Last April I posted about a child and mother I saw in clinic who, while I was taking a history, told me very matter-of-factly about a ghost who inhabited their house. This piece was recently put on the main webpage of Psychology Today, and generated comments from several readers.
Two readers wrote that, in their opinion, there is no difference between communicating with a spiritual entity who shares one's home, and doing so with one that resides in the heavens. This raises a very interesting question: what is normal behavior and what is abnormal; and who decides, or is even in a position to make that determination? Different societies are distinguished by marked variation in what are considered desired, acceptable, and unacceptable behaviors, and so it must be clear that there is no one right answer. In this case, someone who believes in God knows that there is a huge difference between God and a simple poltergeist, whereas an atheist might see both as equally ridiculous confabulations. The "truth" is clearly in the eye of the beholder, and shaped by his or her preexisting conceptions and biases.
I'd like to share another example illustrating how cultural norms shape our perceptions of what is normal and not normal. I practiced pediatrics in Israel for a number of years, and it was not unusual to see infant boys brought to the emergency room because of a bleed following ritual circumcision at home on their eighth day of life. This was considered a normal, if unfortunate occurrence, something which could be expected to happen every so often. The fact that the circumcisions were being done at home, and not in the hospital was not something which seemed unusual or negligent on the part of the parents, or even as a sign of excessive risk taking; this is simply how it is done in Israel (full disclosure: my son was circumcised in his grandparents' living room surrounded by family and friends). On the other hand, we would also see infants brought in who had been born to new immigrants from Ethiopia, whose uvula (the dangling piece of flesh at the back of the throat) had been removed, in fulfillment of an Ethiopian Jewish tradition passed down through the generations, and which sometimes resulted in a bleed, infection or dehydration. The nurses in the ER were always horrified when they saw this, not understanding how such barbarity, as they saw it, could be perpetrated on a helpless infant. Nothing could convince them that objectively, there was no difference between deciding to electively perform either a circumcision or uvulectomy on an otherwise healthy infant with no say in the matter, and their cultural biases were clearly reflected in their outrage. And yet, in other societies, circumcision itself is perceived as barbaric, only a step (or less) away from child abuse.
And so we are all, ultimately, the products of the societies and cultures in which we live, and much of what we hold to be self evident and true may, in the eyes of others, not be so clear cut. In general, tolerance of the beliefs of others and their ways of doing things, so long as they do not harm others or interfere with their way of life, goes a long way towards enabling us all to live together peacefully.
(https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleeping-angels/200904/ghost-in-the-house)
