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Out Of Fortean Fashion

What of table tipping? And do youngsters still play 'Light as a feather, stiff as a board' at parties and sleepovers where they attempt to lift a supine person each by using only one finger?
Oh, I would very much like to hear a reply from kids who now do sleepovers. This was a staple of kid stuff when I was going to slumber parties. Usually, we'd add a creepy narrative of "She's dying, " She's dead" before 'Light as a feather, stiff as a board' at parties and sleepovers. A reason for stiffness, I guess, and added creepyness.
Yet it always worked! Though we always used two fingers
 
Not out of fashion as such but why do I always think of the 70s when I think of poltergeists? Enfield, I know. But also, just generally... Are poltergeists the bell bottoms of the preternatural?
 
I spent most of my childhood and early teenage years being terrified that one day I’d spontaneously combust after reading too many lurid accounts in the Readers Digers book of the unexplained. You never hear anything about it these days.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15032614

It was in 2011 that an Irish Coroner gave a verdict of Death by Spontaneous Combustion. Probably been mentioned somewhere here before but I believe it was the first time that verdict had been passed.
 
.... reports of poltergeists from South Asia which set off fires, all mentioned in the recent years of FT. How good their fire regulations are, I don't know.

As a habitual traveller to s. Asia I can tell you that (apart from airports and other government/secure spaces) the regulations are:

1. What regulations?

:cfire::joint::cfire:
 
Dragging this thread out of the vault for an airing. I wonder what people's impressions are now, as we approach 2023?

My impressions are that time slips & living in a simulation themes are currently 'trending'.
Everything else seems to have fallen out of vogue; although I do agree with Escargot's previous comment that most people are still interested in 'ghosts' (however you wish to categorise them) and will delight in sharing their experiences once coaxed.

I do think that the rising popularity of sites such as Reddit have had a profound effect on the mainstream perception of fortean trends.

Conspiracy themes evolved into something much darker along the way....the internet having reshaped how we discover and disseminate information. Not to mention, the typical, intended audience of such topics has shifted (uncomfortably) too, I might add..

And whilst I wasn't quite old enough to enjoy the much broader 70/80's renaissance of all things supernatural and weird, I have certainly made up for it since. Most of my favourite fortean themed TV hails from this era (Children of the Stones, Owl Service, Omega Factor, Beasts, etc).

Have a great Christmas everyone! x
 
Dragging this thread out of the vault for an airing. I wonder what people's impressions are now, as we approach 2023?
My impressions are that time slips & living in a simulation themes are currently 'trending'.

I think there's an overall re-organization or realignment of topical categories that's been happening for decades. Some Fortean / paranormal phenomena were lumped together under a single general label for years. As time went on certain phenomena were disentangled from each other because there were enough reported cases to illustrate differences among them.

One example that recently occurred to me would be doppelgangers versus vardogers. For a long time reports relating to these two labels were lumped together, most probably because they both involved a mysterious figure or incident mistaken for a known person or a known person's action(s).

More recently it's become apparent (at least to me) that these are two distinct categories of mysterious encounters. Doppelganger stories tend to hinge on seeing and recognizing the literal (visible) presence of an "other" presumed initially to be a familiar person. Vardoger stories hinge on indirect inference or assumption that a familiar person is present or has just arrived, only to eventually determine the presumed arrival wasn't what had been assumed.


Everything else seems to have fallen out of vogue; although I do agree with Escargot's previous comment that most people are still interested in 'ghosts' (however you wish to categorise them) and will delight in sharing their experiences once coaxed.

I think the overall category of 'ghosts' ('spirits'; whatever) remains a huge catch-all for anything that seems to be a human or animal presence or activity for which no ordinary specimen is identified, recognized, or reasonably attributed.

Classic ghost stories involve phantoms (broadly defined) who are identified as residues or projections of actual people (or animals). In more recent times ghost lore has expanded to include incidents for which no specific causal agent / agency is perceived. This sort of "de-personification" of spirits is most evident with the rise of poltergeists as representative paranormal agents / agencies.


... Conspiracy themes evolved into something much darker along the way....the internet having reshaped how we discover and disseminate information. Not to mention, the typical, intended audience of such topics has shifted (uncomfortably) too, I might add. ...

Agreed ... As (e.g.) crimes have become more complex and grandiose in scale within societies that have themselves become complex to the point no one understands what's happening the bizarre and perverse possibilities for human mischief seem to unfold in new ways no one predicted.
 
Crop circles seem to have gone completely out of fashion. I used to look forward to seeing the new, er, crop of them each year. Aliens practising social distancing?

Demons are everywhere now. Common or garden ghosts or polts are no longer good enough.

I predict new levels of absurdity in the UK at some point with Skinwalker appearances. They are all the rage on the telly so it is only a matter of time.
 
It seems to me that phantom black dogs (one of my favourite fortean subjects) and the wild hunt (which overlaps to a certain extent) are pretty much gone, although the odd new sighting crops up occasionally. Others have noted how phantom black dog sightings seem to have declined at the same time that alien big cats have taken off, prompting discussion as to whether the phenomena has transformed its outward manifestation... But, on the whole, most ABCs don't have the high weirdness associated with them that is part and parcel of phantom black dogs - of course that could be because most reported ABCs are actually domestic moggies, and there certainly have been ABCs combined with high strangeness.
 
Phantom hitchhikers also seem to have taken a backseat (sorry, couldn't resist!). Probably due to the rise of CCTV and dashcams, etc.
Another of my favourites... although I suspect they will continue to crop up and dashcams will be found to either be malfunctioning, or show nothing except abrupt braking.
 
Following on from that, you never hear anything about the Aetherius Society these days.
Funny reading this. My spotify just recommended this for me yesterday:


I haven't listened to the entire episode as I fell asleep. No reflection on the content. I listen to podcasts when I'm getting to sleep.
 
In the mid-2000s I seem to remember a large number of articles, including in places like the BBC, talking about how no-one saw UFOs any more.

Thanks to the US Navy stuff, the attentions of figures like Bigelow, and I suspect a convergence with a generally conspiracy-focused mindset encouraged by sections of the media and certain political figures, it seems ufology is alive and well - albeit reshaped for the current climate.

Other than that - yes, lots of demons, 'timeslips' and cryptozoology, fewer folkloric 'black dogs', traditional ghosts and earthlights - more's the pity.
 
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