I wish I could say that I live my life with one foot through the veil and that I can sense ghosts nearby as easily as I can Tories. Despite desperately wanting to be one of those lucky few with a third eye open to the great beyond, mine seems to have conjunctivitis. Or at least to have been wearing a patch for the last forty years. No matter how many haunted pubs and hotels I visit, overnight seances in medieval castles I attend or cemeteries I frequent, the spirits of the dead seem to give me a wide berth. And the longer I go without seeing a spook, the harder it is to maintain my natural optimism and belief in the paranormal. So, to my disappointment, I have realised that I am becoming more and more sceptical of late.
To borrow a Mulderism, I want to believe. Life on this pale blue dot would just be too prosaic and binary for me to accept, without my belief that there is something more to it that only a lucky few are privy to. Surely, we as a species aren’t just carbon-based organisms that have evolved to the point where we are likely to destroy either our habitat or ourselves in the near future? I want to believe and, I have always felt, that the reason why humans feel the compulsion to explain our existence in terms of the fantastic, the mythological and the divine, is because we can sense that there is something just beyond our reach.
Now, the tiny sceptic perched on my shoulder tells me matter of factly that fear of death and the unknown is the reason why, as a species, we cling with bloody fingernails to a belief in a grand cosmic scheme, whether that takes the form of religion, tarot cards or skirting around a ladder leaning against a wall. Sounds like common sense, right? Well, to that I ask, where’s the fun in common sense? Too much weird stuff happens in this world for it all to be coincidence or accident. I prefer to believe that there are mischievous elemental forces out there that play with humanity like a cat plays with a mouse. Maybe I’ve read too many Greek myths or watched too much Buffy. But in the absence of fabulous wealth secreted in off-shore tax havens, what makes life more bearable than the belief that there is more to this world than the sheer mundanity that most of us navigate daily.
So, I’ll flick that little sceptic off my shoulder and ping him into the abyss, book myself a room at the Jamaica Inn, and keep trying to open that third eye. And I’ll write about my experiences and share them. Because I know I’m not the only believer out there who has never had a single paranormal experience!
Molly Malone lives in Essex, UK with her familiars (Mitten, a black cat (of course) and a hamster named Bodhi, after Patrick Swayze’s iconic character in Point Break).