I like exploring the paranormal world for the same reason a lot of people like to play golf. The secret of why people play golf is that it lets them spend hours wandering around in a serene, park-like setting. Hitting little white balls and yelling “fore!” are only secondary reasons.
Researchers who study the development of the mind tell us that for the first five years of our lives, the world is a mystical place where magic can happen–because of chemical balances in the brain, and because we don’t know very much about the world. Anything is possible! You might well be able to fly, and just haven’t seen someone do it yet.
That state of mind is destined to diminish, but fascination with the mysteries of the world does not. For some people, a strictly scientific exploration is enough. For others, thinking about things that could be possible–even if they’re not–is addictive.
Like a golfer who seeks sanctuary on the links, I like living in a paranormal universe, the one where enigma rules and the unexpected is guaranteed. I’ve got nothing against science. But sometimes the mystery is more fun than a revelation.
Carl Sagan opens his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark telling us how he rebuffed a limo driver who was fascinated with the paranormal. Science itself, he says, has enough mystery to explore without having to resort to “errant doctrine”. Atlantis? A fool’s errand; there is no scientific evidence for a sunken continent. He goes on and on in that vein.
Carl missed the point. Atlantis may or may not have existed; it may have been a small island that blew up, it may have been a figment of Plato’s imagination, it may have been a distorted tale told by the Egyptians who told Solon who told Plato. Or, it may have just been a metaphor. It doesn’t have to matter! What the bleep do we know? Until someone invents the time machine, we won’t be able to know what Solon told Plato, or whether they were really talking about ancient Troy.
What Carl didn’t understand is that the love of the paranormal and supernatural is the love of enigma. It’s OK to like like the inscrutable, the undefinable, the mysterious, the (currently) inexplicable. I prefer my mysteries unsolved. Yes, the day they find a live Sasquatch, I’ll be doing the happy-dance–but part of me will mourn a little bit. The mystery will be gone.
Oh, while we’re on the topic–if you are interested in both enigma and science, and you haven’t read much about quantum physics, I highly recommend you do so; this is a science whose very essence is enigma. “Anyone who says that they understand Quantum Mechanics,” said scientist Richard Feynman, “does not understand Quantum Mechanics”. So maybe there’s room enough for mystery and science to co-exist.
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October 6th, 2009 at 7:33 am |
i was attacked by a cloaked figure that seems to be living in the house at the end of my street the house in paticular belongs to the church but my dad investigated the premises and he saw that somone was definatley living there and that there was a charcoal drawing on the other side of the door that looks strangley like the same entity what do u think? a legit sighting?