Could you live in the house in Wakefield? Even if there were no missing body parts secreted around the building, just the thought of something horrible taking place is enough to keep most away. Are you someone who would cross the street to avoid standing on the spot where evil took place or would you relish the thrill? Why do we feel the need to replace something with nothing?
A physical building is a powerful reminder that can trigger painful memories and emotions. Maybe I was no better than the trail of ghoulish sightseers to Cromwell Street that Nick had witnessed over the years. If there is nothing to look at, then shouldn’t this keep the weirdos away? At least removing the visible reminder makes it easier for a community to heal and forget. But demolishing a building, crushing the rubble into dust and taking it away to secret locations with demolishers under oath not to reveal the final whereabouts seems a bit excessive.4
What would motivate a souvenir hunter to want to own a brick or some physical thing associated with a murderer? The same goes for objects such as Nazi memorabilia. The world’s largest auction website, eBay, has banned the sale of these items and anything that glorifies hatred, violence, or intolerance. But what attracts people to them in the first place? Maybe it’s the excitement of being subversive. Any parent with a rebellious teenager knows that the macabre is a source of fascination for these fledgling adults. Part of growing up is the need to express individuality through statements of rebellion. By their nature, taboo topics intrigue the young who want to be outrageous in an effort to shock.
FIG. 1: The passageway at 25 Cromwell Street where the Wests buried many of their victims. AUTHOR’S COLLECTION.
What about collectors of less insidious memorabilia? Mature adults will pay good money for personal items that once belonged to famous people. Some are just common objects, but collectors covet them because of their connection with celebrities. Why else would someone bid on eBay for a fragment of bed linen that was once slept on by Elvis Presley? Were John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to ‘Give Peace a Chance’ really worth £420,000 at a Christie’s sale in 2008?5 Why pay £1,000 for a swatch of cloth taken from Princess Diana’s wedding dress?6 The charity website www.clothesoffourback.com, started by Malcolm in the Middle mom Jane Kaczmarek and West Wing actor Bradley Whitford, auctions clothes worn by celebrities for the benefit of children’s charities. Many of these items were worn at award ceremonies such as the Oscars or Emmys. These events take place under the glare of the media spotlight, and even the stars most likely to win must sweat a little in anticipation as that envelope is opened. However, their tainted tuxedoes and grubby gowns are highly desirable to the general public. The charity used to offer a dry-cleaning option to successful auction bidders but eventually dropped the service as no one wanted the clothing washed. Maybe the bidders thought they could get the clothes cleaned more cheaply themselves. This seems unlikely, however, if the money was for charity. Why not clean secondhand clothes? After all, we usually wash our own clothes when they get sweaty. I think the real answer could be that collectors did not necessarily want to wear them. They wanted to own something intimate and personal to their idols and the more connection, the better. It’s a fetish in the original use of the word: a belief that an object has supernatural powers.7
Memorabilia collectors and those with object fetishism are behaving in a very peculiar way. They are attributing to physical objects invisible properties that make them unique and irreplaceable. This kind of thinking is misguided. For one thing, significant objects can be faked. That brick, that tuxedo or that bed linen may be a forgery. In the Middle Ages, there was a roaring trade in Christian relics to cater to the legions of pilgrims traipsing across Europe from one holy shrine to the next. Relics could be any objects connected intimately with religious celebrities. Bones belonging to saints and martyrs were particularly popular as were any items connected with Jesus. Bits of the cross or shreds of the shroud were easy to fake and trade was brisk. If all the fragments of the crucifixion cross were put back together, there would probably be enough to build an ark. The professional sceptic James Randi recounts how, as a boy growing up in Montreal, he visited the St Joseph’s Oratory shrine where the beatified monk Brother André Bessette once lived. Brother André was known as the miracle-worker of Mount Royal. Pilgrims would flock to the shrine seeking supernatural healing for all manner of ills and could reach in to touch the jar containing the preserved heart of the monk housed behind a metal grill in an ornate cabinet. Randi recalls how his father and godfather were asked one day by the proprietors of St Joseph’s Oratory to cut up a roll of black gabardine fabric purchased from a local store into small squares. These were then sold in the gift shop as pieces of Brother Andre’s actual robes worn on his deathbed. Maybe this early experience had a profound influence on Randi becoming a sceptic.8
Even if an object is inauthentic, many people treat such items as if they possess some property inherited from the previous owner. A property that defies scientific measure. Some believe such objects harbour an inner reality or essence that makes them unique and irreplaceable. Yes, these houses and objects have a history and yes, they may remind us of events and people, but many believe or more importantly act as if these essences are physical, tangible realities. Something to touch or something to avoid. But, of course, they are not. Sweat and blood may have DNA but not bricks and mortar from a house. Rather there is something else that we sense in these objects. Something supernatural.
SUPERSENSE
This book is about the origins of supernatural beliefs, why they are so common, and why they may be so difficult to get rid of. I believe the answer to each of these questions can be found in human nature and, in particular, the developing mind of the child. I am proposing that humans have a natural, intuitive way of reasoning that leads them to supernatural beliefs. Almost like a common sense, but one that is based on supernatural thinking. So let’s call it our ‘supersense’.
Throughout this book, I hope to convince you that we are naturally inclined towards supernatural beliefs. Many highly educated and intelligent individuals experience a powerful sense that there are patterns, forces, energies, and entities operating in the world that are denied by science because they go beyond the boundaries of natural phenomena we currently understand. More importantly, such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence, which is why they are supernatural and unscientific. The inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.
Why are humans so willing to entertain the possibility of the supernatural? As we will see, most people believe because they think they have experienced supernatural events personally, or they have heard reliable testimony about the supernatural from those they trust. I would argue that we interpret our experiences and other peoples’ reports within a supernatural framework because that framework is one that is intuitively plausible. It resonates with the way we think the world operates with all manner of hidden structures and mechanisms. If this is true, we have to ask where does this supersense come from?