Since the peak of our existence, the human species has openly embraced a rooted curiosity that has driven mankind from ignorant cave dwellers to an intellectual specimen of the biosphere. It is this rooted curiosity that has enabled our species to fathom the unfathomable; the paranormal.

We are complex organisms, gifted with the ability to not only consciously experience our universe, but with the ability to consciously interpret, and evaluate it as well. Consequently, we often find ourselves in an existential crisis; lost in contemplation regarding our place, and purpose in the vast enigma that is our universe.

We humans tend to overestimate our importance. We are extremely vain, selfish, and self-absorbed. We have constantly placed ourselves on top, in terms of significance, over every other living organism on the planet, and a perfect example of this, are the various belief systems scattered across the globe.

“Only humans have souls,” “God loves humans,” “We are God’s children,” these ideas are somewhat analogous to folk in the geocentric paradigm going, “the universe revolves around the planet Earth,” though the Earth is but a single speck floating amongst the cosmos.

People should, and will always believe what they deem true, and this article is not written to urge others to change. However, it’s important to note that religion is man’s primitive attempt to understand creation, and set order in society. There was no Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, or any other religion, before someone came along and established it; there was no God(s), until humans were intellectually capable of understanding the principle of creation, and the mechanisms of contemplation.

The reason why the majority of early religions worshiped nature is because through observation, primitive humans were able to understand that mother nature was the omniscient creator of all things, and should thereby be treated with dignity and respect. I don’t know when and how this perspective was altered, or how this idea of a spiritual individual(s) took over, condemning early philosophies as pagan, and unworthy, but it definitely introduced a world in which man thought, and thinks he is the king of the world. (Side Note: Highly recommend the Da Vinci code…).

This idea that mankind has some special advantage over other species that inhabit the planet has led to belief in an afterlife; because how can humans, with the same biological mechanisms as all other life on the planet, with DNA nearly analogous to the fruit fly, and brain differing in extent of complexity in the pre-frontal cortex region, encounter the same fate after death as, a fox? No, no, it can’t be true, we’re human, we’re special.

The paranormal is only scary when the ghost is human, or the evil entity is known to target humans. Envision your favorite paranormal, horror film. Now replace the antagonist with a scary looking cat…unless you see cats as a threat, or somehow envisioned a threatening lion, or tiger, I bet you’re considering choosing a new favorite.

Culture and religion play an enormous role in whether we believe in the paranormal or not. For one, if you don’t believe in an afterlife, you probably don’t believe in ghosts because…well. And if you are agnostic then you probably have your hands up in the air like me, sort of low-key hoping to stumble across something that can’t be explained by logic and science. But if you’re religious, the afterlife exists (depending on the religion), souls are real, ghosts are lost souls, etc.

I will end on an interesting fact I learned about most monotheistic religions. Apparently, only humans encounter an afterlife because only humans have souls. I respect that there are people out in the world, and who may be even reading this going “yeah, that’s true.” But what? How can people blindly believe that other organisms, who have more or less the same body parts, the same organs, the same biological systems, and the same mental layout, give or take a few details, are any different from ourselves? If the soul is the divine, spiritual core, of morality, and emotion, how can someone say that other organisms don’t express the same characteristics as humans do; sadness, anger, jealousy, gluttony, lust, love; the list honestly goes on forever.

Just food for thought.