In English I am a rabid atheist. I frankly don’t believe in the paranormal when it is told in the English language even though my mexican culture is filled with it, however, told in Spanish, I am more prone to believe it.

The belief systems are of another kind in these languages. The belief system in Spanish has an aura like attitude towards it. Usually what happens is that when you hear a story about a paranormal event in Spanish it happens through a medium that has been used through centuries in our culture: oral narration. This puts you face to face with the narrator and hence, I believe the belief trigger is more apt to accept said events ’as probable’. ( notice that even as a write this in English my attitude is one of resistance) In English, it usually doesn’t happen that people tell each other those kind of stories, face to face, unless you are at campfire and even there it occurs collectively. It so happens that when one does come across those paranormal stories they tend to occur in the third person and distant from one, prepackaged in nice little news bits and therefore more liable to be questionable.

For those of you who are monolinguals this would seem quite odd indeed, because it raises several questions no doubt but most importantly, what does this fragment say about language, belief, and how the brain works?

First of all, how is it possible to believe in paranormal activity in one language but no the other? Alas! The human constitution is not as stable as one might possibly think, just as the planet with its seemingly stable and daily routine gives us the impression that everything remains the like forever so does the body. The truth is that the planet can go haywire any minute of our lives, the poles can change, and earthquakes can hit us and change the course of our lives in just a second. The body with its many liquids and chemicals are like the ocean under the influence of the moon, except that in our case every other human being we meet are each one of those like a moon rotating around us and under the pull of our gravity.

This can most easily be proven if you are abroad, regardless of the country that you are from the minute you leave it one amazing thing begins to happen: you begin to see and recognize your own kind. It is a feat that it is nearly dormant and occurs only every now and then in your place of birth, you can tell when someone is a foreigner. Abroad this sort of recognition radar has a mystical aura to it. I believe that establishes how the body is not as consistent as it might seem although language might give the illusion that things are firm, monolinguals seem more prone to stick to one sort of belief in practice, they might read about others but not incorporate it.

The curios thing about languages is that there are image carriers and therefore agents of change. When a bilingual is raised its not only passively taking in words and an accent free language, it is also taking in adaptation methods to deal with the many contrast that exist between cultures, for example, I carry the Mexican and American culture within and they are deeply rooted in my soul. This has produced a middle ground in me that it is referred to by many as Chicanismo. The thing is that the human soul cannot exist too long in caos and a sense of normalcy must abide every now and then therefore the culture clash that every Chicano/Chicana experiences is felt to be safer blending these two cultures to form one. Chicanos are most readily able to accept change and adaptation because that is their life training, finding the middle ground. Experience dictates as well how one is to react with the other, mores are like etiquette books for us, that is why we can change culture norms in the snap of a finger, or as linguists prefer to call it: code-switch. It is hence, possible for me to believe that in Spanish, which has a long history of telling paranormal stories to its children ( la llorana for example) to believe that this sort of thing happens since one is inculcated into it. On the other hand fairy tales and santa claus are disseminated and dissected for their belief as early as 7 years of age, we are trained in English to start questioning those stories and argue vehemently that they are not “real”. A factor I believe has more to do with evangelists fervent impulse and influence on American society to root out all evil in all aspects of society.

What it says about the brain is that the brain is elastic and gooey-like and thus able to function within several or more ways of dealing with life and its myriad manifestations so-called cultures. The brain then is independent from culture and thus more universal than one can imagine, the brain is not the property of any one society; how we incultate the brain manifests itself in the way we react and respond to each other. The brain is religions worst enemy, one would safely conclude since it can betray faith in all manners, perhaps that is why many revolt at the very idea of changing religions, it sickens them not because they abandoned their faith but because they too can fall prey to the brains brainy ideas of independence from the yoke of unilateralism.