Deprogramming.

The term conjures up a lot of images of darkened rooms with men in black suits and a single light on a subject, who leaves the room truly believing that "... it never really happened." At least, it does for me.

But other kinds of deprogramming are essential for survival. We grow up with a lot of little beliefs that turn out to be factually incorrect, benign though they may be. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. The Easter Bunny (who I got to be at a party a little while back, and had a blast.)

As we get older, we begin to cast off more illusions and delusions, but some, we cling to like there's no tomorrow. Yes, I'm an Atheist, and I count religion as a delusion, but it is so common a delusion that I won't bother treating it here at this time. I did say that I would talk about a couple of misconceptions I had, so let's get to that.

When I was in college I had a few odd beliefs here and there, mostly benign, but I also had some pretty clear convictions about other things. I was very down on Christianity at the time, but I had no problem believing in Pagan/Wicca or Eastern Religions. This eventually lead to Buddhism some time later, but in college, I thought that I was both a) clairvoyant, and b) could manipulate Ouija boards.

I had a great deal of fun exploring lesser used areas of the campus where I was at, and I found myself one night in a construction area where they were renovating the dean's house. Natural curiosity took over and having already heard that it was haunted, I decided to nose my way in, ignoring the barriers and caution tape. I opened the side door. (It may have been the front door, not sure.) and leaned in. At once I felt a hand on my chest that literally shoved me back out the door and a low voice saying "Out." That was just about all the invitation I needed and I beat a hasty retreat, lest the ghost who ejected me take stronger measures. As it was, the pain from the hit in my chest lasted about 3 days. I told nobody of this until years later.

A year or two later, I was on tour with the Jazz Choir there and we ended up spending the night in a very old monastery. Late at night, I decided to have some fun with a few of the more skittish ladies, and fashioned a Ouija board out of some slips of paper and a shot glass. It worked like a charm. Up until one of the tenors decided to hide in the closet and rattle the doors, scaring the living crap out of us.

So for a long time, I held on to these things as real. After all, I had no other explanations for these things. What other possible explanation was there? I really wasn't touching the shot glass, yet it moved from letter to letter without effort. That hand on my chest was quite powerful, and the voice was as clear as day.

Or was it?

As time went by and my education into things skeptical began, I started wondering about some of these events. Early on, I learned about the Ideomotor Effect, and how it can fool dowsers, pendulum psychics, and yes... even Ouija board users. Yes, you really are moving the planchette, you're just not aware that you're doing it. I thought about how I checked on the shot glass as it moved around and how it slowed down when I was seeing how far my finger was from the top of it. I also watched a few demonstrations of Ouija board users, where they were blindfolded or otherwise prevented from seeing the board. In one case, the board was even turned 180°. The resulting answers made no sense at all, and were composed entirely of random letters. That's one old belief down. But the hand and the voice, that was real, right?

A couple of years ago, I felt a bit of a popping sensation in my chest, followed by a dull pain that spread from the center of my chest outwards. A bit older now, and fearing a heart attack, I had a friend drive me to the emergency room, and was examined. No problems with my heart, but the doctor did explain to me how after a bout of upper respiratory illness or bronchitis, the cartilage between the breastbone and the sternum can 'crack' much like cracking your knuckles, and cause some chest pain. Later, I remembered vaguely of how I was leaning in through the door frame of the dean's house, with my chest pulled tight as I had both hands on either side of the frame. The pop would have caused me to pull everything back together, quickly sending my body back through the frame under my own power. That's the hand, but what about that voice.

It would be another year or so later until I learned about infrasound. The air handlers being used on the construction site, or the furnace of the house would have provided the perfect source of infrasound. A large fan starting up, with maybe a little less lubricant than it should have, could have easily provided the 'ooooooouuuuut' sound I had heard.

Having found much more reasonable explanations for these events, I could finally let them go. These days, I don't need to find the most reasonable explanation for everything that happens, but I'm content to believe that things have reasonable explanations, and it's not necessary to resort to paranormal beliefs.

Before you're going to believe that something is paranormal, make sure it isn't normal, first.