10 Paranormal things.

It's Halloween time again.  Time for all things creepy to take center stage and hog all the spotlights.  There is a word for all the things we like to think about around Halloween.  it's called the PARANORMAL.  Para from the french parachute and normal from the American abnormal.  Literally means 'I think you pulled that story out of your backside'.  Some people are unaware of all of the OTHER things that are also classified as paranormal and might like to broaden their Halloween horizons.

to wit and not in any particular order...

10. Ghosts - For me, this is what Halloween is all about.  I love a good ghost story.  It's the apex of mans innate fear of his own mortality.  The desperate hope for some existence albeit tortured, beyond this one.  Do I believe in an afterlife?  Yes, I suppose I do.  The only thing I know about it, is that it's completely different than anything anyone has ever thought of in our current mortal state.  I have written several blogs covering ghosts.  I hope you'll re-read them.   In short.  I don't believe in them, and yet I really do enjoy the idea of ghosts.  At this point I'm more inclined to believe that they are images from parallel realities that somehow overlap into our own.  Yeah, far fetched I know.

9. Psychic Phenomenon - I've had my hand at being psychic.  I'm pretty good at it. There are a lot of elements to psychic phenomenon though, clairvoyance is just one among many.  There is the medium that can contact the ghosts mentioned above.  there are those called 'sensitive' that can sense influences from an unseen world.  Distance viewing, the ability to project ones consciousness across vast distances, was even experimented with by military organizations in several countries.  They all involve our brain.  The problem is, the results are not clinically reproducible   This doesn't mean they can't happen, it just means it can't happen on any kind of measurable scale on demand.  As a result it also opens up the field to all kinds of fraudulent fortune tellers and mentalists.

8. UFO's - Unidentified Flying Objects.  In case you were living under a rock, or on board a spaceship that would like a better, more informed view into human societal relationships.  As a race, we humans are more and more intrigued with the idea that intelligent life from outer space is not only interested in us, but is interested in helping us.  I've discussed the elements and characteristics of Aliens in a separate blog.  Anything that is flying that you can't identify is technically a UFO.  Don't forget the UFO's little sister the USO.  Unidentified Sea Object.  these are ostensibly not aliens, but a race we don't run into much because they are from the bottom of the ocean.  They create craft that can interact with us, but they find us to be both violent and stupid and would rather not have anything to do with us.  Men in Black also fall under this heading.  Like the movie, these ill dressed aliens go around erasing peoples memories about extra terrestrials but not with nifty technology (as far as we know), but with vague threats and sinister intent.  Most sighting of UFO's will include some kind of resume about the viewer having been around a lot of airplanes and that was not like any airplane THEY'VE ever seen.  Of course we later come to find that 99% of all UFO sightings end up being military experimental stuff.  Is it because they are working in conjunction with aliens?!  maybe.  They aren't telling.

7. Exo-Biology - This covers Big Foot, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, Gorilla's and Orangutans.  What's that you say?  We've verified the existence of the last 2?  Yeah, I guess we have.  So to say that the others aren't possible is really kind of ignorant of the fact that we simply haven't discovered ALL of the animals on our little blue ball yet.  Any kind of strange animal that has more fancy and folklore about it than fact falls under this category.  Normally, if we can't identify it or capture or kill it, we don't believe it exists.  I presume pet ghosts also fall under this category, though I'm not really sure.  I think there are explanations for all of these creatures (the living ones anyway).

6. Religion - Hey now Mark, you are treading on thin ice here.  Yes I probably am.  But ultimately Religion often asks believers to assume certain fantastic events to be fact without evidence as we know it, but simply through faith.  As an exercise, take a good hard look at the deep religious philosophy of a religion that is not your own.  It seems strange doesn't it?  There are paranormal events that claim to occur in the name of religion all the time.  One of the more fantastic ones involve the liquification of a mass of solid holy blood during a ceremony.  For Christians, the bible itself contains many tales of paranormal events that can only be explained by the 'Hand of God'.  Even within Christianity, if you've ever attended a service of a church that is not your particular denomination, it all seems kind of strange, doesn't it?

5. Zombies. - These come in a separate place because They are kind of in vogue these days.  The idea that somehow the person that you once were now is a flesh/brain eating being that only knows to continually search for food. The idea that this could happen at all is ludicrous.  A zombie of of course is a human body that has been taken over by either a magic or parasite rendering the individual personality of the person inside that body to be dead.  The body now only hunts for brains/human flesh.  The old version of zombie just meant someone that was under the control of someone else.    On the other hand, there are some strange practices that involve a near trans like state of the individual (which usually involves some kind of mind altering drug) that makes them very suggestible.  Granted this is not the brain slurping zombie we all know and love, but some definitions change over time.

4. De Ja Vu - This is in a separate category because we've all experienced this.  The idea that you have already experienced an event and you already know what is going to happen next.  The feeling is so vivid that you could swear you know what will happen.  I don't have a problem with this.  I'm just not sure what to make of it.  My dad used to say that when you experience it, it means you are on the right track.  I'm really not sure what THAT means either.  I think that your brain optimizes similar experiences and sometimes gets it wrong.  some neurons fire that shouldn't and bingo, instant memory of something that hasn't happened yet.

3. Spontaneous Human Combustion - When I was a wee lad of tender years, this one really freaked me out. The idea the people could just burst into flame and turn to ash without disturbing their surroundings spooked me.  People would be found as a 1/2 burned pile of ash but with a leg or arm still intact. How does that work?! Weird.  It doesn't seem to happen as much anymore.  Probably because people are used to calling for help when they find themselves on fire now.  Maybe it was rude to ask for assistance back then.

2. Vampires - This doesn't fall under exobiology, nor does it fall under Psychic phenomenon.  If anything, it falls under religion and yet it's not a good fit there either.  Vampires like zombies are created through contact with other Vampires, but the Idea behind this fictional species is that you are either food or eventually enslaved by the Vampire that has bitten you.  You essentially become a part of their down line in a blood related multilevel marketing scheme.  They have lots of powers and in some cases will actually sparkle, much to their chagrin.  They bite their victims and suck/eat their blood.  If they feel so inclined, they will turn you into a vampire, otherwise, they just kill you.  There ARE some real life counterparts to this that aren't nearly as fantastic.  They mostly seem to be overly dramatic people that really want to stand out with the other people that stand out like them.


1. Politics - This has elements of nearly everything above.  The Candidates appear to be both alien and born and raised here.  They haunt your TV with ads like only the most annoying poltergeist would dare.  You believe you've seen them all before saying the same things, because you have De Ja yuck.  They appear to be under the slavish control of their respective parties like zombies.  Like religion, they would like the faithful in their party to ignore the problems and focus on the good parts of the candidate.  After you've seen enough of their commercials, you would rather spontaneously combust than see another one.


As always, thanks for reading!