Existentialism & the Paranormal

[Tom Bevis]

I was hanging out with a group of friends recently and we somehow stumbled onto the subject of paranormal investigations.  Most of these guys had relatively basic ideas about it based on superstitions (pencil tricks, mirrors, ouija boards, etc), but one person had a particularly interesting story to share.  Basically, her mother died a few years ago, and at the funeral, this person realized that she really didn't have any legitimate religious beliefs.  She said this troubled her, and in order to try to find something to believe in, she started doing some amateur paranormal investigating with a few friends, looking for some solid evidence of any type of afterlife to set her mind to ease.

I was able to sympathize with her, after facing some recent deaths in my own family, I?d started thinking a lot about existentialism and what happens after we pass on.  I?ve always heard of people fabricating hauntings or tricking themselves into thinking they were being haunted in order to hold onto memories or reject the loss of their loved ones, but this was the first time hearing about someone actually trying to find some evidence to set aside a potential existential dilemma. 

I?m wondering how common this is: how often do people get into the habit of looking for ghosts to settle existential qualms?  What is it about the loss of friends and family that prompt people to rethink their existential philosophies?  Any thoughts are welcome.

[PPI Karl]

I do think it's a fairly common experience.  I admit, I got started in this in part for the same reasons:  Between 1989 and 1999, I lost about a dozen people, most of them very good acquaintances, but among them by mother and my best friend of 35 years.  I'm married to someone with grave health problems, and for many years I struggled not to envision myself widowed by this point in my life.  I, too, am an agnostic, and was even more vituperatively atheist for most of my adult life.  However, what does one do to feed the spirit during these crises except to draw from an exploration of existence, itself?  No matter if you reject the concept of "God" or many gods, or you embrace a particular faith, there's still the persistently nagging mystery of why we exist and why people whom we feel are integrally part of our existence suddenly don't exist.

I would argue probably that the growing interest in the paranormal sciences these past ten years has to do with more than the success of Ghost Hunters.  It has more to do with a disenchantment with the institutions in which we once placed our faith to explain such matters as the meaning of our daily existence:  religion; government; sports; work; physical fitness; National Public Radio.  I won't stoop to anything so facile as to blame the internet, but I do feel that it's accelerated a process that was already in place.  Religion and politics used to be long-term investments in existential meaning--immortality projects (to quote Ernest Becker).  Technology has advanced civilization well beyond its capacity to find meaning and long-term satisfaction in it; we've become a somewhat "instant gratification" species, and that now includes our attitudes about humanity, spirit, destiny, purpose, and so forth.  That's why reality shows are almost always competition shows:  the winner prevails in existential meaning:  "F*ckin' "A"!  I am important after all! (Quite literally, "after all.")

Where paranormal investigating is concerned, death is one of the obvious mystical frontiers of science, and in that yearning for something mystical in our lives, where religion and government once owned our hearts, science and reasoning are now the philosophies of choice.  By saying that, I certainly do not mean to suggest science is "just another religion," nor should that comparison be used to dismiss the findings of science as matters of faith.  (Don't make me get into a Creationism/Evolution discussion to point out that one is an -ism and the other is a working theory.)  However, I do believe that, for those of us who out of conscience, disposition, or intuition, cannot put our faith in traditional religion, if death still is a serious matter of spirituality, then the mystery of death leaves few other avenues for its exploration than the fringe of science.  The fuzzy periphery of science and of what can be known about the physical universe has always been there as a kind of philosophy disguised as practicality--optimism in pragmatism's clothing--an event horizon on the ultimate truth.  (Ah, the metaphors just keep coming.  )

To put it bluntly, paranormal investigating for some who have experienced grave existential loss in their lives is a last ditch effort to find a bit of hope.  If you don't find it here, your next stop is Destination Cynicism.  And the prospects of living a lifetime or cynicism--not adolescent gloom masquerading as cynicism with a bit of black nail polish, but an actual liftime of real cynicism--isn't enough to give anyone a reason to go on living.

And then there is an entire contingency of paranormal enthusiasts who do have a strong faith.  I'll grant them the courtesy of speaking for themselves, though.

[Tom Bevis]

To put it bluntly, paranormal investigating for some who have experienced grave existential loss in their lives is a last ditch effort to find a bit of hope. 

Y'know, I understand this.  This is almost exactly why I first got into paranormal investigating (on a purely amateur capacity, of course) a year or so ago.  But it wasn't exactly a loss I was suffering, but a rather harsh realization I had absolutely no faith; I couldn't name a single thing I believed in, from Santa Claus to Jesus Christ right down to my favorite hockey team (SD Gulls -- you're deeply missed  ( )

I took a particular literature course called Death & Dying in Literature (you might have heard of it, Sherlock  ::| ) and one of the things that really struck me was the deep analysis of the concept or immortalization.  Up until that point, I hadn't thought much about death, my own or that of others, and I wasn't upset at the idea that I would someday just not exist until this immortality thing came up, and we examined the existential dilemma on a few planes of thought.  It was about then that I realized that nothing I do while I'm still kicking matters because once I kick the bucket, there isn't going to be anything left.  I'm not going to be remembered or praised, etc, and that scared the shit outta me. 

And so I started thinking is this was how everyone felt, if this is a common fear in our society, and I began to really sympathize with these people.  It all kinda crashed down after my grandmother recently died and, while going through the effects with my mom and such, we found a small book -- I'm not gonna say it was a diary, cos it really wasn't -- outlining everything she had done and had left planned that would be her last tribute to herself, everything that she hoped her family and friends would remember her for.  When I made the customary phone calls to family memebers giving them the news, I was heartbroken to hear that they didn't remember or had simply ignored these things the old lady did in a last-ditch effort to achieve her own immortality.

[PPI Jason]

Tom,

I really appreciate that you brought up this topic. The fact is, I have spent most of my life on some kind of weird odyssey searching for meaning, purpose, the nature of the soul, what happens after death, life, the universe, and everything. I was raised Catholic. I became disheartened by the fact that it left many of my questions unanswered. After a while, I was simply encouraged to stop asking. I tried the LDS Church (I even served a two year mission in southern Mexico) and thought for a time I had the answers I was looking for. That fizzled in time, however, when I realized that I had all my questions answered, but none of the answers made sense. After numerous bouts with depression and frustration I gave atheism a shot. However, that left a lot of things just as unexplained as before and brought about the additional problem of providing absolutely no comfort during difficult times.

I eventually turned to a sort of Agnosticism based on Pascal's Wager. I can't bring myself to say I know there is a God, but yet I've decided to live my life like there is one. Whether or not I ever come to that knowledge makes no difference because the fact is, I personally, and simply, cannot function without believing that there is a God and that my purpose in existence is to do whatever the divine will  (He/She/It/They) and not anyone else or any religion has for me. I still ask questions about the nature of life and death, but in the end, I've learned to shut that part of my brain down for the most part. It simply gets too frustrating and makes functioning on a day to day basis too difficult. I'm very curious but at the same time very practical. If something makes my day intolerably difficult then I simply discard it in favor of something that works better.

Paranormal Investigation, to me, comes into the equation from the side. I simply study the paranormal because it's there and it's unexplained. My search for meaning and purpose in the religious arena is a product of an inate curiosity. My desire to understand things that aren't yet understood (i.e. the paranormal) comes form the same inate curiosity. But I don't really expect that my experiences in the Paranormal Arena will answer any existential questions in the religious one. I think, in the end, that the answers we find will simply lead to more questions. But the beauty of it is that it's the asking those questions, and search for the answers, that keeps us moving.

[Tom Bevis]

You make a lot of good points.  However, because so much of religion is based not on how to lead a good lifestyle, but rather the reward you get for doing so, payable upon death, the paranormal (at least ghosts and the supernatural) is irrefutably linked into the religious arena.  The possibility in ghosts is the possibility of an afterlife, and such a possibility can make or break numerous religious standpoints, and championing the belief, one way or another, can tip your religious scale in either direction.  To believe that there are ghosts (or to simply entertain the notion) is to acknowledge that some element of the human soul is still kicking around down here, when mainstream religions will tell us that, based on our actions, we're certainly going somewhere else.

[PPI Jason]

Tom,

Very good points. One point I want to add is that I think we make a big assumption when we assume that the presence of what we call ghosts automatically equates to the presence of an afterlife. I refer back to the Carl Sagan Youtube clip Miller posted not to long ago. The video advanced a theory about how a 3-dimensional apple would appear to a world of 2-dimensional "Flat Worlders." I'm not saying that ghosts are a 3-dimensional representation of 4-dimensional beings or objects. But such an approach to the topic lends itself more to Physics than to Religion and additionally leads one away from the idea that, as you say, "...the paranormal (at least ghosts and the supernatural) is irrefutably linked into the religious arena." At least away from the "irrefutably" part.

Some people, myself included, have seen enough evidence to know that there are many unexplained and paranormal events and artifacts in our world but haven't seen enough evidence to know the nature of those events and artifacts. Thousands of years of Philosophy have failed to come to an agreement as to the nature of our own existence. I'm certain we will not be sure about that of someone, or something, else any time soon. But, as you also pointed out, I'm certain that won't stop people from using such a complete lack of understanding of our universe to come to some absolute conclusion about Religion and God.

[Tom Bevis]

Check.  I'll have to find this video and check it out before I comment further.  Interesting stuff, though. 

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This has been the most thought provoking forum post I have read in over a year. Thank you.