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This will be a short blog, as I am unsure of what ultimate direction I want to discuss this topic in and it is something I hope to discuss many more times. However, stemming from my own childhood apparitions, some of which had been witnessed by both my cousin and my sister, it is a topic I have wondered about my entire life. Apparitions are surprisingly common, in fact most people who have seen ‘paranormal’ entities, were usually children at the time of witnessing it. This is excluding hallucinations that can be brought on by drugs, which is a whole can of worms I will not be opening in this article. However, whilst academic research in this area is unsurprisingly sparse, there are some fields, such as ‘para-anthropology’ that are worth checking out. Why it is children that are more likely to witness these things can come down to many reasons, the logical one is that they are more easily influenced in thinking they have seen something. Others have ranged from potentially children’s minds are less institutionalised into human conceptions of what a human should be (Sartre springs to mind here). Therefore, for whatever reason, these entities are more likely to present themselves, or are more easily seen, by less indoctrinated minds ?

The subject is a strange one, and adults also report having what most academics in the field refer to as an ‘anomalous experience’. In fact, there are even some highly debatable, but relevant cases of mass adult anomalous experiences. The obvious being ‘Our Lady of Fátima’, and more cryptid ones such as ‘Moth man’. It is easy to push all of this under the rug, as it does not meet the ‘gold’ standard of academic testing, can it be reproduced in a laboratory? Not likely, unless these potential entities, if they exist, decide to help humanity end its disbelief in anything ‘paranormal’. As a reasonable person myself (fairly, anyway) I do not even begrudge this disbelief, the burden of proof is on the paranormal, and phenomenology is not grounds enough to be considered empirical evidence. This also highlights the famous James Randi and his one million dollar challenge for anyone who believes they possess paranormal abilities to prove it. Whilst I do not believe any human possess paranormal abilities outside of current scientific explanation, I do have a belief in anomalous experience. This is notably a biased belief, as I have had said experiences during childhood.

I further find it interesting that some great minds and contributors to academic fields also had experiences. From Carl Jung and his hallucinations, to even Sigmund Freud and his auditory hallucinations of his mother calling his name. Socrates even spoke to his as it guided him through life decisions (however, Socrates Daemon is a blog post on its own). I am sure I have missed more, I just find this interesting ‘mysticism’ has been largely neutered from academics, and potentially rightfully so. It does not help that it cannot be researched upon outside of qualitative interviews. It also does not help that the waters on such a subject are heavily muddied, with ghosts and monsters from horror movies, or religious theology being applied to them. I tend to think that whatever these experiences may be, it is a part of nature, some side that exceeds are own evolution greatly. Sometimes, we have glimpses of these existences that lie outside of our own, including our window of logic and science. If these things really exist, I doubt we will ever have answers for them, and the fact that they clearly do not want to submit to human methods of proof might mean something outside of their ‘non-existence’.

Sorry this blog post is fairly different from my usual, I am not trying to convince anyone of my beliefs in such things. Even I, as the receiver of these experiences, still doubt myself heavily. I thought it may make for an interesting thought avenue, something not particularly discussed from an academic point of view. If you enjoyed this blog, or have had your own experience, feel free to like it and comment, or send me a message !