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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. ~ Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene V.
More things is right! Of this I have no doubt, but I can’t prove it. Well, I can’t prove it to anyone else. I don’t need any proof on my end. I’ve seen enough strange things to have no more doubts about the presence of things beyond our immediate perception.
This puts me right in there with a lot of nuts, I know. And that’s too bad. Sometimes people think that if you’re smart, you don’t have much to do with religion, the supernatural, or other phenomena that are essentially unexplainable. But it seems to me that being an intelligent person and having beliefs that our world encompasses more than we can come to physical grips with don’t have to necessarily be mutually exclusive.
(Such wasn’t always the case, of course. In the past, often times the village priest or minister was the smartest person in town. That, however, is very seldom the situation anymore, even in this very small town where I live now. Oh, the ministers are among the most educated, but they rank along with the doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professionals. Unfortunately, they also sometimes rank among the dumbest people in town, regardless of their educational level. Let’s not go there.)
Now I don’t believe in just anything. You can keep your alien abduction theories and almost anything printed in the tabloids. There may be a fine line between belief in the unexplainable and credulous gullibility, but there is a line.
Maybe it’s because I am a sort of traditional Catholic that I believe deeply in angels and other spirits, the intercession of the Saints, Heaven, Hell, and a host of other things that veer far from the ordinary. Well, not far from my ordinary, but not things that one generally talks about at cocktail parties. (Not that there’s a lot of that action around here. If you’re drinking at a party around here, you’re not simultaneously engaging in philosophical discussions.)
My ordinary is peopled with all sorts of things—more than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
After the Ecstasy, the Laundry . . . 