Paranomalies

I attended a business meeting the other day and, as always, the topics of the show were discussed and how a show like mine is so unusual that it may be difficult to sell the idea of the paranormal to a world that is more skeptic than believer. This comment raised my eyebrows and I had to take the time to explain that, while it may appear that people are skeptical about the paranormal, the reality is different.

Anything paranormal or supernatural covers a huge swath of topics and experiences of every individual vary. No one can truly define what normal is in a time where that which is bizarre or unexplainable is situation normal in the apocalypse.

According to a statistic in the book Paranormal America, two thirds of Americans have some belief in the paranormal and on average Americans hold at least two paranormal ideas to be true.

This would mean that the majority of Americans have paranormal ideas and beliefs. This would mean that the non believers are the minority. It is found that the most religious you are the more likely you are to believe in paranormal ideas. The less religious you are and the more educated you are the less likely you are to accept the idea of paranormal activities happening around you.

Women tend to believe more in the paranormal as opposed to men; however, men are more likely to be interested in reading or watching television shows dealing with the paranormal.

More men listen to paranormal radio shows and women tend to avoid these shows, however women are more inclined to visit mediums, use Ouija boards or Tarot cards. More women say that they have had visits from dead loved ones, while more men are into the idea of hunting for Bigfoot or chasing down ghosts in haunted houses.

One of the most interesting turns of events with regard to the paranormal is the idea that the paranormal can be a form of entertainment. The unfortunate thing about the paranormal being used as a form of entertainment is that, contrary to popular belief, paranormal activity does not always perform well in front of a camera. This is why electronic voice phenomena, ghost photos or even video recordings of apparitions or orbs are often inconclusive.

Most successful paranormal proof sometimes takes tediously long hours to find. Sometimes the proof does not always show up on camera. Or the sound or picture that is allegedly produced of some paranormal activity is incoherent or is some form of pareidolia that is ruthlessly ridiculed by skeptics.

Paranormality, according to skeptics, is a result of a consensus that is credulous. However the problem with skeptics is their inability to accept change or to even entertain the idea that, while there may be a gullible consensus, there is still reason to at least speculate on the possibility that with technology, what were one ghosts and anomalous activity is being documented and recorded by people who would normally pay no mind to what they first think are hallucinations.

In order to have a less credulous or gullible culture, we would have to make everyone a scientist. The problem I see with that is that science tends to reject or marginalize that which is inconvenient or uncomfortable. There is a tendency to reject the outrageous as opposed considering it and then trying to find reasons for it happening rather than trying to find reasons it doesn’t.

Any new evidence for a paranormal event becomes a highlight on the nightly news or viral video on YouTube, but it is seldom considered or even investigated by scientific critical thinkers.

It would most likely be banished and dismissed as fraud.

However, it can be argued either way that most Americans have a fairly decent grasp of science and, along with an even greater grasp for religion and spirituality, they have constructed a new matrix that allows for the belief in the paranormal based on what they have heard throughout history with regards to miracles and events that only be explained as a moment where faith dominates over the cold and callous scientific method.

The skeptics can’t have it both ways. They can’t say that the United States is more credulous about the paranormal due to lack of scientific knowledge and at the same time praise how our western civilization is more aware and better at the scientific method than our eastern and European counterparts.

There are many smart people well-versed in science that will tell you that perhaps the aliens built the pyramids and in the same breath will tell you that there is really no reason to believe that Bigfoot exists in the Northwest.

This is where our paranormal schism begins and the truth becomes an urban myth. We choose our own truth, even in the face of fallacious statements made about the truths we cling to.

In my life and in my experience, I have come to the conclusion that all things are in an intermediate state between extremes. In the fundamental sense, those extremes are birth and death. All that is in between is intermediate. You can divide it all up and break it all down into an eternal state of extremes and realize that everything that you believe and read is what is fashionable for the time and not necessarily the truth. However, that does not mean that buried in all of it isn’t a little pinch of reality.

What is reality anyway? Can it be questioned? If it is questioned because of an extreme paranormal experience can it be written off as mental illness or a heightened state of awareness?

Religion tells us that ghosts, spirits and all kinds of entities exist behind the veil. Many people who claim to be debunkers do not believe in such things. Debunkers may deny their existence with science, but empower it with their fears.

There are set ideas and templates that are programmed into the collective consciousness which determine whether or not there is an entity in our midst. Those ideas about the supernatural are given to us through mythology, a cadre of witnesses, and word of mouth. There are also depictions of entity experiences that are augmented with dark music and thunderings on a movie screen using special effects.

The Hollywood version of entity encounters has had to be made over, just as the actors and actresses starring in them, in order for it to properly terrorize a ticket-paying audience. The real-life entity experience is as natural and mundane as the wind blowing through the trees.

In fact, most entities, when called upon to make their presence known to the living are quite acquiescent. They are beneficial; they intervene, and sometimes warn of danger, or appear to give comfort.

But don’t get me wrong; when a spiritual entity manifests, it can be a very traumatic experience for some, and many will determine that the experience itself is from the realms of the abyss.

When I was involved with the investigation of the Zodiac Killer’s ghost in Martinez, California, the cameras were rolling when I was on the air sensing that my life was being taken from me by an entity that we believed was the ghost of a notorious killer.

The truth is that I was weakened due to cancer surgery and realized that my biggest mistake was being in a building where a hostile ghost resided. Ghosts have a tendency to attack the weakest in the room and I most certainly had no physical power to protect myself from an attempt from an entity to enter into my body.

One thing that I avoided to bring up after the encounter is that when the show ended and the investigation was over, I was suffering from nausea and was throwing up outside. After I returned to my hotel room most of my night was spent in the bathroom and the frightening thing was that I was worried that I was going to die there because of all of the problems I was having holding down food and later holding down water.

After being in a daze for most of the night I was asked to make a few appearances around town and try to enjoy what was left of my trip. I was weak, cold and frail and had to be placed in a wheelchair on the way back to Portland.

Whatever attacked me literally wanted me to die and I had never experienced anything like this before. The worse thing about the ordeal was the constant e-mails and comments that I was faking something or that I needed psychiatric care.

This is where the definition of skepticism blurs and the need to be hateful and callous takes over. People can be cruel if their beliefs challenge them to the point of being uncomfortable.

I do find myself to be slightly annoyed by skeptics who are not really skeptics but people who have made their minds up about the mysteries of life not being so mysterious. As I have grown into the fringe areas of life, I have realized that the skeptic of the here and now finds a sadistic joy in their ability to funnel everything that happens in this infinite universe into to some finite and simple explanation. It is also necessary for the skeptic of our generation to tell people to “calm down” and “not to worry”, feeling that it is their duty to be the comforter and guardian of all things that they believe is magical thinking.

Let’s face it: the world is a magical place and all things are constantly changing – and beliefs do, too. It’s just that they change so slowly that sometimes it is hard to figure out how the zeitgeist abruptly changed and thereby making you crazy, ill-informed or old fashioned.

The hard part is to understand that the human experience, is actually a vast interwoven matrix of probability and possibility riding on a wave of cause and effect.

Some say the truth is out there, there are others who don’t take the time to have truth pointed out to them and while we cannot know all truth it is best to be open to being teachable because sometimes we don’t fully recognize the impact of something until we have taken time to evaluate in our heads just what is really going on.

We don’t see a lot of things and yet we are told they are real. No one sees air until the wind blows, no one sees the radiation cloud until it clicks cycles on a Geiger counter, you don’t see radio waves, and yet you hear them on a radio and people do not see or hear ghosts until they wind up on a night vision camera or digital recorder.

It is a challenge to open our eyes and understand that there seems to be a paranormal elephant in the room. We all can interpret it in many ways but when it charges at you, it is an experience that will convince you that there are more things in heaven and earth that can be dreamt of in any philosophy.