FOOL ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME
In 2002, the Seattle Times reported on the death of Raymond Wallace and publicly announced “Bigfoot is dead.”
Ray Wallace was the first to discover the giant tracks of an unknown beast high in the Pacific Northwest mountains while his crew was working on road construction. Following Wallace’s discovery, the name Bigfoot was assigned to the mysterious track-maker by the local media. Wallace then began an odd personal and public journey with his Bigfoot story. At one point he claimed that Bigfoot was actually guarding a secret gold mine, and that he and Bigfoot were well acquainted and that he had hair, recordings, and weapons used by Bigfoot. Immediately following his death in 2002, the family made a statement: “ ‘Ray L. Wallace was Bigfoot. The reality is, Bigfoot just died,’ said Michael Wallace about his father, who died of heart failure Nov. 26 in a Centralia nursing facility.”19 Despite this admission of a hoax that lasted nearly 50 years, the professed guilt by the family, and a pair of wooden feet that were supposedly used in creating the famous tracks, Bigfoot researchers have ignored the confession and have continued to look for the beast. And the public is just as interested in Bigfoot as ever.
Now, there are serious considerations to be taken with the Wallace family’s story, many of which are outlined in Jeff Meldrum’s book, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. Much of Wallace’s story doesn’t add up. However, let’s assume that Wallace was finally telling the truth, that it was really just a hoax all these years (the Bigfoot phenomenon does actually fit the Drummer Cycle). Why does the public continue to wonder and believe? There have been countless hoaxes discovered over the years; the public has been burned repeatedly, but we seemingly keep coming back for more. It has been demonstrated that the hoax can take on dimensions far outside the originator. Case in point: the crop circles quickly became replicated by people around the world and became much bigger than the originators. So here we have a man and his family saying that the exact same thing occurred with Bigfoot, but no one in the public, for the most part, believes them. The saying goes “fool me twice, shame on me,” so why do we keep allowing ourselves to be duped even in the face of a blatant admission?
The paranormal taps into a belief system that is deep within the human psyche; it is the belief that there is something more than the visible reality in which we live. Therefore, ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot provide that mysterious “other world” that lies behind the veil of our accepted reality. This other world is the mysterious, the unknown. The unknown allows for our imaginations to work and extrapolate. Our world is largely governed by logic and accepted realities, social norms and tradition; it does not leave much room for the imagination. The paranormal allows for the imagination to work; the mysterious and unknown lets us think outside of the confines of our everyday reality. Thus, when presented with an opportunity to view the mysterious, when given a great unknown, such as ghosts, UFOs, or Bigfoot, we jump at the chance; we bite at the bait because the mysteries of the world beckon our inner yearnings. As I’ve asked before, what is more frightening? The idea that we don’t know everything about this world or the idea that we do? Absolute knowledge leaves no room for imagination.
When I was very young I believed that Asia was a dark and mysterious land of dense jungle and wild animals. The word itself, Asia, sounded so exotic that I assumed it had to be an exotic land. Imagine my disappointment upon learning that a majority of Asia was made up of cold, barren Russian tundra? I was disappointed; it felt like a big piece of joy and wonder had been taken away.
This is not to say that it is better to be ignorant, but rather to illustrate the disenchantment of the world that is an inherent part of the human experience. The paranormal offers an opportunity to recapture that childhood sense of enchantment and wonder that has been stripped away by the modern, learned, logical world. Malcolm McGrath, author of the book Demons of the Modern World, draws a comparison to childlike wonder and belief in magic and primitive cultures: “Nonetheless, there is one similarity in their style of thinking; that is, neither of them has learned to make a clear distinction between the mechanical and the symbolic worlds we live in at the level of secondary theory. Neither of them has learned, for example, that the planets move entirely on the basis of mechanical principles, or that magic and ghosts are not possible.”20 Hence, in my youth I was still thinking in symbolic terms—Asia was a word symbol that represented something to me that was not reality. However, as we grow and learn, that symbolism is largely replaced by the mechanical world. “The possibility of magic threatens the integrity of the mechanical theory of the physical universe.”21
The paranormal allows us to relive childhood wonder, to exist in a world that is outside the mechanics of the accepted physical universe, to operate in a world of symbols. Because symbolism is the first form of knowledge that we learn as infants and children, it can often feel as if it is an innate sense of truth—something basic and deeper than the learned reality in which we function today. So we feel drawn to it, not completely willing to believe the world that has been placed before us by society, science, and education. There is a deep, inner feeling that there is a different truth out there, one that functions largely in a world of magic and symbolism, one that thrives in the mysterious and unknown.
The pervasiveness of religion is a prime example of the draw of symbolism and magic. Religions use symbols that are imbued with unseen power—the cross, communion, statues, altars, and rituals are all symbols of a greater truth. A vast majority of the world is religious and drawn to this world of magic and symbolism. Is it possible that these belief systems tap into a childhood sense of wonder, a world in which symbols and magic operate to explain the unknown?
Just like religion, the paranormal provides the public with magic, symbolism, and a mysterious world that is more basic and thus “truer” than our mechanized world of logic and science. The paranormal, like religion, is a belief system that is based on symbols and magic. Our beliefs form the basis of our sense of self. If, deep in our hearts, we believe that there is something more to the mechanical reality of the world, then we will seek out support for that belief system and try to maintain it despite certain difficulties and refutations of that belief system. To have our beliefs challenged and upended is to have our sense of self challenged and upended. And people will try very, very hard to maintain their belief in both a mysterious world and in themselves, because without it, we feel lost.
It also works the other way around—skepticism is a belief system as much as are religious or paranormal belief systems. The belief of skeptics that there is no proof or validity to the countless paranormal claims allows them to make blanket statements that there are no ghosts (as McGrath illustrates in the quoted text), no UFOs, and no Bigfoot. We are warned as children to “never say never,” but that is precisely what skeptics do.
But what would it mean to have your beliefs completely disrupted? What would it mean for science to absolutely prove that there is no Bigfoot, no ghosts, no UFOs, or no God? Fortunately, for believers it is impossible for science to absolutely disprove these beliefs. But for argument’s sake, let’s suppose they can. What would it mean for science if a Bigfoot was actually found and captured?
It is impossible to study anything in depth and not be somehow changed by it, and I admittedly have been affected by the study of this subject. Perhaps the greatest and most difficult moment came as I was reading The Day After Roswell by retired Colonel Philip J. Corso. Corso served extensively in the U.S. government in top-secret operations, served in President Eisenhower’s National Security Council, and was the head of the Foreign Technology Department for the U.S. Army. In his autobiographical work, he stated clearly and plainly that there was an alien crash at Roswell in 1947 and that there were alien bodies recovered. He also stated that much of the modern technology we have, such as fiber optics, lasers, integrated circuit chips, and super-tenacity fibers were reverse engineered from the technology of the spacecraft. He claims to have funneled the tec
hnology to private companies through the foreign technology desk, and he makes a very convincing story. So convincing, in fact, that he had me convinced. I had entered into this project not really knowing what I believed regarding the paranormal and determined to remain that way. However, here was a colonel in the U.S. military, one who had served directly under a president, stating clearly that there were aliens, and they were visiting us regularly. Somehow, my world seemed to change and I suddenly felt an intense anxiety, as if I somehow couldn’t tell what was real anymore. I spent several days walking around in a kind of daze, wondering if everything I had thought I knew was false, if everything I had learned had suddenly been wiped out. I was engaged in an inner battle of belief, but regardless of whether Colonel Corso was telling the truth or not, I eventually was able to settle back down into my comfortable world of disbelief with a small addenda of “it’s possible.” This period of anxiety and feeling lost is called cognitive dissonance, and I had just gotten a brief glimpse as to its effects.
“Whenever someone comes into contact with beliefs, ideas, or information that is in conflict with a belief that they have a strong emotional investment in, they experience a form of anxiety … In order to reduce that anxiety, they will search for new beliefs, information, or behaviors that reduce that conflict between their current beliefs and the new information.”22 This can be a powerful motivating factor in human behavior. When Copernicus first proposed that the earth revolved around the sun, he was labeled as a heretic. Why? Because his theory flew in the face of accepted beliefs during that time, and rather than face the anxiety of a reality in which earth was not the center of the universe and the usurpation of God’s power in the universe, it was easier to call him a heretic. We seek out that which reinforces our beliefs so that we never have to face that intense anxiety. Imagine the loss that was felt by the true believers when Doug Bower revealed that the crop circles were never formed by UFOs? Many of these people had invested time, money, and personal beliefs in these circles. Imagine what the skeptic would feel if tomorrow a UFO landed on the White House lawn or Bigfoot was captured and put on display. It is a feeling of utter loss, an anxiety because the world is no longer your own, your beliefs are dashed against the rocks of reality, and you are left floating in a turbulent sea. Then you have to learn how to swim all over again.
Most people would try anything to avoid having to rethink their entire world, and that includes believing in things that are quite obviously fake or disbelieving things that are most likely true. Or sometimes, adjusting our beliefs to fit the new mold.
Take this for a global example to illustrate the power of cognitive dissonance. In 2002 George W. Bush was authorized by Congress to use military force against Iraq because Saddam Hussein would not allow inspectors to examine facilities suspected of containing weapons of mass destruction. With the stated purpose of invading Iraq to eliminate a percieved imminent threat posed by Hussein’s regime, the U.S. military invaded and conquered Iraq. However, after major operations were concluded and the search for the weapons began, we came up empty. The basis of the invasion was nowhere to be found. It was soon after this that the administration and its supporters began to emphasize that the purpose of the invasion was to establish a peaceful democracy in the Middle East and to liberate a people from a vicious dictator. In essence, in light of the new information that contradicted the beliefs held by the U.S. government that Iraq was hiding these weapons, the stated policy had to be amended and changed in order to accommodate these new facts. But there was a period of collective, national cognitive dissonance, and a good majority of the public was all too ready to accept that Hussein’s removal was the goal of the invasion, that the world and Iraq were better off without him. The weapons of mass destruction were relegated to the periphery of our collective memory. The new reality had been accepted and (some of) our beliefs reformed to accommodate.
There is another aspect to our willingness to buy into false claims that support our belief systems; it allows us to fulfill a role in that belief system. Individual believers in the paranormal often feel that they are set aside from the rest of society due to their beliefs. Hence, they and they alone know the truth, and only they have had this experience. That feeling can imbue the believer with a feeling of being “the chosen one.” The paranormal belief system becomes something of a role-playing game in which individuals have special powers of discernment, can communicate with the dead or aliens from other lands, or have been selected to spread the word of truth to the masses. The paranormal, in essence, gives their life a new meaning, an importance in being singled out and chosen by the paranormal to be both viewer and witness to the masses. George P. Hansen, in his remarkable book The Trickster and the Paranormal, describes an example of an obvious hoax that was believed by famed UFO researcher Budd Hopkins, someone who was not generally prone to gullibility and sensationalism. However, he was duped by a woman named Linda into believing that she had been abducted by aliens in full view of the UN secretary general and that conspiratorial acts by the CIA and other government entities were involved. Eventually, much of the claim was discredited, but not before Hopkins released a book about the abduction entitled Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions. Hansen, who was derided by Hopkins for his research into the case, states,
Grandiosity frequently accompanies conspiratorial thinking and paranoiac belief [in our terms the paranoiac would be the ‘one’ separated from the masses, while the conspiratorial thinking is the masses that don’t believe the ‘one’ and therefore have ostracized him from normative social life]. That occurred in the Linda case, and the hoaxers capitalized splendidly on it. One of Hopkins’ abductees was chosen by the aliens for the demonstration of power to earth’s political leaders. Hopkins was thereby cast in a central role in the drama, and his colleagues would share in the glory of proving to the world the reality of the ET’s. This would be the ultimate accomplishment for any ufologist. Even if there was only a slim chance of the case being proven, the payoff was extraordinary, and it would make their lives’ work worth all the effort.23
Scott M. Peck was a popular psychiatrist and author until his death in 2005, shortly after he completed his last book, Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism and Redemption. In it he describes two exorcisms, which he performed after setting out to disprove that there was a true devil. However, his stories smack of personal narcissism, and it would appear that Peck had so quickly and fully bought into belief in possession that he began to take on a new role outside the boundaries of his expertise, namely, psychiatry.
I felt that Bishop Worthington’s simple faith was badly needed, but that he was not smart enough to be the exorcist, the captain of the exorcism team. Who then? My own name kept coming to mind. Was I crazy? Baptized for less than a year with no formal theological training? Yet something kept calling me to be the primary exorcist, even though I felt certain that Bishop Worthington was being called as well. As the night progressed I began seriously to consider taking on the role of the exorcist with Bishop Worthington as my assistant. Was this calling from the Holy Spirit or my own arrogance.24
Obviously, he believed it to be the Holy Spirit, because he names himself primary exorcist and continues with the exorcism. Throughout his book Peck encompasses many heroic roles—at one point demanding that the demon face him one on one without hiding behind a human façade, much the way Father Karras commands the demon to enter into his body in The Exorcist, and he spends much time demonstrating to the demons his intellectual superiority. In fact, his role of exorcist is so important that even Satan himself shows up—on both occasions of exorcism, no less.
Peck writes this book in the twilight of his life and acknowledges that he himself has been diagnosed as having a bit of narcissistic tendency and may have overstepped boundaries in his work with the possessed individuals.
I do not think that I treated Beccah well. As with a number of my other patients, she
deserved a psychiatrist who was not simultaneously on the lecture circuit, always rushed, juggling two careers at once. I also think I was too close to her to be her exorcist, having worked with her for over a year and a half before uncovering her possession. To this day I cannot understand why I did not call up Malachi Martin and ask him to take over. For whatever reason—perhaps my growing fame and the applause of audiences—I think that I was arrogant during that period of time. So if I had to do it all over again I certainly wouldn’t do it myself.25
Peck’s reflection at the end of his life is telling. He was a highly educated and well-known psychiatrist and, when writing about psychiatry, a formidable presence. However, he had entered into a new realm, a new belief system, and within that system he was an ignorant child who was led down paths that nearly led to his destruction and the destruction of others. But Peck leapt into these heroic calls because he had felt himself singled out as The One. Afterwards he went on to tell his story to the masses, to tell them of his gifts and of his being chosen by God. Unfortunately, what is revealed through his work is a bit more insight into his weaknesses and flaws rather than any real glimpse of the devil. If the devil truly was at play in either of these cases, it may have been Peck whom he was seeking to confound and confuse. Peck bought right in—hook, line, and sinker—and regardless of the reality of the possessions or of the devil, he showed himself as susceptible as any other person to the lure of fantasy and role-playing.
THE TRICKSTER
Ancient societies used personified gods as a means to explain a world they could not fully understand. Today many of those gods have been explained away through science. We now know that storms at sea are not the work of Neptune but rather of complex weather patterns and oceanic currents; Hermes no longer plunges nations into war but rather complex geopolitical movements and doctrines lead to wars; and no longer is Zeus hurling lightning bolts at a population that has angered him but instead positive and negative ions exchange in vast quantities between the clouds and the earth.
Paranormal Nation Page 7