Things have changed in academia. Fifteen years ago, after my ouster from the classroom and research crowd, scholars studied such things as monsters, horror, and exorcism at their peril. Not taken seriously by “rational” thinkers, such phenomena were largely considered a waste of time and effort. Much of that is beginning to change. And not just in religious studies. Religion is an apt discipline to examine prodigies and unusual experiences, but I’m seeing more academic disciplines drawn into the discussion. Philosophy, history, sociology, and even law, ponder how belief in supernatural beings fits in the bank of human knowledge. This is something that AI has no hope of “comprehending” (as if it’s doing anything more than pretending). These are very human concerns and, it turns out, they may be more rational than previously assumed.
Such things entered academia as pop culture was reevaluated as worthy of study. Although ephemeral, what has the interest of the masses is important to understand. Horror is increasing in visibility and more and more people are admitting their interest in it, at least occasionally. A lifelong lover of the weird, had I known that this direction was available, in my former life, I would’ve been one of the first to sign up. Horror, as we now call it, has been around since the Bible and before. Ghost and monster stories were part of the earliest civilizations. Often they’re simply there—assumed rather than postulated. Many people today, some of them quite educated, also believe that there’s more to the world than what fits comfortably in the laboratory. Although my last several books have been written for nonspecialist readerships, employed academics are writing for that more rarified readership.
Perhaps the thing that’s truly changed is that studies about such things are being published. Various academic presses, it seems, have ventured into the “what if” territory. We’re all asking if maybe the world is stranger than we were taught in school. Our knowledge in technology has grown at what feels like an alarming rate, while our understanding of the shadowy side of our psyches, and the world itself, is only starting to get underway. In my personal reading I keep trying to steer away from university presses to the world of trade publishing, but with the new interest in the strange, I find myself being drawn back. You like your explorers to have a bit of skepticism, and an open mind. Seems like the academy is starting to welcome such thinkers. I’m glad to see this happening, because the world is a very strange place. If only it’d happened a little sooner.
