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Tuesday, July 01, 2008

For those of you who are interested...



This also includes the last appearwance of `Flump` our Chinese softshell, aho - despite all our efforts - died last night. She is now being overly aggressive and biting all the other inhabitants of Turtle Heaven....

Good hunting Flump.

13 comments:

Rob Knowles said...

Hi Jon - I'm particularly interested in the theory that giant soft-back turtles could lie behind certain lake-monster tales!

As it happens, I and two friends (Matt and Helen) are round your way in Devon on Saturday 2nd August. We would like to spend a day cryptid-hunting in Devon/Cornwall and wondered if you had any suggestions you could give us? Recently, we went to search for Owlman at Mawnan. I am 150 pages into reading your excellent book on Owlman, and also have your UFO book. The tulpa theory is especially interesting as it matches the old Catholic theologian Alois Wiesinger's Thomist theories in his classic work from the 1950s entitled 'Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology'.

Is there any research we could do on your behalf on Sat 2nd Aug? Or is there anything around Devon/Cornwall that might be worth us checking out - cryptid-wise? Do you do day-tours? If so, my name is Rob Knowles, and my email is Rhinogfawr6@hotmail.com. It would be great to hear from you!

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Hi Rob. Let us know if you see the Owlman! "The Owlman and Others" is really interesting; one of Jon's finest works.

As for lake monsters: Have you seen the film about the theory that they could be giant eels, "eunuch eels". Check out CFZ-TV

Jon Downes said...

I hope you mean the book not the film. The film is just sexist drivel that will (I hope) remain buried. LOL.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Just before he died, Virgil made all his friends promise to burn everything he'd ever written after his death. ;-)

Jon Downes said...

That is why we have never seen Virgil's spectacularly pointless straight to video movie with lashings of pointless nudity and violence...

You should have seen what the Georgics were originally going to be like!

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Well what do you expect from the man? He didn't have time to concentrate on his literary output, what with flying Thunderbird 2 around the place!

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Rob have you got the latest edition of "Owlman..."?

Rob Knowles said...

Hi Ben - I think I've got the latest edition of Owlman - unless another edition has just come out!

My trip to Devon has now been shifted to coincide with Wierd Weekend, so I can talk to you guys properly then. I'll be there Friday night and Saturday morning - up to the end of the Loch Ness talk. I'm bringing my friend Matt who lives in Exeter - or rather he's bringing me.

Re. tulpas (of which Owlman may be an example), it may be worth checking out Kurt E. Koch's book 'Christian Counselling and Occultism'. Koch - now deceased - has had experience of over 20,000 exorcisms. His comments on 'eidetic visions' and perception-reversibility imply that only some people would be able to see tulpas like Owlman. Occult activity messes with engrams (deep programming) in the subconscious, which then effects conscious perception. This does not necessarily mean that Owlman is just a projection however. Wiesinger's thesis is that certain capacities of the human spirit are locked into the subconscious post-Fall, and that these are accessed in occult activity through artificial sleep-states such as trance etc. The problem is that since the subconscious is chaotic then the price to pay is chaotic access to telekinetic capacities (causing poltergeist activity) and unwanted extra-sensory perceptions of 'spiritual' realities (eidetic) and even the capacity to objectify actual phantoms (tulpas) - alongside compulsive disorders. Of course, one might be initially suspicious of a religious basis for theorising - except that Wiesinger turns out to be fluent in Thomist philosophy and in the links between neo-Platonist thought and Buddhism! I suspect that some heavyweight Catholic thinking on such matters - with its links to philosophy - is an under-used resource in explaining paranormal phenomena such as Owlman.

Rob Knowles said...

Hi Ben - I think I've got the latest edition of Owlman - unless another edition has just come out!

My trip to Devon has now been shifted to coincide with Wierd Weekend, so I can talk to you guys properly then. I'll be there Friday night and Saturday morning - up to the end of the Loch Ness talk. I'm bringing my friend Matt who lives in Exeter - or rather he's bringing me.

Re. tulpas (of which Owlman may be an example), it may be worth checking out Kurt E. Koch's book 'Christian Counselling and Occultism'. Koch - now deceased - has had experience of over 20,000 exorcisms. His comments on 'eidetic visions' and perception-reversibility imply that only some people would be able to see tulpas like Owlman. Occult activity messes with engrams (deep programming) in the subconscious, which then effects conscious perception. This does not necessarily mean that Owlman is just a projection however. Wiesinger's thesis is that certain capacities of the human spirit are locked into the subconscious post-Fall, and that these are accessed in occult activity through artificial sleep-states such as trance etc. The problem is that since the subconscious is chaotic then the price to pay is chaotic access to telekinetic capacities (causing poltergeist activity) and unwanted extra-sensory perceptions of 'spiritual' realities (eidetic) and even the capacity to objectify actual phantoms (tulpas) - alongside compulsive disorders. Of course, one might be initially suspicious of a religious basis for theorising - except that Wiesinger turns out to be fluent in Thomist philosophy and in the links between neo-Platonist thought and Buddhism! I suspect that some heavyweight Catholic thinking on such matters - with its links to philosophy - is an under-used resource in explaining paranormal phenomena such as Owlman.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Rob, that's an interesting idea. Alexandra David Neel said she had experiences where she manifested objects with the power of her well-trained mind (She went to Tibet and India learn to study Buddhism) Have you read "The Mothman Prophesies". Jon refers to it in the book and it's well worth getting a copy of it because it's an expansion of the theory.

How far could one take the idea of tulpas or projections? Could it be that WE, human counciousness, are such a projection too?

Rob Knowles said...

Wittgenstein and Gadamer show that thought and language are closely intertwined. Language, in order to be language, presupposes public-domain rules, or public criteria of meaning. Thus, to think one was just a projection would require one to be more than just a projection. With Wittgenstein, what the solipsist means to say is correct - the problem is that he cannot 'say' it!

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

If Wittgenstein says it then it's so. How can I be so sure? The man used to be a hospital porter! Therefore he is a perfect demigod genius as far as I'm concerned. :-)

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Anyone got any more info on the "Montauk Monster":

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=mystery-of-the-montauk-monster-2008-08-01

(Sorry to post this here, but I tried to join the forum, but it wouldn't work.)