麻豆社

Good morning. 鈥淒o not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.鈥� I was reminded of that quip from G. K. Chesterton last week, when I visited The Old Ferryboat Inn in Cambridgeshire, which not only claims to be the oldest pub in England (serving ale since 560AD, apparently), but also to have a resident ghost.
A young woman took her life for love almost a thousand years ago and local legend has it she鈥檚 haunted the place ever since, appearing each year on the anniversary of her death: the 17th March. That date also happens to be St Patrick鈥檚 Day, which is perhaps not the ideal occasion for sober eyewitness testimony. But it鈥檚 easy to be sceptical鈥�.
According to a recent National Folklore Survey, more than a third of people in England believe in ghosts, and many like the idea of them too. 鈥淎 haunted house at the top of your street is fantastic,鈥� said Caroline Gibson from Pontefract in Yorkshire, speaking to the 麻豆社 about a poltergeist who is currently trending on social media, after featuring on the paranormal podcast, Uncanny.
The occult does not sit easily with mainstream Christianity. The Church warns against s茅ances, spirit-hunting and attempts to conjure the dead. Yet in an age inclined to explain everything materially, Christianity insists that the world does indeed have a spiritual dimension.
A problem remains, however, of how to discern between spiritual reality versus superstition 鈥� or for that matter, between good versus evil spiritual forces.
鈥淒o not be so open-minded that your brains fall out鈥� doesn鈥檛 really help us with that discernment, but Chesterton, himself a Christian, followed up with another one-liner that might be more useful. 鈥淭he object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.鈥�
That gets us closer. Open the mind, just not endlessly, to no purpose: open it up to close it again.
The risk of being open-minded is that you may sometimes look foolish or na茂ve. But there is risk too in being so determined never to be gulled, or seemingly unscientific, that you refuse in advance the richness that comes with leading a spiritual life.
Ghost stories challenge us to believe that there鈥檚 more to the world than what we can understand in purely physical terms. Christianity goes further still, teaching that we ourselves are more than merely physical beings.
If a haunted house in your street can be called fantastic, then why shouldn鈥檛 a church be called the same 鈥� in both meanings of the word? Fantastic in the modern sense of being great, but also in the older sense of being extra-ordinary. A place for open minds to shut down on something solid.