Casual Thoughts about Buddhism and the Paranormal

I only stumbled into the weird, wacky world of the contemporary Western paranormal because I love ghost stories and am apparently easily led by internet links. In real life, while I have some interest in esoterica and the paranormal, I have way less interest in those areas than I do in, say, deepening my understanding of Buddhist practice. At the same time, I recognize that for some people the necessity for understanding what paranormal thing happened to them or what UFO they saw is as fundamental as is my need for a Buddhist practice. Amidst the swathes of the paranormal world that I view as entertainment, there is that contingent who, insistent with their questioning, exhaustive with their research and/or dedicated to effective communication, make it an intellectually intriguing and rewarding arena for thought.

That’s what I think when I wear my Former Academic hat. Wearing my Buddhist hat, I indulge my longstanding interests in esoterica, etcetera by searching through various Buddhist scriptures for any reference to Others – ghosts, aliens, demons, gods – in search of an (unlikely) answer.

On account of the religious and political institutions of monotheism, in the West we have a long history rigorous dualism. There is one true god and one true church; the rest is evil, Other. The pattern was repeated even after the Enlightenment came and was followed by the Industrial Revolution and then the flourishing of big-S Science. Scientism replaced God, spirituality became superstition, and myth and folklore became epistemological slurs instead of words describing meaningful social competencies. Buddhism, however, comes from the half of the world that didn’t fuss with drawing those particular distinctions and positively bristles with gods, demons, snakes and monsters. (Some of whom, of course, are us.)

So can Buddhists answer questions about the paranormal, UFOs, big feet and more? Can becoming a Buddhist turn you into someone who can get the paranormal answers that no one else has? Such questions come up because it’s known that intensive training (meditation, yoga, qigong etc.) can result in various powers or abilities thought of in the West as supernatural, including chatting with Others. However, Westerners tend not to have the personal discipline to train so intensively or the structure of social institutions that could support such an effort. Moreover, special powers are traditionally held to be mere epiphenomena of training – something of no intrinsic importance that just happens along the Way. While they may seem magical, they can be misused just like love and loyalty, for example. They pose a real question to Science, but as experiences are just another bubble in the boiling pot of water that is a human life.

Yet there’s no doubt that in Buddhism the world is full of Others of various shapes and sorts. Because of the long history of Buddhism and of literacy in China and because I’m writing this in 2016, we have fantastic access to great scholarship and translations from original sources that allow English only speakers like me to understand various sutras (scriptures) and mantras (spells or prayers) in a way that was not previously possible. I don’t mean that we should understand this aspect of Buddhist literature to be empirically descriptive in an ontological sense. But it does reflect the centuries-long heritage of training by Buddhists. When I say that, I am thinking of my martial arts teachers who have trained much longer and harder than me. I have learned to listen to what they tell me; the consequences of not doing so are usually painful.

One traditional Buddhist teaching is that of the six realms a being may find itself born into, according to its karma: humans, animals, hell, gods, hungry ghosts or titans. Another I’ve already mentioned is that superpowers exist and can be obtained, but they're sort of like Kim Kardasian’s butt – fascinating, but not for more than a few minutes.

The Thai Forest Monk Ajahn Mun in the 20^th century regularly talked dharma with devas (some kind of disincarnate or non-human being) during meditation. His biographer, Ajahn Maha Bua, explained that there were terrestrial devas and celestial devas, differentiated by how far above the ground they lived. Reading all this made me wonder about spook lights and UFOs and the story of the Sky-Walkers from The Tower of Myriad Mirrors, a 17^th-century Zen spinoff from a classic of Chinese literature, Journey to the West. Recently I’ve been reading about the Shurangama Sutra, which in part goes into the various delusions one can have even in deep meditation. I’ll just leave you with Monkey in Chapter Three of The Tower of Myriad Mirrors:

Just as [Monkey] jumped up to go search for his master, he heard voices in the sky and quickly looked up to see four or five hundred people swing axes and using chisels to dig holes in the sky.

Monkey thought, “They don't have the look of celestial workers or ominous or evil stars. They are obviously people from earth, but why are they doing this sort of work here? They aren’t monsters disguised as men because I see no evil aura about them. Come to think of it, maybe heaven has grown extra bones and has asked a surgeon to remove them. Or maybe heaven is too old and they are chiseling it away so they can put in a new one. Or maybe heaven has been covered by a screen, and they are removing the false heaven for the real one. Or maybe the Milky Way is flooded and they are channeling away the excess. Or maybe they are rebuilding the Palace of Magic Mists and this is an auspicious day to break ground. Or maybe Heaven likes elaboration and asked people to carve a thousand and ten thousand lines to make a beautiful scene. Or maybe the Jade Emperor is thinking about this world and they are opening an imperial road so he can come down often.

"I wonder If Heaven's blood is red or white. Or If Heaven's skin is one or two layers thick. Or if there will be a heart or not when Heaven’s chest is opened. Or if Heaven's heart is slanted or straight. Or if Heaven is young or old or if it's male or female. Or maybe they want to open Heaven and let Heavens mountains hang down and surpass earth's mountains. Or maybe they are opening the mouth of Heaven to swallow the Underworld. But even if any of these things are true, no one on earth could have such power. I'll just go up and ask them then I'll know for sure."

I love how Monkey – think a Buddhist Wiley Coyote – wildly ratiocinates a la an Andrew Basiago or Grant Cameron while still desperately grasping after the keel of rationality. He comes up with all sorts of unlikely post hoc explanations for selectively chosen data sets in a way that people who follow ufology are all too familiar with. Yet in the end, he seems to rein himself in and decides that he should just find out, instead of speculate.

The Professor and the Abductee

Let me start by issuing a global apology right now. Things happen. This was one. The poem is The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll, which was also put into music by Donovan. But I blame Paratopia.

The sun was shining in the sky

Shining with all his might;

He did his very best to make

The UFOs smooth and bright.

And this was odd, because it was

The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily

Because she thought the sun

Had no respect for UFOs

When all was said and done.

“It’s very rude of him,” she said,

"to say there were no nuns!”

The sea was wet as wet could be,

The sands were dry as dry.

You could not see a USO because

They had forgotten how to fly.

The only things were pelicans

Against an endless sky.

The Professor and the Abductee

Were walking close at hand;

They wept like anything to see

The aliens try to land.

“If they don’t crash those noble ships,”

They said, “it would be grand!”

“If seven researchers with seven slides

Researched it for half a year,

Do you suppose,” the Professor said,

“That they could get it clear?”

“I doubt it,” said the Abductee,

 And wept a bitter tear.

“O Aliens, come and float with us!”

The Professor did beseech.

“A pleasant session, a pleasant regression,

Along this starry slope.

We wish to probe your memory,

And test your telescope.”

The biggest Alien looked at him,

But never a thought it sent.

The biggest Alien winked one eye

And shook its outsized head

Meaning to say it did not choose

To play weird games in bed.

But other Aliens hurried up,

All ready for MPD.

Their eyes were slanted (but that was not at all a racial thing), their faces expressionless,

There shoes were clean and neat –

And this was odd, because, you know,

They hadn’t any visible feet.

Four other Aliens followed them,

And yet another four;

And thick and fast they came at last

All through Disclosure’s doors –

Hopping through the frothy speeches

And scrambling to the fore.

The Professor and the Abductee

Walked on a parsec or so

And then they rested on a famous landing site

Conveniently situated close to a conference hotel;

And all the little Aliens stood

And waited in a row.

“Time is irrelevant,” the Professor said,

And so is history;

We can pretty much make up whatever we want

And call it ufology

Or prove the sea is boiling hot

And aliens have MPD.”

“But wait a bit!” the Aliens cried,

“Before we download our binary code;

For some of us have Rh- blood,

And all of us are ancient!”

“Don’t worry,” said the Abductee.

They thanked her much for that.

“A pair of panties,” the Professor said,

“Is what we chiefly need:

DNA and fluids too

Are very good indeed –

Now if you’re ready, Aliens dear,

We can begin to research.”

“But not on us!” the Aliens cried,

Turning a little grey.

“Regression hypnosis would be

Inadvisable methodologically!”

“The night is fine,” the Professor said.

“Did you see that UFO?

“It was so good of you to share

Your experience with me!”

The Abductee said nothing but

“Will I be in the book?

I wish you were not quite so deaf –

My agent is on the hook.”

“It seems a shame,” the Professor said,

“To play them such a trick.

After we’ve misrepresented them

And falsified their data.”

The Abductee said nothing but

“The truth will come out later.”

“I study you,” the Professor said,

“I deeply telepathize.”

With sobs and tears he sorted out

The ones whose stories fit

Holding his Lam-owl spectacles

Before his dimming eyes.

“Oy, Aliens!” said the Abductee,

“You’ve run the needed tests.

Shall we be shapeshifting back to Zeta then?”

But answer came there none –

And this was scarcely odd because

They’d made up* every one.

*Almost

Rh Negative Folkore

We all know the UFO field is intellectually crippled (present company excepted of course), and the rain of inanities that continues to fall from the lips of UFO pundits about the Rh negative blood factor as being somehow linked to manifestations of the phenomena is just more proof of this. I admit to getting exercised about this issue; the whole Rh neg thing gets my panties so twisted that I doubt even Dr. Jacobs could straighten them out into one of his books. It’s a sad statement about the intellectual desert that UFO/phenomena studies finds itself in that even the people I hold to be the most informed and interesting thinkers in the area make themselves sound like idiots when talking about the Rh blood factor. Possibly they feel forced to address the bizarre approach ufology takes to the topic because Nick Redfern recently published a craptastic book on the topic. If that’s the case, then Redfern has done a much greater disservice than bilking me out of ten dollars; he’s promoted complete bullshit to the top of the paranormal agenda.

In the age of Trump and Brexit, it may seem quaint to get upset about something like the Rh negative factor being used to resurrect racist and eugenic agendas. If America is about to leave behind even putatively mythical values like religious tolerance, freedom, democracy, etc., why fuss about long-ago bankrupted pseudoscience being used to prove that one race is somehow superior to another? Don’t worry; we’re not talking about intelligence this time—now it’s paranormal sensitivity. The compass needle has swung; it used to be that natives and savages were considered to be more sensitive and superstitious, but with the Rh factor mythology, whites (with a little admixture of Cherokee thrown in for good measure) are now reclaiming direct access to the gods and the privileged knowledge that entails.

Is the Rh factor mythology gaining popularity in ufology as a measure of ufology’s waning, as nativism is gaining in white national communities unable to adapt to changing economic and demographic circumstances? However, it’s pointless to ask that question until people recognize the Rh factor myth as a myth, or trope, or meme, or narrative – whatever term your generation uses. Which involves recognizing it as NOT FUCKING BASED IN ANY SCIENCE WHATSOEVER.

Sorry. Had to pause and unknot the knickers once again. How anyone can get through a college or even high school education and not have enough basic knowledge to see through the whole nativist Rh factor argument is just beyond me. Like I said, though, even the best and the brightest in the paranormal have swallowed it hook, line and sinker with only a couple nervous, giggling hiccups of references to “well, we don’t want to be racist now; we’re not being racist, are we?”

And yeah, they were all white guys. In a way, you can’t blame them; how would they even know? It’s like telling a fish about water. A fish obsessed with algae: “I can feel it all around me, and sometimes I can see it; I KNOW it’s out there!” and you’re like, “And there’s this matrix it travels in, it’s called water—” and the fish is like, “That was a blue one! Yesterday I saw a green one that was smaller.” “The thing about water is—” “Holy shit! Was that a purple, round one? Right over there by my nest? Holy fucking shit!”

Setting aside the subtexts, though, how anyone with a basic education in science can give the Rh negative mythology any time of day at all is just beyond me. Something like Project Core that collects self-perceptions of Rh status as data points isn’t a problem; the problem is people who don’t seem to have the intellectual equipment to think critically about applying a not very difficult idea from the world of science to ufology and ufology’s confreres.

Originally I got exercised about this topic after listening to an episode of Where Did the Road Go. I felt like writing something to express my opinion but didn’t want to be just another asshole on the internet. Later, going about my business while listening to an old time radio podcast, I heard a character protest to cop/hero Danny Clover (Broadway is My Beat), “I am from Rh negative blood, Lieutenant.” That was 1949, folks. Very, very close to the period when blood antigens were becoming better understood and in particular the all-important Rh factor which affected childbirth and blood transfusions. If this mention in an old radio show is any indication, inchoate claims of superiority due to possessing Rh negative blood factor appeared in popular culture almost as soon as the discovery of the factor did. If that’s true, than UFO pundits are just the latest in generations of dupes and we’ve got a very interesting case of scientific folklore to investigate.

How to Make a Buddhist Altar for Your Cat

I just moved into a new place. I'd like to put a Buddha altar inside and also in the yard, so naturally I went on the internet. Wikihow is a great site that had a page just for me: How to Create a Simple Buddhist Shrine.

Step one: choose a stable place above head level. Okay, my cats are gonna go for that in an instant. Espeically if they think it's special in any way.

Step two: make a shelf to support the objects. And by "objects" I suppose they must mean "cats."

Three: place the objects onto the shrine. Some recommendations follow about what objects should be placed on the shrine, but you and I know it's all up to the cats as to what they choose to knock to the floor and what they're willing to curl around. Steps four and five are similarly technical, expecially if cats are likely to be involved. They concern choosing specific scriptures or images, but don't address the likelihood of hairballs, shedding or dried tapeworm fragments.

Step six: place offerings such as a bowl of water on the lowest level. This practically guarantees the presence of hairballs, shedding and dried tapeworm fragments on the rest of the altar and increases the likelihood of that special Buddha statue purchased off Amazon being knocked over and broken by a whopping 47 percent.

Steps seven through nine talk about what kinds of offerings are appropriate to make at the shrine, but to me it just sounded like the things I do to try to get the cats to like what I feed them. And I'm pretty sure any attempt at placing a stupa on the shrine would lead to puffed tails, hissing, and vigorous escape leaps. Some things are just too damn weird, or maybe just too New Age, to countenance.

Step ten, the incense: I'd like to make offerings to Buddha, but my cats freak out if I make a flame in the house. Maybe I can make the incense offering inside and then when the cats are asleep sneak into the yard and burn it out there.

I guess I worship cats.

Sex and Delusion

audio journal transcript, driving to work

This morning I was thinking about sex and delusion. Actually, I was thinking about the social construction of sex. I had been reading Maha Boowa’s biography of Acariya Mun (both well-known Buddhist monks in the Thai Forest tradition) and was thinking about how Theravadan monks can’t touch women. Actually, if you think of it, it kind of make sense; if you become a monk at a young age and haven’t had any experience—have I already said this?—haven’t had any experience being socialized with women, being around women in their various roles as people and as different parts of society, when those hormones kick in, you only have one source of information: what your hormones are telling you. That’s never a good thing. We know that.

I could see in that context trying to continue to keep women cloistered is a strategy that kinda makes sense. Whereas if you bring kids up with a more humanistic view of—or with humanistic socialization where people are individuals and not just their social role or gender identity—you would have maybe more awareness of or control over that kind of reaction that’s prompted just by sheer instinct. I say awareness of/control over because I think it’s clearly the awareness part that that helps. Control over is not so helpful without the awareness, cuz then you’re just kind of repressing something by brute force without really examining it.

The reason I say that is cuz two things. I was sitting in mediation yesterday, and this has happened not unfrequently, and just this very kind of antisocial, id-ish type thought would leap into my mind every so often. I’m like, “Wait a second! Where did that come from? I’m not that person! I don’t think like that! Is that what they call the id? I don’t even know if I believe in the id.”

Then I was reading the Acariya Mun biography. The biographer actually mentioned something about kilesas or defilements in that respect, that these things are no joking matter. You really don’t know what you’re dealing with. I forget how he put it, but it made me realize that might be what I’m encountering in my practice.

It did make me think of desire as being partly a social construct. In addition to it actually being an instinctual part of—cuz like the argument for subjugation of women in patriarchal cultures is that men can’t control themselves around women. Which, as we know, is simply that men WON’T control themselves around women and they exist embedded in a social structure which facilitates rape and abuse and violence against women. I’m saying that non-ironically. It seems to me pretty self-evident. You don’t have to be Andrea Dworkin, you don’t have to take things that far. All you have to do is open your eyes.

[Digression into local human trafficking news, psychological manipulation techniques and reflections upon certain bird mating displays]

The same kind of social rituals that go into manipulation and victimization of these people [trafficking victims] are also in another sense erotic. To me, to a lot of people, some of them. That’s completely terrifying. If you don’t know where to draw the line, that is completely terrifying. How do you know where to draw the line?

Somehow, some of us figure out where to draw a line. Apparently, it’s possible! Hence, what I say about the institutionalized misogyny being at some level a choice. If it’s a choice, you can become aware of it and you can choose not to do it. If you think that’s worth doing, if you think that women are people, etcetera, etcetera.

This was all in the shower. I thought as an added kind of proof of that idea, of that concept, you have women who for centuries now have been subjugating their sex drive, being non-orgasmic, not being aware of the sexual aspect of their being and suffering the consequences of what happens when you do that. Cuz it’s painful, it’s difficult, it’s hard and it sucks, but if you’re risking your life to project a sexual identity and try to get sexual satisfaction, you’re probably gonna learn how to suppress that.

What men would say is, “Women, they just—they’re non-orgasmic, they’re not as into sex.” I’ve had my guy friends say this to me, ones from older generations especially, but I’m sure lots of younger ones still think it. That’s not the case at all. It’s just that it’s too dangerous to show it, to let it show its face. It will strip you of your freedom, your ability to survive, a lot of that shit.

Yes, in part desire is socially constructed. If women can learn to subjugate their sexual identity in the interest of their sheer survival, then men can learn to control themselves around women and no longer have to project onto women their raging, uncontrolled hormonal impulses and make it out like women are the feeble, tainted, etcetera etcetera sex.

Maybe someone somewhere will start to doubt that any of it is even real.

Of Mind and Memory and Tea Trays

Less than ten people stayed after meditation for the midweek dharma talk. With a small group like that, things are bound to be more casual. Reverend Master told some funny stories about back when the order kept milk goats and he served as goat monk. Then the talk veered toward cheese and started to get rather lively.  Once again, I became aware of how close we were to the local gourmet ghetto. At the last possible second Reverend Master swung the conversation away from the approaching iceberg of an extended consideration of the technical aspects of enhancing melting qualities in cheese and invited us instead to contemplate uncertainty.

After the talk was over, I picked up the tray and started to collect everyone’s tea cups. One woman who had been talking a bit excessively during dharma talk was now standing and chatting with Reverend Master like they were at a cocktail party. I held out the tray to collect her cup, doing the smile and half bow that is the local etiquette. She smiled back and, instead of placing her cup on the tray, took the tray from me. Apparently she wanted to collect the tea cups, so I gave it to her.

(The whole smile and half bow thing is GREAT for those of us who don’t do names. I knew Talking Woman, but had no clue what her name was. She was just another one of us older middle aged white ladies. I know my own name and think of all the other females as Mary. The guys are all Paul. Most post-ceremony potluck conversations I have start out with at least one person saying, “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”)

Talking Woman wasn’t completely familiar with the local etiquette, but so what? If you do a practice, your understanding will develop over time. The exactitudes are not important; etiquette is merely a tool for developing awareness. For instance, last week Mary showed me how to turn on the meditation hall lights. Of course I know how to turn on lights, but being shown how to turn them on for ceremonial observances felt like getting promoted in martial arts.

The moment after I handed the teacup tray to Talking Woman, the entire incident vanished from my mind. I petted the temple cat and went to put on my shoes. Mary was putting on her shoes, too, and we had to cooperate to make use of the limited space by the door. The tea tray incident flickered briefly into my mind again. Talking Woman’s behavior was like that of someone used to receiving things from subordinates. It was easy to imagine situations where those kinds of roles played out. It’s funny how much people’s behavior reveals about their background and character, I reflected, and then forgot about it.

I was buckling my seatbelt when I thought about it again. I knew Talking Woman, but from where? It really was a puzzle. It will come to me in time, I thought. These things always do. She was definitely familiar. Mainly, though, I was thinking of goats and cheese and shipping wax.

Approaching the highway on-ramp a few minutes later, she popped back into my head again. This was really annoying! There was nothing I could do about it until I finally remembered. There’s just no conscious way of intentionally remembering something, after all. You either remember it or you don’t, right? Why did I even care?

I got onto the highway. There were shoes and ships; it was night; I had my tunes playing. Then: I’m going to remember this. Not actually remembering, but the knowledge that I am now in the process of remembering and will soon have remembered. Verb tenses don’t even convey the experience! The fire was lit, the kettle was on the hob and the deep was bubbling. The question of Talking Woman was really nagging at me now. Why did I care? Why was I so sure that I was going to remember?

The whole thing unfolded over a 15 minute night drive home. I was playing tunes and thinking about a book I was reading, but the image of Talking Woman’s face as she smiled back at me over a tea tray she almost certainly didn’t want to accept kept rearing its middle-aged head. Where did I know her from? TV? No, it couldn’t be; She wasn’t British and I don’t have a TV. It really couldn’t be TV; it was highly unlikely to be TV. Why was I thinking TV? I let it go again and enjoyed the night drive.

It was TV, I was just going to have to accept that. I could feel the memory approaching. It’s like when you feel like you’re going to have to take a crap soon; I could actually feel the memory starting to emerge. This was not someone I had met in person; I was just going to have to accept that as a fact that some part of me knew to be true, even if my conscious mind was playing catch up.

If it was TV, that means Netflix; Talking Woman was a middle aged white female, and that narrowed the field considerably. What movie had I ever watched in which a middle aged white female smiled the way she did when inadvertently taking the teacup tray from me? I queried my brain.

By the time I got to the highway off ramp near my home, I thought I had the answer. I couldn’t remember the actor or the name of the movie, but I had definitely watched it on Netflix. Once home I was able to find out the name of the movie, look up the IMDB listing and confirm who Talking Woman was. Then I watched the movie again because it really was very well done. Afterwards I realized that if I ever ran into her again it could be tricky. To me she’s that character in that movie, while in real life she’s someone I’ve never actually met.

The mental unfolding of the tea tray incident was rather remarkable. We’re talking about a split second of an interaction which I put behind me as soon as it was over yet still presented some problem that my mind really wanted to be allowed to solve. None of the mental events were particularly volitional and the topic was not of conscious interest to me, but my mind kept worrying away at it like how your tongue feels around the hole a lost tooth leaves behind. The mental sensation of feeling an actual memory coming closer and closer before I actually had it was also quite interesting. It was almost like being able to predict the future, at least in terms of my own mental content;I knew I was going to remember something before I knew what it was I remembered.

House Builder, Thou Art Seen! Well, at least glimpsed.

Integrating Theoretical Approaches in the Study of the Parawhatsit

I was listening to Paratopia Oculus the other day when Jeff Ritzmann mentioned that in his writing he was struggling with integrating the notion of anti-structure he adopted from the works of George Hansen (1) with Greg Bishop’s co-creation theory (2).

Wow, that has got to be some rough going, I thought, even before you add in any element of the supernatural, paranormal or whatever the currently fashionable term is. The reason being that the theoretical underpinnings of the two approaches are themselves at odds. Hansen’s work is based on a type of social theory called functionalism that takes a systems approach to explaining social phenomena. Co-creation theory, to the extent that I understand it, is basically a social constructivist approach focused on how shared understanding creates social phenomena. In the case of co-creation theory, one of the entities sharing the understanding happens to be differently incarnated (i.e., non-human and possibly non-physical), but otherwise it’s straight constructivism.

Why does this matter? All theories put forward for explaining and understanding human social phenomena take certain things for granted. Sometimes these assumptions are explicitly named, but more often they go unrecognized. Moreover, most theories excel at explaining certain types of things but fail miserably at accounting for other stuff; they all have their strengths and weaknesses. In the case of functionalist versus constructivist theories, some of the assumptions they are based on are antithetical, that is to say, completely opposed to one another. Also, the things each theory tends to be good or bad at explaining are wildly different. Trying to integrate functional and constructivist approaches is sort of like mixing oil and water; Jeff Ritzmann has cut himself out a ridiculously difficult task.

But then, salad dressing tastes good. That’s even before you add in the paranormal croutons. If you try to integrate functionalist and constructivist explanations AND make it account for parastuff of various ilks, I definitely want to taste that salad – but I can’t guarantee I won’t snack while I wait for it to be ready.

Because there’s a further question. From a purely theoretical perspective, we still have not resolved the question of whether the stuff of parastuff is OUR parastuff or THEIR parastuff. Hansen’s functional approach seems to suggest that liminality or anti-structure breaches reality enough for an external reality of ontological others to break on through, but doesn’t address how the encounter then goes. Co-creation doesn’t address how the encounter begins, but posits that as it’s happening both an ontological other and a human being participate in shaping the nature and meaning of an event. Then we have Eric Ouellet with his recent book Illuminations arguing that the whole thing can be put down to entirely to human activity, albeit in the form of as-yet-poorly understood psi, or perhaps social psi, activity.

We are now very far from CSICOP territory, were everything has an explanation and nothing is not normal. However, that is no reason to give up on theoretical rigor, rules of evidence and meticulous attention to the logic of argumentation. I bow to the unknown, but I do not submit to it. We press on.

I find Ouellet’s theory extremely attractive; it overlaps with several areas of my own education and previous research and holds out the promise of being a powerful explanatory approach. But to me, the most exciting part is the gaping hole it seems to have. If all this parastuff can be put down entirely to as-yet-not-fully-understood human psi or collective psi abilities, WHY IS IT SO OFTEN EXPERIENCED AS AN OTHER? Specifically, as radical alterity – aliens! – not only non-human, but outside known reality – an ontological Other.

If Ouellet’s assumption is wrong, ontological others do exist and we occasionally interact with them. That is totally cool in my book. If his assumption is right, there are certain circumstances under which we define our own experiences as so foreign they can only be understood in terms of an ontological Other; we are in effect creating UFOs, ghosts, poltergeists we occasionally experience; we ARE the plants that speak to us in dreams and visions. Either way you answer that question, I’m in my happy place. In fact, you don’t have to answer the question at all (an answer may in fact be impossible) and I’d still in my happy place, which is the sociology of knowledge.

What kind of boundary work is involved in perceptions of radical alterity? How do we draw lines around what counts as us and what counts as Other? It’s rich philosophical territory and also open to empirical enquiry. How much fun is that?!?!?

Bibliography of Three Books I Have Not Actually Read, Although I May Have Heard Other People Talk About Them On Some Podcast Somewhere: 

1. Hansen, George (2001) The Trickster and the Paranormal

2. Bishop, Greg (2016) It Defies Language!

3. Ouellet, Eric (2015) Illuminations

(I have not figured out blog comments yet so if you want to talk to me you are going to have to remote view my email address.)