Dwight Longenecker
Whether they be fairies, gnomes, cryptids, aliens, or elves, what are these creatures about which man has written for centuries? C.S. Lewis explained that the medieval mind understood them to be inhabitants of a kind of middle realm between the physical and the spiritual regions. But is this “Middle Earth” real?
No matter our chosen belief system—our current metaphysical understanding remains deeply Platonic and binary: There are a physical, material realm, and a spiritual, invisible realm—the realm of the ideal forms. For those with a religious worldview, this is not a problem. Indeed, the concept of one realm that is physical/material here and now, in opposition to a realm that is otherworldly/spiritual there and then, even determines the materialist mindset inasmuch as it provides a rock to kick against—a model to deny and a cosmology to resist.
In one way or other the religious person understands that his religion provides the method that allows the interpenetration of the two realms. Through ritual, magic, faith, sacraments—what have you—he hopes to move from the physical to the spiritual, or prays for the spiritual, transcendent powers to invade or infuse the physical.
The materialist rejects such possibilities, but even in his atheistic materialism he gives a nod to the binary metaphysic. By denying the reality of the transcendent realm he affirms the power of the Platonic, binary model.
Both sides—the materialist and the religious—are faced with a challenge when they must account for those human experiences categorized as paranormal or supernatural. It is worth taking a breath here to distinguish between the paranormal and the supernatural. Often used interchangeably, for students of the subject the terms are not synonymous. A “paranormal” experience is just that: an experience that is outside normal human experiences and understandings. It is an unexplained phenomenon which may or may not be supernatural. » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/02/towards-middle-earth-metaphysical-dwight-longenecker.html