Dogma V Experience
Mar. 6th, 2022 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe've bought Mary a collection of 50 True Ghost Stories for her birthday. Not one specifically designed for kids but the print size is generous, the stories short and the vocabulary fairly simple. Wendy nodded it through. She's thinks Mary can cope.
I was reading true ghost stories- avidly- when I was Mary's age. I had Lord Halifax's Ghost Book and several collections by Eliot O'Donnell- cheap paperbacks with lurid covers. My favourite cover showed a woman wearing a wreath- like she was Queen of the May- only she had no eyes. I wasn't just in it for the scares; I was also wanting to figure out was going on in the world- and if people are seeing ghosts- and they do, they do- then a world picture that doesn't account for the paranormal is incomplete.
Re-reading Lord Halifax's Ghost Book- as I currently am- one of the things that strikes me is how his aristocratic 18th and 19th narrators report what they've seen and heard while affirming that ghosts have been exploded and only the peasantry still believe in them. One guy reports seeing a dead butler walking through the house- as clear as day- so the phantom can easily be identified by those who knew him as being an actual suicided servant- and then says "I don't believe in the ghost." How strange that people- then as now- are more willing to conform to what their social circle requires them to believe than trust the evidence of their own senses. Snobbery comes into it, social as well as intellectual. Also the pitiful fear of being ostracised. We all entertain that fear. "Evidence be damned, I'll go with the dogma..."
I was never one for dogma- at least not when I'd seen evidence that called it into question. And I've always had the inclination to look for such evidence. This (long story short) is what led me to quitting the church.
Once again I seem to be an the brink of a bust up with J..., my long-term US email buddy because (again long story short) she accepts the mainstream liberal narrative on things in general and I'm going "Ahem". I don't argue with her any more (if I ever did) but even raising the possibility that the New York Times may not be utterly and impeccably honest disturbs her peace of mind. Also she loves the Clintons. We parted over Trump and got back together when he left office but the war in Ukraine may part us once again. This would be sad but a relief. As things stand I'm pretty much reduced to writing about the weather because almost all the things that interest me are things I'm not allowed to talk about.
One of those things is the Bledsoes- the North Carolina family whose encounters with Beings of Light- including a woman in white who introduces herself as Hathor- have made them of interest not only to the UFO community, but also the CIA and the Vatican. Judy would swerve round this- as would most of my friends I think- but- again- a world view that doesn't account for such things is incomplete. The chief experiencer is Chris (he's a sweet, retiring, elderly man) while his son Ryan has become the family's chief spokesperson. They're all over the Internet if you care to look...
I was reading true ghost stories- avidly- when I was Mary's age. I had Lord Halifax's Ghost Book and several collections by Eliot O'Donnell- cheap paperbacks with lurid covers. My favourite cover showed a woman wearing a wreath- like she was Queen of the May- only she had no eyes. I wasn't just in it for the scares; I was also wanting to figure out was going on in the world- and if people are seeing ghosts- and they do, they do- then a world picture that doesn't account for the paranormal is incomplete.
Re-reading Lord Halifax's Ghost Book- as I currently am- one of the things that strikes me is how his aristocratic 18th and 19th narrators report what they've seen and heard while affirming that ghosts have been exploded and only the peasantry still believe in them. One guy reports seeing a dead butler walking through the house- as clear as day- so the phantom can easily be identified by those who knew him as being an actual suicided servant- and then says "I don't believe in the ghost." How strange that people- then as now- are more willing to conform to what their social circle requires them to believe than trust the evidence of their own senses. Snobbery comes into it, social as well as intellectual. Also the pitiful fear of being ostracised. We all entertain that fear. "Evidence be damned, I'll go with the dogma..."
I was never one for dogma- at least not when I'd seen evidence that called it into question. And I've always had the inclination to look for such evidence. This (long story short) is what led me to quitting the church.
Once again I seem to be an the brink of a bust up with J..., my long-term US email buddy because (again long story short) she accepts the mainstream liberal narrative on things in general and I'm going "Ahem". I don't argue with her any more (if I ever did) but even raising the possibility that the New York Times may not be utterly and impeccably honest disturbs her peace of mind. Also she loves the Clintons. We parted over Trump and got back together when he left office but the war in Ukraine may part us once again. This would be sad but a relief. As things stand I'm pretty much reduced to writing about the weather because almost all the things that interest me are things I'm not allowed to talk about.
One of those things is the Bledsoes- the North Carolina family whose encounters with Beings of Light- including a woman in white who introduces herself as Hathor- have made them of interest not only to the UFO community, but also the CIA and the Vatican. Judy would swerve round this- as would most of my friends I think- but- again- a world view that doesn't account for such things is incomplete. The chief experiencer is Chris (he's a sweet, retiring, elderly man) while his son Ryan has become the family's chief spokesperson. They're all over the Internet if you care to look...
