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Why Always A Native American?

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That is a mouse.

He is my spirit animal.
 
The only languages I know, apart from bad comprehensive school "French", are so-called dead languages. I'm just waiting for an Anglo Saxon to come along who speaks perfect Anglian or a Viking. My degree would finally come in useful. (Well, it might have if I hadn't forgotten most of it). Am currently learning Latin (because am a sucker for punishment) but medieval ecclesiastical Latin as spoken by a monk might be a stretch too far. Would love to get an urgent phone call at 3AM from someone saying "My spirit guide's an Anglo Saxon warrior and has just turned up and is shouting "Hwaet!" a lot. Can you help?" but sadly there are no jobs in that.

Am guessing the way round the linguistic stuff for "mediums" is - they claim to see it in their heads as images. But am not sure how much of that a person from say, 1000 years ago, would manage to make mutually intelligible, given the difference in cultures, anyway? I mean, if he wanted to tell you to take a journey, he'd have to show you a picture of a horse, not your car, etc?
 
t medieval ecclesiastical Latin as spoken by a monk

I am happy to report that it comes out nicely with classical latin, a copy of Latham's Medieval Word List * and a sticky-note reminder about their tendency simply to add -us, -a, or -um to the mediaeval word when they didn't have an equivalent.

A gun tends to be gunna, rather than fire-stick or lead propelling tube, for example.

* Other aids to scholarship are available!
 
Am guessing the way round the linguistic stuff for "mediums" is - they claim to see it in their heads as images. But am not sure how much of that a person from say, 1000 years ago, would manage to make mutually intelligible, given the difference in cultures, anyway? I mean, if he wanted to tell you to take a journey, he'd have to show you a picture of a horse, not your car, etc?
Ah, that’s why they keep getting it wrong:

"The manuscript the Roman has hidden beneath the person shouting loudly", was in fact the will in the drawer that uncle Claude (ius) left under the telephone and not the Bank details downloaded from the computer with Zoom loaded that cousin Jules (Julius), wanted you to have. :)

That explains the confusion (and offers the proof that these ancient peoples did not have access to modern technology supplied by aliens)

Whole load of Fortean stuff getting explained now. :bthumbup:
 
"Servants of the Supernatural: The night side of the Victorian Mind." Antonio Melechi. Arrow Books 2009

https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/ant...Vg-3tCh2N9QfoEAQYASABEgLI__D_BwE#GOR002918019

Not read it yet but it's on the heap! I had a quick look at the index, nothing specific on spirit guides, etc. but it does deal with seances, etc.

May be of interest as it was the Vctorians, I guess, who came up with the whole spirit guide thing.
 
"Servants of the Supernatural: The night side of the Victorian Mind." Antonio Melechi. Arrow Books 2009

https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/ant...Vg-3tCh2N9QfoEAQYASABEgLI__D_BwE#GOR002918019

Not read it yet but it's on the heap! I had a quick look at the index, nothing specific on spirit guides, etc. but it does deal with seances, etc.

May be of interest as it was the Vctorians, I guess, who came up with the whole spirit guide thing.
If I recall correctly, Mr. Melechi used to write articles for the Fortean Times.
 
oooh! what sort of era?
I don't remember exactly. I guess about 10-20 years ago. From his author photo, I always thought him a handsome devil, and very un-English looking, although he was residing in the UK and teaching at a university. If you find his current whereabouts, please share the wealth!
 
I don't remember exactly. I guess about 10-20 years ago. From his author photo, I always thought him a handsome devil, and very un-English looking, although he was residing in the UK and teaching at a university. If you find his current whereabouts, please share the wealth!

I know he was at York at one point....
 
I am happy to report that it comes out nicely with classical latin, a copy of Latham's Medieval Word List * and a sticky-note reminder about their tendency simply to add -us, -a, or -um to the mediaeval word when they didn't have an equivalent.

A gun tends to be gunna, rather than fire-stick or lead propelling tube, for example.

* Other aids to scholarship are available!
Oh this is fabulous.
 
In a related topic - why Native burial grounds are presumed to be "haunted" or "cursed". This one is probably even more interesting. It may have started with Hans Holzer.

Scholarly books on the topic include
Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence - Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History.
and
The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects.
 
Yes, I think that is the answer that we were all politely skirting around. Of course there aren't 'mediums' who communicate like this.
Why "politely skirting around"?
 
Why do we do the polite thing here? or generally? or is this a special case? or...?
No, why can't people be honestly polite, rather than skirting around something. Too much gets misconstured when one "skirts" around a subject. Polite should never mean dishonest.
 
No, why can't people be honestly polite, rather than skirting around something. Too much gets misconstrued when one "skirts" around a subject. Polite should never mean dishonest.
Conflict avoidance. Most of us aim to avoid conflict by being 'agreeable'.

Generally 'skirting around' is allowing the owner of the belief enough leeway that they either can't make a conflict out of your statement or can interpret it in a way that's consistent with their self-identify. But also enough leeway that one doesn't have to actually exactly agree.

Some people are adept at using this propensity to try to force agreement to continually manipulate those around them, by constantly presenting false dichotomies that require agreement or conflict. They're a real nuisance.

My late FIL was gifted at 'skirting around'. Presented with some hideous gee-gaw, he'd say he liked the colour. That type of thing.
 
Why "politely skirting around"?
Because saying something like 'you haven't picked up on the fact that we are all saying that mediums do not exist and this is purely hypothetical, so you are saying something that is obvious to everyone' is both rude and unnecessary.
 
No, why can't people be honestly polite, rather than skirting around something.

One person's meat is another person's poison.

A little courtesy (and a lot of remembering that people don't last here if they set out to antagonise) goes a very long way.

Closing down the debate is rather contrary to the spirit of the place. Fortean can mean a studied and deliberate fence sitting.
 
The only languages I know, apart from bad comprehensive school "French", are so-called dead languages. I'm just waiting for an Anglo Saxon to come along who speaks perfect Anglian or a Viking. My degree would finally come in useful. (Well, it might have if I hadn't forgotten most of it). Am currently learning Latin (because am a sucker for punishment) but medieval ecclesiastical Latin as spoken by a monk might be a stretch too far. Would love to get an urgent phone call at 3AM from someone saying "My spirit guide's an Anglo Saxon warrior and has just turned up and is shouting "Hwaet!" a lot. Can you help?" but sadly there are no jobs in that.

Am guessing the way round the linguistic stuff for "mediums" is - they claim to see it in their heads as images. But am not sure how much of that a person from say, 1000 years ago, would manage to make mutually intelligible, given the difference in cultures, anyway? I mean, if he wanted to tell you to take a journey, he'd have to show you a picture of a horse, not your car, etc?
Would be DESPERATE to hear an actual Anglo-saxon talking. I mean, how fabulous to hear how various words were actually pronounced. Instead of guff about yer uncle Pat is here and he says he’s fine, mediums could resolve all sorts of historical linguistic knotty problems. I mean sod the Rosetta stone all we needed was an Egyptian spirit guide
 
I wonder what types of spirit guides non-English language mediums use? For example, do Asian Indian mediums use Asian Indians, or Chinese, or American Indians or? What are the spirit guides mediums in Brazil use? It seems to me that this discussion is drifting to "spirit guides are usually or always American Indians, they speak intelligible English, therefore they are bogus." I don't know much about this, but think, like most Fortean phenomena, it is more complicated than merely cheesy or bogus.

If an actual entity, separate from the medium, exists, then I think the communication between that sprit guide and the medium would be composed of actual thought forms, reconstructed by the medium based on preconceived beliefs, varying ability to connect with the spirit guide directly, etc.

The one time I read tarot cards for someone, and had very strong intrusive thoughts, those thoughts came to me without any sense of the personality of the external entity, if that makes sense. So, no accent, no broken or garbled syntax, no sense of a different language. Just a sense of the source being not me. Disturbing.
 
If an actual entity, separate from the medium, exists, then I think the communication between that sprit guide and the medium would be composed of actual thought forms, reconstructed by the medium based on preconceived beliefs, varying ability to connect with the spirit guide directly, etc.
If this were the case then surely the medium would use their own voice and accent, rather than all the 'ums' and exaggerated accents? They could say 'Big Chief Dreadful-Hair is showing me an image of your mother and she's holding...a wooden spoon.' rather than the big drama?
 
If this were the case then surely the medium would use their own voice and accent, rather than all the 'ums' and exaggerated accents? They could say 'Big Chief Dreadful-Hair is showing me an image of your mother and she's holding...a wooden spoon.' rather than the big drama?
Well, this is a phenomenon which will likely remain mysterious. However, I don't agree because the phenomenon is partly dependent on sociocultural expectations and interpretations. Big drama is part of the thrill, either consciously or unconsciously.

I went to two different channelers decades ago, and the experience with both of them was close to what you describe. No drama based in the perceived personality of the discarnate entity. I was intrigued but drew no useful conclusions except that this was an area ripe for fraud against grieving or lonely people.
 
Would be DESPERATE to hear an actual Anglo-saxon talking. I mean, how fabulous to hear how various words were actually pronounced. Instead of guff about yer uncle Pat is here and he says he’s fine, mediums could resolve all sorts of historical linguistic knotty problems. I mean sod the Rosetta stone all we needed was an Egyptian spirit guide
I can tell you how they're pronounced - or at least, how I was taught there were pronounced (US scholars on YouTube are surprisingly good).

I went to an evening in a York pub where some sections of Anglo Saxon poetry were read aloud along with translations, and ended up wanting to hide in the toilets. It seems York University doesn't pronounce it like anyone else (or very well). I was cringing so hard, I didn't know where to look esp as I was sat next to a former medievalist - from York University. Feck me, but they were terrible.

It's much easier to pronounce even unfamiliar words than Modern English - because it's before English copped all those later influences that mess up our language. (Tolkien would have agreed with that).
 
I can tell you how they're pronounced - or at least, how I was taught there were pronounced (US scholars on YouTube are surprisingly good).

I went to an evening in a York pub where some sections of Anglo Saxon poetry were read aloud along with translations, and ended up wanting to hide in the toilets. It seems York University doesn't pronounce it like anyone else (or very well). I was cringing so hard, I didn't know where to look esp as I was sat next to a former medievalist - from York University. Feck me, but they were terrible.

It's much easier to pronounce even unfamiliar words than Modern English - because it's before English copped all those later influences that mess up our language. (Tolkien would have agreed with that).
We used to take a deep breath and treat it like German. Rightly or wrongly. It’s those later influences that make English so much fun and really we should be grateful we have junked grammatical gender etc
 
May I suggest watching the Steptoe and Son episode called Seance In A Wet Rag And Bone Yard. Features Patricia Routledge as a fake medium called Madam Fontana who's spirit guide is Geronimo!
 
I can tell you how they're pronounced - or at least, how I was taught there were pronounced (US scholars on YouTube are surprisingly good).

I went to an evening in a York pub where some sections of Anglo Saxon poetry were read aloud along with translations, and ended up wanting to hide in the toilets. It seems York University doesn't pronounce it like anyone else (or very well). I was cringing so hard, I didn't know where to look esp as I was sat next to a former medievalist - from York University. Feck me, but they were terrible.

It's much easier to pronounce even unfamiliar words than Modern English - because it's before English copped all those later influences that mess up our language. (Tolkien would have agreed with that).
Wasnt in the Red Lion was it? Thats where the archaeologists from York used to hang out. Stewart Ainsworth from Time Team was always in there!
 
Wasnt in the Red Lion was it? Thats where the archaeologists from York used to hang out. Stewart Ainsworth from Time Team was always in there!
No! I used to know someone who was a regular there but must admit I've only ever gone in to use the toilets! Duke of York.
 
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