Things That May Or May Not Go Bump In The Night
I have lived in a number of haunted houses. Well, I say haunted, but that may not be actually the case.
I know people who are afraid of ghosts. I am ghost-agnostic. I don’t believe in them, but nor am I positive that there is no such thing. But I’m quite happy to write off unexplained things as being ‘ghosts’ without really needing or caring an explanation.
It’s just simpler than saying “oh, I don’t know what that was”. I neither know nor care whether the unexplained footsteps in the middle of the night were a ghost or something rather more prosaic (noises in pipes, floorboards settling etc).
So when my wife asks ‘what was that noise?’ or ‘did you turn that telly on?’, I’m quite happy to just say it was the ghost. She’s half-convinced that there actually is one, but like I say, it doesn’t really bother me.
If we have a ghost, it seems friendly enough, just making the occasional noise, or moving the occasional object, and not really bothering anyone (although it was rather unsettling when one of our children described someone in his room — but that only happened once). If we haven’t got a ghost, it’s just general household noises. Either way, I don’t see the need to be concerned.
(Although if I wasn’t so sure that anyone coming in downstairs would wake me or my wife up I’d not be so quick to write it off — but as you can hear even the key turning in the back door from our bedroom, it would be hard to get in).
But maybe if I was more ‘psychically sensitive’, I’d pick up more on spiritual emanations. On the other hand, maybe I’d need to be more foolish and credulous to pick up on them…
I’ve also found over the years — whether coincidental or otherwise — that if I lose small objects when I was fairly certain that I knew where they were, and I then ask out loud for them to please be returned, I frequently find them in plain sight later somewhere that I had already thoroughly searched.
Just like with the ‘ghosts’, I’m not saying that something has been moving them, and then putting them back. It’s precisely the same as the ghosts. Whether they have always been there or not doesn’t matter to me. Whether someone thinks I’m daft for doing it or not again doesn’t matter. It doesn’t do any harm.
If I get my keys/ wallet/ £35,000 in used notes back, I don’t really care whether mysterious spirits have moved them or I’ve just missed them. Superstitious twaddle? Maybe. But so what?
Just like with mysterious noises, why do I need a rational explanation? Why do I need a supernatural explanation? As long as the result of the explanation is fine (noise is not dangerous, I get my lost item back), why does anyone actually care?
It doesn’t matter to my life which it is. I’m quite happy with either explanation. I tend to believe one more than the other, but I have no preference for either. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from a book on Murphy’s Law:
- If you have everything to gain by change, encourage change
- If you have everything to discourage by change, discourage change
- If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter
Applied Murphology
It doesn’t matter. Those who feel that the explanation must be natural (or, conversely, must be supernatural) are missing the point.
Now that’s not to say that in other cases, you might want to investigate the cause more thoroughly. That’s why we tend to treat disease with antibiotics rather than chanting.
But in a world where we seem to be increasingly obsessed by certainty and the need to know all of the answers, it’s worth reminding us from time to time that just sometimes it doesn’t matter.
(Ex) Collegue Man says:
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
I remember as a child (probably about 10 as I was left alone in the house for short periods of time) running out of my Grandparents house cos I was convinced there was something upstairs. It turned out the window was rattling and being an older house than my parents had more setling noises. Having been made to feel rather foolish as a big brave 10yo I tend to investigate sources of strange noises, and so far they have been all explainable by earthly causes.
There is no harm in either belief so long as it does not lead to a local authority paying for a medium to exorcise a someones house….
mark fairlamb says:
August 26th, 2008 at 11:49 am
our big’un came runnning into our bed saturday night, saying there were boys in his room – which freaked our lass out.
but then he started mumbling about a giant, obviously still in the middle of a dream.
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