Distant Hope

 So I was thinking today could be more of a history lesson than a paranormal essay, even though it has some tangential importance to paranormal investigations, it has even more influence on the very course of history and the exploration of the globe. Of course, I speak of Prester John.

Prester John was a legendary figure that was claimed to have kingdom first located in the Middle East, then the Orient, then back to India, then finally somewhere in Africa. As the tale goes, John was a descendant of one of the three Magi (Wise Men) who attended the baby Jesus' birth. Being rich in both resources and spirit, his realm was purported to be a place where the incredible was the norm, and his subjects lived in happiness and contentment. More intriguing than all of that, however, was one simple fact that had explorers trying to seek him out for over 500 years: he and the entirety of his kingdom were devout Christians.

While it seems a minor detail here, to understand the extraordinary impact that had you have to put yourself in the shoes of a European explorer between 1100 and 1800: you're considering going out for a jaunt that may or may not end with your death. At the very least, it will probably take the majority of your lifetime to get somewhere new, and even upon getting there, there is a very good chance that you will -not- be coming back with more wealth than you could possibly dream of. You're thinking of hitting South America because you've heard that El Dorado has awesome 2-for-1 shooters nights mandated for the entire nation and becaus the wings are f-ing bomb, but Spain and Portugal are being complete d-bags about it. But wait...your friend Chad-ington Blake-buryson just told you about this totally legit kingdom somewhere on your side of the Atlantic, and the dude running it is totes chill! The best part is it's like El Dorado, but with all the bro-skis worshipping the same God as you!

I dunno why I lapsed into Frat-Speak, but the point remains, Prester John's kingdom was widely considered a very rich, well-outfitted outpost or resupply area that one could look forwards to, in addition to the said area being a bastion of familiar culture, which was an invaluable bonus to the oft-harried and alienated explorers. One could liken it to an oasis in a desert, except where most oases could only be used for a moment and had to be moved on from, this oasis could be considered a respectable, self-sufficient endpoint if one wanted to. Anyways, Prester John's legend spread throughout Europe, culminating in many ridiculous situations such as the Prester John Letter Hoax, or the fact he was used as an excuse to start the second Crusades, or the fact that when the emperor of Ethiopia made contact with Europe that he was continuously referred to as "Prester John" (so much so that he actually called a couple of people out on it, letting them know that he was never referred to as "Prester John" by his people or anyone else up until that meeting, for that matter), but as an abstraction, a place that was always quested towards but never reached, it served as a well-believed carrot-on-a-stick for generation upon generation of explorers, and helped shape the world as we know it in incredibly sweeping ways.

Odds-On Favorite

So, I promised that I'd get into a bit of opinion-tossing on psychic phenomena today, and I plan to. But as a preface, I'd just like to make two things plain; first, that I really have nothing to back up my beliefs (I guess at that point, it wouldn't really be a belief-system so much as just faith) and second, that I don't expect you to agree with me. That all said, let's dig in.

I already mentioned a while back that I'm pretty agnostic about the concept of the afterlife and paranormal phenomena as a whole. Do I believe it's possible that either or both of these things exist? Yeah, why not. Am I sure about those beliefs? No way. But while I may be aggravatingly ambivalent about a couple of the foundation areas of parapsychology, one thing I believe and have always believed in is luck. I simply think luck exists. I know that statistically, it shouldn't. I also know that may determinists/deeply religious would argue that there's no such thing as luck, just divine will. But, human logic and attributions aside, however irrational a belief it may be, I have it. I think that regardless of where you think it comes from or how subjectively constructed it is, every person has a certain level of luck in any given situation, luck being defined as the ability to have larger than normal probabilities of a positive or desired outcome in that given situation. I also think that this level of luck in a specific situation tends to carry over into other similarly-structured situations. Like different areas of aptitude or knowledge, some people are luckier at certain things than others...like one may be luckier at financial gambles, whereas another is better at socio-political risks, where yet another takes on physical chances with a fearless demeanor...

I sort of conceptualize it like this: all actions with multiple outcomes have a certain level of probability associated with each of those outcomes. In certain philosophical and (if I remember correctly) physics frameworks, all of these outcomes occur in parallel universes, leading to the idea of divergent realities, where everything is the same to one point, then the paths diverge around the different resolutions to that situation. So, if every action has multiple outcomes (because let's face it, "meteor to the face" is always a possibility), then those who have luck have the ability to "nudge" a decision in their favor, basically altering reality around them. The stronger the level of luck, the more ridiculous the level of probability shifting they can undertake with a reasonable level of increased odds...some things will always be out of reach, but the luckier you are, the greater the spectrum of possibilities open up to create that "positive outcome", relatively speaking.

So what does this have to do with psychics, magicians, and/or the paranormal? Well, looking at luck as a simple probability-boosting field, then maybe it stands to reason that many of the proclaimed psychics and magicians aren't exercising arcane art so much as just a natural ability of "luck" in a specific area or set of areas. Divinatory oracles may not speak to gods so much as have a higher than statistically reasonable level of luck in predicting events, though they reason their abilities come from divine sources. Magicians that can control the weather and move objects over distances without touching them just have incredible innate powers of probability shifting, sometimes to the extent of flying in the face of the laws of physics.

Now, most of this was just getting some mind-babble on the interwebs, and for the most part, is purely speculatory. The only thing I really believe in is luck as a concept and a part of our reality...and I wouldn't really hold it against anyone else to disbelieve that, though. It was, as I said at the beginning, a sort of leap of faith, and like all faith, some make the jump, others don't. But whether or not you believe in luck, I still wish it in abundance to you all the same :)

Food For Thought

Anyways, that's the week, folks. I asked quite a few questions and, regardless of what the original intention was, don't really seem to be any closer to a codification system for the things I may encounter in the field here soon enough. However, I think that even coming up with the right questions to ask at all is the first step to even being able to wrap ones head around something new like this. I remember a linguistics teacher mentioning once how difficult it was to turn people onto the beauty and diversity of language, because if a society doesn't have a word for something it makes it next to impossible for someone within that society to try and conceive of it, which thereby makes trying to open your mind a much more difficult prospect than one would expect. Anyways, I'd like to think that by even trying to think of these paranormal phenomenons as something beyond "ghost story" and instead look at them as something that -can- be classified (or at least attempt to classify them), that in and of itself it the first step to maybe opening up the concept of a "ghost" in a way that hasn't been looked at in such a way. And yes, I don't have so much hubris as to think that I'm the first to ask these questions, but dang it, cut me some slack. o\One has to be able to run to the nearest Circle K before they can run a marathon, right? :P

Nightmare Fuel, Part 3

 So, you just heard some of the wild stories I had a chance to hear the other day. If nothing else, that experience led me to remember something that I had known once upon a time, but apparently had forgotten in amongst the day to day grind of things...virtually everyone has had something inexplicable happen to them. And we're not talking just ghosts here...it could a pre-cognizant dream, a sound they can't place, tracks they don't recognize, a coincidence just a shade past what anyone else could consider chance, all of these are things that in all probability, Joe Q. Schmoe has probably experienced at least one of. 

Which in my mind is both thrilling and a little frightening to be trusted with, because most people I know do their best to try and keep those moments of wonder as close and as safe as they possibly can, exempt from the pervasive banality of the world at large; I mean, really, doesn't everyone want to be special, or feel like there's -something- out there that can't be explained? But the position I'm taking on is actively looking to both document and (if obviously proven as explicable by other means) debunk odd phenomena as they happen, putting me in the unusual position of both protecting and extinguishing these motes of wonder. And one has to ask, if you lose all sense of wonder, what else is left? The way I see it, you're left with living in hollow terms, where every action has a well-documented reaction, and nothing is left to surprise you but the depths people will go to try and seek that visceral feeling of uncertainty. Would I be able to live with myself knowing that I could condemn others to a fate like that? I can't answer that yet...but I'm sure it will come in time.

But maybe that's why I decided to do this "out of boredom". Because, really, I could've done any number of things...taken up a weird hobby, tried to plow through the mounting pile of books at my house, finally learned to cook (LIKE A BOSS), etc. But I've made my displeasure with my mounting cynicism known to my close friends, and maybe I'm seeking out these "sparks" to fan my own "flame", so to speak. Or maybe I just have some unresolved Doctor Who issues that I need to work out, who knows.

So, like me, believe the stories you may read here or not, it doesn't pay me one bit of nevermind. But for your own sake, find something to believe in that hasn't already been documented to death. Maybe if you're lucky, it will come easy. If you're like me, you may have a ways to go, but at least you'll get some good stories along the way :)

Nightmare Fuel, Part 1

So, I got to speak with a few fellows (friends of a new friend) the other night, and jeez, I had no idea what I was walking into. What started as a casual night of a few drinks and a couple games of pool quickly took a hard left as soon as I responded honestly to the seemingly innocent question of "what've you been up to lately?" with mentioning that I was trying to put together a paranormal investigations kit, and suddenly it seemed like an open mike night for das heebies und jeebies. Let me break off a couple of the stories I heard from these guys (again, no judgement on whether they happened or not, the interesting aspect of it is that all of these stories came unbidden from a group of relatively mundane-seeming guys). Keep in mind, I may be misremembering certain details, but for the most part, these are the stories as they were told to me, with commentary as I feel like it.

-One of them claimed that ever since they were a young child, a Grigori (guardian angel) had followed him and watched over him to keep him safe from harm, including pushing his brother back from a balcony that just happened to fall when he was not two feet from it...from a purely objective viewpoint, I could see this as possible, but more likely just a coincidentally lucky jump at the last second being attributed to divine intervention. Still, I suppose that this instance really comes down to whether you believe in guardian angels, the idea of which I have a fairly open mind towards. I'd give this one a six out of ten in believability that the cause of what happened was truly supernatural in origin.

-This same guy claimed that once, while he and his brother were playing about in an old cave, he'd heard a couple of loud knocks (which he personally attributes to a knocker, a small dwarfish fairy/spirit that makes it's home in caves and mines and "knocks" to warn of imminent disaster) that sent him and his brother running for the entrance, where shortly thereafter the cave collapsed behind them, sealing the cave entirely...I'm alot more skeptical on this one. Specifically, while I love the romantic concept of fairies, I find them hard to believe in, and especially when the "knocking" could just as easily be explained by the last few shifts of the cave before it came down. However, to defend the "believer's" side, if we talk about how the oceans are the most unexplored place on earth due to their vastness, couldn't the same argument be leveled against the very bowels of the Earth? If ever there was a place for spirits to chill out in undetected, that environ across the board would be a prime spot. But, hypotheticals aside, I call bullsh-t on this one. Two out of ten.

-Same family, this time from the other brother; once upon a time, they were playing in their house when they heard the stairs creaking as if someone was walking up them. Going to investigate, they watched an indefinite haze advance up and quickly disappear in the attic, where they quickly followed, and saw a man in white muttering agitatedly to himself as he paced back and forth while holding a knife. Suddenly, then man looked directly at them and screamed "NO!" while slitting his own throat, causing the head to roll off his body and thump against the floor as it rolled towards them, then vanish as it drew close. Needless to say, they didn't stick around for very long to see if anything else happened...while certainly smacking of a certain violence and suddenness, I'm apt to sort of disbelieve this one. Why? Because it sounds too Hollywood-ish. Seriously, the setting, the timing, the archetypes and framing of the situation...you could almost see someone with a video camera going through these self-same motions to make one of the "boo" shots of some new wave horror movie. I'm inclined to think that this was more likely a late night movie that's half-remembered by both brothers and being confused for the real deal. On the other hand, if it really did happen, then they have balls the size of the Dakotas to see something like that and not let it phase turn their hair permanently white. Two out of ten.

-Supposedly the patriarch of this family, while in the military, was walking back to a hotel room one night when he turned and saw a jet black dog with glowing red eyes the size of a small pony following him. Immediately, he turned and ran for sixteen blocks, arriving at his hotel room and barricading his door as his room filled with the sounds of pounding and shredding wood. Eventually, it stopped, and on checkin on the condition of the door from the hallway, he saw that large claw marks had been rent into it, and that it was torn half to pieces...I think this one is a bit too contrived as well. It follows the classic setup for most "Black Dog" legends, that a terrifyingly large hellhound appears out of nowhere and follows a hapless victim until they either arrive home or are torn to pieces. However, according to the legends of the black dog, you can either try to outrun it (very bad idea, as they're usually fast enough to catch almost anything), or continue walking quietly and do your best to ignore it, knowing that if it can tell that you notice it's presence, then your life is forfeit. It's the wrong environs for such a thing (they're traditionally found in moors, highlands, and long roads winding throughout the United Kingdom, Scotland, and Ireland), but there have been rare tales of other traditionally Anglo-Saxon spirits appearing to certain bloodlines even when their members are transplanted to different areas. Two out of ten.

-While the brothers were playing with plastic swords, one of them apparently tossed a toy sword through the other. Like, the sword dematerialized and rematerialized after passing through the body of the brother. They know it rematerialized because it hit a third brother in the head...I got nothing for this one. I've heard of partial and full dematerialization occurring in powerful psychics or in times of extreme duress, but I'd be more likely to chalk this up to a very unusual throw that barely missed the one brother, while still appearing to be a direct hit. Three out of ten.

-While one of the brothers was in their room getting ready for bed, he noticed an arrow drawn on the window. Puzzled, he looked closer and noticed letters being drawn on the window, eventually spelling out "TURN AROUND", to which he did (rookie move, dude!), and on seeing nothing, turned back to the window, whereupon he saw a dead girl swinging outside of it...again, seems kinda theatrical. If I lived in a house where all of this crap went down, I'd be making popcorn and charging admission. Two out of ten.

-While these self-same brothers were watching TV in the dark one night, they heard a skittering behind the couch they were sitting on. After telling Brother Number 1 to sit still, Brother Number 2 "felt something take control of him" and make him grab behind the couch and quickly throw -something- into the wall in front of them. After hearing a sharp thud and a human sounding scream, he immediately turned on the lights, and the brothers saw a shadow skitter under the entertainment center, but when checked, there was nothing there...the idea of human/animal hybrids like this so-called "rat-thing" are common across cultures (werebeasts, mummies in Egypt, and witchcraft in the US, to name a few instances), so the inspiration for such a story is not found wanting. However, to go back to the cynics view, I see it as more probable that the one brother grabbed something and tossed it into the wall, and that the scream came from the other already-anxious brother upon hearing the unexpected noise, and the skittering shadow was simply a case of their eyes becoming readjusted to the light. Then again, they say that they'd never heard it's like before, so there's that strike against that explanation. Two out of ten.

Continued tomorrow...

Party Lines

I suppose a perfectly viable question for a reader to be asking right now is 'does he personally believe in the paranormal?' Well...yes and no.

Just as a preamble, I'm doing my best to go into all of this as unbiased as I possibly can. However, I do have two major sources of skew that luckily, courtesy of being from opposite ends of the 'believer-skeptic' spectrum, should just about cancel each other out. 

In the 'believer' corner, growing up I absolutely -devoured- anything I could find on mythology, folklore, the occult and unexplained, you name it...and I actually cleaned out the entirety of the six local libraries and most of the university's collection as well. So, put lightly, my working knowledge of what's supposedly "out there" is pretty freaking set. 

However, in the 'skeptic' corner, I have over seven years of working in some capacity (ranging from research assistant to primary investigator) with actual, honest-to-goodness research in both an academic and grant-funded sub-department setting. This experience has instilled me with a zero tolerance for unprovable hypotheses, appeals to emotion, and other "evidence surrogates" that I may come across...

So if we're talking about what I'd -like- to believe in, then the romantic in me wants to shout out "EVERYTHING!" as loud as it can for everyone to hear. The pragmatist in me, however, tempers that idealism with a healthy dose of "where's the proof?". So overall, I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to different phenomena (psychic, spiritual, etc.), with the notable exception being cryptozoology. When it comes to cryptozoology, I think that there's a much greater chance of proving that there is/was an undiscovered creature than an undiscovered form of consciousness or mental energy. So, if you're asking me if ghosts exist as such, my answer would be "maybe?". If you're asking if I believe in telepathy, I'd respond with "I dunno". It you're inquiring whether the Lindwurm could have ever been a real creature, I'd be much more optimistic. No matter what though, you better have something more solid than a good story to go off of.