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What's The Most Boring Fortean Subject?

Sorry to any Tarot believers here but 'readings' just seem to me like a way to separate fools from their money. We've got one offering the service through their I saw you coming shop in my town. I know a bloke who works there and even he's admitted to me it's a load of ****. He's an ex Morrisons personnel manager so he'd know. I met a Gypsy woman not far from there about 15 years ago who was fleecing tourists. She looked like the cliché headscarf wearing old Romany woman you'd see in films so I bought four glass pebbles from her and she told me I'd have six children :) . I've still got the pebbles but no kids yet.
 
I knew someone that discovered the first new species of monkey in a hundred years. He gathered the evidence and published it in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Made his name.

When I hear cryptid investigators talking about lab tests confirming new DNA and footprints like no other, I'm fine with that. Make sure the lab is accredited and publish in the scientific press. If you're evidence is robust, you'll get the credit. It's not that stunning for new animals to be discovered in remote places. Thousands of new species are discovered every year.
 
Swifty said:
I met a Gypsy woman not far from there
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Yeah but yeah ... my great grandmother as a young women sometime in the late 1800s early 1900's was sitting on a beach not far from where you are now (I don't actually know which one but Cromer or Hunstanton were places she favoured) when she was approached by a gypsy. She didn't want her fortune told as she was religious but anyway said Gypsy went ahead regardless and told her she would 'have 6 children but only 5 confinements'. This did indeed come to pass as she had six children which included one set of twins!
The story was told in our familly as food for thought but I think it was just seen as a lucky guess. All the same perhaps you should bear it in mind don't want to worry you or anything but thought I'd best warn you ... whistle.
 
Sollywos said:
Yeah but yeah ... my great grandmother as a young women sometime in the late 1800s early 1900's was sitting on a beach not far from where you are now (I don't actually know which one but Cromer or Hunstanton were places she favoured) when she was approached by a gypsy. She didn't want her fortune told as she was religious but anyway said Gypsy went ahead regardless and told her she would 'have 6 children but only 5 confinements'. This did indeed come to pass as she had six children which included one set of twins!
The story was told in our familly as food for thought but I think it was just seen as a lucky guess. All the same perhaps you should bear it in mind don't want to worry you or anything but thought I'd best warn you ... whistle.
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Thanks. I'd better get busy then! :)
 
Swifty said:
Sorry to any Tarot believers here but 'readings' just seem to me like a way to separate fools from their money. We've got one offering the service through their I saw you coming shop in my town. I know a bloke who works there and even he's admitted to me it's a load of ****. He's an ex Morrisons personnel manager so he'd know. I met a Gypsy woman not far from there about 15 years ago who was fleecing tourists. She looked like the cliché headscarf wearing old Romany woman you'd see in films so I bought four glass pebbles from her and she told me I'd have six children :) . I've still got the pebbles but no kids yet.
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Anyone can call themselves a Tarot reader/fortune teller and fleece the gullible. Doesn't mean there aren't any genuinely spooky people out there.
 
Swifty said:
Sorry to any Tarot believers here but 'readings' just seem to me like a way to separate fools from their money. We've got one offering the service through their I saw you coming shop in my town. I know a bloke who works there and even he's admitted to me it's a load of ****. He's an ex Morrisons personnel manager so he'd know. I met a Gypsy woman not far from there about 15 years ago who was fleecing tourists. She looked like the cliché headscarf wearing old Romany woman you'd see in films so I bought four glass pebbles from her and she told me I'd have six children :) . I've still got the pebbles but no kids yet.
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On the other hand 40 years ago I was 100 miles from home on business on my own at a seaside resort killing a bit of time when a Gypsy woman as you describe walking past told me she hoped the woman I gave a ring to the day before really liked it ( we got engaged the day before). Didn't ask for any dosh either. Now if only she could have warned me........
 
Tunn11 said:
Pyramids are interesting but the pyramidiots just get more and more ridiculous. " The height of the great pyramid (before the capping fell off) in cubits multiplied by the number of toenail clippings from Ramesis II in his lifetime is exactly equal to the distance of the Earth to the sun in millimeters on1st June 2002 BCE" etc.

I always liked Steve Wright's line about homeopathy: "Did you hear about the homeopath who killed himself? Took an underdose." Having said that now we'll probably find that water has some property like RNA and csan duplicate certain molecules.

I always like to replace all the fancy names in adverts for "snake oil" "Contains beta phantasmagoriphon for clearer skin" etc.
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Bend at knees.jpg
 
Swifty said:
Sorry to any Tarot believers here but 'readings' just seem to me like a way to separate fools from their money. We've got one offering the service through their I saw you coming shop in my town. I know a bloke who works there and even he's admitted to me it's a load of ****. He's an ex Morrisons personnel manager so he'd know. I met a Gypsy woman not far from there about 15 years ago who was fleecing tourists. She looked like the cliché headscarf wearing old Romany woman you'd see in films so I bought four glass pebbles from her and she told me I'd have six children :) . I've still got the pebbles but no kids yet.
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Yep.
It always struck me that using Tarot cards for divination would be more credible if the reader dealt the major arcana face up and let the subject select a few cards that they felt drawn to. This would, at least, give some insight into their sentiments, fears and desires.
IMHO, the best use for the 78-card deck is playing the French game of Tarot - a bidding and trick-taking game, which plays like a more colourful and distant cousin to Bridge. The major arcana are the trumps numbered from 1 to 21 and the four suits range from the highest Roi (King), Dame (Queen), Cavalier (Knight) and Valet (Jack) then 10 down to 1. I learnt the game decades ago and, a couple of weeks ago in France, had the pleasure to play several hands one evening with my wife's relatives.

https://www.pagat.com/tarot/frtarot.html
 
I had my fortune read by a romany lady out of sheer curiosity, years ago. (I could cold read myself when I do Tarot - if I'm not getting anything, so am aware that's a thing). One thing she said really stuck. She said "You work with colour." I'm not an artist and didn't have paint (or dye) on my hands or clothes that day, or anything that could give her a clue but I was, at the time, publishing a series of articles about replicating medieval textiles colours using natural dyes and had written around that time, elsewhere about the lore of colour... I remember coming out and checking their wasn't dye on my hands! There wasn't. Another thing she said (and I accept you're only likely to recall the direct hits but this was interesting) was that there was a person who had "passed over" with me and he was a musician. My dad was fairly recently dead and he'd been a semi professional musician. (My grandad also was). Not such a common profession.

Last year, son and his girlfriend went to see the same lady (the one at Whitby) as they walked past and his gfriend really wanted to get her/their fortune read. Again no outward visible signs of it but son was booked in, following day, for an MRI brain scan as he had just started having seizures and they were looking to see if he had a brain tumour or whatever else could account for it. So, the peak of us worrying about this upcoming scan (which none of us had mentioned, or referred to in any way, when in Whitby - we went to take his mind off it, so there was no chance she had heard us discussing it). She was really reading son's gfriend's fortune but looked at them both and said they would be getting scan results soon and it would be good news... Look at a loved up young couple and scans do come to mind, admittedly - not brain MRIs. So that might have been a lucky shot, but it was so apt as his scan was literally 24 hours after this. I forget what else she said - will ask son's gfriend and report back, if there was owt else that was interesting.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
It always struck me that using Tarot cards for divination would be more credible if the reader dealt the major arcana face up and let the subject select a few cards that they felt drawn to
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It is my limited understanding that the subject is subconsciously selecting pertinent cards when they do the shuffle. Tarot readings by email or down the phone thus makes no sense to me if the reader is shuffling for the client. Likewise you can't do remote viewing if you don't know where the object is located so you can mentally view it. Maybe I should have more faith in magic.
 
Bad Bungle said:
It is my limited understanding that the subject is subconsciously selecting pertinent cards when they do the shuffle. Tarot readings by email or down the phone thus makes no sense to me if the reader is shuffling for the client. Likewise you can't do remote viewing if you don't know where the object is located so you can mentally view it. Maybe I should have more faith in magic.
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In my own limited understanding, I don't think it's necessary for the querent to touch or shuffle the cards, as it's the reader's experience and intuition in interpreting the meaning that provides the insight, not the querent's actions.
 
Yes of course the reader is interpreting the meaning of the cards Aydee, but if the querent is not subconsciously selecting or touching the cards then surely it is the reader's future being examined.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Yes of course the reader is interpreting the meaning of the cards Aydee, but if the querent is not subconsciously selecting or touching the cards then surely it is the reader's future being examined.
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Why specifically scans though?. That's quite precise. Young couples also have new home, new car and new job worries for only three more obvious examples. I suppose the scan thing could be a lucky guess with a young woman who could be trying to get pregnant.
 
A blatantly loved-up young couple aren't yet at the scans stage. By that time the honeymoon is long over.

As for how a remote Tarot reading is done: someone did this for me from another continent and said they felt a connection as strong as if I were sitting in front of them.
What they told me was spot-on too. Some of it took years to play out.
 
PeteS said:
That is the problem with all things psychic, predictions of events which can be years away and only then do you get the Oh ffs moment.
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Yeah, vague enough predictions can be... kind of inevitable. "positive fortune will come your way" sort of stuff.... um... sure...

But parapsychology doesn't work with such concrete factors that you can genuinely say distance is ruled out. HOW does someone know what the top card is? that defines how it's limited in usage.
 
Bad Bungle said:
It is my limited understanding that the subject is subconsciously selecting pertinent cards when they do the shuffle. Tarot readings by email or down the phone thus makes no sense to me if the reader is shuffling for the client. Likewise you can't do remote viewing if you don't know where the object is located so you can mentally view it. Maybe I should have more faith in magic.
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Which reminds me:

Remote Viewing

I understand the history behind this (The Men Who Stare at Goats etc) but is there any actual evidence for it...?

You can sign up for a course:

CRV Certificate Workshop​

This 5 day course covers all you need to know to get started on becoming a Remote Viewer.

The venue for the next course will be in Inverness, Scotland, Wednesday 13th March to Sunday 17th March 2024. Cost £695. Ample choice of accommodation to suit your requirements and budget within walking distance.

Alternatively: Mansfield near Nottingham, Wednesday 2nd October to Sunday 6th October 2024.

Please email [email protected] for more details and to reserve your place.

https://remoteviewinguk.com/training/

Or buy a book:

"With Remote Viewing: The Complete User's Manual for Coordinate Remote Viewing, he presents comprehensive instruction in this scientifically designed method for tapping your ability to transcend your physical senses. By adapting the training he underwent to become an elite "psychic spy," Morehouse has created an accessible step–by–step approach that anyone can use. "Remote Viewing was created as a means of gathering information," teaches David Morehouse, "but it has proven to be much more." As thousands of his students have discovered, a Remote Viewer actually taps into the collective unconscious that connects everything and everyone in the universe.'

https://amzn.eu/d/3lfUBKl

Yours for just £15.72:

Does it come with a money back guarantee...? I mean, why would I need an App to find my lost iPhone when I could just remote view it?

It is not that I don't believe, it's just that I haven't seen any evidence that this is anything other than a means for extracting easy money from gullible New Age-y wishful thinkers who also subscribe to the likes of so-called Universal Ordering.
 
this is one of those things where I have to question if everyone who can (in some way) pull tricks like that is using the same method, and if not might have different limitations.

Like seeing where a familiar object is, or a specific location. Or simply watching something on TV.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Which reminds me:

Remote Viewing

I understand the history behind this (The Men Who Stare at Goats etc) but is there any actual evidence for it...?

You can sign up for a course:

CRV Certificate Workshop​

This 5 day course covers all you need to know to get started on becoming a Remote Viewer.

The venue for the next course will be in Inverness, Scotland, Wednesday 13th March to Sunday 17th March 2024. Cost £695. Ample choice of accommodation to suit your requirements and budget within walking distance.

Alternatively: Mansfield near Nottingham, Wednesday 2nd October to Sunday 6th October 2024.

Please email [email protected] for more details and to reserve your place.

https://remoteviewinguk.com/training/

Or buy a book:

"With Remote Viewing: The Complete User's Manual for Coordinate Remote Viewing, he presents comprehensive instruction in this scientifically designed method for tapping your ability to transcend your physical senses. By adapting the training he underwent to become an elite "psychic spy," Morehouse has created an accessible step–by–step approach that anyone can use. "Remote Viewing was created as a means of gathering information," teaches David Morehouse, "but it has proven to be much more." As thousands of his students have discovered, a Remote Viewer actually taps into the collective unconscious that connects everything and everyone in the universe.'

https://amzn.eu/d/3lfUBKl

Yours for just £15.72:

Does it come with a money back guarantee...? I mean, why would I need an App to find my lost iPhone when I could just remote view it?

It is not that I don't believe, it's just that I haven't seen any evidence that this is anything other than a means for extracting easy money from gullible New Age-y wishful thinkers who also subscribe to the likes of so-called Universal Ordering.
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Love the idea that a remote viewing course is physically based with recommended local accomodation.
 
BS3 said:
Thinking about this a bit more I guess it's because the figure of the 'wolfman' seems like a modern creation, the product of urban myth and Hollywood, whereas black dogs are rooted in much older folklore and have a more obviously archetypal feel (I've seen it argued that they were a sort of submerged memory of early horses, for example, or related to innate fears of large, predatory felids).

But on reflection that's a bit unfair; black dogs and wolfmen are really on a continuum of odd human experiences. Perhaps someone reporting a wolfman would have seen the Shuck a century and a half back.
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The "wer-" in "werewolf" is Old English though, so it's at least 1000 years old.

Out of interest, just found it in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo Saxon Dictionary (I'm such a nerd its my favourite browsing. Quote appears to be from the Canons of Wulfstan - an Archbishop of York who died 1023, apparently):
Screenshot 2024-04-13 at 09.50.01.png

I blame those Hammer Horror films - the werewolf ones were sometimes the most boring.
 
Got to admit, I have to take a long run-up and to be in the right frame of mind for cryptozoology. It's not boring per se, but an area that doesn't interest me as much as, say, conspiracy theory or religious-related forteana.
 
as a kid the idea of "lost civilizations" intrigued me... but mostly because I didn't get it... nowadays I'm like O-o'''' because I realized just how many true lost civilizations there really are. Peoples we will NOT identify in this life because that is beyond Human ability. Sometimes dead and gone is just that... GONE. Ancient wars often had the victor completely take over what the loser had. EVERYTHING they owned got re-purposed and every trace of what they were was erased.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
The "wer-" in "werewolf" is Old English though, so it's at least 1000 years old.

Out of interest, just found it in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo Saxon Dictionary (I'm such a nerd its my favourite browsing. Quote appears to be from the Canons of Wulfstan - an Archbishop of York who died 1023, apparently):
View attachment 75634
I blame those Hammer Horror films - the werewolf ones were sometimes the most boring.
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“Some Old English words which appear only in works under [Wulfstan’s] influence are werewulf "were-wolf"…”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulfstan_(died_1023)#Language

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
“Some Old English words which appear only in works under [Wulfstan’s] influence are werewulf "were-wolf"…”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulfstan_(died_1023)#Language

maximus otter
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It is interesting that @Ghost In The Machine's attachment lists the meaning of were-wulf as "fiend".

Considering the works of Wulfstan are the only ones using this word, and that Wulf is part of his surname, did he create a word to indicate that someone not of his family was a were-Wulf ie no familial connection, or an enemy?

Big difference between what we understand as the meaning of werewolf and fiend.
 
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