Posted on 23 September 2024, 7:08

Thirty-five or more years ago, when I was doing a lot of sports writing, I began noting many paradoxes in various sports and started keeping a file on them.  I collected several dozen paradoxes, but more or less lost interest in the subject after a few years.  In more recent times, I’ve been noting many paradoxes in spiritual and related matters.  The one that really jumped out at me comes from a recent White Crow Books release, A Doorway to the Light, by Carmen De Sayve and Jocelyn Arellano.  The authors set forth much that they say has come to De Sayve from the spirit world by automatic writing, some from supposedly advanced spirits, others from earthbound spirits. One of the more advanced spirit explained why he (or she), while in the spirit world, decided to incarnate in the physical world.  “We decided to experience our ‘what is’ by living within ‘what is not’ and so understand the fullness of our beauty, harmony and happiness,” the spirit explained. “We needed painful experiences to be able to appreciate happiness; disharmony in order to know harmony; and the limitations of the physical world to appreciate our limitlessness.  The problem is that, once we are in the illusory world, we become so attached to it that we have difficulty leaving and returning to infinity where we belong.”

About the same day I read that in the book, I read a column titled “’Junkification of U.S. life,” by New York Times columnist David Brooks.  He discusses the decline of cultural values in the United States, especially in the entertainment and art fields. “We’re now in a culture in which we want worse things [than what we had] – the cheap hit over the long flourishing.”  He quotes psychiatrist Anna Lembke from her book, “Dopamine Nation”: “The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy.”  More succinctly, the more pleasure we experience, the less happy we are.  That sure sounds like the dilemma in today’s world.  Isn’t that what Emperor Nero experienced when Rome burned? 

It’s sometimes difficult to distinguish a paradox from a conundrum, a Catch 22, an irony, or a simple enigma, but the key point seems to be that the result is the opposite of what you would expect.  Drawing from the file I started 35 years ago, I pulled a clipping quoting the late George Carlin, a comedian, although another site gives credit to Dr. Bob Moorehead, a Christian pastor: “We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less, We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. … We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.  We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often…We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space.  We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.” 

One of the more common paradoxes is that “the more we study and seek knowledge, the more we realize how little we know.”  Another is that the desire for fame leads to the desire for privacy.  One of my favorite sports paradoxes is that Rocky Marciano, the undefeated heavyweight champion of the 1950s, couldn’t make it as a baseball catcher because he had a weak arm; however, his feared knockout punch with that same arm brought him great success and fame. That brings to mind a personal paradox going back to my high school days when the team doctor said that my slow heart rate (40 beats per minute) indicated a “weak” heart, i.e., slow is weak, and barred me from running on the track team. But a few years later, a military physician diagnosed my slow pulse as a strong heart, referred to as an “athletic heart,” and approved me for military service.

Real Combatants

A very puzzling paradox for me is seeing men in military uniforms lined up to get the autographs of football players – real combatants praising or idolizing pretend or play combatants.  Along the same line, there was a baseball player, whose name escapes me, that refused to give autographs.  Fans called him unfriendly and sportswriters labeled him arrogant. However, the fact is that he was a very friendly and humble person who did not feel himself worthy of giving autographs.  He was too humble for his own good. 

Another favorite sports paradox comes from John Madden, a Hall of Fame football coach, who said, “As a coach, I learned that the better the player, the less he knows why he does and what he does.”  And there’s the one about “trying too hard.”  If a ballplayer “swings for the fences,” he’ll more likely strike out, but if he just swings without the extra effort while focusing on just making contact, his chances of hitting a home run are much better. 

Safe driving on the road is paradoxical in that if a driver allows proper distance between his car and the car in front, he leaves enough space for another car to merge between them, thereby causing more hazardous conditions.

There was a time when people “dressed up” in fancy attire to demonstrate their affluence, but now they “dress down” with ripped and ragged Jeans with holes in the knees to express their individuality and stand out in the crowd. 

Back to anhedonia, experiencing too much pleasure. Perhaps the best example of this can be found in baseball. Efforts are regularly made to shorten the games, but if people are paying rising admission prices for the pleasure of watching a game, wouldn’t they get more pleasure out of a longer game? 

Catalysts, Not Hindrances 

Another recently released book, supported by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, An Urgent Message for Humanity, by Melvin Morse, M.D. and several other contributors, stresses the need to understand that adversity is, in effect, in our best interest.  Bad or negative experiences “are crucial for spiritual growth and that the challenges, difficulties, and even adversities are not merely obstacles but essential elements in our spiritual growth. These challenges are seen not as hindrances but as catalysts for growth and opportunities for learning, and they are necessary for the evolution of the human spirit.” 

Surprisingly, Morse, known for his research with near-death experiencers, and the other authors draw from a research project with a number of mediums, while often quoting Allan Kardec, the famous French psychical researcher of the 1850s and ‘60s.  “Everything happens for us to learn from it,” one medium (or the spirit entity communicating through the medium) is quoted. “There is no death, so why do you say that war and death are a horror? You will see that it is all gain; no one really dies or loses anything.”  It was further expressed through another medium that even “9-11 was given to us to help us spiritually.”  This message is said to have caused the medium extreme distress as she disagreed and didn’t understand it. 

The key message seems to be that in order to comprehend the greater reality, we must first recognize that we are incapable of understanding a timeless and spaceless world. However, if we admit that we can’t comprehend it, the question becomes what is the point of continuing with research to study it.  As I understand it, the gain comes from recognizing that the Nothingness of mainstream science and materialism, is really Everything and that in applying similes, analogies, metaphors and symbolisms to that Everything we can then experience a certain hope and peace of mind rather than suffer from the melancholy that accompanies despair, including anhedonia. 

A Thick Mist

The nihilists say that even if they are wrong, it is “one life at a time” for them.  Why concern oneself with what might or might not come after physical death? As philosopher William James said, such bravado often turns to “anxious trembling” as the nihilist approaches “extinction” and what he or she sees as the abyss of nothingness. But there is another reason to be concerned during this lifetime.  “If you believe there is nothing after death, then nothingness is what you will find: a thick mist of sorts that isolates you from both the spiritual and physical worlds,” De Sayve offers based on her spirit contacts. “It’s important to open our minds now to the idea of the soul’s survival in order to be better prepared to enter the astral plane.”  That message has come through many other mediums.

When Kardec asked whether knowledge of spirit life has any influence on one’s awakening on the other side and the fact that so many souls seem confused and don’t realize they have left the physical realm, the response from spirit was: “It exercises a very considerable influence on that duration, because it enables the spirit to understand beforehand the new situation in which it is about to find itself; but the practice of rectitude during the earthly life, and a clear conscience, are the conditions which conduce most powerfully to shorten [the initial confusion].”

While lack of time and space are deterrents to human understanding, the idea of eventually “merging into Oneness” with the Creator adds to the abstractness and the indifference to it all. It seems no more elating than spending eternity in a dentist’s chair under the influence of nitrous oxide.  However, more than a few advanced spirits have said that we retain our individuality in the merger.  “At the conclusion of our grand journey, we will again experience perfect unity, yet our individuality will continue, as well, and will live forever,” De Sayve recorded from a seemingly advanced spirit. And the advanced spirits constantly assure us that it is “lively” beyond what we can understand.

It all seems so absurd, but to quote Professor Charles Richet, a Nobel Prize winner, relative to his research into mediumship and related psychic matters:  “Yes, it is absurd, but no matter – it is true.” Sir William Crookes, a renowned British chemist and one of the pioneers of psychical research, put it this way: “I never said it was possible, I only said it was true.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

Amos,

Thank you for your comments.  Concerning your question of why the fear of being killed in a war is so great, I think it is the “dying” part that is more feared rather than the “death” part of it, although there are many young people who haven’t lived long enough or thought about it enough to recognize the distinction.

I recently watched a movie series about The War of 1812 in which America invaded Canada five times.  I also have been looking at information related to WWI, researching for a book.  In watching the streaming movie of The War of 1812, I thought that the actors seem to be having much fun in the battles; charging, shooting, yelling, screaming, killing, falling over and dying in mock fear and agony on the fields of Canada bordering the territories of the United States.  Of course, the actors knew that they really wouldn’t die in that dramatization.

The thought came to me, that if we really believed, that is, really believed in survival of consciousness and reincarnation, and we believed that souls are given an opportunity to choose their next life, then some souls might anticipate that same fun by acting in a life as a warrior, fighting and dying on a battlefield. If death seems to be such an inconsequential thing as some spirits have related from the afterlife and consciousness may be reincarnated many, many times, then why is the fear of being killed in a war so abhorrent? 

From the perspective of the afterlife war is just an experience, an opportunity to feel strong emotions and perhaps to learn something about love and hate. Only from a physical perspective is that experience dreadful and senseless.  For those left behind, the experience of loss of a loved one may be an opportunity to experience grief, longing, loneliness, sadness, depression and anger, emotions that often last for a lifetime but sometimes bring us closer to God.

When I imagine (remember) a past life for myself, one of the most powerful, vibrant lives I remember is one in which I had no thought for myself or for others. (Didn’t worry about, cancer or heart disease, saturated fat and cholesterol or take supplements) It is one in which I was a marauder, a barbarian from the north riding my burly steed, not in battle, but riding with three or four other men, plundering, raping and killing as we destroyed small village after village.  Oh, the exhilaration of that life—-short though it may have been!  How I long for that life again!  -AOD

Mike,

Your paradox blog works well. Enjoyable.
I’ve always enjoyed the closing quotes you use from Richet and Crookes, and I even leaned a new word - anhedonia. 😄🍷

Mike S

Mike,

I always appreciate your insightful and clever observations!

Take Care!
YVONNE

This one’s a “keeper,” Michael.  Good job!