Poe Toaster Fails to Show

Image: Wikimedia Commons

It’s one, two, three strikes, and you’re out at the ol’ ball game. Apparently the authentic Poe Toaster is no more. As we previously reported, the Poe Toaster who had visited the Baltimore Edgar Allan Poe Memorial on the anniversary of Poe’s birthday every year since 1949 failed to appear in 2010 and 2011. With his failure to appear again this year, it looks like, to quoth the Raven, the tradition is “Nevermore.”

Is It the End of the Poe Toaster?

Poe Memorial (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

As previously reported (here and here), despite having appeared every year since 1949, for the past two years the mysterious Poe Toaster has failed to appear for his annual ritual at the Edgar Allan Poe monument in Baltimore, Maryland. We are two weeks away from the January 19^th anniversary of Poe’s birthday. The question on everyone’s mind: Will he or won’t he show up?

Despite a small band of imitators, Jeff Jerome of the Edgar Allan Poe Society remains convinced the authentic Toaster has not visited for the past two years. Jerome believes if the real Toaster fails to appear this year, the tradition has ended. Considering 2009 (the last visit by the apparently authentic Toaster) marked the bicentenary of Poe’s birth, the Toaster might have decided to end the tradition on this symbolic date.

So, will he or won’t he? We will know for sure in a couple weeks.

RQ-170 Sentinel: UAVs and UFOs

RQ-170 (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

I noticed a huge spike in traffic to this blog starting about a week ago. The search terms leading to this page: “RQ-170” and “UFO.” In fact the top two hits on Google right now for “RQ-170” and “UFO” are links to this blog. Thanks to the Iranians, my post on UAVs and UFOs from two years ago which happened to mention the RQ-170 in passing has suddenly become quite popular. I wonder what people looking for information on the RQ-170 think when they find themselves taken to a blog on ghosts and folklore?

Little additional information has come to light about the RQ-170 Sentinel since my initial post two years ago. The craft still remains largely cloaked in secrecy. As I mentioned in that post, the craft only came to light due to grainy photos which found their way into public domain. Since the photos were allegedly taken at Kandahar Airfield, it became known as the “Beast of Kandahar.” Thanks to either incompetence, error, mechanical failure, or just plain dumb luck our enemies now know more about this craft than those of us whose tax dollars paid for it.

Yet, the original point of my previous post remains: we cannot dismiss the fact that likely a high number of alleged “UFO” sightings over the years were/are actually sightings of “low-profile” aircraft such as the RQ-170. As the original post pointed out, we’re also seeing a plethora of new UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) in various shapes and sizes. Since UAVs aren’t limited by having a human pilot onboard, they are able withstand maneuvers beyond the capabilities of manned aircraft. The existence of advanced (and secretive) aircraft has nothing to do with “little green men,” but everything to do with really smart people, advanced technology, and a robust security program.

It’s unfortunate that so many “UFO enthusiasts” so want to see a “UFO” (to them meaning a craft of extraterrestrial origin, not simply an unidentified flying object) they refuse to accept any explanation which does not involve little green men. Perhaps one day we’ll get to the bottom of the UFO/UAP phenomena, but I’m not exactly holding my breath.

If you came here simply looking for information on the RQ-170, I thank you for visiting and invite you to look around at everything else on this blog.

[© 2011 All rights reserved.  This copyrighted material may not be reposted or reproduced in any form without permission.]

The Real [Non-] Pagan History of Halloween

(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

For most of its history, no one in the United States connected Halloween to “paganism” or “wicca.” Only within the past few decades has it gone from a harmless “kid’s holiday” to an urban legend taking root among both New Agers and fundamentalist Christians about Halloween’s supposed “pagan” past.  Thanks to continued repetition of this urban legend by venues such as the History Channel and various New Age and “paranormal” publications, as well as fundamentalist Christian anti-Halloween “crusades,” most people today accept it as fact, never bothering to investigate it further.  Today’s urban legend claims Halloween directly dates back to a pre-Christian Celtic Druid festival which the (evil) Catholic Church co-opted in order to “suppress” pagans.  As with most urban legends, this one contains a dash of truth in order to hold together a bunch of complete nonsense.

The customs we now accept as associated with Halloween are actually of much more recent origin than New Age urban legend suggests and are a mix of traditions and practices from throughout Europe, Britain, and Ireland.  As with most things which began across the Atlantic and reached American shores, these various customs and traditions were blended, “Americanized” and repackaged into what we now call Halloween.  What we do know for certain is that the modern Halloween celebration has no direct religious connection with the ancient Druids of Celtic Britain and Ireland.

It’s true the Druids celebrated a minor festival at the end of October, as they did at the end of every month, but they had long since ceased to exist as an organized people when Halloween developed.  At the beginning of what eventually became the New Age movement, Druidism saw a “revival” in the 1700s and 1800s, but just like the current New Age movement, this involved people with no real connection to ancient Druids – except in their minds – and no real connection to actual ancient Druid practices.  Just like today’s New Age “pagans” and “wiccans,” a bunch of people pretended to be “Druids” with little actual historical knowledge (other than what they invented for themselves) of actual ancient pagan groups and practices.

Let’s examine the ancient Druids a bit closer.  First, unlike the image today’s self-styled “pagans” like to project, the Druids were not peace-loving “greenies” who liked to get naked and commune with nature.  Instead, they were a rather violent and blood thirsty Celtic people who inhabited pre-Roman Britain and Ireland.  The ancient Druids had much more in common with brutal peoples like the Aztecs than Kumbaya-singing hippies.  Our earliest records of the Druids come from the Romans.  It’s significant to note that even the Romans found these people excessively brutal.  We also find that it was the Romans who suppressed Druidism.  Tiberius (Roman emperor from AD 14 to 37) first outlawed the practice of Druidism.  Under Claudius (emperor from AD 41 to 54), the Druids were completely wiped out.

The Roman record brings out two extremely important points regarding Druidism.  First, very clearly, the suppression of the Druids had nothing to do with the Catholic Church, which had not spread much outside Judea at this point in history.  So claims that the Church co-opted a Druid festival to create Halloween and force the conversion of Druids are flat-out false.  Second, a hallmark of the Roman Empire was allowing conquered territories a large amount of relative autonomy as long as they continued to acknowledge Rome and pay tribute – this included allowing people to maintain local religious customs (we see this very clearly in Judea).  The fact the Romans felt compelled to stamp out Druidism shows the Druids were anything but peace-loving nature freaks.

So how does the Catholic Church get drawn into all this?  In the fourth century, the Church instituted a feast day to honor all Christian martyrs of the faith.  This feast day was originally celebrated on May 13.  In 615, Pope Boniface IV established it as the “Feast of All Martyrs” and commemorated it with the dedication of a basilica in Rome to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all martyrs.  By 741, the feast had grown to include remembering not only all martyrs, but all the saints in heaven as well.  As a result, the name was changed to the “Feast of All Saints” in 840.  In 844, long after the passing of the Druids and long after Christianity had become the predominate western religion, Pope Gregory IV transferred the feast to November 1^st.

October 31^st itself held no special significance in the Church calendar until 1484 (again, long, long past the time of the Druids) when Pope Sixtus IV declared the “Feast of All Saints” a holy day of obligation (days on which Catholics are obligated to attend Mass – in addition to Sundays) and gave it a vigil and an eight-day period or octave to celebrate the feast (the octave of All Saints was removed from the Church calendar in 1955).  For Catholics, the vigil is celebrated on the evening before the feast – hence Christmas Eve.  Saints were known as “hallowed” in old English.  Therefore, the vigil for the Feast of All Saints, or “All Hallows,” became known as “All Hallows’ Eve” – Halloween.  The fact that “Halloween” is derived from old English and the Druids happened to inhabit ancient Britain is as closer as we come to a direct connection between the Catholic Church, Druids and today’s Halloween.

While it’s true that traditions such as dressing in costumes, Trick-or-Treating, and Jack-o-lanterns were originally inspired by ancient religious practices to ward off evil spirits, even by the time these practices made their way to America, they had long since lost their religious meaning. Instead, they’d become much more along the lines of cultural traditions. Most telling is the fact that there is no mention of Halloween being a “pagan,” “wiccan,” or “evil” celebration in the past historical record. Only in recent decades has this notion taken hold. Once we consider the true facts, it leads me to ask just who exactly is it that has actually co-opted Halloween for their own purposes?

So, carve your Jack-o-lantern, throw on your costume, and go Trick-or-Treating all without fear that you’re participating in an “evil,” “pagan,” or “wiccan” celebration. Happy Halloween!

[© 2011 All rights reserved.  This copyrighted material may not be reposted or reproduced in any form without permission.]

Dr. F. C. S. Schiller on Evidence

Dr. F. C. S. Schiller (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

A mind unwilling to believe, or even undesirous to be instructed, our weightiest evidence must ever fail to impress. It will insist on taking the evidence in bits and rejecting them item by item. The man who announces his intention of waiting until a single absolutely conclusive bit of evidence turns up, is really a man not open to conviction, and if he be a logician he knows it. For modern logic had made it plain that single facts can never be “proved” except by their coherence in a system. But as all the facts come singly anyone who dismisses them one by one is destroying the conditions under which the conviction of new truth could ever arise in the mind.

– Dr. F. C. S. Schiller, “Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,” Vol. XVIII, p. 419, Society for Psychical Research, 1904.

Thanks to the PIA Team

(graphicshunt.com)

Thanks to Morgan, Red, and John, along with the entire PIA team, for the opportunity to step in as a presenter at this past weekend’s PIA Conference. I greatly appreciate your generosity in allowing me to step up to the plate. You all did a fantastic job of making newcomers like me feel right at home and part of the PIA family. I’m already looking forward to attending next year and hope I’ll have the opportunity to speak at that conference as well.

Thanks also for those of you who attended my presentation, On the Nature of Ghosts. Hopefully I at least provided some “food for thought” on the topic. Special thanks as well to Tim and Trish Yancey from Encounters Live for your feedback on my talk – the fact you thought it was very good means a lot to me.

I hope to see everyone at PIA again next year!

PIA Conference Presentation – On the Nature of Ghosts

White Noise Paranormal Network

Thanks to White Noise Paranormal Network, you can click on the link below to view my presentation, On the Nature of Ghosts, from the 2011 PIA Conference:

http://justin.tv/whitenoise02/b/291569213

You can also access videos of the other presentations through this link:

http://www.ghostshow.net/pia/

Degrees Now Accredited, but Phony as Ever

Step Right Up - Get Your "Degree" (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

As if fake “certifications” in a field for which no certification exists wasn’t worse enough, as if fake “degrees” from fake schools weren’t enough, we now have “accredited” “degrees” waiting to separate fools from their money. I’ve shared my thoughts on “certifications” and “degrees” in paranormal studies in a previous post. I continue to stand behind those comments. There is no such thing as a “certification” in a field for which no objective standards exist. People can certainly receive training in methodology or learn about various theories, but none of this in no way can or should be construed as “certification” or a higher educational “degree.”

However, as if this weren’t enough, I’ve recently ran across “organizations” (which generally consist of one person in his or her home office with a computer and printer – although many are now skipping even the printer and going completely “paperless”) which now proffer their “degrees” in paranormal studies, up to and including doctoral “degrees,” as “accredited.” The only slight problem is that the “accreditation” agency is merely another front organization ran by the same person. In other words, the provider of the “degree” is providing the “accreditation” for the degree.

As with “certification,” this is a complete fraud since, just like real certification, real accreditation involves a third party verifying the academic fitness of an institution’s education offerings. At least one “school” in particular adds ever further fuel to the fraud by claiming that it’s perfectly fine for its own “accreditation” agency to accredit its “degrees” since the “degrees” and “non-secular.” They imply that only “secular” academic programs receive accreditation from third party accreditation agencies. This is a complete lie. Even theological seminaries which clearly offer “non-secular” degrees are accredited by third-party accreditation programs.

As someone who holds a real bachelor’s degree, a real master’s degree, and is working on a second master’s degree, these fake diploma mills really rub me the wrong way. There is a serious amount of work involved in earning a real higher education degree – even honest distance learning programs are accredited by third party agencies – and they receive that accreditation because those programs are found by a third party to be academically sound and rigorous. They are not some guy in his home office cranking out “diplomas.”

Again, as I said in my earlier post, I believe in the right of people to spend their hard-earned money as they chose. However, don’t buy yourself one of these fake “degrees” and they attempt to pass yourself off as the holder of an actual advanced academic degree. And for those of you running these fake diploma and certification mills: shame on you! You leave yourself just enough “outs” in order to be legal, but you are clearly preying on the uninformed, leading them into thinking they are receiving something they are not. What goes around, comes around – all I can say is be careful – being greedy in the material world does not bode well for one’s eternal afterlife in the spiritual world. You might just find yourself as one of those tormented spirits you “certify” people to “hunt.”

Pleasant dreams…

[© 2011 All rights reserved.  This copyrighted material may not be reposted or reproduced in any form without permission.]

What is Help?

At the United Paranormal International website (unitedparanormalinternational.ning.com), a member recently posed an excellent question: most paranormal groups claim to offer clients “help,” but what really is this “help?” The question goes to the heart of paranormal research and is one I’ve been contemplating for some time. What “help” can paranormal groups really offer to clients? I’m sure many will not like my answer: not much.

Groups’ claims of assistance, while generally well-intended, often go far beyond factual reality. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying paranormal groups are pointless. Instead, I think we need to be clear on our limitations. We need to recognize what we truly can and cannot accomplish. I believe the only legitimate “help” falls into the categories of so-called “debunking” and support.

I personally dislike the term “debunking” since it seems to have a negative connotation. Instead I prefer the wordier (but I believe more accurate) “seeking natural explanations for suspected ‘paranormal’ activity.” I think this is one of the most important “helps” a group can provide clients. A legitimate paranormal group should be well-versed in indentifying “normal” things which can mimic the “paranormal,” for example high EMF, faulty plumbing, poor or aging construction and so forth. An important function of a legitimate group involves educating a client on these types of things which at first glance appear “mysterious,” but actually have perfectly natural causes.

The other area of “help” involves support. It’s in this area of “support” where many groups over-sell their ability to “help.” We are dealing with the unknown. The very best we can accomplish is verifying a reported activity has no apparent explanation. However, simply because we don’t find an immediate explanation, doesn’t mean it’s automatically “paranormal.” The best we can do is verify for the client that something without an apparent “natural” explanation is happening. We can reassure the client that he or she isn’t imagining the activity. I believe this is a great service in itself since many times people feel better simply knowing it’s not “all in their head.”

We cannot prove the existence of the paranormal. It bothers me when a certain television program constantly tells people their site is “haunted” (the same show took a much more realistic and cautious approach in its early seasons by claiming only that “unexplained” activity was present). We can document anomalies which point to the possibility of something unexplained happening, however, as mortals, we cannot “prove” existence of the spirit world.

Similarly, we cannot legitimately claim to “cleanse” locations. First, any sort of “cleansing” is a belief-system based activity and not fact. As a belief-system based activity, its success or failure has much more to do with the belief-system of the affected person than with the belief-system of any particular group. Second, if we assume entities in need of “cleansing” are spiritual beings, as mortals in the material world, we are sadly deluding ourselves if we believe we have any sort of power over these entities.

One area of support I rarely see mentioned involves referring people to professional medical assistance. There are numerous medical and psychological conditions which can mimic the paranormal. The Catholic Church refuses to even consider exorcism until a person undergoes a full medical evaluation to eliminate that possibility first. Yet, some groups apparently believe they can handle such things on their own. No amount of “investigation” or “cleansing” will help if there’s an untreated medical condition as the underlying cause. We do no “help” by playing into people’s delusions. Most of us are not medical professionals and we have absolutely no business playing doctor or psychologist, but I believe we do have an obligation to seek this help for those we believe need it.

So there you have it. What help can paranormal groups legitimately offer? They can help clients discover “normal” explanations for apparent “paranormal” activity. They can also offer clients support when activity is discovered with no apparent “normal” explanation. “Cleansings,” “proving” hauntings, even identifying specific “ghosts” I believe all go beyond our legitimate capabilities – at least at the present time.

Hollywood, US Bishops Spotlight “The Rite”

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Zenit recently ran a two-part interview with Fr. Gary Thomas, the official exorcist of San Jose, California. It provides interesting insight into the life of a real exorcist and real exorcism. The movie, “The Rite,” is based on the book “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist,” by Matt Baglio – which in turn is based on Fr. Thomas’ experiences as an exorcist.

Part one of the interview is here and part two is here.