An interesting intersection of attitudes has unfolded with recent events: the all-too-human impulse to discount events one has not directly experienced themselves.

You see it in COVID-deniers. With those who dismiss accounts of sexual abuse. Systemic racism, sexism, etc.,

Working in the paranormal, I regularly encounter this impulse.

There are always those people who react to my experiences not only with incredulity but with accusations that I’m lying. They cannot conceive the possibility that I’ve experience something they never have.

The incredulity I’m fine with. Extraordinary experiences should be questioned (& analyzed & understood). But there’s a viciousness to these critics, as if my experience is a personal affront. And that is when they are confronted simply with something most view as entertainment.

So, what I’m pointing at is this underlying impulse among many not only to question someone whose experiences are different from their own but to a) see them as liars and b) attack them for the perceived lie.

Those attacks can escalate to abuse, harassment, death threats, etc.,

They are threatened by a worldview that is not their own.

They are threatened by experiences they have not directly shared, but more than that, experiences that they don’t want to admit exist in the world.

I think that is the key.

And again, let me stress that as someone who works in the paranormal, the slice of this behavior that I experience is 1/1000th of how it plays out when these people are confronted with racism, with #MeToo moments, with crushing accounts of agism, ablism, etc.,

But the impulse - and the vitriol - are clear.

I have no idea how to adequately address this impulse to simultaneously doubt & attack someone for having a different lived experience, but once you see it for what it is, it’s everywhere.

Anyhow, that is my deep thought for the day as I put off finishing up the evening’s work