48. A Meditation on The Ontic Bulge.

Dearly Beloved:

The time when screech owls cry and bandogs howl,
And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves—

Henry VI, Part II, Act 1, Scene 4.

Do you come across words and ideas which you wish you understood? One with which I have difficulty is “The Ontic Bulge”.

When I was staying on the Island of Lundy there was a ghostly haunting. In one of the houses there a group of four men lived, who had travelled to the island to work on building projects. One night they were alarmed by being woken up several times in the night because their bedding was being pulled back off them – but there was no one there (apparently)! I visited one of the men, Flo, the next day. He was still in an anxious state and as he told his story he pointed out that the hairs on his arm were standing on end. As we talked, the inevitable, poster of the scantily clad lady detached itself from the wall and fell onto the top of an adjacent wardrobe. After about half a minute for quiet contemplation, it continued its journey, lifted off the surface on which it rested and floated to the floor. Flo shrugged and gave me a “this it is what it's like” look.

Now ghosts are not as much talked of as they were at one time. Shakespeare bases the plots of both Hamlet and Macbeth on Ghosts and they appear in Julius Caesar and Richard III. They all wish to tell of past wrong doing. Nowadays we all have mobile phones with cameras but these have failed to register many significant images that may be ghosts despite early promise after they were invented in the 19th century. Most of these photographs are now thought to be carefully staged fakes using double exposure. Furthermore experiences with psychedelic drugs have made us all much more aware of the frailty of human perception and we now know we can see things that are not there, and that we can do so without being defined as being mentally ill. I remember being on a lonely beach with two children and had the persistent and anxiety inducing impression I was being viewed by a solitary, unmoving man on the other side of the bay. When I focused my binoculars on the figure it was clear that it was my brain interpreting a particular piece of rocky cliff as being a vigilant human figure. There really was nobody there (well nobody who was visible through binoculars). Returning to the same spot at the same time of day months later, the figure was no longer perceived, and I concluded it was because I was no longer alone with children and was less anxious, and that the anxiety had induced the image perceived on the first occasion.

My best ghost was one I saw (or should I say “perceived”) in Wales on a winter's day in February. I had been walking alone all day and had descended from the moor to a lake with a huge iron pipe emerging from it. The terrain was difficult. Eventually I found myself in a field with a few sheep and what looked like an old house platform or wall line which made a useful path through the boggy field. On my proposed route I saw a figure standing looking at me about 150 yards away, by a stream bordered by willow trees. He was dressed in brown. I approached the figure and prepared to greet him, but when I looked up there was no one. I waited for a moment then scanned the area with the binoculars and saw nobody.

Another disconcerting thing that happens in life is how one “rears and educates children” and then realises one has been overtaken by them and is being taught by them in turn. I discussed the issue of ghosts with my daughter, who was at that time taking her degree finals which involved a heavy dose of philosophy. She pointed out that there were a whole mass of things that did not fit in with the rules, including scientific rules, by which we define the world - the ontic bulge - no less. This seems associated with the idea that we humans have two separate ways of reasoning, one primitive and intuitive and often inaccurate, and another which requires more conscious work, follows a procedure (eg as in science) and is based, perhaps, on mental processes related to talking to ourselves. The latter way of thought comes up with a more reliable conclusion about the nature of reality. (But don't take my word for it because I still don't understand it.)

Of course these days, more people seem to believe in UFOs than they do in ghosts and I can remember a male acquaintance informing me with total self-assurance and equanimity that aliens lived amongst us, they resemble humans but you can identify them by their eyes. We can conclude that intimations of The Ontic Bulge will not go away soon.

Peace,

Paul.

Completed: 26 August 2021.

Photo: Paul Munton

An Alien Spacecraft heavily disguised as a lenticular cloud. Sicily January 2015

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