HauntedDaniel

The reason historians don’t now use the term ‘witch hunts’ as a generalised term for the prosecution of people for witchcraft is that it implies witchcraft was always prosecuted in a different way compared to other crimes - it wasn’t

Equally troubling are the multiple posts around the internet I've seen from people indicating that they regularly rely on the ai summaries for information and find it unnecessary to view search results.

Just saw Frankenstein (1931) for the first time. Amazing work by Karlov in the central role. But how the heck did a monster who seems to not have enough dexterity to use his hands much at all manage to hang Fritz?

'Summerween' is an excuse to sell more junk at Marshalls, Home Goods, and Walmart — sure! But let's get into it. Is "Summerween" just an excuse to sell more junk? Well, sure! But so what? It's also fun. I'm into pink ghosts and watermelon jack-o-lanterns.

With Summerween-specific merchandise on big box store shelves this summer, it is definitely a good time for my book (which will have a chapter on consumerist Halloween celebration).

www.businessinsider.com/summerween-h...

Unfortunately, progressive legal activism organizations consistently ignore religious freedom issues

Found the next 2 today at @austinbooks.bsky.social still out in the main horror section. Glad I saw the first one in a box at a rural antique mall (of all places). I had to roll the dice for $1.

Does anyone else find the beginning section of John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies pretty condescending toward southern Appalachians? "These country bumpkins were so backwards that if a man IN A SUIT with a BEARD came to their door after his car broke down, they would assume he was the devil!"

Just read the first issue of Seance in the Asylum from @darkhorse.com , and it is clear writer @claymcleod.bsky.social has done their research on Spiritualism (and asylums). Almost avoided it because of the (for me) distractingly inaccurate tropes horror often rolls out on these topics.

Or if you're a gamer, you say RNG

Is anyone else observing a mainstreaming of liberal/progressive conspiracism since Trump 1 and especially since Nov 2024? If the observation holds up, I wonder what can it tell us about political feeling and the attraction to conspiracy.

Not sure that "it makes me feel good so it doesn't matter if the info is true" is the harmless take you think it is when it comes to a hugely popular social media account about politics. It's odd to have to explain that in this political climate.

Holy crap. Do not follow the account but have seen reposts and screenshots (of course). Had my suspicions about its provenance, but I had no idea the account was this unhinged and obviously BS.

Flanagan's work is ultimately a rebirth of sentimental Victorian literature around death re-packaged in a form palatable and respectable to 21st century secular viewers. Just not for me.

Mike Flanagan is our culture's ultimate saccharine secular fableist of death. He uses horror and supernatural elements to ultimately communicate that there is probably no heaven or hell, no real afterlife, but we should all feel warm and fuzzy about that.

Is Bigfoot having a cultural moment? At least when it comes to merchandizing? This is one example of the many Bigfoot-themed products/knickknacks I have seen recently. In the souvenir shop at Luray Caverns in Virginia:

My repost is an endorsement

I had a great time chatting with Tim

The question of whether people in the past were "literal believers" is already weighted with more modern, generally post-Enlightenment Protestant, assumptions about what belief entails. Which is absolutely not to say that the past was full of Xians who assumed the biblical accounts were all metaphor

Excited to dig into this book by @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social soon. It is especially important for a scholar who is critically aware of the power of pagan survival myths to have written it.

www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

Good question. I popped over to EBay as an avid user to look and only see the 1992 and 2001.

Yeah, this seems about right

One factor that hinders discussions/debate about paranormal experiences is the way people generally underestimate the likelihood of intelligent, reliable people misperceiving, misinterpreting, and even hallucinating.

If people use AI to write the stuff that pays the bills in order to focus on passion projects, then publishers or tech companies can easily do the same and appropriate the income stream for themselves. Cut out the middle men

Man survives alligator attack before being fatally shot by Polk County deputies: sheriff A man armed with garden shears was fatally shot by Polk County deputies on Monday, minutes after surviving an apparent alligator attack.

In many Floridians' minds, gators mainly only attack small children of negligent parents or crackheads wading in fresh water (something no sober person would do). We could be pretty cold about this. Anyway, this news story from my home town is typical:

www.wfla.com/news/polk-co...

There was a recent piece in maybe the WSJ about a rightwing contrarian podcaster becoming disillusioned with that whole project after Trump began his admin. The contrarianism was much less exciting one its proponents gained political and cultural ascendancy, and concrete policy lacking

On that note, it seems like conspiracy theories can teach us a lot about "reasoning" and belief in general. The main arbiter of truth for many conspiracists (and others) seems to be how plausible it seems or feels. "That tracks" is the mark of truth.

I bought your book a couple years ago but haven't gotten to it. That sounds right to me.

I have heard some intensely vivid and detailed descriptions of paranormal experiences. Many abduction narratives, for example. Maybe the actual subjective experiences behind these accounts are much more shadowy than the accounts let on, but that's hard to establish

That's interesting, because I have often thought that if I ever saw an apparition in a purportedly haunted location I might disbelieve my own eyes

It's basically impossible to get out of rodent pet ownership because of this dynamic (unless you have a solitary hamster species)