Xenonormal Most paranormal researchers spend most of their time actually studying the xenonormal, even if they are unaware of it. The xenonormal is the ‘unfamiliar normal’. It is those phenomena that appear paranormal but, after investigation, have natural causes. The concept of the xenonormal comes from asking the question ‘why do people report certain events as paranormal?’ The answer, which comes from examining many cases down the years, is that witnesses, when been faced with something unfamiliar, have interpreted it as paranormal. It is important to distinguish between the ‘unfamiliar’ and the ‘unknown’. Just because you have weird noises behind the walls of your house that you can’t explain, it doesn’t mean that a plumber or a builder or a naturalist couldn’t explain them. Similarly, you may see a strange light in the sky. To you, it is an unidentified flying object or UFO. It may not be unidentifiable to an astronomer, meteorologist or aviation expert. The xenonormal is about the unfamiliar but normal, not the unknown. So why do people report strange events as paranormal, rather than simply unfamiliar? The obvious theory for this is our culture. Consider an ancient human suffering sleep paralysis. They might hallucinate a human figure that vanishes before their eyes. They would be terrified by the experience and no doubt view the figure as a spirit. Without the benefit of modern science to explain sleep paralysis, this would have been a rational conclusion. Nowadays we DO have the benefit of modern science but that doesn’t mean that everyone is aware of sleep paralysis. On the other hand, the tradition of ghosts as spirits is widely known, having come down to us intact from prehistory. Ghosts are part of the cultural tradition of people throughout the world. It is, therefore, not so surprising that odd, unfamiliar experiences may be put down to ghosts, even when no actual apparition is seen (as is often the case).
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 14:05:33 +0000
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