Defining exactly when and why I became interested in the study of the paranormal is difficult to say because I have maintained an interest in these phenomena almost since I can first remember. I can recall as early as age 10 or so being caught up in the study of extra-sensory perception, which was all the rage at the time, and I suppose that was but one step that led to a further interest in all things unexplained. And, of course, as a youngster I was like most children in being fascinated by any kind of ghost story, whether allegedly true or not.
I cannot lay claim, as many people do, to having had a large number of unusual experiences in childhood that led to a full-blown interest in paranormal activity. There was one seemingly small incident, however, that may have acted as a catalyst for further study on my part, and I will describe it below. At the time it happened I didn't consider it really all that life-changing, but looking back I suppose it did spark enough curiosity that I later looked into strange phenomena with a great deal more interest.
Although I cannot now recall the names of many books, I do recall reading several works on various paranormal phenomena while a youngster, and these included books about things as diverse as ESP, ghosts, werewolves, and vampires. One of the authors I remember specifically was Hans Holzer, and I recall reading quite a few of his books about ghost-hunting. Holzer was quite an entertaining writer, but in retrospect I believe what interested me most about his books was the history he provided for each setting.
Indeed, it likely was my interest in history itself that dovetailed with and encouraged my study of the paranormal, especially of ghosts and apparitions. When I was young, my grandmother lived with us. She grew up before there were telephones, electricity, and automobiles, and I always loved hearing her tell stories of her youth, especially when she recalled events told to her by even earlier relatives who remembered the War Between the States. It probably was listening to her recount events from that earlier time that developed my keen interest in history, and I was fascinated by what life was like for people back then. Ever since my youth I have wondered what it would be like to have lived in earlier times, and as Holzer (among others) would go into infinite detail describing the lifetime of some of the spirits he allegedly communicated with, he held my attention quite solidly.
Needless to say, as a youngster I was a rather firm believer in almost everything I read. But to put the skeptical reader's mind at ease, allow me to say that I did eventually grow up. Much of what I read back then I know now was total bunkum – entertaining bunkum, but bunkum nonetheless – and while I cannot say I am a total unbeliever in the paranormal, I do now maintain a healthy skepticism while still keeping an open mind.
That open mind probably stems from another author I got into a few years later, Charles Fort. I well remember reading his Book of the Damned and being utterly captivated by it. (I still subscribe to The Fortean Times to this day.) What I most admired about Fort was not only his cataloging of innumerable unexplained events, but also his balance of skepticism and open-mindedness regarding them. This tradition is maintained in the FT today. While presenting scores of obscure, bizarre, and unexplained events, it doesn't simply accept their legitimacy on face value but merely catalogs them. Further investigation will shed more light on whether or not they bear any credibility.
But returning to my youth, I must admit that things such as ESP and other paranormal phenomena were a bit more in the popular psyche back then as serious research in these areas was being done essentially for the first time utilizing scientific method. Nearly everyone my age had at least a passing interest in these things, possibly because it is something that fascinated young people anyway, but also probably because these things were in the news. But while most of my colleagues lost interest over the years, and while my interest certainly has waned a bit, there was one incident that may have kept the spark alive for me.
When I was eleven years old, I recall one afternoon when a group of us boys were playing in a vacant field across the street from my school. This was an area where we did not usually play, and I do not remember why we were there on this occasion, but that was where we'd ended up. While we were playing in the field we began hearing large rocks landing on the ground around us. At first we thought probably other neighborhood kids were throwing rocks at us, but looking around we could see no one else, child or adult. Besides, from the sound these stones made as they landed, we could tell they were far too heavy for anyone (much less a child) to throw. I do not remember exactly how many we heard fall, but there were several. And to this day I still can hear the sound they made: a split second before they thudded into the earth we could hear them crash into the tops of the waist-high dry weeds in the vacant lot. Oddly, we never saw any of these rocks, either falling or on the ground, but only could hear them as they landed. And none of us was struck by any of these projectiles. Nevertheless, after hearing several of them fall and seeing no one who may have been catapulting them towards us, we decided to leave. We talked about going back in a day or two to see if we could find any of the rocks and to see if we could tell where they had come from (from the way they hit, it sounded as though they were falling straight down), but we never did. I don't recall that we ever went back to that lot, though it is still there, and still vacant, to this very day. I suppose we eventually dismissed the event to overactive imaginations, but if so it would have been an example of some form of mass hallucination as all of us heard the sounds of rocks falling that day.
I do not recall that the event made that much of an impression on me at the time, but I suppose somewhere in my subconscious I always wanted to try and find out what on earth happened that day. Perhaps that is one reason I continued to read and investigate unexplained phenomena. It is just something that fascinates me, and has all my life. I've always felt there are many things in this world that have not yet been explained, either by science or by any other satisfactory means, and rather than dismissing them out of hand (“damning” them, as Charles Fort would say), I feel it important to try to ascertain just what these things are all about.
As said above, as a youngster (and quite gullible at that age), I tended to accept many of the things I read at face value, and that came to include not only the idea of ghosts, poltergeists (which was my only explanation for the falling-stone episode), and ESP, but also occultic magic, UFOs and extraterrestrial beings. I later came to see most of these things as claptrap when they could not stand against solid scientific inquiry, but I will allow that there still are more things in this world than are dreamt of in our philosophy, to paraphrase Shakespeare.
In high school I remember continuing to read a great deal on these subjects and even writing several reports as school assignments on unexplained phenomena. Naturally, as a heady teen, I thought I had good explanations for all these things (seeing as I believed in them wholeheartedly), but it was likely during that time that I began to develop a more scientific mind. I also began to weigh a lot of what I read about against my Christian belief system. I was brought up in a rather fundamentalist Christian church that taught against the idea of ghosts still hanging about the planet and that miracles – that is, paranormal events – ended in the first century. While my church looked askance at the stuff I enjoyed reading and talking about (though I do not remember anyone ever actually condemning me for studying it) I continued delving deeper and deeper into a lot of these things, even to the point of dabbling somewhat in the occult (Francis Barrett's white magic, to be specific). But it didn't take long for me to give that up because (1) I could find no way to harmonize indulging any form of occultism with Scripture and (2) I started finally becoming objective enough to see that not everything I was reading was factually correct.
My interest was strong enough, however, that at one point in my high school career I thought I'd like to become a professional parapsychologist and actually tried looking into universities that offered such degrees. While I was slowly becoming more skeptical, I still wanted to study these weird phenomena from an objective, scientific viewpoint and perhaps be on the cutting edge of explaining a lot of the heretofore unexplained to the world. Perhaps it was when I found out that most “universities” that offered degrees in this discipline were unaccredited that I started having very serious doubts about all these things.
And, since I am writing specifically about my longstanding interest in the paranormal, it may sound as though this subject consumed my life as a teen. That is far from reality. Although I maintained a deep interest in the subject, I was more interested in music, religion, and girls (I was a semi-normal teenage boy, after all) and kept paranormal studies more as a hobby than anything. Plus the fact that girls did like talking about it, after all!
I remember continuing my interest, though to a lesser degree, in undergrad. Though I did not do much leisure reading in college, I did manage to work through at least a couple books on the unexplained (one I recall buying at the airport while waiting for a colleague to arrive – an excellent book that I'd love to read again, but one I since have lost and cannot remember either title or author). Over the ensuing years life consumed far too much of my time to do more than read the occasional book (or Fortean Times magazine), and by becoming far more scientifically minded (although I am a composer by profession, I became a clinical audiologist by training) my skepticism of many paranormal claims became much more acute. At one point in my early adulthood I became a total skeptic and eschewed all notions of the paranormal altogether, so while now I remain very cautious about accepting something as paranormal before all normal avenues of explanation are first ruled out, I do endeavor to remain open-minded enough to admit to other possibilities.
To be continued...
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