at Chris' house in Whitefish (on the deck)
At the end of the Woolf "On Being Ill" discussion, we sat around Mitch's kitchen tossing out next topic ideas, and came up with a hefty list (Homo Deus, Factfulness, Shelley's Frankenstein, a follow up reading related to V. Woolf or the Bloomsbury group, extroverts vs. introverts, enneagrams & people's fascination with...). But then we thought of summer and being out on Chris' deck for the next session, and the idea of some mutual amusement and quasi-lighheartedness seemed appealing, so a few of us fell upon The Paranormal. As we sat trying to define it amongst ourselves, as well as admitting the various ways a group of atheists/skeptics have some gray areas with reason when running up certain basement stairs, etc., then we felt this must be our July summer deck topic. So we'll table the others for now for a future Doodle poll vote (& also bring other ideas at the next banter) for an upcoming August/September banter night.
So, our topic:
Where do you lose your sense of skepticism and find yourself butting up against the paranormal/preternatural?
NPR's take on the topic: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/549547848/snap-judgment-presents-spooked
(Wikipedia: "The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901–1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, others believed that they had been faked.
Interest in the Cottingley Fairies gradually declined after 1921. Both girls married and lived abroad for a time after they grew up, yet the photographs continued to hold the public imagination. In 1966 a reporter from the Daily Express newspaper traced Elsie, who had by then returned to the UK. Elsie left open the possibility that she believed she had photographed her thoughts, and the media once again became interested in the story.
In the early 1980s Elsie and Frances admitted that the photographs were faked, using cardboard cutouts of fairies copied from a popular children's book of the time, but Frances maintained that the fifth and final photograph was genuine. The photographs and two of the cameras used are on display in the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England.
In a 1985 interview on Yorkshire Television's Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers, Elsie said that she and Frances were too embarrassed to admit the truth after fooling Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes: "Two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle – well, we could only keep quiet." In the same interview Frances said: "I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in.")
Some basic Wikipedia definitions to start us off:
Paranormal: Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as beyond normal experience or scientific explanation. Proposals regarding the paranormal are different from scientific hypotheses or speculations extrapolated from scientific evidence because scientific ideas are grounded in empirical observations and experimental data gained through the scientific method. In contrast, those who argue for the existence of the paranormal explicitly do not base their arguments on empirical evidence but rather on anecdote, testimony, and suspicion.
Preternatural: beyond what is normal or natural. In Catholic theology, preternatural refers to properties of creatures like angels, while supernatural refers to properties of God alone. It is "suspended between the mundane and the miraculous". In theology, the term is often used to distinguish marvels or deceptive trickery, often attributed to witchcraft or demons, from the purely divine power of the genuinely supernatural to violate the laws of nature. In the early modern period, the term was used by scientists to refer to abnormalities and strange phenomena of various kinds that seemed to depart from the norms of nature.
(actual water funnel cloud in Florida)
Parapsychology: the study of paranormal and psychic phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, synchronicity, reincarnation, apparitional experiences, and other paranormal claims. It is considered to be pseudoscience by a vast majority of mainstream scientists.
(seriously tangled hair)
Quantum entanglement: Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.
(Andy Goldsworthy)
(Brooklyn-based artist Caledonia Curry, better known as Swoon, who focuses on a near death experience she had via her art.)
From Mitch:
Wow! Sabine covered a lot of good ground there.
I’m not going to post any external reading or video material…just a few thoughts.
I searched around, online, and happily found out that there are many, many skeptics that don’t see any evidence for the supernatural, but that kind of want to believe in it (well, some of it).
The skeptic journey is relatively knew to me. Overall, I am happy with how it has helped me to mature and learn, but I do miss many of my old superstitions. I like mysteries and find it, oddly, nice that some supernatural claims are unfalsifiable. As frustrating as those kind of ‘Russell’s teapot' fallacies can be, they do make for fun stories.
It’s a common accusation against skeptics that they are dour and unhappy, with nothing to believe in and no magic in their lives. Admitting to wishing that I could believe in some supernatural things seems traitorous.
What I hope to hear from this banter is stories and answers from the group on some of the following questions:
1) What supernatural things do you truly believe in (or, at least, that science cannot explain)? No judgement.
2) What is your best story of an unexplained phenomenon that you, personally, experienced.
3) What aspects of the supernatural do you know can be explained away by science, but that you you wish you could believe in? Why?
4) Conversely, what supernatural beliefs have you lost that you are glad to no longer have?
5) What has changed about how you felt about the supernatural as a child until now and why do you think it has?
6) Do you hold on to any supernatural beliefs that you experienced personally, because the debunking explanation comes down to hallucinations, ideomotor effects or something that makes you feel like you’d have to admit to being crazy, disingenuous or naive?
7) When someone you are close to believes in something supernatural that you don’t, how do respond to the conversation? How does the response change by person, topic or situation?
Since the supernatural is anything that cannot be explained, this is a very big topic. Below is a short list of a few supernatural things that I believed in, at some point in my life…a few of which I still do believe (or really, really want to for various reasons) and, most, which I am glad to be rid of.
Satanic backmasking in music
Ouija boards run by spirits
Interventionist God
Ghosts
Psychic abilities
Sixth sense
Guardian angels
Demonic possession
Aliens
Karma
Dousing
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More from Sabine:
Listen to the above NPR story or read; then find a way for us to watch Both/And by Patrick Gabridge, pretty please? I've been wanting to watch it on stage or a film of the staged production of for a couple of years now. How lovely to watch it with our collective.
I'll address Mitch's other great questions at the banter night itself, but I will chime in on his #1/#3 which are much the same to me in regard to my example: I admire the Christian surety (as well as other religious surety) that assures an afterlife complete with reuniting with loved ones. I admire it like I admire Edel's tender letter writing to Santa. I don't want it to be something that is ever burst for either of them, and I wish I had that too without any doubt arising in my head sometimes. Atheist or Christian or Buddhist or..., the wishing not to ever be separated from a beloved is a fundamental part of loving and attaching. Translating this wishing to surety is not a big leap really, and I understand it, though I can't make the leap into a concrete bridge as they seem to, and the pain of that upon parting from a beloved who ceases to exist is so exquisite as to again make me glad for those who have a comfie blankie or concrete bridge of surety to wrap themselves in. However, I blur some lines in regard to love & entanglement, telling myself we don't really know how atoms disperse/recombine/impact those atoms most attached; I do this to the point of not quite believing that I'll never ever never be near my Oma Brunhilde again, nor near Naya's dad Joe again, nor near my beloved Ladybug again, nor near my children after we part, nor near those I've held or hold now with truest affection and pure pupil-dilating fascination that they could possibly exist and possibly cross my path at all in this huge place we hang amid vastness in. I feel that I might somehow not be free of them or wholly separate right now (as in where I begin and they end feels a bit less defined than my sense of our physical forms), and that I might therefore not be free of them indefinitely after their or my breathing stops. I hope for this, but the hope gives way to really wanting it sometimes, and I most notice that in the long shadow of their absence of course (such as this whole year since Ladybug died), but also when I stumble across entanglement concepts or plays or poems that blur lines about time/love/etc.
At most logical, I reason out that they don't cease so long as love and pining for / joy for continue on in my body/heart/mind/attachment for them. At my least logical, I imagine we are quantumly entangled in some way, and so surely have not just lucked out the one time in crossing paths in this massive place, but will luck out indefinitely. I love them so incredibly that my reason can't/won't imagine this not to be true, or doesn't wish to give way to a type of love that doesn't allow for that at least. I also have to fight the worried sense at times that Ladybug feels lost somewhere out in that vast universe, and wonders where I am; this is an awful trick of my mind to play on me, and I wish it would stop. I have done similar things with other loved ones who've died, mostly through repetitive dreams. I can also get very gray about the gills over it all too, and start thinking very flatly, "you're going to die, and you're going to die, and we're all going to die" as a dark cautionary to myself to stop attaching and loving - this happened most acutely after Naya's dad died when he was 29 and I was 24. Interestingly, the day or two before I fell into that mode, I was at my most irrational when I had to write his obituary one night, and 1-yr old Naya was asleep in her crib in the next room, and the people who'd been hanging around me since he drowned had all gone home. I kept picking up the pen to write words about him onto a paper, and then collapsing into a heap on top of the paper in the chair I was in. I simply felt I couldn't do this act, shouldn't have to, and so could not. Then, like a clear inner voice in my head, paired with a sensation like two hands sliding down my arms, his voice seemed to say, "Pick up the pen, we're going to write this together." Then I picked up the pen and I wrote it in one session, no need for editing later, as it came out nicely written & how it needed to. I soon knew (within a day or two) that this was a really great coping mechanism my mind/emotions/body had allowed me to experience to get through that. Yet, it remains hard still (despite not believing a bit about intact spirits, non-disbursed atoms/energy after death) to fully discount how that felt in that chair, and how much it helped. I know he didn't help me pick up a pen, but letting myself quasi entertain that maybe some particles of his impacted some particles of mine or so on, well, I like letting myself quasi entertain that, and not be so concretely sure his particles had absolutely nothing to do with that. So, since then I've been much more tolerant and apt to kindly look upon those who are in such a desperate state as to need that kind of comfort to that extent, or to the extent of people who feel 100% sure that those they loved who died first will be waiting around the death bed to take you into their spirity, loving arms. It is hard stuff to do without that; it is hard stuff to do with it. I don't necessarily see the good in being cold and clinical about it, even if much of my mind is in fact cold and clinical about it; when my mind doesn't want to be, and wants quantum entanglement (i.e., wants to misuse the term "quantum entanglement" to have to do with love), I let it.
_______________________________________________________
From Jared:
My skepticism has lately been sealing its cracks, but one remains. I see our brains as a translation matrix between our spirits and our bodies, and brain damage interferes with the spirit's ability to manifest in the physical world. I haven't found anything else that bridges that divide.
_______________________________________________________
From Isaac:
"Let's see. I seem to recall that you wanted us to just send a paragraph or two about our personal spooky experience.
I remember magnets were pretty darn neat to me when I was young...
And then hearing about that there were people walking around on the other side of the world and that was kind of weird and hard to imagine ... Maybe it's just a matter of having to imagine the size of the Earth to make it work.
At some point I thought about whether the right hemisphere was kind of having its own whole separate Consciousness and just not telling me about it.
At some point I began to notice parts of myself physically rebelling against my intended course of action , that was interesting, maybe spooky...
The idea that purely causal Universe might mean that we were trapped and forced to do with the chain of cause-and-effect demanded felt a little suffocated... Until I silence that I wasn't trapped in the chain, but rather a active part of the chain... Will I still get trapped with it but also an active agent which makes it different dot-dot-dot without having to be the ultimate originator of anything. Julian Jaynes' whole idea of Consciousness itself being essentially a type of hallucination that makes other hallucinations something other than hallucination was kind of spooky." _______________________________________________________________ From Annette: "Hello!
This topic is loaded for me. I still, though having moved away from
many beliefs and the structure of those beliefs, experience an element
of surprise when encountering this topic all the myriad
interpretations. The word paranormal has historically invoked thoughts
of ghosts and almost silliness to me. Most definitely it had invoked
a feeling of not-quite-right-ness. I was raised, not in my family
alone (and definitely not to the degree of my church) to believe that
the spiritual world was something very real and serious and not to be
thought of lightly. It was hardly even noted as "supernatural" but
more as "the spiritual realm". In my life the world unseen was almost
given more weight than the physical one. It is hard to parse out was
was taught to me and how I interpreted those teachings. Life with the
spirit world had to do with a very real and constant battle for the
soul of every person. My experience was scary and meaningful and
frought and never, ever, silly or fun. The thought of a horror movie
or "messing around" with a ouija board was not entertained or
entertaining. The explanation of that fear was that my life had big
purpose, therefore big wars waged. I include this link as a small
window, though fictional, into the midst of those around me. In the
mid eighties there was a thing called "the Satanic Panic" that not
only was prevalent in church but also in the secular realm.
Back-masking was spoken of frequently and angels and demons were an
ever-present part of conversation. I find this topic difficult
because I still don't even know the difference (thank you Webster and
Sabine) between all the definitions so closely related to the "spirit
world". It is difficult to condense my thoughts on it, because it was
absolutely integral to my daily life, to its core, for more than 25
years and still creeps in in disturbing and difficult ways. When life
is described and experienced as ONE WAY for so long, making those
changes takes more than time. I am very much looking forward to other
people's interpretations of this topic and beg patience for mine.
A window- When This Present Darkness came out, I was 11 years old and read it
front to back while being the main cook at my dad's logging job on
McGregor Lake. I was super into all the alternative music of the time
(and even in that I did not like to get into the too too dark of it)
and a bit averse to the sun. Hanging out in my cabin (super luxurious
for a logging job, mind you) and soaking in the supernatural world AS
FICTION something that I dealt with every day. Lost many years of
sleep over, both prior and for years to come. I hate that
indoctrination and fiction fed the grotesque when maybe, maybe,
someone was trying to say "Look! Isn't it great that God triumphs over
all of this darkness?". You are important, therefor, you should be
afraid and also confident. Purposeful. I have so many things to say
about this, but will adhere to the rules (thank goodness!! ha!), in
keeping my thoughts concise at Banter and listening very openly.
My thoughts and experiences with mental health education and diagnosis
have shed great light and given room to many questions regarding the
world unseen. Of course the world, our own individual worlds, are not
only flesh and bone and brain and matter, but how that is explained is
still a vast mystery and one I am glad is not so dripping with fear to
me as it once was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Present_Darkness
Also an important note-when asked at Junior Miss (the only competition
of it's sort I was ever involved in) what I wanted to see in the
world, my answer was "a real, live fairy". I would still very much
like that."
I remember magnets were pretty darn neat to me when I was young...
And then hearing about that there were people walking around on the other side of the world and that was kind of weird and hard to imagine ... Maybe it's just a matter of having to imagine the size of the Earth to make it work.
At some point I thought about whether the right hemisphere was kind of having its own whole separate Consciousness and just not telling me about it.
At some point I began to notice parts of myself physically rebelling against my intended course of action , that was interesting, maybe spooky...
The idea that purely causal Universe might mean that we were trapped and forced to do with the chain of cause-and-effect demanded felt a little suffocated... Until I silence that I wasn't trapped in the chain, but rather a active part of the chain... Will I still get trapped with it but also an active agent which makes it different dot-dot-dot without having to be the ultimate originator of anything. Julian Jaynes' whole idea of Consciousness itself being essentially a type of hallucination that makes other hallucinations something other than hallucination was kind of spooky." _______________________________________________________________ From Annette: "Hello!
This topic is loaded for me. I still, though having moved away from
many beliefs and the structure of those beliefs, experience an element
of surprise when encountering this topic all the myriad
interpretations. The word paranormal has historically invoked thoughts
of ghosts and almost silliness to me. Most definitely it had invoked
a feeling of not-quite-right-ness. I was raised, not in my family
alone (and definitely not to the degree of my church) to believe that
the spiritual world was something very real and serious and not to be
thought of lightly. It was hardly even noted as "supernatural" but
more as "the spiritual realm". In my life the world unseen was almost
given more weight than the physical one. It is hard to parse out was
was taught to me and how I interpreted those teachings. Life with the
spirit world had to do with a very real and constant battle for the
soul of every person. My experience was scary and meaningful and
frought and never, ever, silly or fun. The thought of a horror movie
or "messing around" with a ouija board was not entertained or
entertaining. The explanation of that fear was that my life had big
purpose, therefore big wars waged. I include this link as a small
window, though fictional, into the midst of those around me. In the
mid eighties there was a thing called "the Satanic Panic" that not
only was prevalent in church but also in the secular realm.
Back-masking was spoken of frequently and angels and demons were an
ever-present part of conversation. I find this topic difficult
because I still don't even know the difference (thank you Webster and
Sabine) between all the definitions so closely related to the "spirit
world". It is difficult to condense my thoughts on it, because it was
absolutely integral to my daily life, to its core, for more than 25
years and still creeps in in disturbing and difficult ways. When life
is described and experienced as ONE WAY for so long, making those
changes takes more than time. I am very much looking forward to other
people's interpretations of this topic and beg patience for mine.
A window- When This Present Darkness came out, I was 11 years old and read it
front to back while being the main cook at my dad's logging job on
McGregor Lake. I was super into all the alternative music of the time
(and even in that I did not like to get into the too too dark of it)
and a bit averse to the sun. Hanging out in my cabin (super luxurious
for a logging job, mind you) and soaking in the supernatural world AS
FICTION something that I dealt with every day. Lost many years of
sleep over, both prior and for years to come. I hate that
indoctrination and fiction fed the grotesque when maybe, maybe,
someone was trying to say "Look! Isn't it great that God triumphs over
all of this darkness?". You are important, therefor, you should be
afraid and also confident. Purposeful. I have so many things to say
about this, but will adhere to the rules (thank goodness!! ha!), in
keeping my thoughts concise at Banter and listening very openly.
My thoughts and experiences with mental health education and diagnosis
have shed great light and given room to many questions regarding the
world unseen. Of course the world, our own individual worlds, are not
only flesh and bone and brain and matter, but how that is explained is
still a vast mystery and one I am glad is not so dripping with fear to
me as it once was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Present_Darkness
Also an important note-when asked at Junior Miss (the only competition
of it's sort I was ever involved in) what I wanted to see in the
world, my answer was "a real, live fairy". I would still very much
like that."
