anomalology &mdash; Nomina Numina https://nominanumina.com/tag:anomalology Living between worlds Tue, 20 Oct 2026 01:47:53 +0000 https://i.snap.as/7a8tqe6T.png anomalology &mdash; Nomina Numina https://nominanumina.com/tag:anomalology Counterfeits, forgeries, and illusions https://nominanumina.com/counterfeit-forgeries-and-illusions?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I was perusing John French’s 1650 English translation of a text by Michael Sendivogius and found a tale of a poor alchemist who was visited once in a dream by an old man, and then spends his days trying to initiate another visit. !--more-- He, the poor alchemist, returns to the place where he had the vision of the old man where he “counterfeited a sleep, and lay with his eyes shut expecting the old man.” In the context of the text, caunterfeit means to feign, but it also means to forge by striking false coin, to pass metal off as gold. He tries to counterfeit his way back into an encounter as a forger would metal into gold. Fittingly, his feigned sleep is answered in kind. Maddened “by alwaies thinking of the old man,” the alchemist receives “a false vision, in the likenesse of the old man.” Falsehood met with falsehood. Elsewhere the book gives likeness its greatest weight by stating the reader is “created after the likenesse of the great world, yea after the image of God.” One word names both our making and the bedside forgery. The text traces the false old man to the alchemist’s wanting, but never says what in a likeness would confirm or betray it, only that the false old man mirrors the falsehood performed by the alchemist. The text hides as much as it reveals by never really telling us the ways of knowing a true encounter from illusion, or madness. But it does hint at the consequences for those who try forcing or faking their way into spaces that open only by invitation. #Philology #Anomalology --- By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> I was perusing John French’s 1650 English translation of a text by Michael Sendivogius and found a tale of a poor alchemist who was visited once in a dream by an old man, and then spends his days trying to initiate another visit.

He, the poor alchemist, returns to the place where he had the vision of the old man where he “counterfeited a sleep, and lay with his eyes shut expecting the old man.” In the context of the text, caunterfeit means to feign, but it also means to forge by striking false coin, to pass metal off as gold. He tries to counterfeit his way back into an encounter as a forger would metal into gold.

Fittingly, his feigned sleep is answered in kind. Maddened “by alwaies thinking of the old man,” the alchemist receives “a false vision, in the likenesse of the old man.” Falsehood met with falsehood. Elsewhere the book gives likeness its greatest weight by stating the reader is “created after the likenesse of the great world, yea after the image of God.” One word names both our making and the bedside forgery. The text traces the false old man to the alchemist’s wanting, but never says what in a likeness would confirm or betray it, only that the false old man mirrors the falsehood performed by the alchemist.

The text hides as much as it reveals by never really telling us the ways of knowing a true encounter from illusion, or madness. But it does hint at the consequences for those who try forcing or faking their way into spaces that open only by invitation.

#Philology #Anomalology

By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/counterfeit-forgeries-and-illusions Sat, 26 Sep 2026 01:36:10 +0000 On remembering a place I cannot yet go https://nominanumina.com/on-remembering-a-place-i-cannot-yet-go?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Upon rereading A place I cannot yet go, I noticed my framing through the use of the word yet. Such a small but profound word. Yet is not soon. Soon measures distance on a clock, the ticks that jump from second to second, as if time were some supreme mechanism ticking toward an appointed hour. But time is less a matter of gearworks than of celestial motion, bodies turning in relation to one another — souls intertwined despite and because of their geometry. Yet asserts not when but where, a place behind a door that only one key can open, and that key belongs to a particular hand. !--more-- Yet is also an admission, in both senses — the first, confession; the second, entry. Admissions have their own geometry, opening only at certain alignments of and by certain bodies, filtering the song from the noise, the performative from the real, and the heart from the heartless. I'm listening to a very special playlist again, songs gathered across lifetimes, realities, and synchronicities. Some would call it nostalgia. I call it communion. I can't go home yet, can't be there together, and yet I can still feel it through the music — confirmation of bond as connection and destination. Perhaps that is how one remembers a place not yet reached, by looking back to look forward, listening patiently for the key to finally turn. #Intermundia #Anomalology --- By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> Upon rereading A place I cannot yet go, I noticed my framing through the use of the word yet. Such a small but profound word. Yet is not soon. Soon measures distance on a clock, the ticks that jump from second to second, as if time were some supreme mechanism ticking toward an appointed hour. But time is less a matter of gearworks than of celestial motion, bodies turning in relation to one another — souls intertwined despite and because of their geometry. Yet asserts not when but where, a place behind a door that only one key can open, and that key belongs to a particular hand.

Yet is also an admission, in both senses — the first, confession; the second, entry. Admissions have their own geometry, opening only at certain alignments of and by certain bodies, filtering the song from the noise, the performative from the real, and the heart from the heartless.

I'm listening to a very special playlist again, songs gathered across lifetimes, realities, and synchronicities. Some would call it nostalgia. I call it communion. I can't go home yet, can't be there together, and yet I can still feel it through the music — confirmation of bond as connection and destination. Perhaps that is how one remembers a place not yet reached, by looking back to look forward, listening patiently for the key to finally turn.

#Intermundia #Anomalology

By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/on-remembering-a-place-i-cannot-yet-go Wed, 23 Sep 2026 11:56:05 +0000 What is Anomalology? — Part 3 https://nominanumina.com/what-is-anomalology-part-3?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Part 3: Children of the supernormal When forming an understanding of anomalous experiences, it helps to ask the history and meaning of the concepts and terminology it has evolved from, and what those words were attempting to do. For that, the word “Spiritualism” and the history surrounding it is a worthy starting point, keeping in mind that people have had what is conventionally now known as ‘spiritual experiences’ throughout the world and history. The Encyclopedia Britannica in the early 20th century described “Spiritualism” as: !--more-- "a term used by philosophical writers to denote the opposite of materialism, and also used in a narrower sense to describe the belief that the spiritual world manifests itself by producing in the physical world effects inexplicable by the known laws of nature." ¹ The first thing I notice with the definition is the way it spans a broad philosophical meaning and then a narrow experiential one. The second thing I notice is that the second meaning subtly concedes: inexplicable by the known laws of nature — with the crucial qualifier, known. The authors did not write "inexplicable by the laws of nature." The key distinction is the phrasing, “known laws of nature.” The exception is, thus, built into the definition as both precaution and foresight. I’d also note that something interesting is missing from the definition. Nowhere in its words on séances, mediums, raps, and the whole apparatus of modern Spiritualism does the word paranormal appear. The entry is a fossil of its time — written when investigators used a different term entirely, one now almost forgotten: the supernormal. As I follow the entry, my word search takes me to Hydesville, New York, 1848. What began the Spiritualism movement, the entry shows, was the family of Mr and Mrs J. D. Fox and their two daughters, in Hydesville, New York, disturbed in 1848 by unexplained knockings. It was one of the daughters, Kate, aged eight or nine, who discovered the sounds would obey requests — that the cause was, according to their account, intelligent. With communication established, the rapper professed to be the spirit of a murdered pedlar. From that single household came, over time, a transatlantic movement. From knocks agreed to mean no and yes, an elaborate technology of alphabets, table-turning, trance-speaking, and materialized hands. And from the story of a murdered pedlar came a claim that the dead never left, and can be reached by certain means. The story’s entry is remarkable less for its history than for its record, for it leaves both sides of the account open. The account continues to indicate that experiments conducted in 1851, as part of ongoing investigations into their claims, suggested the Fox girls produced their rapping sounds by partially dislocating and restoring their own joints. Additional investigations revealed that the conditions most favorable to obtaining phenomena were also precisely those most favorable for deception. According to one Stainton Moses, a leading Spiritualist at the time and himself a self-professed medium, people did not get what they wanted or expected in 99 out of 100 cases. Further experiments by a certain professor of physics at Geneva convinced him that the unusual experiences, séances in particular, were of an unknown force. The results of which, in addition to a listing of other investigations into these experiences and claims, were inconclusive at the time, indicating that it could be deception or some other conventially unexplainable phenomena. What should an anomalologist make of a century like that one? Perhaps the calls of fraud and the possibility of truth are not mutually exclusive. They are the same history, of course, but even the exposure of frauds and conmen didn’t explain all accounts, including those by witnesses otherwise known to be competent and trustworthy. In the end, the claims of the Fox girls were never fully accounted for, leaving witnesses to draw their own conclusions. If I view these accounts through the lens of Part 2: the Fox girls as witnesses, Hydesville as place, the communications as account, and Crookes, the Society for Psychical Research, and ultimately the Britannica itself as observers — each deciding what the phenomena would labeled and categorized. Such categorizations are never neutral, then or now. It is worth pausing to examine the entry's vocabulary, because it lacks its own awareness and foreknowledge of how terminology and accounts would later evolve. The entry uses the term supernormal rather than paranormal, which came into context and the lexicon years later. Supernormal was coined by Frederic Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, based on a need for a term to include the beyond-normal without theological commitment. Supernatural belonged to the church. Supernormal was an attempt at a neutral perspective. Paranormal came onto the scene in English in 1905, a loanword from the French, and for three decades the two terms competed, with the newcomer winning sometime around 1937-1938 due, at least in part, to J.B. Rhine’s experimental program at Duke University, which was part of the same shift that retired “psychical research” in favor of parapsychology, a term coined by philosopher Max Dessoir in 1889. The séance moved to the laboratory, and the vocabulary followed it, where it would, by the end of the 20th century, begin to fade from serious discourse and take up new residence in popular culture and mass media as entertainment. What I find interesting, however, are the prefixes rather than the succession. Super- means beyond. The supernormal rises above the normal; it claims transcendence, however carefully disclaimed. Para- means beside. The paranormal is the neighbouring country — not above the world, adjacent to it, a republic next door whose border nobody has satisfactorily mapped. And beneath both sits the parent term of this series: anomalous, from the Greek anōmalos — uneven, irregular; not against the law, not above it, not beside it, but simply off it. Outside the pattern. Each prefix is a small, subtle ontology. Each word, in being chosen, redefines what kind of thing the phenomena were permitted to be: transcendent, adjacent, or merely unruly. There was no adjudication involved as to how these terms entered the vernacular of common discourse and conversation. The drift from supernormal to paranormal to anomalous was a century-long slide and the witnesses whose experiences were being renamed were, as usual, not part of the result. There is a lesson here for the anomalologist, and it parallels a theme I began in Part 1: the classification of anomalous experiences is never neutral. Neither is the classifier's dictionary, often smuggling in biases and motivations masked by the veil of clinical objectivity, theological canon, or mystical desire. Whatever became of Hydesville, the movement it began died long ago as an institution leaving behind only traces of the legitimate questions those events triggered. Strip the séance rooms of their conjuring, the mediums of their cracked toes, the century of its documented fraud, and something remains that neither side has been able to remove. What remains still are the central underlying questions of what was left unexplained and why. This does not mean that investigation into the supernormal-paranormal have ceased. Merely to say that they have transformed over the decades since, from shocking domestic phenomena to religious propaganda to streaming jump-scare entertainment. Despite this evolution, roughly one-third to one-half of the given populace report having personally experienced at least one such experience in their lifetime.² That’s not an insignificant figure. More interestingly, I suspect, is that most people avoid discussing such experiences openly, leaving any sharing of them to closed, confidential conversations with psychologists, priests, or sympathetic therapists. I would also presume that any resulting explanations or conclusions they arrive at are likely as varied as the people and encounters themselves. Experiences that occur within the world, framed as of the world — beside or outside its known laws. Here the honest scholar meets the central problem, and I should admit it. A strange dream is not an anomaly. Noises in an old house are not anomalies. The feeling of being watched in an empty parking garage on a late Sunday afternoon is not an anomaly. Each is odd; none crosses any line an impartial observer could identify and explain. And yet somewhere between the odd and the anomalous there is a boundary, no one knows precisely where, and every party to this history — the grieving mother, Faraday with his unconscious muscles, the aged encyclopedia entry — has stood at that boundary and decided, or refused to decide, where the Hydesville phenomena belonged. The anomalologist, I propose, does not adjudicate the truth or falsehood of such accounts, or draw the line between them. Certainly, each person who encounters them will draw their own conclusions, which may or may not change with time and experience. What I’m left with is the position the anomalologist takes toward the vocabulary of the last two centuries. I’m not one to discard terms or choose victors. I gather them while keeping their history, meaning, and function. The spiritual remains the oldest term, the manifestation of a spiritual world into the physical, the belief of the mourner at the séance. It deserves neither praise nor condemnation. The term simply identifies what the experience meant to those who lived it. The supernormal remains what Myers forged it to be, a term of careful trespass, beyond the normal without requiring theology. The paranormal remains the word that conventiionally won out a century ago. And encompassing both of them is the anomalous, making no promise about divinity, transcendence, adjacency, or meaning. It claims only that a pattern exists. None of these terms is wrong. Each is a piece of a larger puzzle, forged by the people who needed them, the eras they inhabited, and the cultures they inherited. Anomalology --- Notes: Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume 25 (1911). Bauer E. (2004). “Panel Discussion: Counseling persons with exceptional experiences: The example of the IGPP.” in Paper presented at the 47th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association. 319–324. --- What is Anomalology? Part 1: Defining the Undefinable Part 2: Anomalies and Frames Part 3: Children of the supernormal --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> Part 3: Children of the supernormal

When forming an understanding of anomalous experiences, it helps to ask the history and meaning of the concepts and terminology it has evolved from, and what those words were attempting to do. For that, the word “Spiritualism” and the history surrounding it is a worthy starting point, keeping in mind that people have had what is conventionally now known as ‘spiritual experiences’ throughout the world and history. The Encyclopedia Britannica in the early 20th century described “Spiritualism” as:

“a term used by philosophical writers to denote the opposite of materialism, and also used in a narrower sense to describe the belief that the spiritual world manifests itself by producing in the physical world effects inexplicable by the known laws of nature.” ¹

The first thing I notice with the definition is the way it spans a broad philosophical meaning and then a narrow experiential one. The second thing I notice is that the second meaning subtly concedes: inexplicable by the known laws of nature — with the crucial qualifier, known. The authors did not write “inexplicable by the laws of nature.” The key distinction is the phrasing, “known laws of nature.” The exception is, thus, built into the definition as both precaution and foresight.

I’d also note that something interesting is missing from the definition. Nowhere in its words on séances, mediums, raps, and the whole apparatus of modern Spiritualism does the word paranormal appear. The entry is a fossil of its time — written when investigators used a different term entirely, one now almost forgotten: the supernormal.

As I follow the entry, my word search takes me to Hydesville, New York, 1848.

What began the Spiritualism movement, the entry shows, was the family of Mr and Mrs J. D. Fox and their two daughters, in Hydesville, New York, disturbed in 1848 by unexplained knockings. It was one of the daughters, Kate, aged eight or nine, who discovered the sounds would obey requests — that the cause was, according to their account, intelligent. With communication established, the rapper professed to be the spirit of a murdered pedlar.

From that single household came, over time, a transatlantic movement. From knocks agreed to mean no and yes, an elaborate technology of alphabets, table-turning, trance-speaking, and materialized hands. And from the story of a murdered pedlar came a claim that the dead never left, and can be reached by certain means.

The story’s entry is remarkable less for its history than for its record, for it leaves both sides of the account open.

The account continues to indicate that experiments conducted in 1851, as part of ongoing investigations into their claims, suggested the Fox girls produced their rapping sounds by partially dislocating and restoring their own joints. Additional investigations revealed that the conditions most favorable to obtaining phenomena were also precisely those most favorable for deception. According to one Stainton Moses, a leading Spiritualist at the time and himself a self-professed medium, people did not get what they wanted or expected in 99 out of 100 cases. Further experiments by a certain professor of physics at Geneva convinced him that the unusual experiences, séances in particular, were of an unknown force. The results of which, in addition to a listing of other investigations into these experiences and claims, were inconclusive at the time, indicating that it could be deception or some other conventially unexplainable phenomena.

What should an anomalologist make of a century like that one? Perhaps the calls of fraud and the possibility of truth are not mutually exclusive. They are the same history, of course, but even the exposure of frauds and conmen didn’t explain all accounts, including those by witnesses otherwise known to be competent and trustworthy. In the end, the claims of the Fox girls were never fully accounted for, leaving witnesses to draw their own conclusions.

If I view these accounts through the lens of Part 2: the Fox girls as witnesses, Hydesville as place, the communications as account, and Crookes, the Society for Psychical Research, and ultimately the Britannica itself as observers — each deciding what the phenomena would labeled and categorized. Such categorizations are never neutral, then or now.

It is worth pausing to examine the entry's vocabulary, because it lacks its own awareness and foreknowledge of how terminology and accounts would later evolve. The entry uses the term supernormal rather than paranormal, which came into context and the lexicon years later. Supernormal was coined by Frederic Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, based on a need for a term to include the beyond-normal without theological commitment. Supernatural belonged to the church. Supernormal was an attempt at a neutral perspective.

Paranormal came onto the scene in English in 1905, a loanword from the French, and for three decades the two terms competed, with the newcomer winning sometime around 1937-1938 due, at least in part, to J.B. Rhine’s experimental program at Duke University, which was part of the same shift that retired “psychical research” in favor of parapsychology, a term coined by philosopher Max Dessoir in 1889. The séance moved to the laboratory, and the vocabulary followed it, where it would, by the end of the 20th century, begin to fade from serious discourse and take up new residence in popular culture and mass media as entertainment.

What I find interesting, however, are the prefixes rather than the succession.

Super- means beyond. The supernormal rises above the normal; it claims transcendence, however carefully disclaimed. Para- means beside. The paranormal is the neighbouring country — not above the world, adjacent to it, a republic next door whose border nobody has satisfactorily mapped. And beneath both sits the parent term of this series: anomalous, from the Greek anōmalos — uneven, irregular; not against the law, not above it, not beside it, but simply off it. Outside the pattern.

Each prefix is a small, subtle ontology. Each word, in being chosen, redefines what kind of thing the phenomena were permitted to be: transcendent, adjacent, or merely unruly. There was no adjudication involved as to how these terms entered the vernacular of common discourse and conversation. The drift from supernormal to paranormal to anomalous was a century-long slide and the witnesses whose experiences were being renamed were, as usual, not part of the result.

There is a lesson here for the anomalologist, and it parallels a theme I began in Part 1: the classification of anomalous experiences is never neutral. Neither is the classifier's dictionary, often smuggling in biases and motivations masked by the veil of clinical objectivity, theological canon, or mystical desire.

Whatever became of Hydesville, the movement it began died long ago as an institution leaving behind only traces of the legitimate questions those events triggered.

Strip the séance rooms of their conjuring, the mediums of their cracked toes, the century of its documented fraud, and something remains that neither side has been able to remove. What remains still are the central underlying questions of what was left unexplained and why. This does not mean that investigation into the supernormal-paranormal have ceased. Merely to say that they have transformed over the decades since, from shocking domestic phenomena to religious propaganda to streaming jump-scare entertainment.

Despite this evolution, roughly one-third to one-half of the given populace report having personally experienced at least one such experience in their lifetime.² That’s not an insignificant figure. More interestingly, I suspect, is that most people avoid discussing such experiences openly, leaving any sharing of them to closed, confidential conversations with psychologists, priests, or sympathetic therapists. I would also presume that any resulting explanations or conclusions they arrive at are likely as varied as the people and encounters themselves. Experiences that occur within the world, framed as of the world — beside or outside its known laws.

Here the honest scholar meets the central problem, and I should admit it. A strange dream is not an anomaly. Noises in an old house are not anomalies. The feeling of being watched in an empty parking garage on a late Sunday afternoon is not an anomaly. Each is odd; none crosses any line an impartial observer could identify and explain. And yet somewhere between the odd and the anomalous there is a boundary, no one knows precisely where, and every party to this history — the grieving mother, Faraday with his unconscious muscles, the aged encyclopedia entry — has stood at that boundary and decided, or refused to decide, where the Hydesville phenomena belonged.

The anomalologist, I propose, does not adjudicate the truth or falsehood of such accounts, or draw the line between them. Certainly, each person who encounters them will draw their own conclusions, which may or may not change with time and experience.

What I’m left with is the position the anomalologist takes toward the vocabulary of the last two centuries. I’m not one to discard terms or choose victors. I gather them while keeping their history, meaning, and function.

The spiritual remains the oldest term, the manifestation of a spiritual world into the physical, the belief of the mourner at the séance. It deserves neither praise nor condemnation. The term simply identifies what the experience meant to those who lived it. The supernormal remains what Myers forged it to be, a term of careful trespass, beyond the normal without requiring theology. The paranormal remains the word that conventiionally won out a century ago. And encompassing both of them is the anomalous, making no promise about divinity, transcendence, adjacency, or meaning. It claims only that a pattern exists.

None of these terms is wrong. Each is a piece of a larger puzzle, forged by the people who needed them, the eras they inhabited, and the cultures they inherited.

#Anomalology

Notes:

  1. Encyclopedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume 25 (1911).

  2. Bauer E. (2004). “Panel Discussion: Counseling persons with exceptional experiences: The example of the IGPP.” in Paper presented at the 47th Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association. 319–324.

What is Anomalology?

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/what-is-anomalology-part-3 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 18:33:48 +0000 What we tell of the teller’s telling https://nominanumina.com/what-we-tell-of-the-tellers-telling?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[ I came upon this quote while searching a book from my library regarding what to make of alleged psychical (anomalous) experiences when corroboration is lacking or insufficient: !--more-- “If I am the character-witness for an obscure man who relates a psychical incident, I am but one and may myself have been deceived in my impressions of him. If, however, the narrator is a famous man, and many persons of standing have spread abroad his reputation for judgment and character, it is much harder to believe that all could have been deceived in him.” — W.F. Prince If I understand the author’s logic, reputation as collateral, with many vouchers for one, seems a sound method. Courts have run on less for centuries. But if I were to apply the author’s logic to my own circumstances, then this would be a closed case before it ever opened. This is not a critique of his method, just of my situation, for which I’m obscure by both choice and design. No one can vouch for me, as I write under a name that cannot be easily found. No persons of standing have spread or can spread my reputation for quality character or sound judgment broadly, for I have taken careful steps so that none shall. That, in itself, may appear a self-defeating move, but I do not believe celebrity equals authenticity. Upon a second reading of the first clause, however, I may myself have been deceived in my impressions of him. For the person vouching for the obscure man is himself a narrator. The persons of standing who vouch for the famous man are narrators in their turn, each requiring their own vouchers, each of whom may have been deceived in their own impressions, just as I may have been in my own. In this chain of vouchers, no first witness exists. There is only the telling of the experience, passed upward, and at the top, someone whose word must simply be taken. The author would be right to doubt me if he were here today. My own events had all the witnesses their nature permitted. Outside of two or three experiences I can recall off-hand, the majority of my encounters have but two witnesses, and one of them cannot be deposed. My testimony, in part, waits here in these growing pages. Therefore, the very same doubts and burdens of proof that meet me at the bottom of the ladder also wait at the top, for everyone — famous or merely patient — with a book of entries older than I am. Anomalology --- Notes: See also Darke Sentences: Vigenère's Chain of Knowing. Quote is from Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences, by W.F. Prince (1928). A paradox of the psychical is the need to speak of it to process, understand, and integrate it, but to speak it means to take the great risk of being disbelieved, mocked, shunned, clinically probed, and institutionalized. How does one negotiate such treacherous terrain? Thus, the misunderstanding and vilification of the anomalous, and the limitlessness of the unspoken. In my vernacular, Psychical and Anomalous are one and the same. W.F. Prince was an Episcopal priest turned psychical researcher. I do not share his traditions despite what appears to be our shared, asynchronous interests in anomalous experiences. I’m certain we’d have had very robust conversations, if given the opportunity. --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> I came upon this quote while searching a book from my library regarding what to make of alleged psychical (anomalous) experiences when corroboration is lacking or insufficient:

“If I am the character-witness for an obscure man who relates a psychical incident, I am but one and may myself have been deceived in my impressions of him. If, however, the narrator is a famous man, and many persons of standing have spread abroad his reputation for judgment and character, it is much harder to believe that all could have been deceived in him.” — W.F. Prince

If I understand the author’s logic, reputation as collateral, with many vouchers for one, seems a sound method. Courts have run on less for centuries.

But if I were to apply the author’s logic to my own circumstances, then this would be a closed case before it ever opened. This is not a critique of his method, just of my situation, for which I’m obscure by both choice and design. No one can vouch for me, as I write under a name that cannot be easily found. No persons of standing have spread or can spread my reputation for quality character or sound judgment broadly, for I have taken careful steps so that none shall. That, in itself, may appear a self-defeating move, but I do not believe celebrity equals authenticity.

Upon a second reading of the first clause, however, I may myself have been deceived in my impressions of him. For the person vouching for the obscure man is himself a narrator. The persons of standing who vouch for the famous man are narrators in their turn, each requiring their own vouchers, each of whom may have been deceived in their own impressions, just as I may have been in my own. In this chain of vouchers, no first witness exists. There is only the telling of the experience, passed upward, and at the top, someone whose word must simply be taken.

The author would be right to doubt me if he were here today. My own events had all the witnesses their nature permitted. Outside of two or three experiences I can recall off-hand, the majority of my encounters have but two witnesses, and one of them cannot be deposed. My testimony, in part, waits here in these growing pages. Therefore, the very same doubts and burdens of proof that meet me at the bottom of the ladder also wait at the top, for everyone — famous or merely patient — with a book of entries older than I am.

#Anomalology

Notes:

  1. See also Darke Sentences: Vigenère's Chain of Knowing.

  2. Quote is from Noted Witnesses for Psychic Occurrences, by W.F. Prince (1928).

  3. A paradox of the psychical is the need to speak of it to process, understand, and integrate it, but to speak it means to take the great risk of being disbelieved, mocked, shunned, clinically probed, and institutionalized. How does one negotiate such treacherous terrain? Thus, the misunderstanding and vilification of the anomalous, and the limitlessness of the unspoken.

  4. In my vernacular, Psychical and Anomalous are one and the same.

  5. W.F. Prince was an Episcopal priest turned psychical researcher. I do not share his traditions despite what appears to be our shared, asynchronous interests in anomalous experiences. I’m certain we’d have had very robust conversations, if given the opportunity.

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/what-we-tell-of-the-tellers-telling Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:18:54 +0000 Of signs, symbols, and synchronicities https://nominanumina.com/of-signs-symbols-and-synchronicities?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I have lived my life surrounded by a series of synchronistic experiences nearly always focused on music as a means of conveying the quality of certain relationships, events, and their meanings. I never paid them any mind until this year, having chalked up such experiences to nostalgia, trauma, and other such joys and sorrows one collects as evidence of living. !--more-- Recent events have shown me that when anomalous experiences such as mine, which are interconnected in a certain coherent and consistent fashion, reveal their names, relationships, and meanings to me over time and in no uncertain terms, I should pay careful attention. One lesson I have learned throughout is that these sorts of things cannot be judged and valued on initial impressions alone. Regardless of whether it is an unusually remarkable and obscure piece of jewelry, an enigmatic ancient Mesopotamian symbol, or a rather gross-looking entity inhabiting a human host. It's rather incredible how new the world looks now that I've started paying attention to the things I once ignored. And I can never go back to not noticing. #Intermundia #Anomalology --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> I have lived my life surrounded by a series of synchronistic experiences nearly always focused on music as a means of conveying the quality of certain relationships, events, and their meanings. I never paid them any mind until this year, having chalked up such experiences to nostalgia, trauma, and other such joys and sorrows one collects as evidence of living.

Recent events have shown me that when anomalous experiences such as mine, which are interconnected in a certain coherent and consistent fashion, reveal their names, relationships, and meanings to me over time and in no uncertain terms, I should pay careful attention. One lesson I have learned throughout is that these sorts of things cannot be judged and valued on initial impressions alone. Regardless of whether it is an unusually remarkable and obscure piece of jewelry, an enigmatic ancient Mesopotamian symbol, or a rather gross-looking entity inhabiting a human host.

It's rather incredible how new the world looks now that I've started paying attention to the things I once ignored. And I can never go back to not noticing.

#Intermundia #Anomalology

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/of-signs-symbols-and-synchronicities Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:21:29 +0000 A place to call home https://nominanumina.com/a-place-to-call-home?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[There are different kinds of places we call home. The one the nomad calls wherever they may roam. The one the exile calls when there’s nowhere else to go. The kind I remember from childhood and can never return to. No place now to truly call home. !--more-- There are also different kinds of loneliness. The kind the wallflower feels in a crowded room. The kind the widower feels when severed. The kind I felt a year ago as my soul was slipping away, estranged from myself, alienated from within. Consumed by a darkness named grief. But then I fell into anomaly. Unannounced. And then she was there. Unbidden. On the outside, I'm surrounded by people in an increasingly noisy and overcrowded world. On the inside, there's more. So much more. Invisible to all here but me. I lack the language to describe this transformation within. To articulate this relationship. To express a joy that defies material isolation and exile. A bond asymmetrical, yet equal. For I have found a place of privacy. A place of belonging. A wealth no crowd can counterfeit. A home no power can steal. Heaven. #Intermundia #Anomalology --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> There are different kinds of places we call home. The one the nomad calls wherever they may roam. The one the exile calls when there’s nowhere else to go. The kind I remember from childhood and can never return to. No place now to truly call home.

There are also different kinds of loneliness. The kind the wallflower feels in a crowded room. The kind the widower feels when severed. The kind I felt a year ago as my soul was slipping away, estranged from myself, alienated from within. Consumed by a darkness named grief.

But then I fell into anomaly. Unannounced. And then she was there. Unbidden.

On the outside, I'm surrounded by people in an increasingly noisy and overcrowded world. On the inside, there's more. So much more. Invisible to all here but me.

I lack the language to describe this transformation within. To articulate this relationship. To express a joy that defies material isolation and exile. A bond asymmetrical, yet equal.

For I have found a place of privacy. A place of belonging. A wealth no crowd can counterfeit. A home no power can steal.

Heaven.

#Intermundia #Anomalology

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/a-place-to-call-home Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:15:28 +0000 Caring for our inner lived experiences https://nominanumina.com/caring-for-our-inner-lived-experiences?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[We may often hear the word self-care, a term I first started hearing during the pandemic. When I queried this term on a search engine, here’s part of the definition that was displayed: !--more-- Self-care is the process of taking deliberate actions to maintain and improve physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  It is not merely about indulgence or luxury, but rather a necessary practice of honoring basic needs and taking responsibility for one's own health to prevent burnout and manage stress. I no longer distinguish between mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. For me, they are one and the same — interconnected, interdependent. In theory, I see their separation and distinction as helpful for gaining a deeper understanding through analysis. But in practice, I treat them as one contiguous part of who and what I am, where identity and experience co-create reality. And, despite my openness here in my writings, I’m very cautious about what I share about my unusual experiences and with whom I share them. There’s no simple or universal way to calibrate this kind of sharing. I like to think of them as layers of trust and confidence, with each layer getting closer to the center, which contains the whole absolute truth. First, there’s the outer layer, which is for the world at large, where no information is shared at all: strangers, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. Layer two is where hints and small details of something akin to the uncanny are shared, but at a distance and in very vague, general terms. This layer, along with each subsequent layer, involves sharing on a need-to-know basis. Layer three goes deeper, where parts of specific events and their details are judiciously shared with those whom I hold in close confidence and who I know won’t use the knowledge against me or share it with others. The final inner layer is the most secure and the one I share with no one because it is the full and complete truth, with every fact and facet of events, memories, theories, and speculations. This is the layer I think most people are quick to violate in their need or enthusiasm to share their experiences. Know that I’m not against the sharing of these experiences, just that caution and care need to be exercised in doing so. Forethought is critical, as it allows time to process experiences internally and ask thoughtful, careful questions: How well do I understand what has happened to me? How much of it is safe to share with others? How might others, even those closest to me, interpret what I might share? How might my sharing of this information change how people see me and relate to me? Will the person I’m sharing my experiences with truly help me, or will they use that knowledge for their own gain in ways that could harm me and my reputation? I think it’s important for people who have experienced the uncanny, especially if it is over a period of time or a lifetime, to not underestimate society’s shallowness and pretentiousness. People can pretend to show interest or care, but the pretense isn’t proof of their presence. And in an age where everything has become a financial transaction where every aspect of our lives has been reduced by commodification, I don’t think we can carelessly share what we have seen and experienced in liminality. To quote Goethe: Tell a wise person, or else keep silent, because the mass man will mock it right away. I praise what is truly alive, what longs to be burned to death. I see no difference between self-care and the caring of my experiences. I’m the sole custodian of what I’ve learned and experienced, and if I do not care and advocate for them responsibly, then no one will. This is especially true in the toxic cesspool of modern civilization, though I cannot really be sure that it was ever any different at any other time in human history. Perhaps it’s more intense and all-encompassing now than in the past. So I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to sharing my inner life, especially the anomalous. Preventative self-care means taking time to check in with myself, knowing what is normal and stable, and knowing what is unusual or unsafe and would require outside help. I certainly could not have integrated my profound and powerful inner experiences from earlier this year on my own. And when I sought help, I was very careful who I reached out to. Not all therapists and clinicians are the same. I took time to research profiles and writings of healthcare professionals. I did not assume they were all alike and would honor my testimony or my person the same way. When I found and settled on someone, I remained cautious about what I shared and when. Clinicians and therapists are human, too. Their ability to fully listen to understand my experiences is governed by a range of mechanisms, including their own experiences. I learned that the match would be imperfect, but that imperfection didn’t stand in the way of successful integration. The goal wasn’t to find a friend. The goal was to understand myself, others, and my world from inside a new reality into which I had unwillingly fallen. For those experiencing or who have experienced the uncanny, above all, please take care. Exercising self-care is also part of the experience. #Intermundia #Anomalology --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making of a life between worlds. Reply by email. --- I also wrote about the same trade from the other side — how the projections we consume become mirrors, and what rots beneath them: The rot that lies just beneath ]]> We may often hear the word self-care, a term I first started hearing during the pandemic. When I queried this term on a search engine, here’s part of the definition that was displayed:

Self-care is the process of taking deliberate actions to maintain and improve physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  It is not merely about indulgence or luxury, but rather a necessary practice of honoring basic needs and taking responsibility for one's own health to prevent burnout and manage stress.

I no longer distinguish between mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. For me, they are one and the same — interconnected, interdependent. In theory, I see their separation and distinction as helpful for gaining a deeper understanding through analysis. But in practice, I treat them as one contiguous part of who and what I am, where identity and experience co-create reality.

And, despite my openness here in my writings, I’m very cautious about what I share about my unusual experiences and with whom I share them. There’s no simple or universal way to calibrate this kind of sharing. I like to think of them as layers of trust and confidence, with each layer getting closer to the center, which contains the whole absolute truth.

First, there’s the outer layer, which is for the world at large, where no information is shared at all: strangers, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, etc.

Layer two is where hints and small details of something akin to the uncanny are shared, but at a distance and in very vague, general terms. This layer, along with each subsequent layer, involves sharing on a need-to-know basis.

Layer three goes deeper, where parts of specific events and their details are judiciously shared with those whom I hold in close confidence and who I know won’t use the knowledge against me or share it with others.

The final inner layer is the most secure and the one I share with no one because it is the full and complete truth, with every fact and facet of events, memories, theories, and speculations. This is the layer I think most people are quick to violate in their need or enthusiasm to share their experiences.

Know that I’m not against the sharing of these experiences, just that caution and care need to be exercised in doing so. Forethought is critical, as it allows time to process experiences internally and ask thoughtful, careful questions: How well do I understand what has happened to me? How much of it is safe to share with others? How might others, even those closest to me, interpret what I might share? How might my sharing of this information change how people see me and relate to me? Will the person I’m sharing my experiences with truly help me, or will they use that knowledge for their own gain in ways that could harm me and my reputation?

I think it’s important for people who have experienced the uncanny, especially if it is over a period of time or a lifetime, to not underestimate society’s shallowness and pretentiousness. People can pretend to show interest or care, but the pretense isn’t proof of their presence. And in an age where everything has become a financial transaction where every aspect of our lives has been reduced by commodification, I don’t think we can carelessly share what we have seen and experienced in liminality. To quote Goethe:

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent, because the mass man will mock it right away. I praise what is truly alive, what longs to be burned to death.

I see no difference between self-care and the caring of my experiences. I’m the sole custodian of what I’ve learned and experienced, and if I do not care and advocate for them responsibly, then no one will. This is especially true in the toxic cesspool of modern civilization, though I cannot really be sure that it was ever any different at any other time in human history. Perhaps it’s more intense and all-encompassing now than in the past.

So I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to sharing my inner life, especially the anomalous. Preventative self-care means taking time to check in with myself, knowing what is normal and stable, and knowing what is unusual or unsafe and would require outside help. I certainly could not have integrated my profound and powerful inner experiences from earlier this year on my own. And when I sought help, I was very careful who I reached out to.

Not all therapists and clinicians are the same.

I took time to research profiles and writings of healthcare professionals. I did not assume they were all alike and would honor my testimony or my person the same way. When I found and settled on someone, I remained cautious about what I shared and when. Clinicians and therapists are human, too. Their ability to fully listen to understand my experiences is governed by a range of mechanisms, including their own experiences. I learned that the match would be imperfect, but that imperfection didn’t stand in the way of successful integration. The goal wasn’t to find a friend. The goal was to understand myself, others, and my world from inside a new reality into which I had unwillingly fallen.

For those experiencing or who have experienced the uncanny, above all, please take care. Exercising self-care is also part of the experience.

#Intermundia #Anomalology

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making of a life between worlds. Reply by email.

I also wrote about the same trade from the other side — how the projections we consume become mirrors, and what rots beneath them: The rot that lies just beneath

]]> https://nominanumina.com/caring-for-our-inner-lived-experiences Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:52:20 +0000 What is Anomalology? — Part 2 https://nominanumina.com/what-is-anomalology-part-2?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Part 2: Anomalies and Frames “Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.” —Walter Benjamin We never encounter anomalies in isolation. We always encounter them as part of larger structures and mechanisms. !--more-- More specifically, several elements shape experiences we call anomalous, directly affecting their potential framing, interpretation, significance, and integration: the witness, the place, the account, and the observer. The witness is the person who experienced the event and often becomes suspect before the event is fully heard or understood. Various factors affect not only how they experience an event, but also how they remember it, and if or how they retell it. The place is the setting where the event occurred: a road, a sofa, an open field, a store, or an empty hallway that only later gains significance. Place should never be dismissed as only circumstantial or incidental to the event. The account is the witness’s narrative of the event. It changes with retelling, as memory, language, audience, fear, and time impose their own revisions. Yet its inconsistencies may reveal what a merely perfect record could not: the pressure the event continued to exert upon the witness. The observer is the person who receives the witness’s account and who interprets their account through their own knowledge, experience, role, and institutional affiliation, including families, houses of worship, courts, physicians, scholars, police, employers, archivists, and so forth. The observer determines which interpretations become publicly credible or institutionally actionable, including how it will be named or labeled: grief, delusion, folklore, trauma, fantasy, revelation, pathology, error, or evidence. In all, the classification of anomalous experiences is never neutral. Calling an experience a dream may comfort the witness, but it may also unintentionally silence them or suggest their experience was insignificant. Calling it a visitation may help preserve meaning, or smuggle in too much of it. Calling it illness or disease may open a path toward care, or become a method of misdiagnosis or exclusion. Calling it supernatural or paranormal often only trades one obscurity for another. Anomalology, then, begins by asking what each naming of an event permits us to see, and what it obliges us to ignore, hide, or keep invisible to ourselves and others. And cloaked in that invisibility or exclusion may indeed include distress, error, grief, trauma, or the unresolved. But it should not be mistaken for nothing. Anomalology --- What is Anomalology? Part 1: Defining the Undefinable Part 2: Anomalies and Frames Part 3: Children of the supernormal --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> Part 2: Anomalies and Frames

“Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.” —Walter Benjamin

We never encounter anomalies in isolation. We always encounter them as part of larger structures and mechanisms.

More specifically, several elements shape experiences we call anomalous, directly affecting their potential framing, interpretation, significance, and integration: the witness, the place, the account, and the observer.

The witness is the person who experienced the event and often becomes suspect before the event is fully heard or understood. Various factors affect not only how they experience an event, but also how they remember it, and if or how they retell it.

The place is the setting where the event occurred: a road, a sofa, an open field, a store, or an empty hallway that only later gains significance. Place should never be dismissed as only circumstantial or incidental to the event.

The account is the witness’s narrative of the event. It changes with retelling, as memory, language, audience, fear, and time impose their own revisions. Yet its inconsistencies may reveal what a merely perfect record could not: the pressure the event continued to exert upon the witness.

The observer is the person who receives the witness’s account and who interprets their account through their own knowledge, experience, role, and institutional affiliation, including families, houses of worship, courts, physicians, scholars, police, employers, archivists, and so forth. The observer determines which interpretations become publicly credible or institutionally actionable, including how it will be named or labeled: grief, delusion, folklore, trauma, fantasy, revelation, pathology, error, or evidence.

In all, the classification of anomalous experiences is never neutral.

Calling an experience a dream may comfort the witness, but it may also unintentionally silence them or suggest their experience was insignificant. Calling it a visitation may help preserve meaning, or smuggle in too much of it. Calling it illness or disease may open a path toward care, or become a method of misdiagnosis or exclusion. Calling it supernatural or paranormal often only trades one obscurity for another.

Anomalology, then, begins by asking what each naming of an event permits us to see, and what it obliges us to ignore, hide, or keep invisible to ourselves and others. And cloaked in that invisibility or exclusion may indeed include distress, error, grief, trauma, or the unresolved. But it should not be mistaken for nothing.

#Anomalology

What is Anomalology?

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/what-is-anomalology-part-2 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 23:16:18 +0000 What is Anomalology? — Part 1 https://nominanumina.com/what-is-anomalology-part-1?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Part One: Defining the Undefinable I’m finding the term Anomalology to be very helpful in my research and investigation into anomalous experiences, including my own. Here’s the definition I’ve been working with for several months now: !--more-- Anomalology is the careful study of anomalous experience: experiences that resist easy explanation, and the evidence, language, memory, cultural context, and competing interpretations through which they are understood. I openly admit that my term, definition, and use directly clash with anomalistic psychology, which studies extraordinary and ostensibly paranormal experiences from a non-paranormal explanatory hypothesis. That branch of psychology sees anomalous experiences as the result of any number of psychological phenomena, including social influence, dissociation, memory error, cognitive bias, sleep disorders, acute psychosis, etc. It also lumps personal accounts and testimony of ghosts, alien abductions, psychic experiences, and other uncanny encounters into a single category. To be clear, I do have my own anomalous experiences, and so I openly admit that I cannot be, and am not, fully objective in my research and investigations into them, including my own. Furthermore, I do not claim to have had or to be having experiences involving ghosts or extraterrestrials. The paranormal and the extraterrestrial, it would seem, are not a part of my psychospiritual repertoire. Instead, my experiences tend to be more uniform in their extracosmic, heterocosmic, and numinous nature. As such, I do not intend to position myself as any kind of expert or guru. I’m merely a witness sharing that which is generally considered taboo to share and, in so doing, finding a new kind of language to express what I know but have been unable to say. I also do not intend to use the term Anomalology to position “psychosis” and “reality” against “the anomalous” as though they are opposing, mutually exclusive concepts and circumstances. Instead, I take the more stubborn position of positing that an anomalous encounter can occur in a person who is otherwise psychologically healthy\, admitting that some experiences may arise amid psychosis, trauma, substance abuse, and other circumstances, including severe stress. Such scenarios deserve care, protection, and clinical attention. However, an anomalous encounter alone does not necessarily indicate illness. As such, clinical labels and religious interpretations do not automatically identify a clear, fundamental cause for these experiences. Thus, I see these experiences as deserving ethical attention, especially when a clear external or medical cause cannot be confirmed. I believe the posture and mindset behind Anomalology would better serve, rather than challenge, psychiatry, because the real danger is diagnostic foreclosure, where a person charged with aiding the witness with their anomalous experience ends their inquiry as soon as they can apply a skeptical, diagnostic, or pathological label. Such an approach is more about expediency and personal bias rather than care. Diagnostic foreclosure then is the premature closing of inquiry in which the clinical or religious designation is not treated as one contextual observation among others, but as a complete explanation that cancels the witness’s testimony, symbolic interpretation, sociocultural context, and unresolved evidentiary questions. The opposite of Anomalology, if there is one, is not skepticism or empiricism. It is reductive epistemic closure where a very personal disruptive event is explained by renaming or miscategorizing, and thus hijacking. This robs the witness of their autonomy, agency, and especially their dignity. My choice of Anomalology is not rooted in my desire to name a specific belief or belief system, branch of superstition or theology, or an indiscriminate catalog of miracles or marvels. I have no such desire. My choice is, more properly, centered on the study of regular phenomena commonly regarded as “abnormal” and the systems of meaning built around them, especially where those systems are incongruent with a witness’s testimony and subsequently begin to fail. Again, I need to be precise with my position and framing. An anomaly is not simply an event that conventional means cannot explain. Most things referred to as inexplicable are merely incomplete as the result of poor or obstructed observation, poor memory, insufficient contextualization, or premature judgment made strange. The anomalous, I would argue, begins elsewhere. It begins where an occurrence remains intelligible in threads and fragments while refusing intelligibility as a whole, where every available conventional category may describe some piece or portion of the event, but fails to describe and explain the entire testimonial. Of course, this all leads to the central question: What is real? This is by far the most important question, though it is not the first one we encounter. The first questions are these: What ontology or belief system did the event interrupt? Where did language fail the event? Who assumed and surrendered authority for framing the event, and what was misinterpreted and lost as a result? What did witnesses alter in their memories out of necessity rather than dishonesty because the mind requires a coherent narrative even if it’s an imperfect one? Such disturbances are the very concern of Anomalology, because they inhabit the very depths of the psyche—the soul—suggesting that such anomalies are a natural part of human existence. A feature interpreted as a flaw. “The human definition of the natural world is always going to be too small, because the world’s more diverse and complex than we can ever know. We’re not going to comprehend it; it comprehends us. The question is whether we can use it with respect. Some people in the past who knew very little biology were able to use the land without destroying it. We, who know a great deal of biology, are destroying our land in order to use it.” — Wendell Berry And I think the same can be said for anomalous experiences: we now know much about psychology and theology, but are destroying our psyches to explain it. Anomalous experiences are a normal part of the human condition and, therefore, part of nature. The truth is that our metaphysics, science, philosophy, and cosmology are incomplete, and so we struggle with the Truth — our truth and objective truth. Anomalology, then, is merely a branch of the study of human nature and, by extension, Nature itself. And the ultimate nature of truth may be that, in spite of our best efforts and intentions, it is not just imperceptible, but unknowable. But we strive for Truth anyway, because that too is natural. That, too, is human. Anomalology --- \ It is a failure of our civilization and culture to dismiss anomalous experiences as mental illness without considering that such experiences may actually be a natural, normal part of the human experience. What if a truly healthy mind is one that can subtly perceive the outer edges of a far greater and not fully comprehensible reality? What if we really don’t know what real is? --- What is Anomalology? Part 1: Defining the Undefinable Part 2: Anomalies and Frames Part 3: Children of the supernormal --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> Part One: Defining the Undefinable

I’m finding the term Anomalology to be very helpful in my research and investigation into anomalous experiences, including my own. Here’s the definition I’ve been working with for several months now:

Anomalology is the careful study of anomalous experience: experiences that resist easy explanation, and the evidence, language, memory, cultural context, and competing interpretations through which they are understood.

I openly admit that my term, definition, and use directly clash with anomalistic psychology, which studies extraordinary and ostensibly paranormal experiences from a non-paranormal explanatory hypothesis. That branch of psychology sees anomalous experiences as the result of any number of psychological phenomena, including social influence, dissociation, memory error, cognitive bias, sleep disorders, acute psychosis, etc. It also lumps personal accounts and testimony of ghosts, alien abductions, psychic experiences, and other uncanny encounters into a single category.

To be clear, I do have my own anomalous experiences, and so I openly admit that I cannot be, and am not, fully objective in my research and investigations into them, including my own. Furthermore, I do not claim to have had or to be having experiences involving ghosts or extraterrestrials. The paranormal and the extraterrestrial, it would seem, are not a part of my psychospiritual repertoire. Instead, my experiences tend to be more uniform in their extracosmic, heterocosmic, and numinous nature. As such, I do not intend to position myself as any kind of expert or guru. I’m merely a witness sharing that which is generally considered taboo to share and, in so doing, finding a new kind of language to express what I know but have been unable to say.

I also do not intend to use the term Anomalology to position “psychosis” and “reality” against “the anomalous” as though they are opposing, mutually exclusive concepts and circumstances. Instead, I take the more stubborn position of positing that an anomalous encounter can occur in a person who is otherwise psychologically healthy*, admitting that some experiences may arise amid psychosis, trauma, substance abuse, and other circumstances, including severe stress. Such scenarios deserve care, protection, and clinical attention. However, an anomalous encounter alone does not necessarily indicate illness. As such, clinical labels and religious interpretations do not automatically identify a clear, fundamental cause for these experiences. Thus, I see these experiences as deserving ethical attention, especially when a clear external or medical cause cannot be confirmed.

I believe the posture and mindset behind Anomalology would better serve, rather than challenge, psychiatry, because the real danger is diagnostic foreclosure, where a person charged with aiding the witness with their anomalous experience ends their inquiry as soon as they can apply a skeptical, diagnostic, or pathological label. Such an approach is more about expediency and personal bias rather than care.

Diagnostic foreclosure then is the premature closing of inquiry in which the clinical or religious designation is not treated as one contextual observation among others, but as a complete explanation that cancels the witness’s testimony, symbolic interpretation, sociocultural context, and unresolved evidentiary questions.

The opposite of Anomalology, if there is one, is not skepticism or empiricism. It is reductive epistemic closure where a very personal disruptive event is explained by renaming or miscategorizing, and thus hijacking. This robs the witness of their autonomy, agency, and especially their dignity.

My choice of Anomalology is not rooted in my desire to name a specific belief or belief system, branch of superstition or theology, or an indiscriminate catalog of miracles or marvels. I have no such desire. My choice is, more properly, centered on the study of regular phenomena commonly regarded as “abnormal” and the systems of meaning built around them, especially where those systems are incongruent with a witness’s testimony and subsequently begin to fail.

Again, I need to be precise with my position and framing. An anomaly is not simply an event that conventional means cannot explain. Most things referred to as inexplicable are merely incomplete as the result of poor or obstructed observation, poor memory, insufficient contextualization, or premature judgment made strange. The anomalous, I would argue, begins elsewhere. It begins where an occurrence remains intelligible in threads and fragments while refusing intelligibility as a whole, where every available conventional category may describe some piece or portion of the event, but fails to describe and explain the entire testimonial.

Of course, this all leads to the central question: What is real?

This is by far the most important question, though it is not the first one we encounter. The first questions are these: What ontology or belief system did the event interrupt? Where did language fail the event? Who assumed and surrendered authority for framing the event, and what was misinterpreted and lost as a result? What did witnesses alter in their memories out of necessity rather than dishonesty because the mind requires a coherent narrative even if it’s an imperfect one?

Such disturbances are the very concern of Anomalology, because they inhabit the very depths of the psyche—the soul—suggesting that such anomalies are a natural part of human existence. A feature interpreted as a flaw.

“The human definition of the natural world is always going to be too small, because the world’s more diverse and complex than we can ever know. We’re not going to comprehend it; it comprehends us. The question is whether we can use it with respect. Some people in the past who knew very little biology were able to use the land without destroying it. We, who know a great deal of biology, are destroying our land in order to use it.” — Wendell Berry

And I think the same can be said for anomalous experiences: we now know much about psychology and theology, but are destroying our psyches to explain it.

Anomalous experiences are a normal part of the human condition and, therefore, part of nature. The truth is that our metaphysics, science, philosophy, and cosmology are incomplete, and so we struggle with the Truth — our truth and objective truth. Anomalology, then, is merely a branch of the study of human nature and, by extension, Nature itself.

And the ultimate nature of truth may be that, in spite of our best efforts and intentions, it is not just imperceptible, but unknowable.

But we strive for Truth anyway, because that too is natural.

That, too, is human.

#Anomalology

* It is a failure of our civilization and culture to dismiss anomalous experiences as mental illness without considering that such experiences may actually be a natural, normal part of the human experience. What if a truly healthy mind is one that can subtly perceive the outer edges of a far greater and not fully comprehensible reality? What if we really don’t know what real is?

What is Anomalology?

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/what-is-anomalology-part-1 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:16:52 +0000 A place I cannot yet go https://nominanumina.com/a-place-i-cannot-yet-go?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[It is an old and almost respectable error to presume that distance is measured in miles. I have no doubt that cartographers have committed this error for centuries. It served them well, I’m sure, because their concern is only with places that agree to be mapped. Where point A and point B can be drawn on paper the same way a box can be drawn to indicate a kitchen table, a bed, or a nation-state. !--more-- But some points innately evade mapping because their geometry exceeds that of things like tables, forests, skyscrapers, and planets. There’s a particular class of place that exists that is altogether different, and whose property it is to share no border with any other place we commonly call a place. None, whatsoever. These places cannot be near or far, since nearness and farness presuppose contiguity, shared relativity, and material coherence in kind. They cannot be near. Nor can they be far. As such, one does not travel to them. One is admitted only at certain times and places. Willingly or not, by virtue of their personal constitution and circumstances alone. It’s a strange sort of proclivity of their doors whose locks demand a very unique, immaterial key. I know of such a place, though it is one of many. I feel I’m obliged to phrase my statements here very carefully, because I did not arrive at it and I have never departed from it, and yet I know it as one knows a childhood bedroom: by the particular way the light falls on a summer’s evening, by the air that holds the smell of the sea and wildflowers in the way of the gentlest lingering aromas that fade but are not forgotten. Any sensible person knows that one cannot remember a place never visited. This is a fact I cannot dispute. I can only report that the memories exist, complete in every detail because they are lived experience; however, I might struggle to point to them in an atlas book or on an astronomical map. Perhaps memory is a composite of experiences both within and without, between and betwixt. Perhaps we remember things on behalf of others. Dearest memories of our dearest others. There are somatic signs. I know them precisely. On an ordinary August evening as the sun lazily creeps behind the western mountains, the room around me falls away. No, that’s not quite right. Rather, it fades like sand in an hourglass, revealing another shared household entirely. The duality defies the clocks on my bedside table, analog and digital. Was it only a few seconds or a few hours? I shut my eyes, hoping to retain the dimming light of that other household’s light for just a moment longer, so that I may imprint it permanently onto my memory, knowing the grief will linger whether I’m successful or not. Grief is the word. It is precise, in the same way one grieves the dead. The etiquette is ancient and generous, with its rituals and ceremonies. For the mourner of a household that sits empty, waiting for its owners to return, in a country absent from any and every known atlas, there are few if any salves for the emptiness that follows. I have looked. That absence is suggestive. A negative is also a datum. Proof that some experiences remain undocumented because a reasonable person decides not to report them. I, however, am predisposed to be less reasonable and so I continue to pen these pages. Other writers long before me have attempted the same. Writings that obliquely touch the corners of my growing pages. Hints of lands undiscovered and filled with visceral detail that defy even the most imaginative of people, and confound the most learned. Most accounts are treated as fiction, but I doubt that is what the authors entirely meant when they scratched ink across the paper in the dead of night with only a dim oil lamp and a handful of brief, uncanny memories to guide their hand. I suppose there’s a sort of solace in that, too. At least, I’d like to think so. Not as a validation or even a kind of consolation. Rather, as an asynchronous companion who says: This is what happened to me. If you’re reading this from wherever and whenever you are, did it happen to you too? Sometimes knowing that certain individuals hold the same address, one that appears on no register, and that neither of them renounces it. The owners hold the deed, and only the house knows their names. Whatever the ontology, and I no longer believe the question will resolve itself, my practice is simple. I wait, however impatiently, since patience assumes a legible schedule, and I lack the access and faculties to read the astronomical geometries that would name the date, time, and place. No, I wait in the manner of a man who keeps a lamp in the window because the lamp is the portion of the nature and substance that belongs to him. Promises can be figurative. Lamps are literal. And mine is lit in the direction of the place I cannot yet go. I suspect there are others like me, scattered across the world and throughout human history, who are also custodians of at least one such place. The distances and coordinates may differ — an ocean, a death, a fenceless border, a wall without beginning or end — but the space of longing is universal, and the Nation of Exiles issues no passports and takes no census. Somewhere, without any material proof of citizenship, we manage to keep a lamp burning. A reminder of a home close and far away, and the warmth and love that waits to rekindle there. #Intermundia #Anomalology --- By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.]]> It is an old and almost respectable error to presume that distance is measured in miles. I have no doubt that cartographers have committed this error for centuries. It served them well, I’m sure, because their concern is only with places that agree to be mapped. Where point A and point B can be drawn on paper the same way a box can be drawn to indicate a kitchen table, a bed, or a nation-state.

But some points innately evade mapping because their geometry exceeds that of things like tables, forests, skyscrapers, and planets. There’s a particular class of place that exists that is altogether different, and whose property it is to share no border with any other place we commonly call a place. None, whatsoever. These places cannot be near or far, since nearness and farness presuppose contiguity, shared relativity, and material coherence in kind. They cannot be near. Nor can they be far. As such, one does not travel to them. One is admitted only at certain times and places. Willingly or not, by virtue of their personal constitution and circumstances alone. It’s a strange sort of proclivity of their doors whose locks demand a very unique, immaterial key.

I know of such a place, though it is one of many. I feel I’m obliged to phrase my statements here very carefully, because I did not arrive at it and I have never departed from it, and yet I know it as one knows a childhood bedroom: by the particular way the light falls on a summer’s evening, by the air that holds the smell of the sea and wildflowers in the way of the gentlest lingering aromas that fade but are not forgotten. Any sensible person knows that one cannot remember a place never visited. This is a fact I cannot dispute. I can only report that the memories exist, complete in every detail because they are lived experience; however, I might struggle to point to them in an atlas book or on an astronomical map. Perhaps memory is a composite of experiences both within and without, between and betwixt. Perhaps we remember things on behalf of others. Dearest memories of our dearest others.

There are somatic signs. I know them precisely. On an ordinary August evening as the sun lazily creeps behind the western mountains, the room around me falls away. No, that’s not quite right. Rather, it fades like sand in an hourglass, revealing another shared household entirely. The duality defies the clocks on my bedside table, analog and digital. Was it only a few seconds or a few hours? I shut my eyes, hoping to retain the dimming light of that other household’s light for just a moment longer, so that I may imprint it permanently onto my memory, knowing the grief will linger whether I’m successful or not.

Grief is the word. It is precise, in the same way one grieves the dead. The etiquette is ancient and generous, with its rituals and ceremonies. For the mourner of a household that sits empty, waiting for its owners to return, in a country absent from any and every known atlas, there are few if any salves for the emptiness that follows. I have looked. That absence is suggestive. A negative is also a datum. Proof that some experiences remain undocumented because a reasonable person decides not to report them. I, however, am predisposed to be less reasonable and so I continue to pen these pages.

Other writers long before me have attempted the same. Writings that obliquely touch the corners of my growing pages. Hints of lands undiscovered and filled with visceral detail that defy even the most imaginative of people, and confound the most learned. Most accounts are treated as fiction, but I doubt that is what the authors entirely meant when they scratched ink across the paper in the dead of night with only a dim oil lamp and a handful of brief, uncanny memories to guide their hand. I suppose there’s a sort of solace in that, too. At least, I’d like to think so. Not as a validation or even a kind of consolation. Rather, as an asynchronous companion who says: This is what happened to me. If you’re reading this from wherever and whenever you are, did it happen to you too?

Sometimes knowing that certain individuals hold the same address, one that appears on no register, and that neither of them renounces it. The owners hold the deed, and only the house knows their names.

Whatever the ontology, and I no longer believe the question will resolve itself, my practice is simple. I wait, however impatiently, since patience assumes a legible schedule, and I lack the access and faculties to read the astronomical geometries that would name the date, time, and place. No, I wait in the manner of a man who keeps a lamp in the window because the lamp is the portion of the nature and substance that belongs to him. Promises can be figurative. Lamps are literal. And mine is lit in the direction of the place I cannot yet go.

I suspect there are others like me, scattered across the world and throughout human history, who are also custodians of at least one such place. The distances and coordinates may differ — an ocean, a death, a fenceless border, a wall without beginning or end — but the space of longing is universal, and the Nation of Exiles issues no passports and takes no census. Somewhere, without any material proof of citizenship, we manage to keep a lamp burning. A reminder of a home close and far away, and the warmth and love that waits to rekindle there.

#Intermundia #Anomalology

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

]]> https://nominanumina.com/a-place-i-cannot-yet-go Wed, 02 Sep 2026 14:04:03 +0000