The Paranormal in the Bible and in Old Norse Literature—Superstition?

Journal of Parapsychology, The, Fall, 2003 by Lisa Schwebel

A slightly lesser problem, but a significant one from Kvastad's perspective, is that he lists examples from the sagas and the Bible as if they occurred independently in separate parts of the world and in isolation from one another. This is supposed to support his view that similar paranormal events arise everywhere. On the contrary, since the sagas he draws on for his examples are mainly the "Christian sagas" written after the conversion to Christianity (about 1000 C.E.), there is no question but that the sagas borrow from and are modeled on the earlier biblical texts. That is, while Kvastad is fight that accounts of paranormal activity feature in all the world's religions, his choice of texts does nothing to demonstrate this. It is worth noting, however, that no religion has ever disputed the appearance of paranormal phenomena in its texts; what has been debated (but is not touched on in this book), are the presumptions, consequences, and ramifications of that activity.

What does the book do? It lists, labels and categorizes by type of phenomenon. Since the format of Chapter 4 is repeated throughout the book, it serves as an instance of the whole. The chapter "Psi in Old Norse Literature and in the Bible" is divided into sections for each psi capacity. Each section consists of paragraph after paragraph of what Kvastad perceives as examples of the particular capacity. The examples are taken from the sagas, the Bible, characters in plays by Ibsen and Strindberg (perhaps the Norwegian equivalent of the English-speaking author's quoting from Shakespeare and, arguably, forgivable on that ground), and a range of unnamed, unattributed, and unverifiable sources. Of the latter, Kvastad frequently uses the phrase "some scholars [theologians, Christians, historians, etc] say..."--as in "A theologian once said, 'Man is a worm; but he can become a glowworm.' (p. 276)"--without identifying who those scholars are or where they said it. Typically, he resorts to such general statements as these: "It is said that, in Tibet, rats and birds are taught to meditate" (p. 70); "There is said to be a psychic Indian who finds free parking places through clairvoyance" (p. 124); "Once, when a certain woman became psychic her parrot rebuffed her"(p. 158); "The issue of the meaning of life has caused many philosophers to lose their minds, according to one of their own" (246); "A certain Dr. Wolf found that 85% of those who died of snakebite hadn't received a deadly dose of venom. It was faith that killed them" (p. 80). (2) Concerning that "certain Dr. Wolf," I searched in vain for the source of this astonishing study. Unfortunately, even where a study or claim is noted, the majority of the references in the endnotes section are in Norwegian and untranslated. It is also unfortunate that in a book that already has only a fraction of the notes it actually requires, in my copy 13 references cited in the text (notes 129 to 142) are missing from the endnotes.

There is no discernible standard or system for how the examples are selected. Or rather, the standard seems to be whatever items Kvastad comes across that strike his fancy and that he can make fit into one of his categories, no matter how incredible the story, no matter how questionable the source. In the chapter on "The Art of Medicine," Kvastad attacks alternative medicine, but it is clear that his choice of examples is highly biased. In fact, he pokes fun at "witchcraft medicine" because of its idea that 'like cures like,' seemingly unaware that this idea is behind vaccines (p. 327). Were it not for the so-called "witchcraft medicine," there might be no smallpox or polio vaccine. No distinction is made between the sagas and biblical narratives, scientific studies, and tabloid journalism; all are presented with the same degree of weight and authority. So, for example, under the heading "living corpses" which "some scholars" call 'tangible ghosts,' (p. 286) Kvastad claims that this is what "the church" (not clear which 'church' he is referring to) means by the resurrection of the body (p. 287). Leaving aside whether or not this is what the New Testament, not to mention any church, understands by the resurrection of the body (and let it emphatically be said, they don't), Kvastad then compares the biblical account of the resurrection with a book called "The Elvis Sightings," and with the following: "Some believe that Jesus appears even today. There was a newspaper article about someone who picked up a hitchhiker. The hiker asked, 'Do you know who Jesus is?' 'Yes,' the driver replied. 'I am Jesus,' said the hiker. The driver turned to look at the man but he had vanished. Some took this as a portent of Judgment Day" (pp. 290-91).