Things that go bump in the night

More Mitch Horowitz, the executive editor of metaphysical publisher Tarcher/Penguin, from his interview on Coast-to-Coast:

C2C: In addition to some of the things you’ve looked at, Mitch, you’ve also looked at ghosts, poltergeists, and the like. Now, those are things that a lot of people believe in – I believe in them. I haven’t seen a ghost, either – but I think they’re there. Your take? MH: I agree. I think the anecdotal evidence is compelling. I have heard too many different people from too many different walks of life talk about these things, and although I’ve never witnessed it myself, the people I’ve spoken to I find absolutely convincing. There is a lot out there that we don’t know about. And the whole question of ghosts also touches on séances and the question of talking to the dead, and so forth, and that is a tradition that has very deep roots in this country. You know, in the mid-19th century, about 10% of the population of this country was involved in way one or another with spiritualism, which is to say, talking to the dead. And that is a tradition that has very deep and serious roots in this country. C2C: The thing that really amazes me lately have been these reports of shadow people. Have you heard about that on this program? MH: I have heard about it, but just in passing. C2C: Shadow people, whatever they may be, people are seeing shadows of people. They’re all over the place. I have seen shadow rodents. But they look strange – they look like possums, they’re all dark, they look like shadows, but they have antennae, and pointy ears – very weird creatures. I’m beginning to think, Mitch, we might be somehow involved with either parallel universes or some kind of time warp in another dimension. MH: That’s very interesting, and in a sense my heart goes out to the people who have witnessed these things because science makes no room for us to talk about this kind of thing. In the same way that mainstream science doesn’t make room for us to talk about UFOs, science doesn’t let in personal anecdote. So, if you have a thousand people who say that they’ve seen something, or say that they’ve experienced something, more often than not, an academic scientist will send them to a therapist, rather than sit down, listen to their accounts, and start to ask whether there’s something there that ought to be looked at. So, the problem is that when people encounter these things, they often have no way to have these matters investigated.