issue 63

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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.]

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"

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."

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

The Celestine Prophesy written in Peru, Sedona and the Birmingham Wafflehouse;

Roman emperors and the Hapsburgs coveted by Hitler since the age of 16;

crosses appeared in windows of Joanne Noreaga's home, Montclair, CA on feast

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.");

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.)

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,

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