THE EXPERIENTIAL-SOURCE HYPOTHESIS Jack Hunter j.hunter@nsc.ac.uk
LECTURE OUTLINE * Precursors: Euhemerus and Andrew Lang. * David Hufford and the Old-Hag. * Cross-Cultural Folklore Motifs. * The Cultural-Source Hypothesis (CSH). * The Experiential-Source Hypothesis (ESH). * Core Spiritual Experiences. * Memorates. * Gillian Bennett: Traditions of Belief. * Peter Rojcewicz s Extraordinary Entity Continuum Hypothesis. * Thomas E. Bullard and the Structure of Alien Abduction Narratives. * Gregory Shushan and core experiences. * What do you think?
EUHEMERISM Euhemerus (4th-3rd Century BCE) Attempted to rationalise myths. Suggested that myths might have their origins in real historical events. Mythic characters may have been real people, etc.
ANDREW LANG (1844-1912) Wrote widely on folklore, fairy tales, myth, religion and the supernatural. Disagreed with the theories of Max Muller (solar myths), and E.B. Tylor (supernatural beliefs arise from faulty reasoning). Also a member of the Society for Psychical Research (President in 1911).
COCK LANE AND COMMON SENSE [...] from the Australians [ ] in the bush, who hear raps when the spirits come, to ancient Egypt, and thence to Greece, and last, in our own time, in a London suburb, similar experiences, real or imaginary, are explained by the same hypothesis. No survival can be more odd and striking, none more illustrative of the permanence, in human nature, of certain elements (Lang, 1894:19).
COCK LANE AND COMMON SENSE Lang suggests that we can explain everything by recourse to common sense. Supernatural beliefs might have their origins in real experiences. They might not be as irrational as they are often made out to be.
HUFFORD AND THE OLD HAG
CROSS-CULTURAL FOLKLORE MOTIFS The terms used for description in different traditions were obviously culturally determined, such as Old Hag, the Mara of Sweden, the da chor, dab coj, poj ntxoog, or dab tsog in Southeast Asia, the sitting ghost or bei Guai chaak (being pressed by a ghost) in China, kanishibari in Japan... (Hufford, in Hunter, 2015:136)
CULTURAL-SOURCE HYPOTHESIS 1. No first-person account exists for many such narratives in their present form, the current stories having developed during oral transmission. 2. Others are misinterpretations of ordinary events caused by the action of tradition on the imagination of the one reporting the experience (e.g. marsh gas for the Willo -the-wisp). 3. Some are either outright lies or errors of memory in which the one claiming the experience has placed himself in an account he at first heard involving another person. 4. Some are the experiences of those who have been victims of a hoax by someone who has used the tradition as a model (e.g. Ichabod Crane in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow). 5. Some are actual experiences caused, often intentionally, by fasting, the use of hallucinogens, or other methods known to produce powerful subjective experiences that vary cross-culturally and are shaped by expectation. 6. Some of the experiences of abnormal individuals whose psychotic episodes are shaped by their cultural repertoire (e.g. the hallucinations and delusions of schizophrenics are known to have changed over time in keeping with the culture in which the schizophrenics live). (Hufford, 1982: 13-14).
EXPERIENTIAL-SOURCE HYPOTHESIS * Holds that the Old Hag tradition contains elements of experience that are independent of culture (Hufford, 1982:15). * Certain parts are culturally derived, i.e. Old Hag, but that the experience is not. * The experiential hypothesis...predicts that first- and secondhand accounts might be common, depending on the frequency of the underlying experience (Hufford, 1982:16).
The primary theoretical statement of the [Experiential-Source Hypothesis] might be roughly summed up as follows: some significant portion of traditional supernatural belief is associated with accurate observations interpreted rationally. This does not suggest that all such belief has this association. Nor is this association taken as proof that the beliefs are true (Hufford, 1982: xviii)
THE ESH AND THE OLD HAG 1. The phenomena associated with [the Old Hag] constitute an experience with a complex and stable pattern, which is recongizable and is distinct from other experiences. 2. This experience is found in a variety of cultural settings. 3. The pattern of the experience and its distribution appear independent of the presence of explicit cultural models. 4. The experience itself has played a significant, though not exclusive, role in the development of numerous traditions of supernatural assault. 5. Cultural factors heavily determine the ways in which the experience is described (or withheld) and interpreted. 6. The distribution of traditions about the experience, such as those involving the Old Hag or the Eskimo augumangia, has frequently been confounded with the distribution of the experience itself. 7. The frequency with which the experience occurs is surprisingly high, with those who have had at least one recognizable attach representing 15 percent or more of the general population. (Hufford, 1982: 245)
SUPERNATURAL OR NATURAL? The ESH leaves open the question of the nature of the phenomena experienced. Its central emphasis is on the experience itself, and the individual interpretation of the experience. This makes it a well suited approach for the study of supernatural beliefs and practices.
CORE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES By core spiritual experiences I mean perceptual experiences that (a) refer intuitively to spirits without inference or retrospective interpretation, (b) form distinct classes with stable perceptual patterns, (c) occur independently of a subject s prior beliefs, knowledge or intention (psychological set), and (d) are normal (i.e. not products of obvious psychopathology)...such experiences provide a central (core) empirical foundation from which some supernatural beliefs develop by inference. (Hufford, in Hunter 2015: 147-148)
MEMORATES Hufford defines the term memorate simply as a story told as personal experience and believed to be true (Hufford, 1982:15). We can investigate these kinds of stories using the experiential approach. A means of examining the phenomenological features of particular traditions of belief.
GILLIAN BENNETT The supernatural traditions I found were not the ones I expected: the research showed up areas of belief that I was not previously aware existed...the beliefs discussed and the stories told to me were often very far from what I expected. But then they were stories told from personal experience, not learned from books. (Bennett, 1987:16-17) * Hauntings, poltergeists. * Warning ghosts, omens. * Witnesses. * Use of mediums, Spiritualism. * Belief in ESP, other strange experiences.
ALIEN ABDUCTION
PETER ROJCEWICZ Sees connection between contemporary alien abduction accounts and traditional fairy lore. Suggests that we are looking at a continuation of a much older narrative. People have been having these sorts of experiences for a long time, they just describe them in different ways.
EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTER CONTINUUM HYPOTHESIS...the [EECH] refers to human confrontation with the anomalous, whether in the form of beings (e.g. extraterrestrials, fairies, monsters, etc.), entities (e.g. apparitions, energy forms, tulpas, etc.), objects (e.g. spacecraft, vimanas, fiery shields and crosses, etc.), or unusual light(s). (Rojcewicz, 1986:134).
EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTER CONTINUUM HYPOTHESIS 1) account for the cross-cultural distribution of extraordinary beliefs...; 2) allow comparison of a great variety of apparently diverse and unrelated local belief systems in order to permit meaningful generalizations and syntheses; 3) predict and explain the nature of unorthodox belief in ways that are empirically confirmable, logically consistent and pertinent to other fields of scholarly inquiry; and 4) produce an operative definition that more accurately reflects the nature of nonordinary experiences (Rojcewicz, 1986:134).
THOMAS E. BULLARD Folklorist specialising in UFOlore. A proponent of the Psycho- Social Hypothesis in UFOlogy. Examines the narrative structure of UFO abduction accounts.
THE STRUCTURE OF ABDUCTION REPORTS 1. Capture. Strange beings seize and take the witness aboard a UFO. 2. Examination. These beings subject the witness to a physical and mental examination. 3. Conference. A conversation with the beings follows. 4. Tour. The beings show their captive around the ship. 5. Otherworldly Journey. The ship flies the witness to some strange and unearthly place. 6. Theophany. An encounter with a divine being occurs. 7. Return. At last the witness comes back to Earth, leaves the ship, and re-enters normal life. 8. Aftermath. Physical, mental and paranormal aftereffects continue in the wake of the abduction. (Bullard, 1989: 153).
GREGORY SHUSHAN Evidence of phenomenological similarities in narrative accounts from different cultural contexts. Indicative of core spiritual experiences: * Out of Body Experiences (OBE) * Corpse Encounter * Darkness/Tunnel * Deceased Relatives/Ancestors * Sense of Presence/Being of Light * Life Review * Overcoming Obstacles * Divinization/Oneness/Enlightenment * Other Realm/Origin Point.
RESEARCH ON MEDIUMS My own research takes an experience-centred approach. Focussing on the phenomenology of mediumship and associated trance states. What might these core experiences tell us about the practice of mediumship and the nature of consciousness? Might folk models of mind and matter have something more to tell us?
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Does this kind of approach have any practical benefits in the study of myth and folklore? Does acknowledging experience have any consequences? What are the implications? Should we be concerned with the truth/reality of folk narratives? Is there a danger of going native? (and what does that mean?). What is your gut feeling?
NEXT LECTURE (11TH NOVEMBER) Structuralism and structural approaches to Myth.
FURTHER READING Bennett, G. (1987). Traditions of Belief: Women, Folklore and the Supernatural Today. Harmondsworth:Penguin Books. Bullard, T.E. (1989). UFO Abduction Reports: The Supernatural Kidnap Narrative Returns in Technological Guise. The Journal of American Folklore, 102(404): 147-170. Hufford, D.J. (1982). The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centred Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hunter, J. (2014). Mediumship and Folk Models of Mind and Matter. In J. Hunter & D. Luke (eds.) Talking With the Spirits: Ethnographies from Between the Worlds. Brisbane: Daily Grail. Morehead, J.W. (2015). From Sleep Paralysis to Spiritual Experience: An Interview with David Hufford. In J. Hunter (ed.) Strange Dimensions: A Paranthropology Anthology. Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant: Psychoid Books. Rojcewicz, P.M. (1986). The Extraordinary Encounter Continuum Hypothesis and its Implications for the Study of Belief Materials. Folklore Forum, 19(2): 131-152. Shushan, G. (2009). Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations. London: Continuum.