Linda Godfrey is a great storyteller, and she talked on this episode about loads of strange creatures that we should know more about.
Comments welcome.
Comments welcome.
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Agreed. Maybe everyone has switched to posting on the Paracast+ site already?Very meager discussion.
The best cases of paranormal lore have to be the ones where humans get noticed, or appear to be seen and responded to. Those provide an empirical sense that something is actually there. In this way the power of the UFO abduction (which I confess, I have a very difficult time in believing in it though I'm very moved by certain stories) is very intense. This is much more than just interaction, but actual control over the human, expressing an independent intelligence.I'd love to know what the crypto perceives? Which empirical experience is "real" to them?
Buddhism tells me, "the world is projection," and so I can't help but ask why we always imbue the paranormal stimulus with so many extra abilities? While I'm quite open to the reality of the stimulus in Paranormal circumstances I also favour a closed system hypothesis. In such a system it seems to me that we are the ones doing the projecting. We dress the ghost in clothes, and might even be 'creatively' seeing the portholes in the spaceships.My best guess for an answer to the question of ghosts with clothing is that something is projecting an image of the deceased person into the consciousness of the witness. Maybe the image is derived from memory of the actual persons or of a painting or photograph.
The something in my post might well be the witness' subconscious itself, or maybe what some spiritists call the "higher self". I wouldn't exclude that anywhere. But I'd still say that there is also very likely an outside stimulus. Something was there in the cellar with Mrs Godfrey and the landlady at least causing the image indirectly, maybe not projecting it itself. Or Mrs G saw an actual physical representation at the time (remember the light phenomena photographed in the Entity case, I don't think these were projections) and the latter saw a projection from her own subconscious? Hm. Although by that time Mrs Godfrey should have had an image of Billy in her subconscious too... *sigh* nothing but speculations, once again.Buddhism tells me, "the world is projection," and so I can't help but ask why we always imbue the paranormal stimulus with so many extra abilities? While I'm quite open to the reality of the stimulus in Paranormal circumstances I also favour a closed system hypothesis. In such a system it seems to me that we are the ones doing the projecting. We dress the ghost in clothes, and might even be 'creatively' seeing the portholes in the spaceships.
But there is an specific problem with Taft's explanation: if in fact these are longer exposures that are capturing light balls that are moving through space then why are we not seeing people's faces move, watching the lights flit from one part of the room to the other?
There is one light blob photo on that link I posted with the photos where Taft does explain things in detail regarding the lights. I agree that it would have to be the speed of the light that would create this though the fascination for me is that, as he describes, what's on the film has nothing to do with what they saw - in fact not even close. How does that work? What were those lights? What are the streaks - as that's a very large set of streaks. Probably one of the most interesting, and well detailed paranormal cases IMHO.For the reasons you stated, these are obviouly not longer exposures. But as far as I know, Dr Taft doesn't say that at all. I guess when he says these are "essentially time-lapse photos" he means that the lights must have been zipping around so fast that they only appear as streaks despite of the relatively normal exposure times, similar to what happens with long exposures on astronomical photos (where the exposure time is much longer). Which would explain why people are not looking in the direction of the arcs: they probably only saw undetermined flashes of light, too fast to follow.
There were photos of light blobs hanging in mid air and at ground level, too, but I can't seem to find those. They don't look like much, though, and can easily be explained away, maybe that's why he took them down.
Taft has always stated that she was the source of the disturbance and that she herself was disturbed. Personally, I'm a firm believer that when we are living through sustained, high trauma we compensate and decompensate in all sorts of ways, even in ways that we don't understand or don't know about. Our brain will happily split itself in two and say and do things that the other half is not aware of. The sexual assault aspects of this story and the role of the sons in all this mess has always remained a question in my mind.I recall reading about this case in Dr. Taft's book, too. I'm not sure that I agree that the people who were doing the investigation are not aware of, or watching the lights. The standing woman on the left, and the two men on the right seem to be watching something intently, and as the room is small, and crowded, there doesn't seem to be much opportunity to move about. If I recall this case correctly, Dr. Taft said that the balls of light appeared more opaque and three dimensional than simply moving light sources. It could be that the investigators had seem these phenomena before and were thus not particularly shocked.
What was actually causing the phenomena is another story. The circumstances surrounding the case were indeed disturbing, as I recall, and it may be telling that while Doris Bither's sons were not, I think, present when Dr. Taft was there, she was. That something external to the people involved in the investigation was present seems certain. However, do emotionally fraught and disturbed individuals draw such things to them? It's not outside the realm of possibility, in my opinion. Just wondering aloud, as it were.