And so ... what's next?
The things that go "BUMP" in the night.
What to say? As this project has gone on (and on), some further intuitions have arisen. I make no claims for originality, only that they have grown stronger in me --- from no cognizance at all to a nervous feeling that maybe they are true. Finally, the other evening, I drew the following crude diagram. No big deal, but if you read it maybe it says something specific to you that you may either want to accept, reject, or, best, research.
In this diagram we know that our world of physics exists with its strengths and limitations (that is we know that unless we are some over-heated philosophical lunatic), and I think that we know a few other things. We know that we have a lot of anomalous reports, some of which seem pretty good. I think that it is without much debate that we have anomalous BOLs, and that some dozens of them can be interpreted as "acting" in intentional ways. And I KNOW that poltergeist phenomena exist.
Veteran readers of this blog know why I know this. Above is the poltergeist house owned by my family members (brother and sister-in-law.) I've written about it in earlier posts. There's no arguing with me anymore on this topic. I know my relatives, I know their absolute intelligence and honesty, and I know that the manifestations there were many. Poltergeists, whatever they are, are real and NOT explained by the kneejerk flapdoodle analyses by professional skeptics.
The fact that I have been privileged to know such (for me) perfect witnesses, allows me to list some of the things that I know poltergeists do: (from roughly simple to more spectacular) creaks and odd sounds; footsteps on stairs or upper floors; "jumpings" on the beds on upper floors; doors opened when shut, and shut when formerly open; locks unlocked, and unlocked locks locked; lights turned on; lights turned off; radios and TVs turned on; radios and TVs turned off; objects moved, and in rare cases, objects "thrown." Plus, apparent communication with one very young child when she would visit.
And that's it for my relatives' home. No violence, no fires, no breakages. These things might happen elsewhere, but not there. The "phenomenon" was more amusing than frightful, in fact it was not frightful at all. It WAS irritating now and then when my brother would wake up and have to turn off a blaring TV. Other than that my relatives considered the whole business to be somewhat of a hoot.
Bumps in the night ... knockings on the wood ... knockers in the mines ... pixies in the woods.
A very good friend (Jerry Clark) told me of the experience of one of his very good friends. She heard "bumps" in the basement, screwed up her courage, and went down the stairs to investigate. There under the stairs were three dwarfish men sitting facing one another. Not looking as friendly as Snow White's friends above, she beat it out of there back upstairs.
Agricola told us that he would not put anything into his writing that he had not seen himself or had not been seen by someone that he knew and respected. He, as we've seen, was THE Renaissance expert on all things metallurgical and mining. He wrote that it was common for miners to hear the knockings in the deep mines, and not uncommon to even see the Coballos beings who were making them. John Lewis wrote John Aubrey that he knew of the Knockers of the Cornish mines and of persons who had seen the pixie knockers.
Bump Knock Tommyknock ... who goes there?
My favorite female author of all time, Catherine Crowe, told us in the NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE that there were "hauntings" taking place in her time (the first half of the 19th century) that she had personal knowledge of, and had investigated/interviewed the main witnesses.
Catherine relates things like this (I'll make a composite story which characterizes these cases): a property which consisted of an old carpentry business (or something similar) on the bottom and the basement, and living quarters on the top. Residents (usually when alone sleeping there at night) would hear knockings-about downstairs in the old shop area. Creeping down to investigate, the doors would be firmly locked, but knockings might continue. Peering into the lowest area, some evidence of activities would be found as if the occupants of the old shop had been at work. Occasionally there might even be a fleeting glimpse of those night worker entities. ... hmmm .... what were the Brounies supposed to do again?
And my favorite Catholic priest-investigator-of-things-paranormal: Fr. Herbert Thurston, advisor to popes on all things off the beaten track, and hands on investigator of many.
Thurston reported many instances showing that there was no question of the reality of these experiences, and that they were the resultant of something intentional other than the witnesses themselves. Whether we had to enlist "devils" to deal with these cases was a question that he seems NOT to have preferred. Some other spirits? Should exorcism be employed?
Hmmmm again. Should exorcism be employed? There are quite a lot of claims that denizens of Faery do NOT like the Cross or people who pray at them.
It's been good clean fun, has it not, to journey the woodland paths looking for Faery? But just now ... things seem to be getting a bit darker.
How violent and disruptive are things allowed to get?
How much grief are these things allowed to dish out?
WHO is behind this curtain?
They were from all over. Perhaps no location lacked them. Some mimicked; some did not. Some were beautiful; some were not. Some seemed to believe in a Duty; some seemed to believe in nothing. If you left them alone, and the things to which they were attached, you usually had no problems. They seemed willful, but rarely purposeful. What is their game? Is there a Goal?
The Old People did not think that these things were "devils" and it took a strong promulgation of warning dogma by the Protestant Churches in the 1500-1600s to cram them together with Satan's minions. The Middle Angel theory does not see them as devils but as Earth-bound and restricted cousins... and our long consorting with them on the fairy woods paths doesn't see them as devils either. Their nature remains obscure. Their actual "moral state" more so. And, unless we could get some insight there (across the whole class of these beings) I don't see how much more progress understanding them can be made.
Maybe we are stuck confronting the dreaded Bell-Shaped curve: Some paranormals better than others morally, some worse. Some consciously trying to show by their actions that they are ready to finally answer that big First Question that they passed by. Some still saying Screw It and slumping further down into an immoral black hole. If any of that could make any sense at all, the reports of the Little People would place most of them still happily childishly in the middle of our Bell Curve. They kind of just don't care.
The diagram again. Little People reports. BOLs-of-intention reports. Poltergeist reports. The obvious next addition is The Trickster. After that??? What other Cryptids belong within this tribe? The one thing that I know Does NOT belong there is the "Advanced Technology operating in our Atmosphere." UFOs are not Faery. (Light balls? OK.)
And what evidence do we have that there even is a World Alongside? Spoiler alert: I can't answer that any more than I've answered anything yet.
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