All through my childhood, teenage years, and much of my adulthood, I believed in everything. I don't mean I was particularly gullible, although by others' standards I may have been - I don't know. But I just hadn't learned to think critically or skeptically about anything, nor did I have even the rudimentary scientific education necessary to understand how nature actually worked.

There was the usual Xian stuff about God and Jesus, of course, but I also believed in a host of other things that I had heard of and just assumed must in some way be true - or at least possible.

Santa Claus and the reindeer: After all, even the weatherman on TV showed his progress on the radar. One Xmas eve, I even heard jingle bells outside and made myself go to sleep quick so he'd come to my house. One year, I tried to stay up to catch him. I eventually got miserably tired and went back to bed. I have no memory of finally finding out it was all a big fantasy.

The Borrowers: after seeing the movie on TV (I think), I seriously believed there were tiny people and I'd be able to find them and help them by leaving them things. I made furniture out of spools and cardboard and set my creations out in the barn for them. My mother tried to tell me the Borrowers weren't real, but I didn't believe her. Of course, the stuff was always still there when I checked and eventually I gave up.

ESP: even my parents gave serious credit to this one. My father once had me 'read his mind' to know what time it was. I guessed pretty close and this was confirmation that it worked.

Astrology: I'm a Gemini on the Taurus cusp. For years through my teens and twenties, I would buy those little magazines that told my day-by-day forecast. I even bought a 'special report' one time, personalized for me. I have a tattoo of the Gemini symbol on my arm.

I once asked my father-in-law, a Methodist minister, who coincidentally had the same birthday as I did, whether he really thought astrology worked. He said he did. He also used special oils to bring luck, success, and money. Alas, however, he died poor.

Demons and demonic possession, Satan, guardian angels, the forthcoming rapture, ghosts, mind-reading, remote seeing and astral projection, telekinesis, elves, leprechauns, gnomes, extraterrestrials and UFOs, werewolves, vampires, witches, zombies, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster.... you name it, if I didn't actively believe in it, I at least thought it must be possible and we just hadn't found concrete evidence yet. Anything weird, spooky, paranormal, I found it all endlessly fascinating.

I still do, to some extent. I enjoy reading about strange happenings and weird creatures, and I still enjoy horror movies (though not as much as I once did, and they no longer scare me much at all - in fact, now I prefer the old cheesy B-horror movies).

But from about the time I was 30 years old and I finished my first college degree and had the time, money, and access to books and education, I began studying what was real and what wasn't about these things. I wasn't trying to disillusion myself. I was trying to learn about them. About how they worked. I wanted to know more.

And slowly, the scales were removed my eyes.