Mikefule
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2009
- Messages
- 1,279
- Location
- Lincolnshire UK
I stopped subscribing to Fortean Times for simple economic reasons after taking my pension earlier than planned. However, I took into account that each succeeding issue had given me less joy than the one before.
Yes, I'm of the generation that read Von Däniken and half believed it, and read Lobsang Rampa with an open mind... and yes, as I've got older, I have become more sceptical in the proper sense of considering the evidence, and mundane explanations, before giving credence to outlandish theories that require you to believe three impossible things before breakfast.
However, I hope I am not a skeptic in the sense of being the opposite of a conspiracy theorist: someone who starts with the assumption that everything can be disproved if you discount the inconvenient evidence as "a hoax".
Certain parts of Fortean Times were annoying, and I had stopped reading the UFOlogy stuff, and the mothman stuff, and I normally found Classical Corner self-satisfied and Necrolog irrelevant because I am not part of any "Fortean community" — other than this forum, of course. However, I did enjoy the articles and photos on things like the Victorian "vampire hunter's kit" and the Fijian mermaids.
The problem with FT is that there is only so much that can be said about the celebrated cases, and it draws you into a strange twilight world in which you are expected to know all the background details and names of the people involved in the Rothwell incident, and the Rendlesham Forest Incident, and the Patterson Gimlin film, and the Surgeon's Photograph, and Borley Rectory, and all the other causes célèbres. It has become — or perhaps always was — cliquey, as if you had to do your homework just to earn your position as a legitimate FT reader.
However, that said, I got a lot of pleasure from reading it for a few years, and it led me to this forum, where I continue to read good material from knowledgeable enthusiasts, and occasionally get drawn into worthwhile debate. There's plenty of weird stuff out there, and the answers are not always as clear cut as either the believers or the skeptics would have us believe.
Long may this forum continue as one of the friendliest and most interesting places on the internet.
Yes, I'm of the generation that read Von Däniken and half believed it, and read Lobsang Rampa with an open mind... and yes, as I've got older, I have become more sceptical in the proper sense of considering the evidence, and mundane explanations, before giving credence to outlandish theories that require you to believe three impossible things before breakfast.
However, I hope I am not a skeptic in the sense of being the opposite of a conspiracy theorist: someone who starts with the assumption that everything can be disproved if you discount the inconvenient evidence as "a hoax".
Certain parts of Fortean Times were annoying, and I had stopped reading the UFOlogy stuff, and the mothman stuff, and I normally found Classical Corner self-satisfied and Necrolog irrelevant because I am not part of any "Fortean community" — other than this forum, of course. However, I did enjoy the articles and photos on things like the Victorian "vampire hunter's kit" and the Fijian mermaids.
The problem with FT is that there is only so much that can be said about the celebrated cases, and it draws you into a strange twilight world in which you are expected to know all the background details and names of the people involved in the Rothwell incident, and the Rendlesham Forest Incident, and the Patterson Gimlin film, and the Surgeon's Photograph, and Borley Rectory, and all the other causes célèbres. It has become — or perhaps always was — cliquey, as if you had to do your homework just to earn your position as a legitimate FT reader.
However, that said, I got a lot of pleasure from reading it for a few years, and it led me to this forum, where I continue to read good material from knowledgeable enthusiasts, and occasionally get drawn into worthwhile debate. There's plenty of weird stuff out there, and the answers are not always as clear cut as either the believers or the skeptics would have us believe.
Long may this forum continue as one of the friendliest and most interesting places on the internet.