MANIC MONDAY – QUAKE

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YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

NOT ABOUT A QUAKE

Write a poem about a quake,
but few ideas can I make,
Oh! for heaven’s sake,
so this is a mistake,
for it’s a fake,
about words that rhyme with quake,
like cake,
of which you bake,
or fish like hake,
can you catch them in a lake?
And in a morning I’ll awake,
have breakfast of corn flake,
then the garden I’ll rake,
before taking a break,
please try to wake
do I have to shake?
Of the rest of this post,
please partake

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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PREDICTING AN EARTHQUAKE

In the early years of the 20th century there was a would-be cult guru called Joshua Creffield. He was often driven out of various towns for molesting the womenfolk. Eventually he predicted disaster for San Francisco. Soon afterwards, so the story goes, came the earthquake, and Creffield’s fame – or infamy – was guaranteed.
We can put this ‘premonition’ down to creative storytelling or pure coincidence, but it is not alone in predicting earthquakes. Many psychics have been said to do so. But is there a reality to the ability?
Certainly we know that animals tend to be aware of coming quakes, and they make a good attempt of escaping the area beforehand. So how do they do it? And can humans have a similar ability?

It seems, good reader, they can.

We know that, prior to an earthquake, geo-physical electromagnetic disturbances occur. And there is possible evidence that these disturbances could be behind the phenomenon.
There have been various experiments involving bombarding the brain with electromagnetic pulses, and it seems that this can release chemicals in the brain similar to those released during mystical experiences.
Indeed, various forms of hallucinations, hysteria, and visions have been had during such tests. So could it be that this can occur in the run-up to an earthquake, with ‘sensitives’ actually having visions of a coming disaster?

© Anthony North, April 2008

WHY SCEPTICS ARE SCEPTICAL

I seem to occupy the middle ground when it comes to the paranormal. I’m neither a sceptic nor a believer – which usually means a sceptic thinks me a believer, and a believer thinks me a sceptic.
But it isn’t as neat as that. I accept phenomena happens, but try to place more rational reasons on why they happen. But that rationality never approaches denial, which is all too often the methodology behind the sceptic.

This has led to some harsh debates, at times.

Infact, I often feel I get more treatment from skeptics than an out-and-out believer. I suppose sceptics simply ridicule them. They’re no threat. But does my approach offer a glimmer of light, thus fuelling a need to stamp on my ideas?
If so, we can come to the conclusion that scepticism of the paranormal has nothing at all to do with knowledge, but maintaining the scientific paradigm. It is as if it is a war of consensus, rather than knowledge proper.

Such intellectual battles are usually about the scientist verses the religionist.

But I’m not a religionist. Hence, this simple war of polarities does not apply. So what is going on here? Are we approaching a new area of knowledge?
The modern intellectual paradigm can be explained in three basic words. These are ‘materialism’,’ individualism’ and ‘atheism’. To counter these, their direct opposites are ‘spirituality’, ‘community’ and ‘theism’.

We can see the difference here.

The former limit the boundaries of our knowledge and behaviour to what can be definitely seen and experienced. The latter extend this area into the metaphysical, the collectivity of it all.
Bearing this in mind, I think we can amalgamate these words into a simpler system. The former are all covered by ‘reductionism’ (reducing everything to absolute simplicity), whereas the latter are ‘holism’ (looking to the ‘wholeness’ of everything).

This is where religion splits away.

This is so because you can be ‘holistic’ without having any form of belief at all. Indeed, Chaos Theory and Ecology show that this ‘holistic’ mentality is actually breaking into science itself.
Such sciences look at what is between the parts, immortalized in the saying that things are ‘more than the sum of their parts’. It is about a higher relationship between things. What brings them together – what makes ‘systems’ work.

Many years ago I devised the word ‘patternology’.

It is a means of explanation of a way of thinking that merges the specializations to see if modern thought misses important knowledge by being too reductionist and specialized. All my work is based on this discipline.
Nothing that arises can be classed as ‘truth’, and the system is devised to act as a bedfellow to the specialist, simply throwing back questions to see if they’ve got it quite right. And in effect, patternology deals in generalizations.

This allows us to re-define the words behind the ‘battle’ even more.

We are maybe dealing with the ‘specific’ verses the ‘general’. And in effect, this is a new form of rational thinking.
Could this be why scepticism of the paranormal is really denial? Does science intuit that a new form of rational knowledge is abroad, taking away their automatic authority to understand the world, the paranormal being one of the battle lines?
If so, maybe they need to understand it is not a battle, but a merger.

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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