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What is "High Strange"?


SillyRaabit

Skilled Investigator
My publishing company's spring release is a horror short story collection called High Strange Horror (in no small part inspired by this show). I'm looking for a good definition of "high strange" for the opening pages - something to set the tone, and explain the concept. I've struggled to come up with something succinct. I'd like to print it in definition format - including multiple meanings, if necessary.

I figured this forum was a good place to seek out suggestions. If someone can come up with a great definition that I could use in the book, I'd be happy to give you credit and send you a print copy when it comes out.
 
"High Strangeness" is a term often used to describe an event so strange, a witness cannot find the proper words to make sense of the incident. In the past, humans were left to believe magic, religion, or playful/cruel gods were the source of high strangeness.

hope this helps. Many other folks in this forum could better define subjects I often do not have the proper words to put down in ink.
 
My publishing company's spring release is a horror short story collection called High Strange Horror (in no small part inspired by this show). I'm looking for a good definition of "high strange" for the opening pages - something to set the tone, and explain the concept. I've struggled to come up with something succinct. I'd like to print it in definition format - including multiple meanings, if necessary.

I figured this forum was a good place to seek out suggestions. If someone can come up with a great definition that I could use in the book, I'd be happy to give you credit and send you a print copy when it comes out.
Just look at your photo of Giorgio Tsoukalos, that is 'High Strangeness.'
 
My publishing company's spring release is a horror short story collection called High Strange Horror (in no small part inspired by this show). I'm looking for a good definition of "high strange" for the opening pages - something to set the tone, and explain the concept. I've struggled to come up with something succinct. I'd like to print it in definition format - including multiple meanings, if necessary.

I figured this forum was a good place to seek out suggestions. If someone can come up with a great definition that I could use in the book, I'd be happy to give you credit and send you a print copy when it comes out.

Here's one for you:

High Strangeness ( noun )

(1.) A label that is part of a hierarchical system used for classifying UFO experiences. High Strangeness experiences are the most extraordinary of all.

(2.) A catchall phrase for experiences associated with the supernatural or paranormal that are much more mysterious than those that are merely out of the ordinary.

Example: "It wasn't just a little strange. It was truly bizarre. There's definitely some high strangeness going on."

[ Word Origin: 1974, The UFO Experience - Astronomer J. Allen Hynek ]

Credit for this definition: J. R. Murphy - Ufologist www.ufopages.com
 
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High strange is that moment when reality breaks. It's like when you stare into a mirror long enough to get that creeping feeling that the person staring back at you is no longer you. It is the waking nightmare that knows no rational logic where every image and action is unreal. It is as if someone flicked off a giant light switch in the sky, shattered what was once normal and spliced your life into a black light nightmare impossible to wake up from. You have absolutely no control of your own. Your will has been siphoned. Everything around you makes absolutely no sense. You see monsters, alien beings and strange creatures that should not be, and yet you see it all and can not stop from looking. The world has become suddenly surreal. It's as if everything is operating on remote control. It feels like you have been stolen out of time.
 
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Mmm..How about something like: "An event that stretches the fabric of our everyday reality until it rips wide open."
 
Thanks for the replies, all! If I include your words in the definition, I'll send you a message to confirm that it's okay before we go to print. And I'll send along a free e-book copy (any format) as a thank you.

Our goal with the anthology is not to make light of high strange events - although there's plenty of lighthearted moments in the stories - but to harness the power of the new American (and world!) mythological narratives. I use "mythological" in the broadest, most respectful sense possible. The truth is, high strange experiencers are not unique in human history. High strange events are fundamentally a part of human existence itself, and therefore should be reflected in our art. Among the experiencers out there (I cannot count myself as one, although my beliefs as a Christian put me firmly in the camp of supernatural believers), do you find this approach of fictionalizing the high strange as offensive, or affirming?
 
I find it neither offensive, nor affirming but more along the lines of a catalyst for perpetuation. If our hgh strange stories are mostly sociological in nature then by sharing more of these stories we will only continue to experice such events in the future. If you write about slender man, then someone, or more than one will decide to believe in slender man and ultimately even kill for slender man. Humans are slaves to their stories.
 
So if we write a story about Slender Man, and someone kills for Slender Man... we're responsible for perpetuating the construct that is Slender Man? Psychologically or otherwise? Sort of like Freddy in Freddy Vs. Jason - he needs fear to be "real"? This is also similar to the idea that the Other (grays, insectoids, otherwise) need a certain level of human consciousness to accept them in order for them to manifest in our world, OR it means that we perpetuate the myth and people act in accordance with the myth, despite it being a fiction?
 
I'm down for the second interpretation. Only the Philip Experiment seems to bend these rules where the writers appear to conjure Philip into the world, though I found that case to be more about collaborative, unconscious mediumship. So teen girls already tried to kill for slender man but that's their responsibility. Heavy metal doesn't cause satanic ritual killings or suicide, though Black Metal makes people burn old churches down in Norway. Art is art and it is infectious.
Burzum_aske.jpg

But fiction is fiction and no writer is responsible for other human actions unless they advocate crimes or promote hate speech. I don't think any ritual or power of belief can call beings like Lem into the world. I also think Tulpas are bogus and mostly a Keelian invention based on inaccurate translation. So writers can invent realities in that human beings will believe and make it come alive. If Joan Jett can get her own island cult then anything is possible.
 
I read of a phenom I can't think of the title used- basically when a group thought, or belief, practicing rituals.. a consciousness is created that works through the members to further advance the groups goals, etc.. Sort of like a tulpa, I suppose. I researched this years ago to try and make sense of an experience I had at a concert in my youth, so it's been a while and I'm sort of at a loss to clearly define it.
 
I read of a phenom I can't think of the title used- basically when a group thought, or belief, practicing rituals.. a consciousness is created that works through the members to further advance the groups goals, etc.

Something like Jung's 'collective subconscious' but restricted to a smaller group? It DOES sound familiar, but I'll be darned if I can recall where I heard of it.
 
Not sure- but I believe the larger the group, the more powerful the "tulpa" or force that is created. I use those words since I don't have the time to research it, but will look into it later. There was definitely a specific word used for this.
 
Since this generated so much interest, and this is the right place for it - if anyone is interested in an advanced review copy (free, of course, although we'd love a posted review somewhere when you're finished) of High Strange Horror, print or e-book, please let me know.
 
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