Mrs Weirdlore: Paranormal Perspectives: Aunty Weirdlore’s Thoughts.

I have tried keeping as open and uncritical a perspective as possible. I use the word ‘psychic’

purely in the Jungian sense, i.e.: of the mind, not as a reference to mediumship, telepathy or

clairvoyance. Similarly, I use the word ‘spiritual’ in the numinous sense. For a definition of the

word ‘numinous’, see Numinous - Wikipedia

 Environmental factors: Personal and/or cultural attitudes: Perhaps these give an

insight into why people ‘see’ or ‘experience’ paranormal phenomena. By this, I mean a

person’s culture and upbringing influencing their perspectives, their ‘predisposition’ into

believing, or disbelieving in ghosts, UFOs (UAPs) for example, but not always. I’ve read of,

and heard, accounts from witnesses who had not, and after the event still did not, believe in

them.

 Left vs Right; Logic vs Intuition; Expectation/Investigation: There seems a very

common thread in reading about paranormal investigations, that the act of investigation

either prohibits, or impedes so-called paranormal events, whether a classic haunting,

poltergeist activity, telepathy etc; In short, this suggests: Intuition stifles Logic; Logic

stifles intuition. Perhaps the very act of investigation then, alters the environment, which

may affect any perception or experience of paranormal phenomena, in turn affecting belief -

maybe making the exercise meaningless, or at least a circular argument. Another factor

that may be relevant is the context in which something occurs, which I doubt one can

‘reproduce’. Another thing we could bear in mind is how not to see a ghost, experience

poltergeists, etc. All the accounts and books about the paranormal I’ve read all seem in

agreement that to expect something almost guarantees that nothing will happen. Could this

be equated with: Staying awake just to watch one’s dreams? I don’t intend this to sound

flippant, but is it worth considering?

 ‘Seeing Things’: This may tie in with the points raised above, in that these may influence

how we experience and interpret unusual things. That people report seeing paranormal

events is not doubted; but good questions might be: How do people experience them, and

why? Do people perceive them through the same ‘psychic/archetypal centres’ as ‘spiritual’

experience, or even dreams? Many reports indicate that the individual is not aware that

what they have seen is at all unusual, implying their critical faculties are somehow

temporarily inactive, even ‘asleep’. In other words, they do not question the event at the

time of their experience. On the other hand, many individuals report they are all too aware

that what they are seeing is odd.

The popular idea that an apparition, or haunting, arises from a murder, or tragedy of some

kind, may be a misconception. I know of one account where there was no historical context,

i.e.: the apparition seen may have been anomalous, not of someone who had ever lived.

(The Haunted Mill House at Willington: Hauntings and Apparitions: Andrew McKenzie;

Heineman, 1982)

What of reports of the same apparition being seen in the same place, by different people at

different times, perhaps at an interval of many years, when neither witness knows what the

other saw? What does this suggest?

What I find interesting, particularly with repeated sightings of a ghost by the same person, is

that the individual had ‘forgotten’ the previous incident. Why? One might think that this is

something not easily forgotten; nonetheless, this has been reported.

Everyone looks for reasons. Seeing an apparition of someone – or something - who cannot

possibly be ‘there’, may well be an unsettling experience; but apparitions need not imply

dead people; Paranormal Perspectives may consider reports of ‘Ghosts of the Living’,

‘Crisis Apparitions/Events’; or even reports of long-demolished buildings/landscapes being

seen.

Andrew McKenzie in his book Hauntings and Apparitions,

published in 1982, makes the point that it is a misconception, if not a fallacy, that

someone must be drunk to see an apparition. Seeing (hallucinating) whilst under the

influence of alcohol involves an alcoholism-induced debilitating condition.

Retelling and reporting experiences: Manifestations seem always spontaneous, and I

doubt anyone has a pen and paper (even a laptop or mobile phone with a Word App)

readily to hand to write down an experience in the heat of the moment. Human memory is

notoriously unreliable, and it’s so easy to ‘fill in the gaps’, tempting us into making

unnecessary embellishments when trying to convince others of what we’ve seen.

When we retell our paranormal experiences to friends or family, or even to Paranormal

researchers, we naturally want to convince them of what we saw; but in doing so, and trying

to impress the reality of the event, do we risk hyperbole? Would hyperbole invite fantastical

language? Of such things are myths and legends made!

In his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Dr Carl Jung says that, when writing

down his experiences of his ‘confrontation with the unconscious,’ viz; archetypes, he

described his use of language as ‘grating’, and states that this ‘the language of the

archetypes’, so are we unconsciously doing the same? To what extent would using such

language invite disbelief?

What I find unhelpful is the almost ubiquitous response of ‘It must be this; it must be that.’

Personally, I question whether ‘must’ should come into the equation at all, and whether it

has more to do with ‘probabilities’, however unlikely these might be. Another response of

‘it’s all in the mind’ seems to miss a fundamental point: yes, it may be a ‘psychic’ interaction

but need not imply ‘you imagined it.’ Far from it. These events are very real to those who

witness them, and I think it pompous, even arrogant, to dismiss such reports out of hand.

 Poltergeist Phenomena: It happens, but not everywhere and not to everyone. A quite

common denominator seems personal, maybe unconscious, stress. I have had personal

experience of what some might consider poltergeist events; I have neither drawn any

conclusions, nor can I explain them, only report that they happened.

 Angels, Demons and Other Animals: I often wonder about the perception of intuitive

‘feelings’; why do we consider the whispering, restraining voice angelic? Why, the

shouting, tempting voice Demonic? And why Demons at all? I don’t know enough of

world cultures to answer this but wonder if this Angel/Demon concept stems from

European Christian culture. We may all have experienced ‘the still, small voice’ of either

intuition or conscience; but I remain to be convinced of either angels or demons in this

context. I also question the assumption that ‘paranormal animals’ are demonic, but

wonder if these are connected elementals: spirits of water, earth etc. made manifest?

Again, I don’t know enough about this to make further comment. Elemental - Wikipedia

has lots of information that may be of interest.

 UFOs and Fairies: Reports of UFO and Fairy abductions have at least one

commonality: Time dilation, or ‘loss of time’; one may think that only a few minutes or

hours have passed but find that days, months or years have elapsed when returning

home. The 1819 Washington Irving story Rip Van Winkle clearly illustrates this.

 (Note: I have heard of a fairy abduction legend involving a British clergyman and/or

folklorist, I think from the Scottish Borders, 18 th or 19 th Century; sadly, I have only seen

one reference to this, and that on television so I can’t remember details – an Internet

search has not yielded information on this; perhaps Mrs Weirdlore can find something?.

 The 12 th Century legend of the Green Children of Woolpit (Suffolk, England) – not

strictly UFO/Alien, or even Fairy lore, but interesting in this context.

To summarise Wikipedia Green children of Woolpit - Wikipedia: two children (brother and

sister), with green or greenish skin, appeared in Woolpit village, Suffolk, England; They

could not speak English, and although starving, but would not eat food given to them, except

beans which they ate, pods and all. Unfortunately, the boy died, but the girl survived and lost

her greenish colour. The girl said she and the boy came ‘from St Martins Land’, that there

was perpetual twilight there. While tending their flock, she said, there was a noise, and they

found themselves transported to Woolpit village.

This raises at least two questions: Where is St Martins Land? Why, if the children were from

another dimension, would St Martin have any significance, except to the good people of

Woolpit? What part did their own cultural frame of reference play? Did they mishear or

misinterpret what the girl said? Why, if true, would there be only twilight, not sunlight in ‘St

Martins Land’? Were the children malnourished (quite likely) or unwell? I cannot answer

these, nor can I offer any suggestions. Room for debate, maybe?

The Wikipedia page about this legend gives more details and information, and references

other written versions of this tale, which may be of interest.

UFOs or UAP sightings may not be confined to modern times: see

10 UFO Sightings That Predate The 1900s - Listverse



Philosophies: Is our ‘perception’ of the paranormal peculiar to us? If we believe that

there are advanced cultures elsewhere in the universe (or multiverse), would paranormal

phenomena on, for the sake of argument, Planet Zog be the same, or similar, to ours,

and perceived in the same or similar ways? If we believe that our environment (which

may, or may not drive our physical and ‘psychical’ cultures) would there be fundamental

differences between our own philosophies, beliefs and/or perceptions, and those of the

good ‘Zoggians’?

I realise this is an unprovable argument; nonetheless, it may be helpful to keep this in

mind when thinking about what drives paranormal events, and how we perceive and/or

interpret them.

Conclusion:

Perhaps we should keep in mind the circumstances and contexts behind reported paranormal

events: environmental, the culture or personal stress of the witness.

Maybe we should all respect accounts of paranormal phenomena when we read or hear about

them and not merely dismiss them out of hand, passing them off as ‘only psychological – which

is a thought-provoking statement; nor should we make unfounded assumptions, either for or

against. Do such responses say more about individual bias than anything else? Above all, we

should respect the integrity of the witness, at least initially.

I do not believe that anything I have said is new, and that others have made similar

observations, either in books or in their comments on your website.