Supernatural?

Next in my series of educating myself in my new field, plus other thoughts.

I’m almost finished with “Supernatural, Writings on an Unknown History” by Richard Smoley. No, it’s not what you think, but s series of essays on the history of the paranormal as it impacts our culture. I find the book a little dry, but it has a lot of interesting information about significant, and often little known, historical figures and the origins if things like the New Age movement. Which actually goes back a lot further than I expected:

“For any reader, at any level of experience, who has ever been curious about an arcane subject—from psychical powers to secret societies—here is a collection that delivers a complete yet precise, critical yet serious, and always respectful account of topics from the unseen world. Supernatural is a brilliant primer to the occult and magical history of the West.” — from the back cover of Supernatural.

I am beginning to realize how philosophy is a big part of my studies. Philosophers have been asking the same questions for millennia and coming up with various answers, though, the ones that have endured seem to have converged on answers similar to those of Buddhist monks and eastern traditions. I keep being amazed at how much that is now considered really out-there, arcane thinking, was written about by the likes of Carl Jung, and many probably pre-date him. Not to take away from any of his accomplishments. He built on the work of those who came before, like all great people.

Smoley is not a wholehearted new-age type, though I suspect he leans that way. He has no problem poking holes in many of our cultural myths, like Atlantis, the ideas behind The Da Vinci Code, and the Masons, but he has no problem saying “I don’t know” when he reaches the end of what can be truly proved. He is a skeptic in the true sense of the word: “One who questions,” rather then the current view of the term that appears to imply that you must “debunk” and deny all evidence that doesn’t fit your pre-conceived ideas. It’s refreshing to have someone refuse to say that all prophecy must be wrong, fully acknowledging that that would be making their own prophecy about whether or not the predicted event will occur.

I find that studying books like this helps me to understand and interpret the events and ideas that I encounter. People ask me questions and I have to struggle to come up with words to express what I intuitively know. That often means revising and re-revising conceptions that I have already created when new data doesn’t fit. In doing so, I find, in the old masters, that there is truly nothing new under the sun.

Take the story of the warrior Er, related by Socrates and Plato, who dies and battle and then awakens at his own funeral, and recounts tails of the afterlife. Long regarded as a myth, some now say that his tail contains all the signs of a classic Near Death Experience. How much of what we now call metaphysics or paranormal, was well known to the ancients, and now we must turn to them for insights into these human conditions that we have ignored for so long.

Someone asked the question “What would you do if you realized that the end was near and you had not accomplished anything?” There were lots of answers to this, but most of them assumed that, somehow, “accomplishing something” would have value to you after you were dead. That made me notice that our culture spends a lot of time and energy on “planning for the future,” and no time considering how to know when “the future” has arrived, and what you do when it does, other than vague ideas about having fun. My first thought was “Yay! I no longer have to worry about the future! I can do whatever I want with no consequences!”

This has special meaning for me because I have recently transitioned out of the 8-5 career lifestyle. All my “obligations” are now gone, and I only have responsibility for myself. What do I do? Do I still plan for another 30 years, or just do what I want and let the chips fall where them may? The stone cold reality is that I could die at any time, so is it time to stop planning and time to start living? I put no stock in “leaving a legacy:” Your name may live on, but people will quickly forget who you were and what you really stood for, using your memory as a pawn in their own games.

As for accomplishing something, I feel that I should live my life satisfied with every day. Goals are fine, as long as I am not putting off living until I get there. I no longer have time for that. When the time comes, I am more than ready to walk through that door with no regrets. I want to help people, as much as I can, while I am here, but when the time comes, I’m outta here. The biggest problem now is getting past of the groundless fear that something really bad is going to happen. I can see the antidote to that, but it’s taking me time to get there. Meanwhile, I’m comfortable with the thought that once I’m gone, all that happened here will have no more significance than a Monopoly game: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, then you roll the dice and start over.