I have had run ins with the supernatural. After my experiences of terror and constant torment, I have developed a theory. A theory around how they get in and find ways to torment is, scare us and even hurt us. Hear me out…
Getting sick is an unfortunate situation where weaknesses in our bodies’ armor are exploited or circumvented. The armor against the unseen world that seeks to get inside of us, take up residence and perhaps not by any conscious malice, cripple or kill us.
These things are all around us. We breathe them in, we swallow them, we lay on them when we sleep. They live innocuously enough on our skin, hair and in the contortions of our gut. Most of the time, we fight them off and remain happily ignorant of these invisible horrific microscopic wars happening on and in our bodies. We owe our survival to this mighty feature within us to ward off these things that seek to subsist on our bodies.
Science calls it the immune system. The symphonic legions of soldiers, each equipping unique weaponry suited to their respective functions and working with cascading cooperation. They, collectively known as it, preserve our flesh and prevent it from becoming a carcass devoured by colonies of tiny germs.
Most of us know the immune system of the body, but few know of the other immune system. The one that watches over our mind, spirit and self. What prevents us from losing these defining features of our humanity? Have you ever:
Seen something at the edge of your periphery, only for it to vanish when you turn to it?
Heard footsteps in your house only to find nothing upon investigating the sound?
Felt that familiar, but foreboding feeling of being alone but having a sensation that someone was in the room with you?
Felt an indescribable feeling in which you don’t know why, but there seemed to be some silent alarm within you urging you to leave that particular room, or not enter that certain house.
It may feel like some subconscious mechanism in you trying to warn you you’re in danger. Much like shadows in the night that looked like monsters staring at us in our bed while we pretended to sleep, We chalk it up to our minds playing tricks on us.
Children, whose physical and psychological development is still ongoing and incomplete, are particularly vulnerable to such breaches by this unseen supernatural world.
More commonly, they catch colds, the flu and other infections more often than their parental counterparts. Often paralleled by their fear of the dark, their sightings of monsters in the closet or under their beds and the sounds they hear in their rooms at night; displaying an incomplete mental immunity to the beings who sit at the edge of the world opposite ours, continuously attempting to exploit them in the midst of their development.
Like bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa, they are largely invisible, yet have remained an ever present component of our surroundings. The man in your room at night, the sounds you hear upstairs and that feeling that someone is standing over you, are not mere sensory phantoms.These ubiquitous experiences are shared by us all despite vast sociocultural, religious and economic variability across the world. They are very real, and throughout time have remained pervasive among us as humans. It is this mysterious, unknown mechanism, biological or otherwise, that protects us from these things that would seek to prey on us. It is in times of grief, stress or instability, however transient, that your mind becomes increasingly susceptible. Times where we may see or hear one of these things. Much like a mild sniffle, or sore throat, when there is chink in this protective armor, these….. entities that live amongst us, make themselves apparent to us.
Pay extra attention to your surroundings the next time you are mentally ill, grieving, or otherwised depressed. Like me, you may be surprised or even terrified by what you might see. So I am here to tell you, this is how they get in!
Usually this system, as best can be described, can fight them off but occasionally they may get through, and manifest as the ghost story that no one believes.