Gaslighting is the act of telling someone they didn’t see what they think they saw and attempting to shut down the conversation and make them think they’re crazy for bringing it up. Paranormal witnesses and investigators know this all too well. People do it to them all the time.  But they don’t care. Being called crazy in the paranormal community is a badge of honor they consent to wear. This is the price they pay for blazing the trails for true critical thinking.

The world is changing fast, and there’s a war raging right now on out-of-the-box thinkers. Anyone capable of thinking beyond what they’re being told on a daily basis by the media or any other of the powers-that-be, are being called conspiracy theorists, or just unintelligent. But why? Well, let’s be real here. Some of them have an agenda. And not a very nice one. Some of them would like to suppress any kind of critical or out-of-the-box thinking because it threatens their status quo and their ability to manipulate us.

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By TCC Team Member Dorraine Fisher
Professional Writer, a nature and wildlife enthusiast who has written for many magazines.




There’s an interesting paradox in what people believe exists. And in the Bigfoot community, it’s a great case study of beliefs in general. Some believe bigfoot exists because they’ve actually seen one. Others believe because they’ve actually looked at all the evidence and made a determination. Some people just enjoy believing.

But what’s most interesting to me is all the people who actually have to see something in order to believe it. Now, I do admit that it IS easier to believe what we actually see, but understand that it’s not the only way we determine things to be real. And you don’t have to believe a word I say, but here are some things to think about when we decide something’s real.

First of all, what is a belief exactly? It’s an idea we aspire to for certain reasons. And those reasons are solidified in our minds because of things we’ve seen, heard, experienced, or been told by people we trust. And all those reasons are very personal and significant to us. In a sense, they are a big part of what makes us who we are. So it’s no wonder we guard our beliefs so fiercely!

But this is the very reason why there is so much conflict over belief. We’ve all had different experiences of life, seen and done different things. We all have different perceptions of the world around us because no two human lives are the same. We’ve all experienced life a little bit differently. Therefore we can’t possibly have the exact same beliefs.

But we have a tendency to live in our own heads and we expect everyone to understand our personal experiences...which they CANNOT. So what does this mean for believers in bigfoot and all things labeled "paranormal?"

The reason it’s so hard for those who believe in these things because they’ve actually seen them or experienced them, is that others, who’ve not had those experiences, simply don’t believe. And they only live inside their own heads with their own set of perceptions and beliefs. And the problem with this is that they, in the realm of their personal perceptions that have neither seen or experienced anything unusual, can’t possibly comprehend someone who has. So they turn to calling the believer crazy, delusional, etc. And this is not constructive, and really fails to understand and cherish the differences in all humans. And it makes life unnecessarily difficult for those who’ve seen unusual things like bigfoot. It creates in them an obsessive need to prove what they’ve seen.

But there are some good things about it. It’s driving cryptozoologists harder all over the world to find the necessary proof. And they’re learning a lot and producing lots of new evidence. But that’s not even the most important thing. They’re making us understand that belief and reality have many different sides.

The element of oxygen is something we all believe in. We can’t see it. But science tells us it’s there and we trust science to know. And we believe it’s there for our own reasons. The wind on our face, the breath in our lungs. In essence, we know it’s real because we can feel it. So if an element is invisible, does that make it less real than one that’s visible.

Pain is another one. We can’t actually see it, but it makes itself known by how it makes us feel. So are feelings that something’s real any less valid than actually seeing something? Those who’ve experienced extreme pain can tell you how real it is.

But then there’s time. The mother of all crazy beliefs. Some scientists theorize that linear time as we know it doesn’t really exist at all. Sure, the sun comes up and goes down every day like "clockwork" but what does that really mean? Nothing. It just means that we measure time in our own terms, but it doesn’t prove time actually exists. Science is still working on that one.

The search for creatures like bigfoot is helping the human race understand something new. And that is that anything is possible, and we have a lot left to learn. And that refusing to believe in something just because we haven’t seen it with our own two eyes doesn’t really tell the whole story. We really are crazy if we think there’s nothing left on the planet to discover. New things pop up every day. *****DF

This post sponsored in part by

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