulging anything of import. Until now that is. You see my answer to the question of whether I have ever had experiences with the unexplained is, in short, yes. Quite a resounding yes, in fact. I am not sure why, but I have always kept these strange experiences to myself. I suppose it is the same for many others out there, and I guess everyone has their own reasons for this. Maybe they think that no one will believe them. Maybe they think that those around them will think them to be crazy or treat them as some sort of pariah if they were to come forth with their bizarre stories. Maybe they just think these are things best left to the confines of their minds.

Now, obviously many people out there do indeed come forward with their accounts, but I suspect that there are even more who have not. I have long been one of these. This may seem strange for you to hear, considering I am a writer on these very mysteries, but I have my reasons. However, I recently had an exchange with someone on the topic of why people keep their paranormal experiences to themselves and it was quite profound, to say the least, and it made me think. I did a bit of soul searching and I decided that I would come out with my own experiences. These are things which I have never told anyone, not even my closest friends or family. They have remained caged up within me, anomalies that have sat like awkward, jagged rocks upon the landscape of my mind for far too long. They are deeply personal, and even now it feels odd to let them out and put them out there, like I should hold onto them and keep them hidden. Even now as I write this I am hesitant to let them go, wary of loosing them into the wilderness of public knowledge, but I have resolved myself to doing this, for better or worse. It just seems for some reason like it is finally time, and that this is the right thing to do. I am tired of feeling so alone with it..."----http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/06/on-my-personal-brushes-with-the-unexplained/

 

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I'm kind of evasive too. That's because every 'strange encounter' that I've had has been ambiguous. Each one struck me as weird at the time, but could have had a perfectly mundane explanation. In fact, I'm inclined to favor the mundane explanations.

That doesn't mean that I deny the possibility of something truly 'unexplainable' (given current presuppositions) actually happening. I believe pretty strongly that they probably do, from time to time. I'm just saying that I'm not convinced that I have ever experienced such a thing.

 

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At one time in human history, fire was mysterious and unknowable. The Sun was a revered celestial deity that circled the planet, pulled by great flying Pegasus across the sky. Flight was something only possible to insects and birds, and ailments were caused by an imbalance of the elements of fire, wind, water, earth, and blood within the body.

I would assert that, even today, there is more we do not understand than there is that which we do understand... so I am, reasonably, hesitant to call anything I cannot explain "paranormal".

 

Demons, angels, and the Holy Ghost aren't paranormal?

 

Hm, now where did I mention Demons, Angels, or the Holy Ghost? Could it be that *gasp* Magical Realist is just looking to be an annoying little troll? Nah, couldn't possibly be it... I guess you must have some deeper vision into my mind, able to divine subconscious meaning that even I am unaware of!

Congratulations MR - you went from zero to troll in two posts!

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So they are paranormal or not? It's a simple question.

 

I wouldn't know - I haven't enough data to form a conclusion.

Interesting how you immediately springboard to that... almost like some sort of fixation...

 

It seems to me that when we start to ask basic and foundational questions about just about anything in our experience, we bump up against the unknown and the frontiers of human knowledge very quickly. That's what originally attracted me to philosophy.

I've been thinking about mereology recently, about the relationship between wholes and their parts. There are issues of reducibility and emergence. The foundations of logic and mathematics are profoundly mysterious. What are 'laws of nature' and how do we know about them? What's the relationship between models (especially scientific models) and the realities they supposedly depict? What kind of universe is necessary to make our scientific theories true? (A problem that's particularly perplexing for quantum mechanics.) What's up with causation? What are the past, present and future and how do they differ? What about unrealized possibilities? What is word meaning and how do names connect to the things they name? What is consciousness and subjective experience? What are good and evil?

It's endless.

Some of those problems may be conceptual, artifacts of how we conceive of things. Others may be deeply metaphysical. There are epistemological problems in distinguishing the two.

So I don't feel the need to believe in gods, ghosts (holy or otherwise), or heavens, 'psi phenomena', ufos, monsters or whatever it is, to preserve the feeling that I'm surrounded by mysteries at every moment. The world of everyday experience is inexplicable enough.

 

That it is - to look up at the stars in fascination and fathom just how small a part of the universe (possibly multiverse) we actually are... if that doesn't inspire awe and wonder, then I don't know what does.

 

They're fiction.

 

little thing
My canine companion of many years, Doobie.
'75 was a crazy year: Divorce, closing out my Florida business and relocating to near the Illinois/Wisconsin state line.
I had to make a few trips back to Florida to take care of entanglements.
I would leave my dog with my uncle who chained Doobie up out back(we made him a doghouse).
My uncle said the dog whined for 15-30 minutes after I left, than was mostly silent(for days) until about 30 minutes before I got back--(That's well over 30 miles)--whereupon he would start howling. So, when Doobie howled, my uncle knew to put on a pot of coffee for me when I arrived. My uncle said it worked every time.

How did the dog know I was coming when I was still 30 miles out?

 

Noah's ark was probably paranormal. How else could Noah get all those species of animals to fit on that one boat?

 

I had guessed metaphorical.

 

Metaphorical of what?

 

He didn't - that's why there's no unicorns, sasquatch, or elves anymore

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The curiosity of it is, every major religion has a flood story, taking place around the same time.

 

Thats a good queston... an i woud guess that someone who beleives in Jesus/God thanks Demons an angels are real... but strangely enuff... some of those beleivers had druther eat sht than discuss it... lol.!!!

 

Clap clap clap clap slowly

Correct

Woo Woo ✓

Cowpat ✓

Non existent ✓

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Yep..it really happened because who can possibly doubt the historical veracity of the Bible? lol!

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I don't think that one can be a conventional sort of Christian and not believe in the supernatural. God presumably exists. Jesus worked miracles and had something to do with God. Salvation is both possible and necessary, and Jesus has something to do with that too. Jesus supposedly died and rose from the dead. That's supposed to be important for the rest of us and not just a magic trick.

Of course there's a strong theological tendency since the 18th or 19th century to interpret God as a myth, Jesus as a man (who probably didn't rise from the dead), and the fundamental value of Christ to Christians should derive from the ethic that Jesus may or may not have taught. That turns him into sort of an ancient sage, a Jewish Socrates. It certainly isn't historical Christianity but it is widespread and reasonably consistent, I guess.

I agree with you that it's no more justifiable to believe in holy ghosts than it is to believe in ghosts.