"What happens in a culture is partly dependent on what the collective consciousness of the culture allows"

Carlos "Eire’s [weird and wonderful] book [They Flew: A History of the Impossible] raises the question of a culture’s epistemic reality and whether that affects the kinds of events that can occur. . . . What happens in a culture is partly dependent on what the collective consciousness of the culture allows. This has nothing to do with the truth of the events; it involves the specific form the miracles took. St. Joseph [of Cupertino] levitated because this was an act expected of the holiest friars and nuns—the physical expression of metaphysical experience, the raptured body suspended between gravity and grace."

     Christian Wiman, "The tune of things:  Is consciousness God?," Harper's magazine (December 2025).