Trickster’s grip

I have submitted an account of strange occurrences in my house [‘Hexham fairies’, FT380:76, June 2019] and I read “It happened to me” letters voraciously. The creativity of the Universe in coming up with these happenings is astonishing – what they all have in common is a blatant disregard for the laws of physics. Quite a few recalled experiences might actually be dreams, but not all of them.

My occurrences are usually low-key but again the one thing they have in common is they completely blow holes in the laws of physics. Nothing much has happened for months but in the same hour last week [Nov 2021] the cat came in through two locked doors and an item that I’d spotted in the house before we went out was before us on the track two minutes later when I was walking the dog. I feel as though something or someone wants to get my attention every now and again, but why I do not know.

Perhaps they are humbling us by reminding us that we haven’t got all the answers. In the past people were more naturally inclined to believe all sorts of spiritual, miraculous and paranormal things, but we are not supposed to these days because they cannot be explained by science – and yet inexplicable anomalies with a life of their own are still ubiquitous, albeit in modern forms.

Most cultures have a trickster figure in their pantheon. In our Judæo-Christian and then scientistic culture I fear we have lost touch with Trickster; we expect the world to be fair and for things to be logical, yet I have never seen the world more in the grip of Trickster than in Boris’s Britain and beyond.

Liz Harrington Hexham, Northumberland