Saturday 24 March 2012

'Seeing' is believing??

O – Oracle

My dictionary defines an oracle as a divine utterance or a prophecy. It also says that it can be a word used to describe a person who has special powers to see into the future.
Certainly a great word to use if you write supernatural thrillers like myself. It always fascinates me where special (often supernatural) powers come from. People think they are quite modern words, in that supernatural tales of ‘derring do’ seem to be a recent phenomenon but, as any student of the classics will say, soothsayers (oracles) prophets and seers appeared in the tales of the most ancient of story tellers.
However, I do think you can only use something like this if the tone of the story is already set to be something out of the ordinary i.e. paranormal or supernatural elements. Otheriwse it would simply look totally contrived if a chacracter could suddenly 'see' the future.
I used the motif myself in my book ‘The Witcheye Gene’ where my heroine had the ability to ‘see’ things ordinary mortals could not see. And who is to say these people do not have that ability? I think that many of us have some small measure of extra ability that we do not always recognise. I often know when the phone will ring and know who it is… Is that second sight or just a lucky guess?
One thing I do know – there are stranger things in heaven and earth than we mere mortals are aware of…
Do you think extraordinary powers truly exist? Or do they have a logical explanation?

10 comments:

  1. Hey Pat,

    I believe that now everything has a logical explanation and, therefore, believe in extraordinary powers. I don't have any though. :)

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  2. Hi Pat,

    Thanks for the follow. My mind is completely open to pretty much anything - and therefore my writing is too. It confuses people though, because I write contemporary fiction and every so often just throw in some oddity. The girl who ended up in two different places at the same time really messed with one competition reader's head!

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  3. I think some things defy explanation. That won't stop 'sensible' people coming up with one though :-)

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  4. Although I can't tell the future, I can see ghosts (on occasion). I'd rather be able to tell the future. :)

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  5. I keep an open mind. After all, in the past they believed they had the answers: the earth was obviously flat; the sun went round it, and our bodies were governed by four humours ... etc, etc. Who's to know what nonsense our contemporary science will look like when it's looked back on from the future?

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  6. The mind is an amazing thing. I've experienced some crazy stuff so I do believe in second sight. I also believe there is a certain danger that comes with it. Because it is such an extraordinary thing, it could make a person obsess about it, search for it, and stop living in the present. (It is cool though)

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  7. Tough question! I don't know... I think some people are more in tune with certain things than others. There might be an explanation and we just don't know what it is yet.

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  8. Hey Pat, you've been tagged! Please come over and visit my blog. Thank you :-)

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  9. Thanks so much for all the great comments! Totally appreciated...

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