Monday Musings
My weekly editorial, interesting thoughts on interesting things.
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Quantum Immortality
Let’s talk about life. And death. And decisions we make that affect both of those seeming extremes. I don’t need to tell anyone that we live in interesting times. Just a few short weeks ago, people were getting ready to fill out their March Madness brackets, or planning a family trip around Spring Break, or even going out to eat at a favorite restaurant. But now, thanks to the coronavirus and social distancing, these mundane, normal activities feel like the ancient past. Not only that, but it’s reasonable to think that everyone who knows someone (or is) immunocompromised has found themselves feeling, well, more mortal than usual. And few things…
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Into the Mystic? My Recent Encounter With Numerology
For someone who is fascinated by all things Fortean, from ghosts to UFOs to psychic phenomena and things that go bump in the night, I’ve had precious few experiences in my own life. Sure, there was the time when some compatriots and I heard something running around a loft when we knew there was no one up there. Or the time when a few of us, driving late at night, saw a weird, unnatural glow emanating from a draw a few miles from the main road. But those are extreme outliers in what has been a mundane life, as least as it pertains to Forteana. About two weeks ago, though,…
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EDITORIAL–The Need for Standardized Data in Paranormal Research
Over the past couple of decades, I’ve noticed a commonality among paranormal researchers. (For today’s purposes, I’ll use the term ‘paranormal’ to mean anything outside of the ordinary, even though the different communities might be at odds with one another. This includes, but is not limited to, the study of ghosts, cryptids of all sorts, UFOs, Ancient Alien theory, abductions, and out-of-place artifacts.) The commonality is a simple one–the odd university department or study notwithstanding, there is no set of agreed-upon data that sets the bar for what is or isn’t acceptable evidence. In other words, one investigator may count an abnormal cry or shriek in the darkened woods as…
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Mandela Effect, Part II–Why Do So Many People Experience It?
Last week, I posted an overview of the Mandela Effect–what it is, and why I think it’s mostly a collective case of faulty memory. While I haven’t completely discounted the idea that the world is changing around us, or that some people flit back and forth between dimensions of the multiverse, I strongly believe that the vast, vast majority of Mandela Effects can be explained by the fact that our memories are not as reliable as we’d like them to be. So, why do people continue to believe? I think there are two main reasons, which I’ll detail here. It’s not just memory that’s subjective, but our perception, as well.…
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Mandela Effect Thoughts, Part 1
Today, I caught myself thinking about the Mandela Effect. For those of you who don’t know, the Mandela Effect occurs when a large minority of people remember something happening in a certain way, only to find it slightly altered (or completely different) in the historical record. It derives its name from Nelson Mandela, who many thought had died in prison, or at least, years before his actual death in 2013. Believers in the theory feel that either the world has changed around them, or that they’ve slipped through to an alternate universe in which things are slightly different. Detractors say that it’s possible to mistakenly remember things on a large…
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Observation and Paranormal Videos
Last night, as is my wont, I spent the last hour or so before bed watching YouTube videos. I often watch a funny take on politics (Seth Meyers or Stephen Colbert), or movies, or unexplained phenomena…ordinary, average stuff. I also like to indulge in channels that post curated ‘ghost videos.’ As most open-minded people do, I look first to debunk for natural causes, then to debunk for potential hoaxing, and if neither of those pan out, I file it away in my mental save file labeled ‘Hmmm’ (filed under ‘I’ for ‘Interesting’). One of my favorite channels for this type of video is Nuke’s Top 5. While his titles are…
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Possession, Part IV: Mediums and Channelers
Before I begin, I want to make clear that, when talking about mediums and channelers in terms of possession, I am not referring to mediums like Edgar Cayce (who retained his own identity, even in trance), or of any of those who claim to speak with the dead (some of whom may actually do so), or any of the cold-reading charlatans who exploit their audiences/victims in return for fame and/or money (you know who they are). I am also not speaking about alien contactees, such as George Adamski or the W56 group, who claimed to meet with physical beings from other worlds to receive their wisdom. No, in this context,…
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Incidental Lovecraft–Finding the Old Ones Where You Least Expect It
Some of you may recall the animated version of DC Comics’ Justice League which ran in the early 2000s. It was a semi-staple of Cartoon Network’s programming, but never truly had a home, being shuffled around from time slot to time slot, but eventually becoming a true classic of animated television. It’s important to note that, while it’s most fondly remembered by long-time comics fans, the series was rated Y7 in the US. For those unfamiliar with American TV ratings, ‘Y7’ simply meant that guns fired bolts of light instead of bullets, and blood was rarely if ever shown. Other than that, on Justice League, it seemed that pretty much…
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Down the Rabbit Hole, or Why There’s No New Possession Column Today
Over the past few days, I started my research on what was to be the next installment in my series on possession. Specifically, I began researching two categories of modern ‘benign possession’, that are accepted by many in the western world. I was looking into spiritualist mediumship (which I already know a few things about), and alien contactee channeling. It was when I began gathering materials for alien contactees who channel one or more aliens that I fell down the rabbit hole. Here was Ashtar, and Seth, and the Galactic Federation of Light, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s a tangled web, one that I need to untangle…
