Saturday 8 March 2014

Things that go bump


I want to talk about dark things on this lovely (and rare) sunny morning.

G.E. was working behind the bar of our old pub last Sunday afternoon, when two pint glasses - one after the other - flew horizontally off the shelf and clattered against a fridge unit about five feet away. This event was witnessed by a very level-headed, 60 year-old American friend of mine. A few minutes later, a milk bottle did the same thing in a different section of the bar. I wasn't there, but both he and G.E. said they had never seen anything like it. I have.

The pub did used to have a reputation for things flying around on their own, but I don't think it has happened for over 30 years now.

Now I know that half of you are already thinking up plausible, ordinary explanations for these sort of events, and the other half are blaming it on dead people, but I know that the truth lies somewhere in between.

I used to be fascinated by this sort of thing in my youth, but for the reasons I will tell you in a minute, I have long since given up searching them out or even thinking about them much. The little event with the glasses and G.E. has sort of got me thinking about them again.

A fellow blogger we all know has recently given up blogging about fishing, etc. because (as far as I can make out) there is no room in his life for it anymore, ever since Jesus barged in (albeit invited) and took up all the space. I have no doubt that anyone who believes in a good god will be duty-bound to also believe in a bad devil, but - once again - I believe that the truth lies somewhere in between. Things are never so polarised unless taken to the absolute extreme of archetypal, Jungian entities. That is where the first clue comes into it. There are many physical effects attached to the workings of the human mind which don't come about purely from electrical activity activating muscle.

After the event which I will describe below, I came to thinking that I could very easily believe in anything, especially the evidence as seen through my own eyes. Because people have - for thousands of years - tried in vain to prove or disprove the existence of God, every religion depends on a system of pure, unadulterated belief.

Years ago, I had a friend who was into the Divine Light cult, and he described being in the presence of the fat boy Guru Maraji. As he walked past a few hundred followers, they all experienced a blast of ecstasy which caused them to all but swoon, so strong it was. He looked at me, wide-eyed with wonder as he finished the obviously true account of the inexplicable experience. I said 'so what?' It was a trick, nothing more, and I don't care if he used genuine psychic powers to perform it. I was not impressed and told him so, adding that only a fool would dedicate his life to someone who could perform a party-trick like that.

Years ago at art-school (Cro wasn't involved in this one) me and a group of about 5 others held little seances in the painting studio, surrounded by the soft-board uprights which everyone used to seclude their personal spaces.

We had a table and chairs, and on the table were bits of paper with the letters of the alphabet, plus the words 'yes' and 'no' at opposite ends of the circle. We did the usual thing of putting one finger on a drinking-glass and ask questions of the spirit world whilst a separate member stood outside the seated group, noting down the letters which the glass would stop at in its slow traverse around the table.

Becoming bored with a particularly listless spirit one night, we asked if it could prove its presence with some sort of a physical sign in the room, and it said 'yes' then obliged immediately.

With a terrific crash, one of the hoardings fell to the floor, followed by a real skeleton which was used for anatomy in the life-drawing classes. The atmosphere became instantly electric.

The glass moved so quickly and with such force, that it left our fingers as it turned direction, and we had to work fast to keep contact with it. The girl taking down the letters could hardly keep up with the spelling either, but would read out the messages when the sentences were complete.

So we asked it a lot of stupid questions, including 'Who are you?' This - before the glass flew round and round, faster and faster without anyone of us touching it, then smashing against the wall - was its answer:

"I am the sun. I am the wind. I am the rain. I am everything that God - in His divine wisdom - has chosen to create."

So we asked if it had a message for us. This was the message:

"Stop playing around with this foolish game and get on with your lives."

So we did.

19 comments:

  1. Hello Tom:

    We are both fascinated and intrigued with all that you describe here and, like you, so often feel when presented with similar events, although we have not witnessed flying objects, that there must be a middle ground between the supernatural on the one hand and the rational everyday on the other.

    Our prayer remains the same: we believe; help us in our unbelief.

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    1. Yes, I think that everything is thought into existence, whether it is by a group or by an individual, and God only knows who that individual really is. Be careful what you pray for!

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  2. Actually, I was that skeleton!

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    1. You've put on a bit of weight in the intervening years.

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  3. We { the same eight of us, boys and girls around 16 years of age } had séances all the time ….. a few strange things happened, so I have an open mind on such things. We were caught once and sent to the Headmaster. He said that we had frightened some 1st formers who thought that they had see ectoplasm !!!!
    God, I sound like something out of an Angela Brazil boarding school story !! XXXX

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    1. From whence was the 'ectoplasm' issuing forth, Jack@? One of the boys?

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    2. Haha …. NO !! ….. I'm good girl, I am. I think it was the steam from the showers, as we used to carry out our séances next to the gym ! XXXX

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    3. In the showers, with the boys?

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  4. I am pleased to hear that you certainly got on with your life - you sound to have led a particularly colourful one Tom, ectoplasm or no.

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  5. that stuff gives me the shivers

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  6. Same game, much more frightening message. I left the world of spirits to those far more knowledgeable than I. But I do appreciate a good recollection of them.

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    1. We were lucky - some nasty things can come through.

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  7. The only time I heard glasses smashing against the wall in my old pub was when the visiting supporters decided to start a riot, circa 1979.

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  8. Harold Ramis might know more about all these miracles now - 'Ghostbusters' were all I ever saw on/ and of supernatural events.

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  9. Footnote: I briefly called into the pub last evening and when waiting for my single pint, when a bar-stool quietly moved about 8 inches away from me - on it's own. I was the only one to notice.

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