It’s okay—I know you think I’m crazy

[pjthompson]

I’ve been reading a fascinating book lately: Running With the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion by Dennis Gaffin. He’s an academic (a Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York College at Buffalo) who has done something quite rare: a serious study of Irish fairy belief.

Academics are big on doing serious studies of the folk traditions of Buddhists or South Seas Islanders or Native Americans, et al., but there’s a prejudice against turning that same eye towards Western folk beliefs. It’s an inherently racist stand, I think, that Those People and their Quaint Beliefs are okay to study, but somehow Western belief structures must be dismissed as silly trash. It’s as if the people who are doing the studies have decided that First Worlders are “too good” to have such ideas, that they must be ruthlessly derided and suppressed by Western academia so we can preserve our collective First World reputation.

So, Dennis Gaffin runs an academic risk here. True, he’s an anthropologist who’s gone native, so to speak, and is now perceiving fairies his own self. Which further risks his academic reputation, I suppose, but his point of view straddling both worlds is completely fascinating to me. I feel a kinship to him.

Have I ever seen a fairy? No. Nor heard none, neither. Do I believe in fairies? That’s a thorny question. I believe in another world which cozies up to this one and sometimes leaks through. I suspect that Whatever takes many forms and some people—otherwise rational and solid citizens—see It as fairies. Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, devas, dakinis, djinn, angels, name your poison. It’s all part of the same bag, I think. That Which Leaks Through.

It’s okay. I know you think I’m crazy. When I say I don’t care, I don’t mean it in a snotty or rebellious way. I mean that I made a conscious decision some time ago to share the things of the spirit as they come to me, in case someone else is having similar experiences and wondering if they’re nuts. I can’t answer the question of sanity, but I do know that I am a rational person who occasionally has trans-rational experiences.

When it comes to belief, experience is the core of it, an emotional heart-to-heart with something beyond the narrow confines of personal ego. It’s not a received wisdom, which is why religion often fails to convince. “Belief cannot be transferred,” says Professor Gaffin, “for it is a function of experience.” These things often seem to go hand-in-hand with a closeness to nature. As we move more and more away from the natural world and more into a mechanized, urbanized environment those experiences become rarer.

Scientific education is a great thing and a fundamentally good way of looking at the world. I highly recommend it. But even scientists (well, the rational ones) will admit that they don’t have all the answers. There was a time when I was about ninety percent of the way towards atheist. I called myself agnostic, but I’d come to view the Universe as fairly mechanistic. At one point, I finally said, “Okay, I don’t believe there’s anything else.” The Universe decided to call my bet. Almost as soon as I’d uttered that sentence It sent me an extraordinary experience. Followed by another and another until I capitulated, swept up in what to me was irrefutable evidence of there being something else. Generally, I’ve been a great deal happier in my “defeat” than I was in my “victorious” skepticism.

Why me? Why was I sent experiential data? I haven’t a clue. That’s the thing about the Universe. It’s a big freaking mystery with big freaking mysterious ways. We wander down half-formed pathways with thick fog on either side and every once in a while the mists lift to reveal a dazzling view of sheer cliffs and the dramatic crashing of waves far below. Then the clouds return and we proceed on the path—but once you’ve seen it, you can’t un-see that amazing sight. You’ve glimpsed the beauty and the peril lying just beyond the verge. You step carefully from that point on.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

There's a fascinating article that unfortunately I had bookmarked on my computer that crashed, written by a hardcore scientist (physicist) who was unwilling to cop to mechanization and "that's all there is." He had cogent reasons, but as usual, all I can remember is the central image, as I am an image-thinker: he likened human building of knowledge as laying down planks, one by one, into the ocean. Then one has to admit that long as the pier is, it is but a tiny, fragile structure when seen against the vast mystery beyond.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. "Not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine." It cheapens the grandeur of this vast, beautiful structure we live in to imagine it's only a tick-tock machine.

[makoiyi.livejournal.com]

It is a very interesting concept. Like you, I believe there is 'other' for sure. I cannot discount my experiences after Rich passed, and that is not to do with grief but the things which happened. I am very skeptical about most things, even while I write about them. because, part of my mind says, don't be silly, while the other part totally embraces differences. Many spiritual people say that unless you open yourself up to 'belief' then you won't find what you are looking for. I can't quite do that completely ( the skeptic in me refuses it) so that when something does happen, then I can't refute it.
In retrospect, why shouldn't there be another existence, another world, parallel or otherwise? I cannot believe we are alone. It doesn't make sense.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I retain a healthy skepticism, too. It's necessary to live in this world. But the key to all belief is that experiential component. When something strange happens that you can't refute, or is shared by others, then you know in a way that you didn't before. It doesn't explain anything—in fact, it just deepens the mystery—but you know that not everything appears on the surface of the world.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

“Belief cannot be transferred,” says Professor Gaffin, “for it is a function of experience.”

I nod my head, because this is so manifestly so. People believe because their experiences lead them to believe. People fail to believe because their experiences fail to support belief. Believers become unbelievers and unbelievers become believers. I've seen these things. I feel: that we must be very gentle and very accepting of a wide variety of human experience, when it comes to what people believe--because there *is* such a wide variety of human experience.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Yes, this! Why can't we all be patient with each other over these things? Why must we hammer them with our own beliefs being the only correct ones. There's such a wide range of experience and such a wide range of belief. We all need to cut each other massive slack. Alas, I have no faith that's going to happen any time soon.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :-)

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

I don't think your crazy. If you are, so am I. Hey...wait...
;)

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Hey, we'll be nutty together. :-)

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Heh... I'm a scientist, unless a study has a statistically significant test group and a double blind test, I'm unlikely to believe it.

Yet... I put out porridge for the "nisse" every Christmas Eve, and I am not chopping down the elder that is taking over a corner of my garden. ;)

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not asking anyone to believe anything on faith. As I said, real belief has an experiential component to it, so unless you've had something happen that you can't rationally explain, skepticism is he norm.

But yeah...no sense in provoking anything that might be in the back of the garden... ;-)

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Nope, don't want to push my luck. No-one wants to deal with a disgruntled "nisse" and Elder-Mother protects the home - there are plenty of stories of houses catching fire or being robbed after someone chopped down the elder. ;)

I grew up with plenty of family ghosts and mediums on both sides of the family, I have also seen ghosts myself on three occasions, and had a very real dream where my deceased godmother was telling me what to do.

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

I had a willow tree "volunteer" to grow in the back yard. It's about ten feet tall now, slim and, well, willowy, and the gardener keeps wanting to cut it down and I say, "No, no, no, no, no." It volunteered. They're said to be sacred to the fey. I know better than to mess with that! :-D (Besides, it's lovely and I like it.)

You clearly know about the Other. My experiences have been more towards the premonition-and-ghost variety also. Some of those were shared experiences with others, some not. And then there are other experiences which are more profound and mystical.

No locas here

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I realized at an early age that if you want others to believe you, you too must be willing to believe them. Without that experience that confers belief, it is hard; however, once you've had an experience, it is hard to imagine that you are the only one. As you said, nothing is explained; the mystery just grows ever deeper.

Re: No locas here

[pjthompson.livejournal.com]

Precisely so. I don't try to convince anyone to believe because you can't, anymore than you can be certain about what it all, any of it, means. But the mystery is rather lovely, so I'm content with that.