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Approaches To Interpreting Personal Fortean Experiences

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Although we have discussed what a Fortean approach involves (without coming to any conclusions) e.g.:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13644

a few recent threads have brought up the question of of how we interpret what is the core of a lot of paranormal experiences - how we accept and deal with an indivduals account of a supernatural enocuter. See e.g.:

LO's abduction experience:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15989

Gullibility and related "fake experience" threads:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20540
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20446
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21013

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Anyway my take on it (which I've gone into elsewhere) is that we really have to accept that people believe their interpretaiton of events is what happened but that I reserve the right to dig deeper into things. Also we can't analyse the report seperate from the person because of all the "baggage" veryone brings to the table with them.

Discuss ;)
 
I see nothing flawed with beginning with the theory that whatever the person is telling you is the truth. From thereon, it is possible to allow for explainable events, but if the Witness categorically states "That didn't happen" then there is no evidence to support that it did, only supposition. Now, why should the Listener's supposition be any more valid than the Witness'?

If I say, pictures flew off the wall, I would allow for pertinent questions, such as, did the nails fall out? Was a large truck passing by at the time? Any reports of earthquakes? If I report that none of these things happened, and that furthermore, the pictures came off their hooks, and landed 3-4 feet away from the wall, without breaking or any kind of damage, then I really shouldn't expect another question asking, "But did a large lorry pass the house at the time?" I've already answered that point, and furthermore, even if the answer was, Yes, a large lorry did pass the house at the time, but .... then I consider my story to be still valid. I do not consider anyone pushing the lorry theory to have a valid case any longer.

Just because some times pictures fall off walls for perfectly mundane reasons doesn't mean all pictures fall off walls for the same reason.
 
One of the first questions is this a genuine account, are they making it up or are they delusional?

We do get the odd story, where it's clearly either the last option or it's someone pretending to be deranged, you usually need few posts to guess which, although it tends to be a gut feeling - some people's outbursts seem just too premediated.

Whether a more rationally related story is genuine or not can be harder to spot. I look for untidyness, not in the sense of how articulate the poster is - there's a huge range of writing skills - I mean that some stories seem just too neat, with a beginning a middle and, if not exactly an end, a structured ending. It's a feeling that genuine accounts, no matter how weird, seem more factured, as if you came in half-way through or missed the end.

Again, it's really a case of how the story develops, I personally get a bit suspicious when the story starts to become more elaborate as the thread progresses.

However, its best initially, if you work from the premise that the person is actually recounting a genuine experience.

What is real nature of the event? There's a lot off weird stuff that seems to happen around the edges of sleep and when this happen to me, the random voices, the hooded figures, the sensation of dropping down tunnels, the dream images that linger for a while after you've woken up, I put them down to hynagogic and hypnopompic imagery. I spontaneously lucid dream, which used to worry me until I discovered it's a known sleep phenomenom. That is I put such stuff down to my brain not quite going offline or coming back online in the right sequence.

To take an example of someone not on this board, when "Communion" first came out I always felt that everything Strieber experienced could adequately be explained by parasomnias and a tendency to ascribe meanings to odd random events, that you'd never noticed if weren't already in an anxious hyper-alert condition. As the other books followed, I became unsure as to whether he was exploiting his experience or whether he'd undergone some sort of "religious" conversion. Some people see ETs, some see fairies, some see saints some see demons - I think it's generally a cultural overlay on a psychological phenomenom.

Which doesn't of course absolutely exclude ET, fairies or saints or demons, but if they happen IMO they're probably extremely rare.

Would I say to someone directly that I believed absolutely that their experience was a parasomnia? No, though I might suggest it. If they reject the suggestion its up to them, there may be aspects of the experience that I'm not aware of. (The exception I make is revenge dogmatism, when the vision has a message for humanity, and the experiencer start preaching it. However, that's just grumpiness and an aversion to preachiness, nothing to do with genuine enquiry)

UFOs, yes I generally believe that people saw something. It's sometimes possible to work out what it was often its just unidentified.

Ghosts, again, yes people experienced something. I tend to go for the psychological/environmental explanation, but some cases just don't fit and you can't dismiss something as impossible or a lie because you don't have an explanation. (BTW IMO the least likely explanation for a ghost is a dead person)

Conspiracy theories are entertaining, but generally unprovable, although some people seem to think that absence of evidence is evidence of a cover-up. Absence of evidence is just that.

One rant about non-phenomena, things that some people think are weird but aren't - e.g. "Chemtrails" they're effing contrails and clouds, some people aren't familiar enough with the sky to know what's weird and what's not.
 
The Ophelia Law - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Quite fond of that one, myself! :D

It's something to do with a Great War boat, apparently; called, oddly enough, Ophelia. It was taken to be a spy, and although no evidence could be found on the boat to support it, the behaviour of it led Them to apply the above principle, which is now known as The Ophelia Law.

edit Ah yes - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ma.rathfelder/Ophelia.htm

"The Ophelia [1915] P 129 and [1916] 2 AC 206
(1) At first instance this case was heard in the Prize Court by the President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division (Sir Samuel Evans). The appeal went directly to the Privy Council. Their Lordships' advice was delivered by Sir Arthur Channell.
(2) The "Ophelia" was a German steamship. On 18 October 1914, off the German/Dutch coast, she was boarded and taken as prize by men from HMS "Meteor". The Imperial German Government claimed her release upon the ground that she had been operating as an auxiliary military hospital-ship. The British Crown contended that she had been operating as a signalling ship for military purposes.
(3) The facts of the case are summarised at pages 129-137 of the Probate report. Many further facts appear from the extraordinarily full report of counsel's arguments - see pages 137-175. (No less than six counsel appeared.) To anyone with any interest in maritime affairs, the facts are certainly not boring to read. They are replete with such items as courses, soundings and distances run. (At page 169 the President intervenes: "Can you tell me whether these courses are true or magnetic?") For present purposes, however, it will suffice to say that -
(a) various documents, including the signals log or logs were, at the time of seizure, thrown overboard or, a fortnight later, burnt by the "Ophelia's" paymaster whilst the ship lay in the Thames; and
(b) even in the absence of those documents, there was abundant objective evidence that the "Ophelia" was manned and equipped for transmitting and receiving signals - and not as a hospital-ship. "
 
Ravenstone said:
I see nothing flawed with beginning with the theory that whatever the person is telling you is the truth. From thereon, it is possible to allow for explainable events, but if the Witness categorically states "That didn't happen" then there is no evidence to support that it did, only supposition. Now, why should the Listener's supposition be any more valid than the Witness'?

If I say, pictures flew off the wall, I would allow for pertinent questions, such as, did the nails fall out? Was a large truck passing by at the time? Any reports of earthquakes? If I report that none of these things happened, and that furthermore, the pictures came off their hooks, and landed 3-4 feet away from the wall, without breaking or any kind of damage, then I really shouldn't expect another question asking, "But did a large lorry pass the house at the time?" I've already answered that point, and furthermore, even if the answer was, Yes, a large lorry did pass the house at the time, but .... then I consider my story to be still valid. I do not consider anyone pushing the lorry theory to have a valid case any longer.

Just because some times pictures fall off walls for perfectly mundane reasons doesn't mean all pictures fall off walls for the same reason.

One of the problems with eyewitness testimony, though, is the very nature of memory and perception. If the person telling the story is not lying, or delusional, or anything else that might make us questions his or her reliability/motives, it's still very difficult to realy on people's testimony. We don't always see what we think we see, remember it just as it happened, or notice everything else that might be happening at the time.

That's not to discount someone's story, but it has to be considered. The eyes, ears and the mind play tricks on us all the time. Any story of ghosts/aliens/lake monsters have to hold up to the query "Could they be mistaken?" If there's no possible way they were, then you've got something!
 
One of the problems with eyewitness testimony, though, is the very nature of memory and perception.

While this is undoubtadly true it must also be said that the people reading the story are also coloured by there own perception of whats real or not. For example if i was to say i had seen a horse walking by me about 5 meters away on my local street there are very few people who would disagree with me but substitute say a crocodile for the horse and its almost a certainty that some people will doubt you straight away. They will try to find any explanation other than the crocodile. I know that a lot of fortean events are far more ambiguous than a croc strolling across your path but i guess i'm trying to say that the person listening to the story has to be just as careful of his prejudices and beliefs when countering someone elses story.
 
Yes, memory is a dodgy thing. But you also have to consider that perhaps the experience was strange enough that the person has remembered it correctly, without embellishment. Even allowing for embellishment, however, the core of the story must remain the same.

Take the horse/crocodile example. You are unlikely to convince yourself you saw a crocodile instead of a horse, no matter how many times to repeat the story. You will always remember whether or not you saw the crocodile. You can imagine it, but you would be aware of something that bizarre being a figment of your imagination. A real crocodile, however, would need no embellishment. Even if you tagged onto the story a completely imaginary child being gobbled up by the crocodile, the sighting of the crocodile remains the core experience, and remains unchanged.
 
Bump / update ...

Here is the text of post #1 with updated versions of the links therein (that can still be found nowadays).
=========================

Although we have discussed what a Fortean approach involves (without coming to any conclusions) e.g.:

The Truth Is/Is Not Out There. Or: I Do / Don't Want To Believe
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index...t-out-there-or-i-want-to-believe-i-don.13644/
(UPDATED)

a few recent threads have brought up the question of of how we interpret what is the core of a lot of paranormal experiences - how we accept and deal with an indivduals account of a supernatural enocuter. See e.g.:

LO's abduction experience:

LobeliaOverhill's Abduction Experience
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/lobeliaoverhills-abduction-experience.15989/
(UPDATED)

Gullibility and related "fake experience" threads:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20540 (NOT FOUND; MIA)
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20446 (NOT FOUND; MIA)

All My Strange Events
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/all-my-strange-events.21013/
(UPDATED)
 
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