Greening the Paranormal

This book must be a first in exploring the ecology of extraordinary experience in terms of anomalistics. In his introduction, Paul Devereux introduces a number of key themes including animism, the nature of the vision quest, liminal sacred places where the veil seems to be thin, and interspecies communication. He points out that these are bridges that our culture is very reluctant to cross, yet such experiences are common. The editor goes on to observe that the ontological assumptions underlying the rejection of paranormal phenomena are the same as those relating to the ecological crisis and Western society's fractured relationship with the Earth. We therefore have to change the way we think about our place in the cosmos and how we communicate with other beings involving a re-enchantment process to compensate for the disenchantment of the mechanistic worldview. One chapter suggests that we need to listen more carefully to indigenous elders like the Kogi with their message of human embeddedness in the Earth. Correspondingly, anthropologists have found themselves gaining new insights by participatory methodologies going beyond objectivity to cultural observation. In many societies they investigate, what we would call paranormal is simply normal, the invisible matrix behind the visible in places where the boundary between worlds may be thinner. Connection also leads to empathy, and it is important to reawaken the significance of sacred places and rhythms of the year celebrated in rituals and festivals. A shamanistic perspective comes through in a number of essays through species connectedness, birds, relationships with animals - sometimes involving dreams - and psychedelics. The final chapter coins the term psychic naturalism to look at the function of psi in its greater ecology and usefully maps the relationship between approaches taken by participant-experiencers and interdisciplinary scholars. This is a ground breaking volume, which I hope will appear on University syllabuses in due course.