Fortean Phonics

• Posted on February 20, 2013
• by Clyde Lewis
• in Articles

FORTEAN PHONICS

There was an e-mail I received the other day from a listener who wanted to know just what my deal was. I mean that was vague enough. Someone who wonders what my deal is seems to have some sort of agenda behind it. I could only determine that the agenda was to pin me to some sort of philosophy or religious affiliation and of course there is the stupid question of my political beliefs which I immediately dismiss with a very loud “who cares!”
But, of course, later another e-mail came to me from the same guy saying that he was a “god-fearing” man and that he worried that listening to my show would send him straight to hell because I talk about many issues that he believes are satanic or demonic in nature. I finally wrote back and said “I am not right wing or left wing, I am neither a believer or atheist, and I most certainly don’t like politics because they are all corrupt so I consider myself a Fortean.”
“Fortean” is a word which is based on the name of Charles Fort, a writer of the early twentieth century whose work “damned” science and skepticism as being too narrow and unable to deal with occurrences that seemed to be outside of the norm.
Fort spent years scouring the great Public Library in London looking for articles relating to certain phenomenon such as falls of frogs and fish, stones being thrown at houses from nowhere, animals from one continent being seen on another where they should not exist, as well as ball lightning, spontaneous human combustion and other oddities.
He felt that science was not being true to its own tenets since almost all such incidences were washed over with banal and mundane explanations that were simply pulled out of the air by scientists refusing to sully their hands with further research.
I know that I have been called a conspiracy theorist and according to Google lists I am Number 4 in the top 50 truth tellers on the radio. The bad news with that is that I am lower on the list than Alex Jones and higher on the list than Jesse Ventura.
Forteans are mostly creative and imaginative and we are also highly speculative. We go through life like children do on Christmas day. Everything we see from the darkest doom to the most funny and inspirational as a joyful experience that sums up all things that is living on planet earth.
We talk about the weirdest things and collect some of the most bizarre stories and save them in boxes. One day we may be able to reference them. I tend to use the rusty Rolodex in my brain to tell stories. That is why at times I may not be as accurate as I like with regards to names and places, however I do know the stories and I do seem to find a way to connect the dots and demonstrate how the world is being toyed with by what I call the ‘cosmic trickster‘.
I do find myself to be slightly annoyed by skeptics who are not really skeptics but people who have made their minds up about the mysteries of life not being so mysterious. As I have grown into the fringe areas of life I have realized that skeptic” of the here and now finds a sadistic joy in their ability to funnel everything that happens in this infinite universe into to some finite simple explanation. It is also necessary for the skeptic of our generation to tell people to “calm down” and “not to worry” feeling that it is their duty to be the comforter and guardian of all things that they believe is magical thinking.
Let’s face it: the world is a magical place and, like a true Fortean, I see all things as constantly changing – and beliefs do too. It’s just that they change so slowly that sometimes it is hard to figure out how the zeitgeist abruptly changed and thereby making you crazy, ill-informed or old fashioned.
To this day, I have such a fascination with carnival fortune tellers, people who see ghosts, the possibility of alien life, strange animals that defy explanation, and stories both political and religious that seem to be so crazy they need to be exploited as such.
Defend the actions of authority if you wish, but they are only human and least we forget that the apotheosis has made them external saviors in suits, when really they are nothing more than human bags of blood and sweat. The value is in their souls and in the ocean of souls; there really isn’t anything in Washington D.C. that would even get your feet wet.
The human experience, according to Fortean thinkers, is actually some vast interwoven matrix of probability and possibility riding on a wave of cause and effect – and in some cases the effect is before the cause. That is, if you believe in retro-causality and, as hypothetical as we are told it is, I am beginning to see that it is very real. It becomes the tool that approximates the future.
We are always told by skeptics and those who wish to ridicule that we should use a little something called Occam’s razor when exploring the unknown.
Usually it is believed that Occam’s razor defined is the simplest explanation being the most likely to be correct in cases of extraordinary claims. However, it is more likely to be the explanation that least contradicts established scientific theories and that doesn’t anger “has been” magicians and or four-eyed mathletes.
The simple things to believe is that while some say the truth is out there, there are others who don’t take the time to have truth pointed out to them and while we cannot know all truth it is best to be open to being teachable because sometimes we don’t fully recognize the impact of something until we have taken time to evaluate in our heads just what is really going on.
To me, Occam’s razor skins us of all of the fun and interesting anomalies that exist in the world. Occam’s razor cuts up and decimates the thrill of the mystery and slits the throat of the voice that tries to tell the story.
For the hardened skeptic, seeing does not guarantee belief. The reason is simple: reality now can be manufactured. With computer generated imagery, we can be fooled into believing in some fakery here and there. We can be mislead and we can report it as real until we are shown otherwise. Forteans are not in the business of misleading or deliberately reporting disinformation. We simply give a stage to show the anomalies and later if it is proven to be a hoax we then step back and laugh and realize that the magician’s trick if really good is just as interesting as the real thing.
It is unfortunate that in the world where the younger generations feel they have sense of entitlement that they demand that answers and evidence be produced instantly in the real world of that which is paranormal you can’t always produce things on command, nor do ghosts behave like what you see in a Hollywood movie. There are always explanations for some sort of anomaly but that doesn’t guarantee that there is a logical or simple explanation.
The quantum entanglements and structures of the universe aren’t as easy to read as an apple pie recipe and, believe me, not all pie recipes guarantee a flaky and enjoyable slice of apple pie.
However, it is a slice of life that makes us all human and is a meme that is right up there with the Promethean fire and the knowledge that comes with it.
On the quantum level and through the endless reaches of time, we may want to consider that our culture is still too young to take in all of the anomalies that we face on a daily basis.
However, the same geniuses that tell us all about Occam’s razor and logic are the same “enlightened” skeptics that tell us that they are “Gods” because they can slam particles together to find the Higgs Boson.
We play with atoms, and are now about to map the brain like the genome and while we can all say that this is cool, it still took man a million years to just understand the power of fire.
The universe has always been “God’s unfinished business” however there will be some scientist that will tell you that God is dead and that the universe can be figured out and mapped.
But as the old Pink Floyd song says if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear you shout and no one seems to hear… And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes – you are either crazy and are ready for the ‘Dark Side of the Moon‘ – or you are a Fortean, which usually means you are cross between a semi-genus and a lunatic.
Of course, I often brake for my hallucinations, keep good company with my imaginary friends and hear the strangest things in my head. These things aren’t part of some schizophrenic episode but real sounds that I love to share with people. I have discovered that ghosts want to talk, strange animals want to scream and that music played backwards shines a whole new light on what the rock bands were trying to say about heaven, hell, God and Satan.
I have also learned that toy dolls can tell a child about how ‘Satan is King’ and how ‘Islam is the light’. I also have seen reports about innocent fictional characters like Elmo can give death threats through books and furry plush toys.
I have heard humming noises of what are believed to UFO’s or trumpeting noises that true believers say are from angels and, of course, I have heard angels singing on the wind as well.
I remember playing the sounds of the planets on my show and could hear what sounded like messages being sent from planet to planet and speculating on what could very well be a message from God.
I guess what we see we take for granted, but what we hear are the frequencies that somehow fine tune our experience. I was always told that when watching Television you should turn down the sound and realize how boring it is without sound. I have to agree that what we hear is equally as important as what we see. It is also important to figure out what kind of message is being sent as well.
I guess we can call all of this ‘Fortean phonics’, where anomalous sounds can lift us into other realms and remind us of the full spectrum of experiences that enhance the magic that is life on this planet.
The paranormal, magic and the supernatural seems to be manifesting itself more and more in this era of strange weather, political intrigue and religious upheaval. Science really has done nothing recently except deny all new and interesting discoveries. They are asleep at the wheel when it comes to telling us about new discoveries, but are very quick to point out weather balloons, swamp gas and CGI manipulation when those things are clearly not what are causing these anomalous activities.
Everything is not that easily explained any more.
People generally are afraid of the paranormal let alone anything occult and so it is easier to dismiss that these strange things really mean nothing to them. Many will say that it is just pointless to associate anything with the paranormal. Religious leaders caution any brush with ghosts, and somehow paint everything with a demonic brush. There are far more things to discover in heaven and in earth that cannot be explained by any religion or any scientist for that matter.
In my opinion, history untypically is on the side of the paranormal researcher. Legends, myths and other written accounts of the paranormal proliferates all parts of history. In all cultures, creatures of twilight exist and persist. They drift about and manifest sending many people to unknown ends to find the answers and in many ways we see that the paranormal can be similar to a rainbow’s chase. The reason it is hard to find our elusive companions is because there seems to be no real effort to develop technology to detect and eventually duplicate their appearances.
Whatever the skeptic can bend to their finite explanation they tout as the truth. Unfortunately, the same goes for those who theorize. They need to remember that the truth is elusive and the questions are far more interesting than someone who wants to sell you on a particular truth.
But this type of so called truth with a hidden agenda is like fashion. It changes constantly. It always seems to be the proper thing to wear for a while and then attitudes change. We are only visitors on this rock and from what we are learning we came from another life force somewhere out in space. What the poets and philosophers have called heaven. The place where a living God resides, a place where it is written, that he has many mansions or dimensions. This also means that all things we see have man explanations.
That is why I love life.