Peter Engelmann, March 30, 2025
There are many stories of people who went missing in the forest, got lost, and found themselves in another plane of reality. Sometimes they return and report missing time. Either the episode lasted only for a short time but it felt an eternity for them or vice versa they think they went astray for a short period of clock time but when they return years have passed as in the famous Rip van Winkle story.
One might think this is a popular motive in myth, fantasy, and folklore. However, the majority of these stories are witness accounts or visionary experiences. We heard from alien abductions, missing time, out-of-body experiences, and otherworldly journeys. Wanderers in the forest got abducted by fairies and if they survived that adventure they were changed forever. Their soul underwent a transformation process. In some cases, the person seemed to be away for a long time or it seems like something of this person never returned from the otherworld. Is the soul still in the otherworld? And is it possible that we can be in two places at the same time?
The Fundamental Problem At The Core
“It’s concrete but not literal. It’s material but not literal” (as Patrick Harpur says in the interview mentioned below). This is often the conclusion when we read these strange accounts. This leads to frustration. We can only grasp the glimpses because it is not thinkable to us. This goes way back to the Bible, where a potential out-of-body experience is described: “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such a one caught up to the third heaven… How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.” (2 Corinthians 12)
“whether in the body, I cannot; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell”. This matter pops up again and again: Fairies seem material but not literal, an abduction seems real but not literal, and supernatural phenomena seem material but not concrete. The problem was excellently captured in a discussion between Patrick Harpur and Alex Gómez-Marin in The Future Mind – A Conversation with Partick Harpur and Alex Gomez-Marin (Pari Center)
At the core of the problem lies that literalism makes it impossible for us to see the real picture. It’s in a way also what William Blake meant by “Newton’s sleep”. But it is not only a paradox for scientists. It challenges our minds since we need imagination. Imagination is according to Harpur and also to Blake the deeper ground of reality. It opens up different concepts of reality. But for regular people, even open-minded people this is not easy to grasp.
So are there workarounds?
Of course, literature. Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and H.P. Lovecraft can bring us to a state where we are ready to accept “different concepts of reality”. We might think of film. And this is where things get interesting. If we take a closer look at the horror and supernatural-thriller genre we see how strong it is bound to literalism. Especially commercial productions don’t allow much ambiguity. The established conventions of storytelling demand clear resolutions. And if it is a ghost or a demon it is often just one other plane of reality which is pretty similar to our everyday reality. This is not the real otherworld. However, there are big exceptions. David Lynch’s Twin Peaks series can only be understood where reality is imagination. There is no simple duality here. Persons can coexist on different levels. It only makes sense if we accept that our everyday reality is only a veil for a deeper more complex reality.
This brings us back to the question:
Is it possible that we are at two places at the same time? Can the body return and the soul trapped somewhere else?
Well, we might not find a proper answer to that after what has been said above. The way is to develop what William Blake called Double Vision: It refers to his ability to see beyond the physical, material world and perceive a deeper, spiritual reality. “Double vision,” for Blake, involves seeing both the physical and the spiritual simultaneously. So, a deeper reality is behind the ordinary reality, and through imagination, we can achieve again a sense of this deeper reality.
The problem is that as modern people, we might grasp the idea, but it’s nearly impossible to overcome the traditional mindset, seeing the material world as real and the other as a made-up fantasy. Certain stages of the mind are needed to overcome these mindsets. The goal is to experience the world more like in a dream. For most of us, the best option will be to catch a sudden and short glimpse into this deeper reality. It’s like seeing something out of the corner of the eye.
Back to the question, another important aspect is the old mythical idea of the human being itself as a double being. Harpur says we are physical beings and also souls. This is a necessary precondition for any further thoughts. If we accept this double nature the world itself is double. The problem with modern people is that we have lost this tradition of thinking, but we say that “we can lose our souls”.
Myth and folklore tell us that we can indeed lose our souls. The Nordic ballad of Sir Olof and the Elves might be an example of loss of soul: When Olof rides through the forest and refuses to dance with the elves because he marries the next day he returns home but dies after illness shortly afterward. Maybe the elves have taken his soul. In modern times we often hear about people who are ill or not any longer themselves after a supernatural encounter. On the other side, there are visionary experiences or even near-death experiences when people feel stronger after such an event. Perhaps it works both ways, you can lose your soul but there can be also a new connection with something that was lost and got retrieved. But how to imagine this?
The Cooper Story in Twin Peaks is an example.
In the legendary TWIN PEAKS, the main character Agent Dale Cooper gets trapped in the Black Lodge which is kind of an intermediate realm in the otherworld where dark energies are concentrated. He got trapped there for 25 years. Later in The Return different emanations of Cooper appear in the ordinary world, one of them the evil Cooper, and another one is the Tulpa which is more of a comedic character. And there is the real Cooper. How come we accept this? Of course, it needs an artistic mastermind like David Lynch, who sadly died recently, and his excellent writer Mark Frost. It needs an artistic view of reality which reintroduces imagination. Indeed the fascinating universe and heightened reality in TWIN PEAKS resonates with us. It’s like remembering something that was forgotten.
Does it only work in the Twin Peaks Universe?
TV-Series and movies create their own world where certain rules apply which are different than in our ordinary world. We accept it because it is fiction. STRANGER THINGS is another good example where the soul of somebody can be trapped in the UPSIDE DOWN whereas the body is in another place.
At the end of STRANGER THINGS, Season 4, Volume 2, Max dies but Eleven can bring her back to life. However, her soul had been absorbed into Vecna’s consciousness. While Eleven brought her body back to life, she was trapped in Vecna’s hive mind. Again it works because the concept is familiar, going back to Greek myth.
Stranger Things is in a way more conventional as mostly expands the ordinary world. There is no better or worse here but oddly the Twin Peaks approach feels a bit more real, it is even in its high strangeness something somehow feels like a possibility that this could be real. And there are models of reality which enable such possibilities. The Tibetian Concept of the World with its BARDO as the deeper realm for example offers a possibility where a story that seems to be grounded in fiction can achieve a real foundation: https://www.theforestdark.com/wordpress/waiting-rooms-in-the-other-world-black-and-white-lodges-bardo-and-umbral-shadow-worlds/
If we stick to these deeper foundations of reality the possibilities of souls trapped in the otherworld whereas the person might be physically here or in another place become acceptable.
