I read an article today on the BBC website (I googled paranormal else I never go to the BBC website). I was sad I read it really and it really doubled up my feeling that the BBC has some sort of agenda. It was an article about paranormal phenomena written by one David Robson. I suppose I should have realized what I was in for in reading the summary – In the 21st Century, why do so many people still believe in the paranormal? David Robson discovers that there’s good reason we hold superstitions – and a few surprising benefits..
I guess, what gets me is the premise that if something is labelled paranormal then its woo woo superstition! Is it just me whose brain suddenly kicks in with a thousand objections to what this writer says? Things like – Isn’t that what they said about a round Earth? Isn’t that what they said about the Earth orbiting the Sun? Has he actually read any physics at all? Has he ever read what Einstein wrote? I could go on but there is no point. Some people live in their safe little worlds and discount anything that doesn’t quite fit their physical materialistic views of the world as superstition. I don’t know why it makes me a little hot under the collar – its their loss, not mine. They will be the ones ridiculed in the future, not I.
The arrogance of this certainty is what gets to me. You meet people like this quite often. They are simply steadfast and certain in their views. Their minds are rigid and shaped by God know’s whatever experiences they have had out of life (and come to think of it, for them, God had NOTHING to do with it I am sure). It is intellectual stubbornness. They will cite science but if they were current with science they would know that is ridiculous except that they would call it pseudo-science because there is no room for argument with them at all. The funny thing is is that man evolved by experiencing and questioning – not by pretending to know it all.
More and more though, such views are being eroded. Eroded by science and experience. The bigger question is why the BBC supports publishes such authoritarian guff?
Anyway, I have had a few weird experiences myself. You can, if you insist, call it superstition and psychological, but those that do are denying themselves something very important. Their rigid view of the world creates a reality that reflects their beliefs right back at them – I think that is why sometimes, a doubter can actually stop a phenomenon from happening. Perhaps, it’s fear that stops these people from truly experiencing other worlds and dimensions, other ways of being, I don’t know, but I tell you this. If you open your eyes and allow yourself to look – it is a VERY magical place that we inhabit.
Yep, it gets to me too. Disbelieve if you wish, but don’t dismiss. Paranormal: “Beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding” is a definition that could apply to so many advances made over the past couple of centuries… we can’t understand what we haven’t learned to understand…yet.
There is an hell of a lot of fluff in the areas of paranormality, I admit… but some things do defy ‘normal’ explanation. And even if a huge amount of that is simply due to our current lack of understanding of the true capacity and capability of the brain/mind, it still surpasses ‘normality’.
Precisely Sue…. My Dad always used to say that life needed an inquiring mind… I think he was right. I think that is also what we all have in common…
Your Dad knew a thing or two, Gary form all you have written.
Haha… nope. Does me in too… (Sometime I’ll tell you the story of “The Day the Bear Took on Mr Dawkins”… not pretty, not pretty at all… :/ )
I would simply love to hear that story and… a lot more about shamanism and how you found your way there…. over a beer would be good too.
Haha! Definitely requires beer! 😉