13 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Changing Spelling Removes Word Associations
Take the word ghost, for example. Always having
seen it speld in this way, we hav come to associate the
feelings arousd by the idea ghost with its accustomd
form of visual representation. To meet the word in
our reading instantly and instinctivly excites those
feelings in our minds. To meet the same word speld
gost, shorn of its familiar h, shocks us, and causes a
temporary mental inhibition of the idea. The word
seems to hav lost, with the missing letter, something
of the wierdness ...09 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
We are Drawn to the Supernatural
WE HAVE, it seems, a fierce attraction for spirits: auras, angels, poltergeists, disembodied souls, out-of-body experiences. Mostly, I think, we are drawn to these things because we intuit—correctly, it turns out—that there must be more to the world than meets the eye. We inherit the spirit world from a time when our ancestors huddled in dark shelters at night and let their imaginations draw up creatures more or less like ourselves although lacking corporeal substance. But why should we c...But there is so much to wonder at around us in the natural.