I don’t believe it…

I don’t know if I’m a sceptic or not. Part of me is curious about supernatural things, another part thinks it’s balderdash and poppy-cock. Perhaps my unease is more to do with my disbelief in perception and the authority that goes with it. Seeing is believing, right?
Even advances in the science of the unseen world is all about seeing what’s out there from cosmic dust to nano-machines. We might not be able to see the minuscule components that make up atoms but we still have diagrams to illustrate their existence.
If you start seeing things that can’t be quantified by others under scientific conditions then they’re not there. Perhaps.
I could go on about language not ‘being’ there but I’ll save that for later…
What’s on my mind is something I read in Our Tragic Universe about placebo and nocebo effects; you might not have to believe in something for it to be a reality. The collective belief of X could be more than enough to bring something to life.
Example: I use Bach Flower Remedies, mostly Rescue Remedy. A friend recommended it to me to give me some reassurance when I felt on edge. There’s a lot of hoo-ha about homeopathy and alternative remedies which makes sense to me because I’ve been raised, like most, to believe in the solid fact of science. Alternatives, whatever they are, fall outside of this system.
I didn’t believe the remedy would work. I thought it was a load of crap so why did I start using it? Curiosity. I never expected anything from it but after a few weeks of regular use as per the instructions, I found myself being calmed by a few drops of grape brandy and traces of flowers.
I’m not concerned with what a shrink would say. What interests me is what was raised in Our Tragic Universe: the belief of others as a source of enormous power. Bach himself believed in the remedies, so do the practitioners and those who train in the methods and mix the remedies. My friend believed in them. Those people alone are enough to cancel out my personal disbelief without the millions of others who believe in it.
So Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, gods, an afterlife, magic – anything we can’t see but can believe in anyway, could exist, but not because they exist in any inherent way. They’d only exist because of us and would vanish when our belief fades.
I’m always wary of karma. I don’t fear it but I’m aware of it enough to know that something is occurring in a vast and inevitable plane of energy thrown out of the human body and mind. That aside, there’s nothing wrong with trying to do good, karma or no karma.
Perhaps I’m not a sceptic at all but instead am cynical because of the concrete mindset that permeates life. But then I’m secretly rebellious in that I use Rescue Remedy, observe my dreams for messages and glimpses of mundane future events, think about traces and vanishings and time slippage, and do my best to work with karma. I thanks trees and the earth I walk upon too, for being there.
It’s not a matter of belief for me but a matter of sensing that there’s more going on than, even with major technological advances, the eye will ever see.