October 5, 2011

New bumper sticker: Keep Austin Paranormal. That’s pretty close to weird, isn’t it? OK, so maybe not in a dreads-and-tie-dye kind of way or a bike-with-a-really-high-seat kind of way or a whole-body-tattoo-with-whisker-implants kind of way, but you have to admit, ghosts are pretty freaking weird – nearly as weird as people who believe in them. No, not just Christians … all sorts of folks believe in haints: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists … even Wiccans. Interestingly, leaders in all the preceding religions like to rock flowing robes – sort of like ghosts themselves. Perhaps that gives them some extra spiritual clout. Catholic Christians like to accessorize their ghost costumes with lots of bling. Yo! All y’all indigenous peoples! Catholic heaven is awesome! Check out these gemstones … get a whiff of some of this “incense” … and take a long swig from some of this sacrificial wine! Woot! Buddhists, on the other hand, go for more of a low profile – well at least as far as personal style points. Like ghosts, Buddhist monks aren’t real chatty. Makes sense. Ghosts – at least in a classic, ethereal sense – don’t have vocal chords. Maybe that’s why they’re always moaning or wailing or appearing exasperated with their inability to communicate – sort of like Rick Perry at a Republican presidential debate. Buddhists do have some impressive temples. Of course, the same could be said of Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. There is probably some correlation between the ostentatious architecture of temples, cathedrals, mosques, and synagogues and dazzling, gaudy Vegas casinos, but why throw stones at glass houses? Either way it’s a roll of the dice. At least in a casino you get free drinks as long as you’re gambling. The Catholics have a similar program, but you have to share cooties with the rest of the congregation (don’t trip, there’s only a small chance you might get mouth herpes, syphilis, and a teeming stew of other frightening pathogens by taking a swig from the sacramental chalice). Diseases are nearly invisible and spooky in their own right, but they became not quite as spooky (OK, Ebola excepted) once we could see them under a microscope. Back in the olden days (olden is such an olden word, isn’t it?), people burned incense, bathed in urine, drank pus, and covered themselves with leeches to ward off plague and pestilence. Fortunately, through the miracles of advanced optics and the scientific method, people eventually learned to take a fucking bath, stop sleeping with their farm animals, and stop piling corpses in the streets. Thank God (OK, God, we might have to chalk this one up to science. We’re still cool, right?) people no longer have to anoint themselves with oil, wear talismans, or burn incense anymore, eh? It’s called evolution (although admittedly burning incense is not a bad idea if you’ve been smoking pot in your dorm room). The important thing to remember is that unless your incense is actually a Raid flea bomb, it’s not helping you one iota against the plague. Here’s the bottom line: Stuff you can’t see is often scary, but just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. For instance: Axe body spray = scary, unseen. Yes, we have five senses, and Axe body spray eats up at least two or three of them, but sometimes those senses can’t tell the whole story. If they did, you could do your own MRI. Science and technology may be advancing at a mind-boggling pace, but what we don’t know is still nearly limitless. So when it comes to the paranormal, we should maybe get off our high horses a little. Good news! You’ll have an opportunity to do that this weekend at the Central Texas Paranormal Conference, a two-day event taking place at the Norris Conference Center at Northcross Mall. Speakers include the SyFy Channel’s Dustin Pari (Ghost Hunters International); the Klinge Brothers, from the Discovery Channel’s Ghost Lab; Dash Beardsley, “The Ghost Man of Galveston”; and Aron Houdini, great-nephew of Harry Houdini, among others. There will also be a vendor area with an aura photographer, palmists, a Reiki practitioner, crystal readers, entity clearers, and plain ol’ psychics. If you get your aura photographed, you will definitely have to get off your high horse. You’ll also be keeping Austin paranormal.