Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Interpreting Old-Hag syndrome


I'm going to quote some representative statements from the standard academic monograph on Old-Hag syndrome:
David J. Hufford, The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions (University of Pennsylvania Press; 2nd edition, 1989).

I have not found the experiences recounted in this book to be associated with ethnicity religious background, or any either ethnographic variable. Nor have I found any association with those features of medical history that I could elicit using a basic illness checklist (xxi). 
The problem of identity recurs consistently in Old Hag accounts. It is a result of the merging of two distinct possibilities that stand alone in some other traditions. The first is that the hag, or whatever the attacker is called, is a supernatural creature, not a living human, sometimes acting on its own and at other times called upon by a human to carry out an attack, as in demonic assault, vampirism, and ghosts. The second explanation is that the hagging experience is directly caused by a living human who travels as a spirit to carry out attacks or other activities, leaving its physical body behind. Witches, wizards and sorcerers are the primary actors here (8). 
It is good scientific practice to seek the simplest theory possible to account for a set of data, but that should not be accomplished by simplifying the data (168). 
Can we say that sleep research has "explained" the Old Hag? No, we cannot. We cannot because what has been gained has been a description of physiological events that seem to account for the production of the state, that is, paralysis in wakefulness, preceding or following sleep, during which a complex and frightening experience may take place. The specific contents of the experience, however, have not been explained. They seem if anything more odd that they did before. If they are related to ordinary dreams by the presence of REM physiology, why is their content so consistently the same without apparent regard for culture (169)? 
These accounts are rich in secondary features: footsteps, prior dream recall, complex tingling sensations, directly perceived "presences," difficulty in expressing the experience of immobility, unpleasant odor…Finally, in addition to paralysis episodes, these attacks are associated with many of the events traditionally reported in connection with hauntings: furniture being moved; ghostly footsteps; people's names behind called; the unhinged door being heard to open and close, strange smells… (205). 
Again, an apparent Old Hag attack is found in the company of traditional haunting motifs: chairs rocking by themselves, doors opening and closing, spectral footsteps, a history of violent death associated with the house, and the cessation of all these phenomena when the ghost is addressed by name and told to go away (210). 
Given the strong connections in Newfoundland between the Old Hag and traditions of witchcraft, it is not surprising that similar connections are found elsewhere… (212). 
The authors found that of sixteen Eskimos asked about the attacks all knew of them and "some had experienced it."…They state that traditional explanations of the attacks are supernatural and center on belief that "when people are entering sleep, sleeping, or emerging from sleep, they are more susceptible to influences from the spirit world." Specific Eskimo explanations given include spirits in a "certain place [that is haunted] and one patient who felt that "during an attack…she was not in her body, and that she was fighting to get back in (235). 
At this point, a note of caution is necessary. Some readers may be considering whether they wish to elect to "go along with" the paralysis attack if they should have (another) one. I would advise strongly against it. Madge is not the only one who has reported having regretted her "openness" to the experience.  I have spoken with people who had reported years of anguish, some of it involving symptomatology much like some of the features of psychosis, after having intentionally cultivated this experience. On the other hand, I have never encountered anyone who resisted the basic Old Hag experience who seem injured by it even if it returned frequently (243).
My conclusion from reading his study is that Old-Hag syndrome probably has an occult source, given how it often occurs in connection areas where witchcraft and hauntings are prevalent, as well as the deleterious effects when subjects are "open" to the overture. A waking state is a barrier to this experience. During stages of sleep, the threshold is lowered. I'm also reminded of what Vern Poythress has written about territorial spirits. 

16 comments:

  1. Crazy, like saying that because nearsightedness is not "associated with ethnicity religious background, or any either ethnographic variable" therefore god did it. This is nuts. You smart guys are so desperate for any evidence of the super natural you stoop to this.

    "These accounts are rich in secondary features:"
    uh no, this is all subjective stuff. None of the "features" is recorded objectively.

    "Can we say that sleep research has "explained" the Old Hag? No, we cannot. We cannot because what has been gained has been a description of physiological events that seem to account for the production of the state, that is, paralysis in wakefulness, preceding or following sleep, during which a complex and frightening experience may take place. The specific contents of the experience, however, have not been explained."

    But it's all subjective. There's no evidence of something 'out there'. This is ridiculous. It's like if someone 400 years ago had a migraine, you'd think the explanation was a "migraine demon" simply because you didn't understand cause and effect well enough to explain it at that point. Given the history of how causes of phenomena have proceeded, it seems that if there's a subjective phenomena with NO objective evidence, the best bet is to wait until there is either an actual objective old hag, or until science discovers why this condition afflicts certain people, just as it has discovered that other complex delusory conditions afflict other individuals. This is pathetic grasping at straws! You should be ashamed stooping to this given that you try to be so rational.

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    1. Thnuh Thnuh said:

      Crazy, like saying that because nearsightedness is not "associated with ethnicity religious background, or any either ethnographic variable" therefore god did it.

      As a matter of fact, though debatable, some scholars have argued for "ethnographic variable[s]" in myopia (e.g. see here). So your analogy falls flat. Or (forgive the pun) is short-sighted at best.

      It's like if someone 400 years ago had a migraine, you'd think the explanation was a "migraine demon" simply because you didn't understand cause and effect well enough to explain it at that point.

      What's your basis for this? I doubt medical scholars from 400 years ago would've immediately picked "migraine demon" as their leading explanation for a migraine.

      By the way, it's not as if modern medical science can explain anything and everything about all migraines that occur today. Modern medicine understands much, but at the same time there's still much that's not well understood.

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    2. Thnuh Thnuh,

      The vast majority of the evidence for the supernatural discussed at this blog has been ignored by you and other critics who have posted here. We've argued at length for ancient and modern miracles, including some that are accompanied by medical documentation, video footage, hostile corroboration, and other forms of higher quality evidence. Given your bad arguments and evasiveness in previous discussions, the charge of desperation is more applicable to you than us.

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  2. Thnuh Thnuh

    "Crazy, like saying that because nearsightedness is not 'associated with ethnicity religious background, or any either ethnographic variable' therefore god did it."

    He didn't say "therefore god did it." Rather, he examines two naturalistic explanations: cultural and "scientific" (i.e. sleep disorder) theories. He then shows why those are inadequate. The cultural explanation is inadequate because the phenomenon is cross-cultural.

    BTW, supernatural agency isn't confined to "god did it."

    "This is nuts. You smart guys are so desperate for any evidence of the super natural you stoop to this."

    I see. Quoting from a scholarly monograph, published by an academic publishing house, is "desperate." It's not as if the author has a religious bias, much less a Christian bias. You're the one who's desperate.

    "uh no, this is all subjective stuff. None of the 'features' is recorded objectively."

    You're in no position to say that. He's meticulous about his sources. Why should we believe you? You weren't there. Why should we automatically discount testimonial evidence?

    "But it's all subjective. There's no evidence of something 'out there'."

    If we're dealing with discarnate spirits, then they aren't "out there." But that makes it no more "subjective" than the existence of other minds. Moreover, you're ignoring the empirical evidence. Even if the cause are undetectable, they may have discernible effects.

    "Given the history of how causes of phenomena have proceeded, it seems that if there's a subjective phenomena with NO objective evidence, the best bet is to wait until there is either an actual objective old hag, or until science discovers why this condition afflicts certain people, just as it has discovered that other complex delusory conditions afflict other individuals."

    You're resorting to promissory materialism. You have faith in the omnicompetence of scientists to explain everything, sooner or later. However, that assumes everything is reducible to physics.

    "This is pathetic grasping at straws! You should be ashamed stooping to this given that you try to be so rational."

    Your highly defensive, overwrought reaction to me quoting some verbatim excerpts from a standard academic monograph reveals a lot about your own intellectual insecurities.

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  3. Here's a LINK HERE where James Randi (famous skeptic debunker) shares a testimony where it seemed to him (for a while) that he had a genuine Out of Body Experience (OOBE or OBE). He later dismissed it because in his "OBE" he was lying in bed with a certain bedsheet on the bed and with his cat in the room on the bed with him. But later the next morning he was told by someone that his cat was locked out of the house because another guest was allergic to it, and the bedsheet was in a bag or a hamper at the time of his seeming OBE . But some OBE and Lucid Dream researchers speculate that some OBE and LD are either precognative or postcognative/retrocognative. See the first mp3 downloadable interview here at THIS LINK for what one OBE researcher has said. So, it's logically possible that Randi was experiencing something in his past or future. But he too quickly dismisses the possibility as a genuine paranormal experience.

    Richard Carrier said Eddie Tabash (another famous atheist) claims to have have a group hallucination of a guru levitated. But how does he know he and the other people in the group merely hallucinated? Was it because none of their memories of the event matched? Or they didn't match a video film of the event? He doesn't say.
    Here's the video where Carrier says it: http://youtu.be/Q43HzpzY04o?t=44m41s

    Frank Zindler (in his debate with W.L. Craig) admits that he once had (what he believes to have been) a very vivid auditory hallucination that lasted for half an hour. Like the above experiences this experience could have been merely natural. But because of their atheism they are so quick to dismiss the possibility that they were real paranormal or supernatural experiences. Here's the link to Zindler's testimony: http://youtu.be/HuCA4rIX4cE?t=2h3m27s

    In the next comment I'll post two testimonies of Richard Carrier which Steve has alluded to in times past.

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    1. Carrier admits he once had an Old Hag experience. As Steve pointed out in the past, the experience might possibly have been a genuine demonic encounter that resulted from his opening himself up to the occult when he serious explored and held to the teachings of Taoism.

      Carrier wrote:

      "During all this, in cultivating the mental life that Taoism taught, I had powerful mystical visions, which only confirmed further that I was on the right track. These ranged from the simple to the fantastic. The simplest and most common was that clarity of an almost drug-like wonder, perceiving everything striking the senses as one, unified whole. It is hard to describe this. Normally, your attention is focussed, on something you are looking at or listening to, or in a semi-dream-state of reverie, but with a meditative sense of attention this focus and dreaminess vanishes and you are immersed in a total, holistic sense of the real. It is both magnificent and calming. It humbles you, and brings you to the realization of how beautiful simply living is, and how trivial all your worries and difficulties are. Profound insights about the world would strike me whenever in such a state, leading far more readily and powerfully to an understaning of myself and the world than studying or reasoning ever did.

      The most fantastic experience I had was like that times ten. It happened at sea, well past midnight on the flight deck of a cutter, in international waters two hundred miles from the nearest land. I had not slept for over 36 hours, thanks to a common misfortune of overlapping duty schedules and emergency rescue operations. For hours we had been practicing helicopter landing and refuelling drills and at long last the chopper was away and everything was calm. The ship was rocking slowly in a gentle, dark sea, and I was alone beneath the starriest of skies that most people have never seen. I fell so deeply into the clear, total immersion in the real that I left my body and my soul expanded to the size of the universe, so that I could at one thought perceive, almost 'feel', everything that existed in perfect and total clarity. It was like undergoing a Vulcan Mind Meld with God. Naturally, words cannot do justice to something like this. It cannot really be described, only experienced, or hinted at. What did I see? A beautiful, vast, harmonious and wonderful universe all at peace with the Tao. There was plenty of life scattered like tiny seeds everywhere, but no supernatural beings, no gods or demons or souls floating about, no heaven or hell. Just a perfect, complete universe, with no need for anything more. The experience was absolutely real to me. There was nothing about it that would suggest it was a dream or a mere flight of imagination. And it was magnificent."
      http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/carrier.html

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    2. Steve quoted Carrier from The Empty Tomb saying:

      "There was a night when I fought with a demon trying to crush my chest–the experience felt absolutely real, and I was certainly awake, probably in a hypnagogic state. I could see and feel the demon sitting on me, preventing me from breathing, but when I “punched” it, it vanished. It is all the more remarkable that I have never believed in demons, and the creature I saw did not resemble anything I had ever seen or imagined before."

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    3. As I documented HERE Mike Licona gave a testimony of how when he was young whenever his father would do radio interviews telling people that Masonry is not compatible with Christianity that their house would seem haunted. They would have poltergeist like activity. He gives a few examples like a towel(?) twirling in the air without any human holding it.
      http://www.apologetics315.com/2009/07/is-god-active-in-world-today-gary.html at 33 minutes into interview

      Mike Licona shared a testimony of a Yale educated friend of his who encountered an evil spirit right before giving a speech/sermon. The spirit choked him nearly to death. At around 42 minutes into the audio file.
      http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=261

      The direct link to the mp3 is HERE:
      http://www.archive.org/download/ConversationsFromThePaleBlueDot002-MikeLicona/002-MikeLicona.mp3

      The testimony of credible people experiencing the paranormal while they were wide awake would suggest that in some of these cases something genuinely paranormal or supernatural had occurred.

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    4. Yes, Carrier's experiences reveal the severe mental and spiritual disruptions characteristic of those who undergo occult initiation rituals. Mind expansion, information flooding and other powerful psycho-mystical phenomena, etc. followed by the radical restructuring of the person's consciousness to reject Biblical Christianity-- it's all there. After reading his webpage its clear that Carrier is absolutely imprisoned in the deception with no possible means of escape for him now outside of Christ.

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  4. "You're resorting to promissory materialism. You have faith in the omnicompetence of scientists to explain everything, sooner or later. However, that assumes everything is reducible to physics."

    Yes I am resorting to that. It's always worked in the past, so why is not reasonable to trust it in the future? It's unreasonable to demand I need to refute this particular paper, who can refute all papers, they can't have all the training or time to do so. But it is reasonable to disregard certain things based on past records, so I trust materialistic explanation: things like drugs, epilepsy, schizophrenia are physical and have been discovered to account for mental things where people thought that objective things outside their minds were responsible for their perceptions, so it's reasonable to trust that a purely materialistic explanation will be good enough in the future.

    Several years ago, I've had the experience on 2 or 3 occasions where I was in a semi-conscious state at night after having fallen asleep. I knew I wasn't dreaming and was aware of my surroundings. I was basically paralyzed for several minutes, I could barely move and frightened. I had no clue what was going on. But it passed. I never saw anyone about it and it hasn't recurred. I never thought it was something supernatural, maybe some genetic thing showing itself.

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    1. It's always worked in the past, so why is not reasonable to trust it in the future?

      Hume would like a word.

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    2. Thnuh Thnuh

"Yes I am resorting to that. It's always worked in the past, so why is not reasonable to trust it in the future?"

      Science "works" for the kinds of things that fall within the domain of science. That doesn't foster any expectation that it "works" for things outside the domain of science. It has never worked at that level.

      "It's unreasonable to demand I need to refute this particular paper, who can refute all papers, they can't have all the training or time to do so. But it is reasonable to disregard certain things based on past records, so I trust materialistic explanation: things like drugs, epilepsy, schizophrenia are physical and have been discovered to account for mental things where people thought that objective things outside their minds were responsible for their perceptions, so it's reasonable to trust that a purely materialistic explanation will be good enough in the future."

      You're indulging in armchair dismissals that disregard the numerous case-studies he cited. You refuse to deal with inconvenient evidence.

      "I was basically paralyzed for several minutes, I could barely move and frightened. I had no clue what was going on. But it passed. I never saw anyone about it and it hasn't recurred. I never thought it was something supernatural, maybe some genetic thing showing itself."

      No one is suggesting there's anything supernatural about sleep paralysis. That's a natural protective mechanism. Sleep paralysis explains the sensation of paralysis. It doesn't explain other phenomena which many people (estimated 15% of the population) experience in that state.

      "Consciousness is the hard problem but for some reason, all the weird things that happen to it have materialistic explanations."

      Begs the question.

      "That should make everyone suspicious about dualism."

      Given your tendentious premise.

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    3. Thnuh Thnuh said:

      Yes I am resorting to that. It's always worked in the past, so why is not reasonable to trust it in the future?

      Relevant.

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  5. Consciousness is the hard problem but for some reason, all the weird things that happen to it have materialistic explanations. That should make everyone suspicious about dualism.

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    1. What counts as a "materialistic explanation" in your mind?

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    2. Any event (like taking drugs) or condition (like schizophrenia) that precedes or can be correlated with something subjective like an auditory or visual hallucination (where only the person experiencing it thinks he detects it but there is no evidence of an objective phenomenon).

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