Christianity, especially the Catholic variety, is very much part of what secular culture refers to as the "paranormal." But, of course, the integrity of such a claim depends on how one defines paranormal.
The paranormal of our secular, cultural milieu consists of ghosts, demons, poltergeists, pervasive evil, and vile reports of demonic possession. Generally, Christianity wants nothing to do with any of that...at least the kind of Christianity into which Pam and I were raised, which was Protestant Evangelical verging on Fundamentalism, as humorously described in our memoir Growing Up Christian.
My Evangelical-Fundamentalist background was filled with mysticism—communicating with God and seeing dramatic answers to prayer, quickened by understanding that the supernatural, invisible realm (e.g., the paranormal realm) was real. And now that we're Catholic, we've grown used to saints hovering about our heads and talking to St. Anthony of Padua (the patron saint of lost things) on an hourly basis.
Even though I spent the first years of my professional career as a physicist training NASA astronauts, I have always believed in the invisible realm of angels and demons. I make the argument elsewhere that my study of science reinforced my belief in what was invisible—should we start with the deep cosmos or with quanta atoms?
Wikipedia defines Paranormal Activity as "purported or imagined phenomena...beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding," e.g. telepathy, premonitions, clairvoyance, demonology, exorcisms, ghosts and ghost hunting, occultism, telekinesis, apparitions, spiritism, miracles, precognition, and various poltergeist activity.
Despite my sheltered Christian life growing up, the secular world's understanding of the paranormal milieu never shocked me. If I ever thought much about it, which I rarely did, I just thought it was incomplete and immature. As a junior at a Christian college, living in an old campus house that resembled a fraternity, beer and Greek letters over the front door were not allowed unless it was a quote from the Greek New Testament about Jesus making wine. (I always wondered if Jesus ever sampled the wine he made. WDYT? I digress.) My roommate was a mathematician who became a celebrated professor at a major university. Yet, across the hall was a room full of sociology majors who began experimenting with a Ouija Board. It didn't turn out well for them, and an ambulance was called. I believed in all that stuff as much as the Devil believes in God. He does, but stays away from the Almighty, and I did, but stayed away from the occult.
But in just the last year, the realization of how Christianity and the paranormal are bedfellows (can I say that?), came to the forefront when I struck a deal with Defiance Press to help with the distribution and marketing of my historical novel, Wizard Clip Haunting (WCH). The first edition (published through my niche entity Nineveh's Crossing) sold several hundred copies in various formats. But something was missing, not necessarily from the 372,000 word novel, but from my ability to reach an audience. In part, it is too haunting for Catholics and too Catholic for horror fans.
Lisa Woodward, Director of Publishing at Defiance Press, quickly recognized the flaw in my thinking. Defiance's motto is: "Rooted in Faith. Driven by Patriotism. Published with Purpose." I thought my target audience was American historians and Catholics, although I actually knew Catholics were not my audience, since, for the most part, Catholics don't read. I also thought WCH might be part of the horror genre, but I was not a horror consumer (except for reading Flannery O'Connor) and was ignorant of how to approach such readers.
Lisa understood the obvious, of which I was oblivious. WCH is infused with descriptions of historically documented Early American paranormal activity in a Catholic setting. That the secular paranormal audience was a vast and large community, I had no idea.
In the past week, in anticipation of the release of my new trilogy edition of WCH, Lisa launched a pre-publication marketing campaign to an industry I did not know existed. I'm now preparing to be a guest on several paranormal YouTube podcasts.
Paranormal investigations and investigators of the supernatural have flourished for centuries. Most notably, in 1944, Lorraine Rita Moran (16) met Ed Warren (17) at the local playhouse, where Ed was an usher. A year later, they were married. Both Roman Catholics had little trouble believing in spirits and were convinced that people who were weak in their faith would be subjected to demonic influences and even possession. Stories of their investigations have them readily gripping their rosaries and praying for protection.
In 1952, the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), which is the oldest ghost-hunting group in New England. And the rest, they say, is history for the cult-like community of paranormal researchers and investigators in the United States.
To help attract that crowd, Lisa put a tag line on the cover of my books: "Before Amityville, Before the Warrens...there was Wizard Clip." If you haven't guessed, "The Amityville Horror" story and the Warrens live at the heart of paranormal investigations. Lisa knew that, but I didn't. (Last week, I finally read The Amityville Horror, which I found poorly written but ironically very popular, which tells us something about culture.)
What I did know, but did not associate with "paranormal activity," was all the scientifically unexplained events and stories described throughout Judeo-Christian scriptures and literature. The Bible is filled with paranormal activity. In the Old Testament, we have Noah's premonition to build an ark that took 120 years, the plagues of Egypt, Moses parting the Red Sea, Elijah disappearing into the sky aboard a fiery chariot, the walls of Jericho falling down, Joshua commanding the sun to stand still during a battle against the Amorites, and a host of other strange events. In the New Testament, we have a myriad of miracles performed by Jesus and the Apostles—healings, food production, raising the dead, prophecies, Christ's resurrection, and the vast and pervasive descriptions in John's Revelation. Although a few have tried (Immanuel Velikovsky comes close), scientific explanations are hard to come by. Then, in modern history, we have the apparitions of saints witnessed by thousands, especially Mary; the bilocation of saints like Padre Pio; apparitions of angels like St. Michael (see my documentary, Angel Quest); and an untold number of visions and miraculous answers to prayer.
The merging in my mind of these two seemingly diverse disciplines (science and spirit) was aided by my understanding that there is no contradiction between natural science and the Bible—both are simply different expressions of truth, goodness, and beauty by the same author.
Thus, while investigating and writing WCH, everything that happens in the story, to me, is scientifically and spiritually cogent. They are all a normal part of reality, though one that science cannot explain.
So, there you are: Wizard Clip Haunting—a case study of paranormal activity in American history.
Lisa is lining up interviews for me with podcasters who normally interview paranormal investigators, some who claim to be clairvoyants, mediums, psychics, and animists. I am none of those, all forbidden by Judeo-Christian morals. But I've been forced to reconsider that within the rubrics of Christianity, I am most certainly a paranormal investigator and believer in the supernatural. My YouTube documentary, Angel Quest, is a good example. It was a pilgrimage of investigation into the line of St. Michael monasteries and an investigation into the apparitions and supernatural activities that can easily be classified as angelic paranormal phenomena.
ADDENDUM
Transcription from an IG post from Amanda Arrows
Why Does Catholicism Look Occult?
[Amanda's post begins with a video of a Catholic Spanish street procession featuring hundreds of robed and hooded men carrying large platforms adorned with heavily symbolic statues on their shoulders. Some men wear tall, pointy white hats; others wear black silk robes and hoods. The caption says it all: "This looks and feels demonic..."]
In rapid fire, Amanda explains:
"I understand I get it, the candles the incense, the relics the priest and robes, the prayers that sound like we might be talking to the dead...if you have a very basic surface level understanding of Catholicism, I understand your confusion. But the reason why the occult and Catholicism look similar to an outsider is because the occult only imitates what is sacred. Satan does not invent, he counterfeits." (Amanda lifts into view a white mug with an image of Our Lady decoratively imprinted on the front (she sells them...it's a product placement...but Amanda doesn't slow down.) "And the only reason why he has something to counterfeit is because something real exists to begin with. Here's the difference. The occult tries to access or control hidden powers for human gain, but Catholicism is not about control, it doesn't try to control anything. It's about complete surrender, surrendering your entire existence to God through Christ. I'm going to throw out a few examples [with visual inserts]. Candles for the occult are used for magic, but in Catholicism it's (they're) actually a visible prayer. Rituals for the occult are for manipulation; they are for personal gain. In Catholicism, it (ritual) is all about ordered worship [nice pix of the TLM]. The occult may use relics as physical objects, maybe gems something like that, that (supposedly) hold power or they even are seen as enchanted. The relics that we have in Catholicism are honored because of God's work in them. All of that, what I am trying to say, is that the focus is always on God, his authority, his will. And the only reason why it may look similar on the outside is because the occult is always trying to distort the sacred. Why do you think so many horror movies are based on Catholicism, and what we have is sacred? They're distorting it. Catholicism does not borrow from darkness. Darkness looks like Catholicism because it is the counterfeit of what is sacred. If I can sum this whole thing up, it would be a quote from Saint Augustine. He said (paraphrasing), "The human heart was made for God, and when it does not find the real thing, it reaches for substitutes." The occult fills a god-shaped void with darkness, and the Catholic Church fills it with truth, beauty, and light, and only ever points us towards the goodness and grace of God."
