Here is an interesting bit of etymology for those who care to know THE TRUTH! (Sorry, just can't resist those CAPS any more! It's now going to be MY TYPING STYLE here.)
Anyway, according to a mainstream publication known as The Oxford English Dictionary, the word "re-lig-ion" has two competing etymologies.
Most people tend to think of the "lig" in "re-lig-ion" as being the same as in "ligature," or "ligament." In other words, a thing that ties things together, a way of tying it all up together. This is one of the possibilities given by the OED, and traced with care and aplomb by its contributors, many of whom may have been shape-shifting lizards for all we know.
The other possible meaning, etymologically speaking, is one given by Cicero. "Relegere," meaning "to read over and over again."
I put this moment here for the purpose of introducing something I think is sorely missing from this board's discussions: the possibility of multiple meanings OPERATING SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!!! (Ooops, there go those caps again. Oh Well.)
It is my contention that the act of reading is a profoundly "religious" experience, but that a simultaneous "tying together" and "rereading" is what must take place in order for "reading" in its best sense to happen. Moving the eyes left to right and down the page is not enough, especially if it merely serves to confirm your own a priori sense of what the text has to offer. The reader must open himself to change, especially if the text is compelling enough to cause that change.
But the poltergeist is stuck in his thinking. He makes noise, but can only read according to his religion, and his religion is defined in the first way given above. It ties all things together into a cohesive whole that makes the poltergeist feel that he knows something. Re-reading, for the poltergeist, would be ridiculous.
After all, the poltergeist already knows all that he needs to know; he apprehends all that he needs to apprehend. The rest of the poltergeist life is just a matter of gathering further "evidence," which can always be had from any text. Armed with a theory, anyone can find endless evidence in support of that theory, if only he chooses to do so.
Doubting the poltergeist means either a) subjecting yourself to bedpost-knockings and thrown vases without end, or b) being quiet & hoping he will go away, having proven himself lord of the area.
It is my profound hope that any poltergeists among us may learn to re-read, by which I mean, to doubt. I hope that any and all poltergeists learn the art of healthful doubting, since in human affairs, by far it is certainty that imperils us most of the time.
And re-reading is best done with hands on a book, far from any clattering keyboard.
Herring405
PS: Happy New Year
