Close Encounters of the Third Kind: National biographer highlights stories of the paranormal

As Halloween nears, the public starts to reminisce on stories of when the the veil in thinned between the physical world and the paranormal. We’ve grown up hearing stories of ghosts, aliens and creatures too strange to be explained – yet, how much truth is there to these tales? Often dismissed as pure fiction or a product of paranoid delusion, stories of encounters with the other side always bring out a primal reaction in us – whether it be anxiety on what’s lying on the other side or pure fascination of the possibility of another kind existing. StoryTerrace, the nation’s largest biography writing service, recently conducted a social survey on how often we activate our sixth sense and found that 17% of Brits have experienced multiple spiritual or paranormal encounters. Yet – these encounters are not limited to bumps in the night – but can actually change the trajectory of our lives.

Spirituality can extend past religion – which is often a divisive yet integral part of many people’s daily lives. Research from YouGov states that 6-in-10 Britons believe in a God or “higher power” – meaning that even though Britain is not the most religious of countries, many Brits still subscribe to a higher power of some sorts – with 25% of Brits stating that their spiritual orientation has had one of the largest impacts on their life story to date. And whilst stories of spiritual encounters or awakenings seem like juggernauts, they are actually more common than one would expect – 17% of Brits have had a spiritual awakening which has transformed the way they view the world.

National biographer, StoryTerrace, reflects on the transformative effect that these stranger-than-fiction events can have on us – we have a host of case studies of people who have gone through spiritual encounters or awakening that have left them with a new lease on life.

Rutger Bruining, founder of StoryTerrace, discusses the importance of coming to terms with events that are stranger-than-fiction

“Oftentimes we experience things in our lives that shake us to our core. The process of remembering events that are stranger-than-fiction becomes difficult – we start to question our own sanity. Many of the stories of paranormal activity that have come through the service have left our clients shaking, yet it is important to share these stories to realise how normal they can be.

“The process of memoir writing is a good way to begin the process of coming to terms with these juggernaut events that happen to us. We often think of ghost stories as fiction, but our research states that they can be very real – and I find it incredibly inspiring to see on a daily basis at StoryTerrace the amount of people that choose to share their most intimate struggles, often purely with the goal in mind of providing hope for others going through a similar situation.”