‘Read with an open mind and let in the wonder of life’
Ask five people what they think of the paranormal and you will get five different answers. Sri Lankans grow up hearing stories of famous ghosts such as ‘Mahasona’ or ‘Mohini’ and these have coloured our opinions of ghosts.
Not so Bernie Hay. She has had experiences of the paranormal since the age of around three – long before she had even heard of ghosts.
Bernie Hay released her book, ‘The Mysterious, The Mystical and the Unexplained’ earlier this month, and has been interested in paranormal activity ever since she came across the term at the age of 15.
Having lived with her grandparents until the age of six at a tea estate named ‘Mausakanda’ her experiences there she considered commonplace until she learnt otherwise.
‘From the time I realized I could write a little bit, it’s about the paranormal that I wanted to write’ she says.
Her two previous books ‘Love, Learning and Laughter’ and ‘Lives That Touched My Own’ chronicles her experiences as a schoolgirl while the second explores the various personalities who have influenced her life.
She has also published three books of short stories to date.
With a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Ceylon (Peradeniya), a Postgraduate Diploma in Ed. T.E.S.L at the University of Colombo and a Master of Philosophy in Ed. Linguistics at the University of Colombo, she taught English language and literature at Ave Maria Convent, Negombo and became a lecturer in linguistics and English teaching methodology in the University of Colombo.
A stint in Oman teaching English as a foreign language (T.E.F.L) followed and then she returned to Sri Lanka and wrote two books on Professional English for the Open University.
She has also compiled a radio course in Basic English Literature for the British Council and the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.
The free time she had following an operation saw her finally write out her experiences with the paranormal. She converted the ‘scribbles’ which she had of the various accounts into this book of short stories titled ‘The Mysterious, The Mystical and the Unexplained’.
The book documents her experiences of the paranormal both first hand and second hand (as experiences related to her by family members and two friends).
Interestingly, she has also included unexplained animal behaviour and coincidences – which she feels are quite remarkable although they are brushed aside by most people.
‘Most people have experienced coincidences but they don’t realize that they are coincidences’ she says and feels that coincidences are ‘acausal and beyond the barriers of space and time’.
The stories have been documented as they were and the author hopes that readers ‘have an open mind and let wonder into their lives’ after reading her stories because ‘that way lies a lot of adventure and a different slant of life’.
She also hopes that they realize ‘that there just might be beyond this something wonderful and mysterious of which we get occasional rare glimpses’ although she doesn’t want to force her beliefs on anyone.
The fact that people don’t bring up experiences that they have had for fear of being ridiculed and the way in which the stories come pouring out once people know that there is an audience are two things which she has noticed many a time she says.
The Sinhala word for ghost, ‘holman’, which combines the two words ‘helavena’(shaking) and ‘manasa’ (mind) proves this very fact because it implies that ghosts are merely the objects of a disturbed mind.
Her personal opinion of ghosts she feels is best explained through the explanation given by a friend: ‘when we die there are different dimensions’ and ‘people who die are vibrating at a certain level and we can’t see them’.
At a certain level psychics can sense them and they travel from dimension to dimension before reaching their final resting place and there are probably different laws which have to be followed in each dimension, she says.
The story of her friend, Mr. Samarasingham’s experience with his mother’s ghost is also given in the book and is one of two stories that aren’t accounts of what happened to her and her family.
She also states very definitively that she has never felt afraid of ghosts because she has never had any negative experiences.
Of the thousands of stories she has experienced, heard of or read about, very few have been negative accounts, she stresses, adding that in her view the mass hysteria surrounding ghosts and the paranormal is due to a biased focus on ‘ghost stories’.
Another aspect to consider the next time you hear or relate the story of ghosts such as Mahasona and Mohini…