Sean:
“You know that story about the mother who lifts a car off her child?”

Eljara:
“Which mother?”

Sean stopped.

Sean:
“The mother.”

Eljara:
“Name?”

Silence.

Eljara:
“Verified weight?”

More silence.

Eljara:
“Contemporary report?”

Sean sighed.

Sean:
“You’ve ruined a perfectly good story.”

Eljara:
“No. I stopped you using a bad one to explain something real.”

She pushed another file towards him.

Eljara:
“Steven Callahan. 1982. His boat sank in the Atlantic.”

Sean:
“How long?”

Eljara:
“Seventy-six days alone in a life raft.”

Sean looked at the page.

Sean:
“That’s real?”

Eljara:
“Very.”

No superpowers.

No miracle required.

Skill. Improvisation. Luck. Hunger. Thirst. Pain.

And something considerably harder to measure:

the refusal to stop.

Sean looked at the other files.

Prayer. Meditation. Trance. Dreams. Extraordinary endurance. Reports of people somehow knowing when someone they loved was in danger.

Sean:
“Physiology?”

Eljara:
“Sometimes.”

Sean:
“Psychology?”

“Sometimes.”

Sean:
“Coincidence?”

“Sometimes.”

Sean:
“Religion?”

“For some people.”

Sean:
“And the rest?”

Eljara shrugged.

Eljara:
“We don’t know.”

Sean smiled.

Sean:
“People bloody hate that answer.”

Eljara:
“Believers want yes. Sceptics want no.”

Sean:
“And science?”

Eljara looked at him.

Eljara:
“Should let the question live until the evidence answers it.”

Sean glanced across the table.

Different countries.

Different religions.

Different politics.

Different centuries.

The same stubborn human search.

Sean:
“So this isn’t East against West?”

Eljara:
“No.”

Sean:
“Left against right?”

“No.”

Sean:
“Ancient against modern?”

She shook her head.

Sean:
“Then what the hell is it?”

Eljara smiled.

Eljara:
“Human.”

AND WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?

Are our extraordinary moments simply the human body and mind reaching further than they usually need to?

Are strange moments of connection coincidence and memory?

Are spiritual practices different cultural languages for human capacities we are still trying to understand?

Or are there questions for which we simply don’t have the right tools yet?

Tell us what you think in the comments.

Bring evidence. Bring scepticism. Bring belief. Bring the experience you’ve never quite managed to explain.

Disagreement is welcome.

Spam, trolling and personal attacks aren’t.

Nobody has to believe your answer.

But leave enough room at the fire for them to hear it.

Explore the research behind Mythveil Chronicles

https://www.patreon.com/c/mythveilchronicles_bydunchanhuntergames