Fortean Mysteries SIG      recent history        issue 63         Newsletter of the Fortean Mysteries SIG of American Mensa          
  only 200,000 millicents per 3 issues     Published irregularly since Undecember 1658 AC
 "All things are possible ..." (Mt 19:26)

SYNCHROS
 by Dale Tripp
  For the past 30 years or so I have been aware of incidents of hundreds of incidents of personal synchronicities, which nobody I have discussed it with seems to have experienced.
  They usually consist of a word spoken by the background radio or T.V. or public address system, although it may also be from a street sign while I'm driving by. These words coincide in time exactly with the same word being read in a book or paper in hand, or being spoken in conversation between me and my son.
  I can discern no particular pattern other than they may occur several times in
one day and then might cease for several months. Of course, that may not be a pattern at all.
  I distinguish between these apparent "unattached" or free-floating phenomena, and those so-called coincidences or assistances which are the result of are possible." personal mental demands on the natural system in which we live and
are in co-operation with.
  The only similarity that I see between these "unattached" synchronicities and any
other existing fact of life is that they vaguely remind me of the action of a radio
scanner.
  An example, which did not involve conversation, was when I was driving down a street in San Carlos and noticed the name"Cushman" on the back of a 3-wheeled
motorcycle. This was at the exact moment that the newscast on the car radio was telling of the action of a General Cushman in Washington D.C.
  Another example, not involving conversation, was when I drove by the San Jos‚ airporton the way home from work. I had been watching a pilot of a small plane
practice touch-and-go landings and takeoffs. The car radio was babbling about a
football game. At the exact moment the little plane came down to contact the ground, the radio announcer exclaimed, "Touchdown!"
  This one at the airport struck me as being funny, but ordinarily I can make
no sense of any of them; I see no negative or positive aspects to them. If the scanner similarly were pursued, it might imply that human activities in one
sphere are being compared for similarities (parallels?) in another sphere -- not only
compared, but, for reasons not clear, being exposed to the causal observer's
attention.
  The two examples I've given may be in a different category from the word
synchronicities because of the lack of personal involvement, maybe. In any case, the
mathematics are too outrageous for simple accidental coincidence.
  Granted, the science of physics is now saying that which some religions have long
claimed, i.e., everything is inter-connected via the wormholes of space. But that doesn't help much, except to urge my ego to quit the foot dragging enough to let
me, the logical terminal, plug into the mainframe, sit back, and watch.

[Raymond J. Nogar calls synchros "local theophany", the manifestation of God.
Jung wrote "experimenting with synchronicity seems to be impossible under
ordinary conditions."
  Ira Progoff in Jung: Synchronicity and Human Destiny described this phenomenon, the ordering of an event in the cosmos and awareness of the event in the psyche, as
occuring in the region of constellated archetypes and dependent on the attitude, enthusiasm and expectant faith of the observer, so some variables have been identified and Barbara Jordison practised reading with the radio on and noted an average 1342 synchros/hr.
  In The World's Most Incredible Stories, The Best of Fortean Times are given the examples of name synchros.
 On the same day in April, 1973, two Patricia Ann Tranters of Ketley, Shropshire,
gave birth in the same hospital, one 30 and one 24.
 John Seaman and John Seamann were born on the same day in the same city and given the same social security number.
 On August 11, 1984 at St. Michael's and All Angels, Tettenhall, Shropshire,  Karen Dawn  Southwick, 22, daughter of Alfred G. was married twice, one the daughter of Alfred George and one of Alfred Gordon.
  In Feb. 1985 Peter Bacon of Eyam, Derbyshire, crashed into the car driven by
 Peter Bacon of N. Anston, Sheffield.
  In May, 1985, John Stott's car crash was witnessed by non-relation Bernard Stott, investigated by WPC Tina Stott and reported to desk sergeant Walter Stott.]

  DREAMING DETECTIVE
  Sherlock Holmes in The Dreaming Detective by Ralph E. Vaughan includes the 45-page story in the title plus the 12-page sequel, "The Adventure of the Laughing Beast", both combining Sherlock Holmes, the mysterious Nikolai Tesla and H. P.
Lovecraft's Dreamworld. It was therefore of interest to us as the Fortean Mysteries. Mythopoeic and the Holmesian Studies SIGs.
  It answers such diverse questions as "Why was the Pentagon built  as five concentric pentagons?", "Why did Col. Sebastian Moran use an airgun?", "What were the Hairy Howlers sighted in the American Northwest in 1942?", "What happened in Colorado Springs July 3, 1899?", "Why did Hitler take drugs?"
"How did Tesla really die?", "Why didn't Moriarty die in his fall in 1891?"
  It even refers to the "woods where the barriers between the universes were thin"
ala The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis.

  Carl Sagan in The Demon-Haunted World writes "The style-setting series 'In Search Of...' begins with a disclaimer disavowing any responsibility to present a balanced view of the subject." and "The same is true of 'Sightings' and 'Unsolved Mysteries' ... and innumerable clones."
 STRANGE UNIVERSE
   One of the greatest things to happen in fortean news is the new daily news program, "Strange Universe" on UPN. Some of the news stories are more of the
bizarre human behavior type, Ripleyesque, (nude neopaganists, 297 link hands in skydive, 132-ton tomato fight, skull and bones shop; but many are quite fortean.
 Here's a sampling of their "unexplained and unusual news and phenomena and events
from the world andbeyond":
BOOKS:
The Celestine Prophesy written in Peru, Sedona and the Birmingham Wafflehouse;
 Prayer Is Good Medicine by Larry Dosse;
Beyond The Highgate Vampire by David Farrant;
Mindtrek by Project Stargate remote viewer McMoneagle;
Taken by abductee Kathy Turner;
Lost Was The Key by abductee Leah Healy;
Secret Life by David Jacobs ("very, very disturbing")
A True Story by Whitney Schriber
CREATURES: Bigfoot prints in Antinito, CA;
Sunset Sam the dolphin's painting sells for $1000;
GHOSTS: Grey Man warned Eileen Weaver of hurricane Hugo;
St. Paul City Hall ghosts;
HISTORY: the spear of destiny which blessed Constantine, later
Roman emperors and the Hapsburgs coveted by Hitler since the age of 16;
alien spaceport at Jerusalem according to Zecharia Sitchin;
first Free Tramp symposium, Argentina
RELIGION: Santeria animal sacrifices;
Jo Rei (transfering healing energy through a channeler);
Angelito non-decaying infant's shrine, Villa Union, Argentina;
crosses appeared in windows of Joanne Noreaga's home, Montclair, CA on feast
of Immaculate Conception;
Audrey Santo since a visit to Medgagorje still comatose but a healer
TECHNOLOGY: reverse speech technology by David Oates (O.J. Simpson's "I skinned 'em all."or Bob Dole's "Dis guy's off his head." which might also be "Disguise office head.");
mummification by Some Mum for only $24000;
timetravel from Philadelphia Experiment 1943 to Lake Meed 1983;
finger interlock procedure for warding off psychic vampires according to Dr. Joseph Slate, founder of International Parapsychology Research Institute; Canadian special effects team on low budget duplicates controversial Alien
Autopsy video;
Hiro Miatu the crawling robot;
Andy Lopez's talk-to-the-animals Natural Pest Control
UFOs: Mexico City flap;
crop circle formation near Stonehenge;
UFO Museum and Research Center, Roxwell, NM;
Peter Davenport's National UFO Report Center on internet     

POLTERGEIST: THE LEGACY
  Not based upon the movie, "Poltergeist", fortunately this new series comes on after and comes from the same people as the new "Outer Limits". It deals with the Luna Foundation, a front organization for the heirs to a 3000-year-old legacy of fighting evil spirits.
 They've helped a little boy ghost who lost his bedroom, a playboy who inherited a
succubus, the owner of the fifth Druid box, an old woman mysteriously rejuvinated by a third ovary, nerd dabblers in magic that get more than they sought.

PSI FACTOR
  This new show that looks like the one proposed by Sagan "in which paranormal claims are systematically investigated and every case is found to be explicable in prosaic terms" but it is hosted by former Ghostbuster Dan Akroyd. Claiming to
be the actual cases histories of the Organization for Scientific Investigation and Research (OSIR): an apparent timetraveller from the 17th century that commits suicide, a  healer that dies from having taken on too many illnesses, a UFO that turns out to be an illegal cropduster, a strange possession that turns out to be a bad LSD trip.
 They had us going until we asked a friend of ours once in the illegal drug business
(saved from out of it by Jesus!) about their claim that cats are as unaffected by the stuff as we aren't by catnip. The  cat starred into space like any other tripper or walked off right into the closed door.

SLIDERS
  Another not-so-new show we've been meaning to write about is even more fictional, yet based on firm metaphysics. We didn't realize it until we investigated that such
parallel world hopping is called "sliding" in the literature.
  Quinn and friends have visited robotworld, wetworld, fireworld, shoppingworld, ones with killer Amazons, spiderwasps,  lawsuits, cannibles, apemen, asteroid, tidal wave, dinosaurs, Q plague or without the Bomb, or more personal ones in which Quinn was born a girl, or learned to control sliding or his dad still lives, where
the Prof didn't slide or his  girlfriend didn't die or where  Remmy is another Elvis
or Ness or a surrogate mother or Wade gets a boyfriend or becomes a human sacrifice or she didn't live.
(Our favorite still is "Mindgame", which might have been invented by Stephen Hawking and replaced all other spectator sports.)
  A possible world is one which could be true by analogy ("Something is to something else as another thing is to what?", s:s'::a:?), deduction ("If something implies
another thing, then something else implies what?, in Polish notation: CKCsas'?), or
recombination ("Something from one thing and something else from something else not the first thing", KaNa).
  A possible world's "slippability" is a measure of its nearness to what we call facts.
An accidental situation is more slippable than a non-accidental one.
  They are used in thought experiments to answer important questions such as: "Is
a dream world more real if shared?" (Anthony Quinon), "Would people grown from seeds have the right to life?"  (Judith Jarvis  Thomson), "Is the universe more than
five-minutes old?" (Bertram Russell), "Are you just a brain in a  vat?" (Hilary  utnam), "If a split-brain were transplanted, which if either or both bodies would house consciousness? (Sydney Shoemaker)
  Even if "Sliders" doesn't answer many questions, it prompts asking several every
week.

MYSTERIES, MAGIC AND MIRACLES
  This special mentioned lycanthropy: "It's not like 'Wolfen'. It's lonely. It's horrible." (It's not as "Strange Universe" portrayed just hirsuteness, but here as animal or human mutilation madness.)

  THE PARANORMAL  BORDERLINE
  This show gave more detail on the legendary mute, the Chupacabras ("Goatsucker") of Canovanas, Puerto Rico, than "Strange Universe": 4 to 5 foot tall with red eyes,
grey skin, feathery hair, back spikes and kangaroo-like legs.

   SIGHTINGS
  The oldtimer dealt with ESPionage, not in Project Stargate (or the previously referred to Montak Project) but in Project Sunstreak revealed in David
Morehouse's Peace Quest. He emphasized the dangers of developing a Messiah
complex or losing the ability to communicate with those limited to here-now or being
killed by government secretkeepers.