The Observer at Infinity: J.W. Dunne vs. the Volcano
“Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s …
Category Archives: Philosophy
Dreaming a Dream of Death: Mrs. Wilkie and Mr. Esdaile
“Presentiments are strange things: and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to …
A Few Good Anomalists: You Can’t Handle the Vacuous Truth
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist – I’m a conspiracy analyst” – Gore Vidal In logic, a “vacuous truth” is a …
The Wakulwe Theory of Ghosts
“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living” – Marcus Tullius Cicero People have spent …
Once Upon a Time in Chennai: The Ghost and Captain Halpin
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd” – Voltaire One of the lesser-known joys of historical research …
Greeting the Unknown Guest: Party Crasher or Host?
“Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish” – Jean de La Fontaine Part and parcel …
I Was a Skeptic, But I’m All Better Now
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never …
A Zillion Years of Solitude: The Loneliness of the Anthropic Universe
“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon” – Woody Allen You’re …
Forsaking Zalmoxis: Where do Broken Gods Go?
“They were gods of the highest dignity – gods of civilized peoples – worshiped and believed in by millions. All …
Fishy Phenomena: Unidentified Submarine Objects and Sea Serpents
“Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating” – Carl von Clausewitz Uncertainty …
Picnic in Pridade no Maranhao: The Legal Empire of the Ants
“The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn’t know enough to take a vacation” – Clarence Day The notion …
Putting Down the Paranormal, or Sailing the Ship of Theseus until it Sinks
“I have an existential map. It has ‘You are here’ written all over it” – Stephen Wright People believe some …
For Whom the Phantom Bells Toll: Major Moor and the Sorites Paradox
“You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea” …
Turtles to the Left of Me, Turtles to the Right: The Practopoietic Loop of Causation
“I believe nothing, I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdoms of ages, and from the so-called great …
Asylum Earth: The Voices in My Head are Scientists
“Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true” – Niels Bohr We’re smart. We’re handsome. We …
All Your Axioms are Postulates: Pseudoscience vs. Pseudometaphysics
“I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief …
The Enchanted Universe and Its Enemies
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” – Friedrich Nietzsche Two nihilists …
Eternalism vs. Presentism: How Soon is Now?
“Yes, and imagine a world where there were no hypothetical situations” ― Jasper Fforde, First Among Sequels I have a …
Release the Calamari: Hans Egede and the Greenland Kraken
“Exploring the unknown requires tolerating uncertainty” – Brian Greene On the internet, nobody can hear you scream. Unless you use …
If It Weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, We’d Still be Eating Frozen Radio Dinners
Veteran anomalist Seriah Azkath and I spend an hour discussing the vagaries of strange history, the War between the Pygmies …
Our Furry Forefathers: The Basque History of Inter-species Relations
“When the fox is engaging you in conversation, keep an eye on your chicken” – Basque Proverb The Basque people …
The Ecstasy of Error: Green Cards in Magonia
“It is then that ceasing to take the natural, the spiritual view of the world and its waywardness, he takes …
Haunted House Hunting with Mrs. Butler
“It is curious to think that what to one of us means so much to another is without any signification. …
Bugging Out During the Second Great Dying
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten …
Lies, Damn Lies, and Anomalies: Fake News and Skeptical Schadenfreude
“Every science is made up entirely of anomalies rearranged to fit” – R. A. Lafferty Every Tom, Dick, and Harriet …
Divine Messaging for Fun and Prophet
“As we see from the Scriptures, it had become a common and proverbial expression that if someone wanted to refer …
The Specious Present: It’s the Size of the Moment that Matters
“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what …
Our Colonized Consciousness: Defense Against the Doppelgänger
“If you meet your double, you should kill him” – Chris Cabin, Double Take The marketing potential with doppelgängers is …
EsoterX: Podcasts are the Retina of the Mind’s Eye
The inimitable Greg Bishop and I discuss folklore as an early warning system, skeptics vs. believers (who often have the …
Statutory Murder: The Trial of Theagenes of Thasos
“A fiction of law shall never be contradicted so as to defeat the end for which it was invented, but …
Where the Wild Things Are: Anomalies and the Poverty of Critical Thinking
“People tend to say ‘I like independent thinkers but they must think what I want them to think independently’” – …
Sympathetic Empiricism and the Palatine Lights
“Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response” – Arthur M. Schlesinger How many …
Skepticism and the Post-Human Economy
“Do not let yourself be tainted with a barren skepticism” – Louis Pasteur I’ll take a true believer over a …
Perish, then Publish: Jacopo Alighieri and the 13 Missing Cantos
“Death is the great angel of writing. You must write because you are not going to live anymore” – Carlos …
Political Mysticism: Eugene Vintras and the Saviours of Louis XVII
“Experts often possess more data than judgment” – Colin Powell Politics is a kind of mysticism, in so far as …
Our Xenomorph Who Art in Heaven
“I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult” – Rita Rudner That darned Enlightenment. …
Anomalistic Beer Goggles: The Consequences of Doubt
“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge” – Abraham Joshua Heschel Some days I wake up on …
EsoterX: It’s Not True I Had Nothing On, I Had the Radio On
Saturday night, I spent two hours with the Dark Wizards of Podcasting Roejen Razorwire and Lobo on their Project Archivist …
The Danmar Experiments: Chasing Ghosts to the Tail of the Earth
“Empiricism and idealism alike are faced with a problem to which, so far, philosophy has found no satisfactory solution. This …
Philosophical Monsters Ship in Black Boxes
“Not all stories have happy endings; but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth the read” ― Cassia Leo, Black Box …
