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Stories Are Better Than Facts At Changing The World
Even the most empirical of us must accept the importance of fiction.
Like a bull in a china shop, electricity did away with most of our ghosts.
I remember seeing a meme a few years ago showing a graph in which the global number of reported miracles was inversely proportional to the spread of photography. Accordingly, the number of confirmed miracles in the 20th was at all-time low and almost non-existent once we entered the 21st.
Things don’t get much better for pagans: one must inevitably travel at least two centuries back in time to find good ghost stories. The advent of electric lighting blinded us against the metaphysical world. Just as street lights were responsible for the most sudden decline in street violence in history, facts always get in the way of the best stories.
Have you ever been in the dark at home? Perhaps the lights went out and you only had a couple of candles? Or perhaps you had a sumptuous bath in scented candlelight? I have certainly experienced both and, every time, I’ve had a moment of thrill caused by a sudden draft or a furtive feline incursion. The flame shakes a shivery shadow and the heart skips a beat. And if we are to talk about it, ghosts make for more respectable intruders than our own brittle brains.