A multi-level approach to finding explanations

When I am trying to understand certain phenomena and occurrences, my method is to start by considering the most obvious explanations. There is no need to assume occult influences or go into full conspiracy theory mode unless and until it is absolutely necessary!

If all the top-level possibilities I can think of are not relevant, if they are inadequate and insufficient to explain everything, if they are the symptoms as opposed to the cause, then I will move down a level to more subtle possibilities.

If these too do not provide a full and satisfactory explanation, I will go lower still.

For example, if someone acts unprofessionally and out of character and causes a lot of damage to the company they work for, I would first check for such personal factors as illness, money worries, family problems or a drink problem. I would then look at the employer and the job and to see whether they were tired from working very long hours, were living in fear of redundancy or had been promoted beyond their capabilities.

There is a long list of possible reasons for an atypical loss of efficiency to be worked through, and it is very likely that one or more of them would apply. If not, I would remind myself that there are such things as bribery and corruption, threats and intimidation, infiltration and sabotage.

If these possibilities are out of the question, then and only then would I wonder whether there might be an energy vampire or someone with a witch-like personality in the case.

If there were no unconscious malign influences, as a last resort I might go on to think about the deliberate use of evil forces.

So, not only is it a question of finding as many possible explanations as possible, it is also a matter of grouping them into levels and likelihoods and only moving downwards after all possibilities on a particular level have been eliminated.

I would use this approach to determine whether unseen influences were at work in other situations.

For example, if someone habitually gets things at other people’s expense it might be a sign of something suspicious or it might just be chance.

Again, if someone poisons everything they touch and all their enterprises fail, it might just be down to bad luck, incompetence and bad decision making or it might be a result of subtle sabotage or even a curse.

Intuition and experience have their parts to play here. 

It is also important to bear in mind that while some of us live in a world of amazing coincidences, bizarre incidents and unseen influences, most people live in the ordinary world so in their case it is best to start by assuming that the most obvious explanations are the likeliest ones.