I used to tell my students that a semester break without reading a book that challenged your assumptions was wasted. I tried to lead by example, but jobs are such fragile things. Since I have no semester breaks I try to read books that push the limits more frequently. I’d heard about Carlos Eire’s They Flew before the author had settled on a publisher. (I don’t know him personally, but would be glad to.) In case the title doesn’t do enough heavy lifting, the subtitle A History of the Impossible might help. Yes, we’re stepping into the world of the post-secular here. It’s a wonderful place. Although much of the book deals with early modern cases of levitation, the study ranges wider than that. Written by a respected historian, this is a very important book. For many reasons.
I am glad to see Yale University Press joining with Chicago and some noted others (Rowman and Littlefield, for instance) in challenging a paradigm that is no longer upheld by science. I can hear the howling already, but if you read carefully, with an open mind (which is required by science) you’ll quite possibly learn something here. Our minds do influence our reality. We haven’t figured out how because secularism ends the discussion with scorn. That was true of the study of UFOs as well, until the U. S. Navy said, “Nope. They’re real.” (It only took about seven decades, so don’t expect instant results.) We cut off our possibilities when we mock things out of habit. I remember the Turok comic where one character said to another (give me a break—this has been five decades and I can’t recall all the names) “Fools scoff at what they don’t understand.” Truer words have never been penned.
The impossible happens when scientists aren’t there to witness it. It sometimes happens when they are. Doubt that? Read about the Pauli Effect. Or call it gremlins, the choice is yours. It’s real in either case. Academics are often among the last, with the exception of Trump supporters, to see what’s been staring them in the face all along. I’ll say more about this book on Goodreads, but let me float a hope here. I want to go back to that indefinite article in Eire’s subtitle. This is A History of the Impossible. May more follow. Others, such as Jeff Kripal, have been doing similar work for many years now. We can ignore it, or scoff at it. But I think that character in Turok got it right, even if I can’t remember his name.