Column: The truth about the supernatural isn’t always super
Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 7, 2002
In one of his essays, Charles Lamb, English writer (1775-1834), discussed what he referred to as his &uot;imperfect sympathies.
Thursday, March 07, 2002
In one of his essays, Charles Lamb, English writer (1775-1834), discussed what he referred to as his &uot;imperfect sympathies.&uot; Among those with whom he was not happy were the people of Caledonia (Scotland). He considered them lacking in a certain whimsy.
It’s an absurd accusation when you consider that it was a Scotsman who wrote &uot;Peter Pan.&uot; Still, Lamb had his reasons. Attending a party in Scotland where he was told he would meet the son of Robert Burns, Lamb announced that there was no one he would rather meet than the father. He was immediately informed that that was not possible because the father was dead.
You can see how it might take a bit of fun out of Lamb’s remark. Fortunately my father had an Irish mother to leaven a bit of his father’s literal approach to life. Even so my father was sometimes a little too literal for me. He was most displeased with me once because in a psych class, in course of a free association experiment, it was found that my answers for the most part were atypical.
In vain did I point out that there are no right or wrong answers in a free association test. You react immediately without pondering your answer.
&uot;Why can’t you be like other people?&uot; he snarled.
&uot;Why can’t they be like me?&uot; I countered.
I meant it, too. I know it’s an answer that suggests certain unfortunate mental problems, but so be it. A young woman the other day asked me if I believed in psychics. She was somewhat disappointed with me when I said no.
During World War II, there was a restaurant in Minneapolis that specialized in serving turkey and had a fortune teller named Margo. Back then turkey was worth eating. The sign on the door read, &uot;Club 66, Where Turkey is King and Margo is Queen.&uot;
The friends who took me there insisted on my having my fortune told. Margo said something like this, &uot;I see you have someone in service. I don’t know whether its a friend, a relative or merely a friend or a relative of a friend.&uot;
This was in wartime. How could she miss?
I remember, too, a party I once attended where four or five women begged me to join them in experimenting with a Ouija board. As you probably know, it’s a board with an alphabet and some other signs printed on it. Those playing with it put their fingers on a planchette with is supposed to point out messages. Only it hadn’t. Not until I joined them and then there were messages galore.
No, nothing psychic about it. If I thought I had any leaning in that direction I’d have it amputated.
Anyone, though, can move a planchette deliberately to any spot he wishes to. That’s what I was doing. People were giving voice to little shrieks and squeals. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with horror at the thought that I was feeding a superstition of which I really didn’t approve.
I immediately confessed and apologized. And – this is the interesting part – no one believed me. Years later in another town I met one of the women and, both of us having a bit of time on our hands, we stopped in the hotel coffee shop for a cup and a bit of conversation.
In no time at all, to my discomfort, she was discussing the Ouija board incident. Did I ever think I might be psychic, she asked. Absolutely not, I told her, and reminded her that I’d confessed to cheating at the time.
&uot;Oh yes,&uot; she said, &uot;But the rest of us talked it over afterward. We all know that you don’t like to admit that anything the least bit supernatural is possible. So we think you just pretended that you moved that planchette. After all you couldn’t have known all that stuff about us that was in the messages.&uot;
&uot;I eavesdrop whenever possible,&uot; I told her.
It doesn’t seem likely that Lamb would have approved of me either.
Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.