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The weird and the eerie

Title of the thread taken from Mark Fisher’s excellent book.

In c.1985 I worked for a while for Safeway supermarkets and we were preparing a new store for opening. Essentially this means stocking the shelves and getting everything looking tickety boo. The crew were accommodated in a B&B and on the Saturday before the opening we could go home for the rest of the weekend.

As a non driver at the time I wasn’t paying that much attention to our surroundings but somewhere along a fairly fast A road in Wiltshire there was a monk with his thumb out, hitchhiking. The full Catweazle garb (not a Buddhist monk in saffron, the darker brown tied with a rope kind of thing). The driver and I exchanged glances, shrugged, twenty minutes later I was home.

The same evening a bunch of us brewed some special tea, shall we say, the type you hold your nose to drink, but which kicks in a few minutes later and makes for a surreal, giggly evening. In the midst of this we watched a 1960s film called The Knack, and How To Get It. There’s a scene in the film where the characters dress up as monks and hitchhike to London…

So that was weird.

The trailer is a bit hyper but not unrepresentative of what a “zany” film it is

Postscript: On the Monday morning I travelled back to the B&B, packed up my suitcase, and buggered off home again. That was the end of my dream career in retail :rofl:

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I’ve “a few” of these…

Once walking swiftly (being a gentleman), down Leith Hill (on which there was no longer anyone else…just myself and my girlfriend), …having dropped…you know…and other things (one clearly on my foot), a lady stopped in her estate car…nice middle-aged, attractive, dark-haired…you get the picture…there was little else on the road…and said (trying to hide her amusement and failing somewhat); “do you guys want a lift?” We gratefully took her up on her offer and she dropped us at the village at the bottom of the hill…at the bus-stop that was just outside a primary school…as our consciousness-es became used to the new situation we could see that there was a large green dragon painted on the surface of the playground…as we looked away a lorry with a large green dragon painted on it drove past our noses…having (eventually), regarded the bus timetable I said; “let’s get a drink” so we walked up the road to drink our pints in the Green Dragon…

CommonLizard1

Saw one of those that day too…Nb. I was studying FUTHARK intensively in those days…

Leith2

Now thankfully saved (at least from the fracking crew), for the moment…

Leith

Quote; "“One of the hill’s), notable role (s), in history was as a battlefield in the ninth century struggle between Saxons and Danes. In 851AD the Danes planned a full scale invasion, after raiding the country regularly for many years. The Danes invaded up the Thames and burnt Canterbury and then London. The next target was Winchester, but on their march towards Winchester they met the army of Ethelwulf, father of Alfred the Great. Ethelwulf, it seems, took up a position on the slopes of Leith Hill - an ancient mass grave found in 1882 seems to point to this area as the sight of battle (Stories of the Surrey Hills published by the Surrey Society). Ethelwulf was able to use position on high ground to win the huge battle that followed. This battle ended the Danes immediate prospects of conquering the whole of Britain.” Go to: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2017/06/leith-hill-another-desecration-sacred.html (also for more pictures of this beautiful place).

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I’ve only ever driven past Glastonbury Tor, or viewed from a distance as at the famous place with the smelly portaloos. Must add to my visit soon list before it’s too late.

Speaking of psychogeography, as I wasn’t, here’s a Recent Read that I’d definitely recommend.

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That’s not Glastonbury Tor it is Leith Hill (Leith Hill Tower | National Trust -that’s the weird thing, it’s in Surrey-), …this is Glastonbury Tor…

TorGood

Spent a wet night on the Tor alone on my second visit (fell in a ditch and spent the night in a barn the first time), no-one tells you there’s no roof on that thing! If you scootch into a corner you can stay out of the worst…sunrise was incredible despite the rain and low cloud (or because of it), …

G

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I had a feeling it might not be, ha ha ha.

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It seems the CFI (Charles Fort Institute, founded by FT editor Bob Rickard iirc) is still going and has a Forum on this very subject: It Happened To Me! | The Forteana Forums

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I’ll chuck in another quick one (because once again the power has been out here most of the day. Do I moan about the power…)

I’m a Londoner born and bred. For the best part of a decade I shared a house with my grandmother, Mary (neither of us owned the house). My grandmother lived downstairs and I lived upstairs. It was a spacious property and both downstairs and upstairs had a kitchen and toilet. It worked out well because my grandmother was in her final years, and I was mostly onhand 24/7 (when I wasn’t cavaulting around the world).

My grandmother was very deaf, and also very incontinent (ladies, try to get that sorted before you get into very old age). Due to her deafness, my grandmother Mary always used to leave me written notes at the bottom of the stairs; just little stuff about getting in supplies for her and generally what was going on.

My grandmother Mary died at the age of 92, in her own bed, and in her own home. Her two daughters (my two aunties) were there, as of course I was; but that’s a whole other story.

So after all the usual stuff (I don’t mean that flippantly; just that some reading this might not be used to death) we buried my dear grandmother, who had just about the best death you can have.

One week after we buried my dear grandmother, I’d been working and got back to the house late in the evening. On the lower steps of the stairs there was a note, in her handwriting.

Again, I’m not making this up.

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Do you remember what the note said, Rob?

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I was curious about that too. Great story.

The power cuts must be infuriating. Three of my four sisters live in South Africa, and very comfortably I might add, but rolling blackouts are a way of life. Schedules are publicised, which at least gives people the chance to cook, charge their phones, etc. They call it load shedding.

Of course many many people don’t have power in the first place, and survive, I suspect this will be a way of life for many more of us as the New Normal unfolds.

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‘The New Normal’ is a synonym for the Long Descent: the just-begun era of world history when everything gets more and more expensive, and increasingly scarce at any price, where incomes lag chronically behind rising prices, and the bulk of us, the plebs, get to see our brief period of consumerist plenty - for the Pampered Twenty Percent - disappearing (forever) in the rear-view mirror.

Weird, isn’t it, that whilst so many people now see this era of increasing scarcity and cost-rise plainly enough, because how can you not, yet they still resist fanatically the idea that this is an inevitable systemic re-adjustment, brought on by The Limits. It’s always down to some - supposedly temporary and ‘correctable’ - political upheaval: just a bump in the long upward road of growthforever.

God forbid that we should ever even contemplate the idea that the brief, abundant-energy-driven splurge in self-indulgence (for the 20%ers) of the past couple of centuries was a once-only thing, that’s now on its last legs. Anathema even to give mind-room to such blasphemy!!

Yet as Albert Bartlett famously pointed out, if humankind had a better grasp on the simple mathematical reality of the exponential function, this eventual faltering and stalling of ‘growthforever’ would be seen as being always entirely predictable; inevitable, in fact. (But never fear: the [inferior] magic of techie-techie and space-colonisation is going to save us all, and keep it all going! Yeah, right! Hand me those trilithium crystals…!)

Meanwhile, interestingly enough, this major punctuation in the overall history of hom-sap, looks likely to lead to a further unfolding of ‘that undiscovered country’ that’s the original subject of this thread: things paranormal, aka real magic…

In another thread which I’m just about to start this morning, I want to bring up something truly fascinating, which Tom Campbell highlighted a year or so back: the masked, second-sighting children in Germany: able to learn how to see clear as day - or even clearer - their surroundings, and thus function like a normally-sighted person, even whilst their eyes were fully, comprehensively masked! Sic!

As the economic hyper-splurging door swings shut finally for humankind, the ancient shamanic door swings right back open - again!

Jump across to that second-sight topic for further information. :slight_smile:

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Will do

Weird, isn’t it,

Or possibly eerie. I still don’t quite grasp the distinction Fisher tried to make, but weird is supposedly a subset of eerie. This is specifically with reference to literature and other cultural forms.

There’s retinitis pigmentosa in our family and one of my nephews, whose vision is at the white stick stage, is about two weeks into using a NuEyes visor, crowd-funded by a bunch of us. He can see his girlfriend for the first time, I’m told.

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Muz maybe going blind… https://www.facebook.com/MantraMuz/posts/10229136855826464 …see replies…if you find my reply…there’s another “weird and eerie” for you… , quote; “Crystal healing for your eyes…but honestly although I am researching the design for a “potentising chamber” I’ve not potentised (and/or attempted to potentise), any crystal essences for a good while…a “suitable” uncut crystal around your neck wouldn’t hurt though (or basic cut only no polishing -you choose it, guess is as good as mine, I’m sure you might know a crystals expert, I’m not!-), I will need investors (when everything is ready), got some heavy health concerns myself (which I don’t want to discuss here), … I wear Black Tourmaline to protect against inimical rads… Clearly have the op. if it will help …I’ve found crystals very useful with regard to conventional medicine…had to bury a piece of Black Tourmaline after a CT scan on my brain… handled my “katra” (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Katra), that day…“white heat” like you wouldn’t believe…do you remember your hour-glass meditation? Good job I practised it, I instinctively abided in my heart centre as the scan took place (emptying my head), …I was wearing the Tourmaline around my neck!”

Moon Earth

Nb. Crystal essences are potentised under full-moonlight (noon-noon -we think-), whereas flower essences are potentised in sunlight (from 9am-12noon).

https://twitter.com/CrystalHerbs

Fingers crossed for him. My nephew is in his early twenties which feels more wrong, somehow. His younger brother has been diagnosed as well.

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The note was just usual mundane stuff: asking me to get her in some supplies from the supermarket, etc.

When I came into the house late that evening it was all dark. I put on the hall light and locked the front door, then I turned round and saw the note on the bottom of the stairs. The rest of the ground floor was in total darkness, including further down the hall the bedroom where my grandmother had recently died.

No, this is not going to be a Hollywood movie, because my grandmother was one of the kindest, most gentle people you could ever meet, and I know she loved me very much (probably because I payed most of the bills in that house). I was not afraid, whatsoever.

My grandmother’s spirit, or whatever view you take of it, still seemed to floating around. Again, I wasn’t the least bit afraid, because I knew my grandmother would never hurt me (quite the opposite). That note on the stairs happened during the early stages of bereavement, and bereavement has got to be one of the worst things you have to go through in life, both for the living and the dead.

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I’d say the same to you guys as I did to Muz.

Good one, Karen. Back in the day I had a few hitchhiking tales, but never came across a monk with his thumb out!

Love it. I always say that hitchhiking is (or was) one of the most entertaining ways of traveling.

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Rhis has just posted an interesting thread, but don’t we all like a ghost story, so I’ll try to keep this thread going.

I’m usually a bit careful about naming specific locations (cause it’s the internet), but in this case I don’t mind naming Clifford, a small hamlet about four miles from Hay-on-Wye, on the Welsh borders. My sister and her husband were renting a house there at the time. I was living there also for a number of weeks and used to take their dogs for a walk each morning. The dogs were called Titch and Fudge and were two small terriers whose breed I can’t now recall.

I used to walk the dogs along the old railway line, towards Whitney (anyone familiar with the area will know what I’m talking about). The two little dogs used to do what dogs do, following you along and jumping in and out of the undergrowth.

Then, about a mile or so out of Clifford, on the old railway line, there was a stretch, about 50 yards long and very overgrown, where the vibes were very, very bad. It was hair standing up on the back of the neck stuff. The two little dogs would race through this stretch as fast as possible.

I’ve plenty more…don’t worry about the thread… both my father and mother were “sensitive”, Dad even deliberately increasing his sensitivity as he got older… also, at least one, brother (and my niece although I don’t know if she knows it), cousins were…it’s in the family…

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GKH, from my experience - which echos yours - many people have ‘it’, but don’t realise what ‘it’ is.

I don’t pretend to understand the thing I’m calling ‘it’.

I can say that I’m one of those people who shouldn’t really be here (as a young baby I was given the Last Rites on two occasions as I lay dying in an intensive care unit at Guys Hospital in London).

But I’m still here to spit on the floor and call the cat a bastard; and also a ghost like me can maybe tell you a few ghost stories.

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Everyone has it, Rob; on the usual Bell Curve, from duffer to Jeshua-the-Nazarene-carpenter level of genius; but we all have it to some degree. It’s just that we live in a weird, aberrant social order which has specialised for a century or four in denying its very existence. And which, as a result of that blanket denial, indoctrinates and relentlessly trains growing children to regard such things as nonsense, and put them out of mind.

We don’t altogether though: Two examples of what really persists beneath the current Western conventional wisdom about psi:

Dean Radin, Chief Scientist at the Institute Of Noetic Science - IONS - reports that whenever he’s lecturing to a live audience - pretty well always a packed house, btw - and asks for a show of hands for people who have had paranormal experiences - usually quite small, inconsequential incidents - and quietly, without advertising the fact too widely, do indeed believe - or should I say know - that such things are real, he always gets a forest of hands. One of Dean’s recurrent jokes when he relates this fact is that, if he’s addressing an audience of mainly lay people, his hit rate is about 95%; but if it’s an audience of scientists, the rate will be about 97.5%! :grinning: Even though they all know as a matter of practical priority that it’s iffy to admit such things in scientific circles, and carries a risk of career-death, they still grasp, privately, that it’s real. Direct personal experience, spread over years, will do that to you.

The second instance is that of Hella Hammid. She worked with Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff - two bona-fide, time-served hard-physicists previously working with lasers - who were contracted in the 1970s by the CIA to investigate ‘remote viewing’ aka clairvoyance, for its possible use as a spying tool! Sic! Several years of fully-funded contract work for the CIA to investigate these matters!

In the set up which Russell and Harold set up, one of the hired staff was Hella Hammid. She was doing some line of administrative work for the research team, and - note this! - she affirmed that she had never had any idea that she might have a psychic talent herself; the idea had gone down the memory hole before she was ten years old, and never resurfaced.

Then, at one work session, Pat Price (I think it was), a veteran and known-to-be-gifted psychic, was held up and unable to get in on time. Russ asked if anyone would volunteer to work with him through the psi-induction method which he’d evolved and polished up well by this time. Hella, though protesting her complete lack of the ability, volunteered. And whaddya know: she was brilliant at it! A run of beginner’s luck put her into the star category straight away. And neither she nor anyone else had dreamt it, until she tried!

We all have it, on the Curve. And when actually encouraged to believe that fact, and to develop whatever level of gift we happen to have, the results are often striking, especially over the long term; as my own history of outrageous good luck in this lifetime exemplifies… ‘Coincidence’ magic! :grinning:

And this practical benefit, to self and to the world around, especially to your nearest and dearest, is available even when your personal psi-gift is only as so-so as mine is.

But you have to clear off your negative childhood indoctrination, and then commit to a dedicated period of work, to develop your own gift to its best polish. I often compare it to a Westerner learning to speak, read and write Mandarin fluently.

Or alternatively, with psi being such an inherently elusive and fundamentally un-tameable thing, you can use a simply-beautiful video on YT as a metaphor for how to coax psi into your daily life. The vid is ‘Touching The Wild’, and it shows the extended campaign by a solitary man living somewhere wild in the US Mid-West, who slowly gains the trust of a herd of wild deer, so that eventually they come to take gifts from his hands, and to have their heads stroked, and to bring their fawns to meet him… The story of Albert Green and Raggedy Ann, the Mule Deer matriarch, is deeply touching; but it’s also an excellent metaphor for the dedication it takes to get on everyday-familiar terms with your own psi gifts:

Never - ever - imagine that practical psi is like Harry Potter: you wave a little stick, and the power of god flows from you hand, compelling reality to obey! Doesn’t work like that; never biddable. Coaxable, sure! And to great advantage for any serious practitioner of white magic. But not tameable. And woe betide anyone foolish enough to attempt black magic; or even to fool around with the grey areas… Remember why we’re here: to help by our actions to lower the entropy of the whole system, aka to grow towards love; like this man with the deer.

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