Consider these three factual sources of evidence. First: the history of humankind shows that most people over the 40,000 years or so of our species’ existence have contacted spirits. A little more than 250 years ago, a small elitist minority came up with the notion that spirits don’t exist. But both in terms of their short historical shelf-life and their infinitesimally small numbers, those denying spirit existence are a tiny blip on the screen of human experience.

Second: the reported pattern of spirit behavior is consistent through history and across cultures, converting denial of spirits into a denial of empirical evidence. Whether it is the religion of Java (see Clifford Geertz) or Cuban Santería (see your local botánica) the spirits behave the same. The picture The Sixth Sense could have been staged in virtually any cultural context and kept the same plot.

Third: people who communicate with the spirits are not stupid. At least since Malinowski’s brilliant work, it has been clear that even people without recourse to modern science know that the conditions for tasks like fishing are “secular” and humanly controllable: it is the actual catching of the fish that requires a sacred spirit connection. This explains why sometimes fish are caught and other times are not—even under the same circumstances. In a feeble effort to argue away the spirit world, rationalists are reduced to suspect categories like “chance”, “coincidence” and the like to describe what is more easily explained as the reality of spirit influence in the material world.

Of course, speaking of the spirit world is not “politically correct.” We don’t need Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization to remind us that since the Enlightenment society has marginalized those who disturb the imperative of rationalistic order. People who shake up the status quo are classified as “mad,” when in fact they sometimes are the creative geniuses of civilization.

Rationalism creates a sophisticated conceit to repress the spirit world. If spirit contact is unpredictable because of the free will of the spirits, then it is said that the contact never occurred. The rationalists argue that what cannot be replicated never happened. Call it Lord Berkeley’s lament: “If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.” Those who witness persons floating in the air (levitation) suffer from “mass hypnosis”; visions of the sun like that at Fatima are results of “mass hysteria.” If on the other hand, the contact occurs with predictability, then the rationalists allege it is materially caused. For paranormal phenomena, rationalists rely on the trusty “coincidence” or “chance.”

To be fair, institutionalized religion is also guilty of controlling spirits for control’s sake. In my interpretation, Heaven and Hell were formalized in order to put the spirits in a “place” where they could not contact us as often as they wish. Instead of leaving people free to communicate with spirits wherever and whenever desired, organized steps for spirituality and specially controlled places like shrines were instituted to control the contact. The greatest irony of this policy is found among Pentecostal Christians who claim the Holy Spirit in everything, even the pattern of milk on top of breakfast oatmeal (I kid you not!). Yet, when a Catholic utters a prayer to St. Anthony to find the car keys, such spirit appeal is classified as “idolatry.”

I think Heaven and Hell are not places, but forms of virtual reality. People who have done good for others in their lifetime continue to exist as spirits with satisfaction, even visiting their loved ones from time to time in dreams or special voices. Persons who have been unfulfilled are forced to endure the failure of their human existence, sometimes inflicting their rage on the living by spirit possession.

As far as knowing who is in such a Heaven or Hell, I pass no judgement. Like Dante, there are some people I wish were in Heaven or Hell, but that is far as I will go. And by the way, my short list for the Inferno does NOT include any bloggers to this site.