Psychologists Are Not Allowed to Believe in Ghosts

Or if they are, they generally keep it to themselves. “Evidence-based blah blah” and all that. The so-called “Science of Psychology.” Yeah, whatever.

A lot of clients, over the years, have brought in spooks, ghosts, spirits, ancestors, paranormal experiences, books flying off shelves, entities standing at the end of their beds, heavy footsteps coming down the stairs in an empty house, stuff falling out of kitchen cabinets and shattering on the floor, hanging lights and lamps swinging madly in the absence of wind or earthquakes. Magic butterflies delivering messages from the Other Side, Odd People living in a cavern behind the house.

You get the idea.

If you stick to the party line in my field, and go looking for this stuff in the DSM 5, the only place to find it, really, is under “Crazy As A Loon.”

I have this wild notion that that is not correct.

Do I claim to understand all these phenomena and entities?

No. I do not.

Do I believe that people are having these experiences?

Yes. I do.

Do I think they are nuts?

No. I do not.

Do I think they are making stuff up, intentionally or not?

No. I do not.

Psychology Psychologizes Things

They say that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to think everything looks like a nail. In parallel fashion, Psychology tends to psychologize things. Have a near-death trip toward the White Light, down that oft-described tunnel? Yeah, brain thingamajigs, dream state doodads, DMT in the blood stream hoojamaflips, the bright light over the operating table probly, and onward into yada yada yada land.

Psychologists and medical people just can’t stand it. They gotta psychologize it, or try to. If you read the literature, they look like jackasses. There are just too many experiences over too long a time being shared by too many people. And Psychology says “Yeah, that’s, uh, psychological and chemical and s***.”

They just can’t break ranks and say “Man, there’s some interesting stuff we don’t understand out there!!” Despite the fact that the Decade of the Brain yielded diddly-squat.

Anyway, my field embarrasses me to the extent it holds that line of thinking and inquiry.

So it goes…

And anyway again, that stuff is real. And my clients bring it in all the time.

And I believe them. And that’s just how it is.

I have given myself permission to believe in ghosts and spirits from past lives.

I find it pretty liberating.

BOO!

James Michael Nolan, Ph.D.

Text at 505-699-7616

jamesmicknolan@gmail.com

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