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One of Huston Smith’s more entertaining suppositions (in, I think, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind) regarding the beliefs of the metaphysical school called Traditionalism is this: If intermediary beings exist (fill in your fave little creatures from Celtic or Norse or South American or African mythology here) it would be impossible to prove it by empirical investigation. As I recall, this is more like an aside in a book setting forth a loosely Traditionalist model. (Not as in Catholic “tradition” --- this is the group loosely associated with Rene Guenon and Frithjof Schuon, whereof Jacob Needleman wrote at some early point in his career with his anthology of their writings The Sword of Gnosis. They have been dealt with at length in a recent book called Against the Modern World.)
The above-mentioned supposition isn’t a topic I have been inclined to think much about, since it makes for greatness in much-beloved novels, but madness anywhere else.
Nonetheless, much of the arrogance of contemporary skepticism dissolves when we note that we don’t in fact comprehend everything that can be done with the known physical laws of the universe --- Rene Daumal’s novel came up with a splendid pseudo-Einsteinian explanation of how Mount Analogue could exist unobserved right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That was fantasy, but more recently, some scientist had the gall to suggest in print that invisibility barriers based on not dissimilar principles might in fact be constructible. That is the story that went out, anyway, but it may be another one of those elaborate internet legends picked up by the news services.
As for invisibility, I’ll believe it when I see it.
But if we cannot know for sure whether there are ivory-billed woodpeckers still banging around in the swamp, or know where to find a certain much-hunted leader of world disorder somewhere in the regions once believed to be home to mystical monasteries…. if we can’t even attain certainty in terms of elusive characters within our own playing field, it would be perfectly possible for creatures with unknown natural capacities to have been intervening ever since the evolution of the human species, without our being able to slap the things down in a rigorously observable experimental situation. And since, unlike woodpeckers or fugitives, they wouldn’t leave piles of incidental debris or equipment lying about, any accidental evidence would be statistically insignificant, easily explained as hallucination, or otherwise eminently unacceptable. It would be as useless for evidentiary purposes as a photograph that has been manipulated by a sufficiently brilliant user of Photoshop.
Unfortunately, that also means that supposed evidence of such creatures (and not only of such creatures) is prey to our capacity to believe things on the flimsiest of premises. No one could see the straight pins holding up the little paper cutouts in a very famous set of century-old photographs.
I’m sure there have been dozens of science fiction and fantasy novels on the topic, since, as I say, I don’t spend much time thinking about it. We know, of course, about one.
I was stopped short by an NPR Fresh Air interview the other week with the author of a new book on the aforementioned mastermind of world disorder. Referring to the events of which we are marking the fifth anniversary, this author remarked that O. regularly had everyone in the camp bring their dreams to him for interpretation, because, in that part of the world, that’s what you do. So many people who had no knowledge of what was underway were having dreams of the possible uses of airplanes that he commanded everyone to stop dreaming about airplanes, lest it somehow undermine the plans.
This is a preposterous story; not because it doesn’t comport with the existing mindset, but because it is so unconfirmable as to be impossible to take at face value. Even if O. told us the story himself in a video, we would have no reason to suppose he wasn’t lying just to impress us.
Again, it’s odd that an author busily explaining the dry facts of history could toss this in so casually, as though it were on a par with the other incidents he recounts and analyzes. As with Bart Ehrman disproving Morton Smith’s conveniently structured discovery by recounting his own experience of conveniently structured discovery, this guy seemed unaware that he was undercutting his own credibility with his audience.
Personally, I think people should only undercut their credibility when they intend to do that. Unfortunately, outside observers have no way of knowing underlying intent, and sometimes, inside observers have no way of knowing, either.
The above-mentioned supposition isn’t a topic I have been inclined to think much about, since it makes for greatness in much-beloved novels, but madness anywhere else.
Nonetheless, much of the arrogance of contemporary skepticism dissolves when we note that we don’t in fact comprehend everything that can be done with the known physical laws of the universe --- Rene Daumal’s novel came up with a splendid pseudo-Einsteinian explanation of how Mount Analogue could exist unobserved right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. That was fantasy, but more recently, some scientist had the gall to suggest in print that invisibility barriers based on not dissimilar principles might in fact be constructible. That is the story that went out, anyway, but it may be another one of those elaborate internet legends picked up by the news services.
As for invisibility, I’ll believe it when I see it.
But if we cannot know for sure whether there are ivory-billed woodpeckers still banging around in the swamp, or know where to find a certain much-hunted leader of world disorder somewhere in the regions once believed to be home to mystical monasteries…. if we can’t even attain certainty in terms of elusive characters within our own playing field, it would be perfectly possible for creatures with unknown natural capacities to have been intervening ever since the evolution of the human species, without our being able to slap the things down in a rigorously observable experimental situation. And since, unlike woodpeckers or fugitives, they wouldn’t leave piles of incidental debris or equipment lying about, any accidental evidence would be statistically insignificant, easily explained as hallucination, or otherwise eminently unacceptable. It would be as useless for evidentiary purposes as a photograph that has been manipulated by a sufficiently brilliant user of Photoshop.
Unfortunately, that also means that supposed evidence of such creatures (and not only of such creatures) is prey to our capacity to believe things on the flimsiest of premises. No one could see the straight pins holding up the little paper cutouts in a very famous set of century-old photographs.
I’m sure there have been dozens of science fiction and fantasy novels on the topic, since, as I say, I don’t spend much time thinking about it. We know, of course, about one.
I was stopped short by an NPR Fresh Air interview the other week with the author of a new book on the aforementioned mastermind of world disorder. Referring to the events of which we are marking the fifth anniversary, this author remarked that O. regularly had everyone in the camp bring their dreams to him for interpretation, because, in that part of the world, that’s what you do. So many people who had no knowledge of what was underway were having dreams of the possible uses of airplanes that he commanded everyone to stop dreaming about airplanes, lest it somehow undermine the plans.
This is a preposterous story; not because it doesn’t comport with the existing mindset, but because it is so unconfirmable as to be impossible to take at face value. Even if O. told us the story himself in a video, we would have no reason to suppose he wasn’t lying just to impress us.
Again, it’s odd that an author busily explaining the dry facts of history could toss this in so casually, as though it were on a par with the other incidents he recounts and analyzes. As with Bart Ehrman disproving Morton Smith’s conveniently structured discovery by recounting his own experience of conveniently structured discovery, this guy seemed unaware that he was undercutting his own credibility with his audience.
Personally, I think people should only undercut their credibility when they intend to do that. Unfortunately, outside observers have no way of knowing underlying intent, and sometimes, inside observers have no way of knowing, either.
