My Monday Wipeout
[Through back-channels I heard the story of a Canadian boy who may have been studied in Toronto in the 1990s. He had some disability, possibly Downs Syndrome, and it was […]
Paranormal
A Glint at the Mound
[Readers may know me as a chronicler of other people’s supernatural experiences. They may not expect me to have my own. It’s true that I don’t have many. I believe […]
Talking Animals and Medicine People: The Supernaturalism of the Upstate Iroquois
Talking Animals and Medicine People: The Supernaturalism of the Upstate Iroquois One of the world’s most impressive storytelling traditions is that of the six New York Iroquois nations. The Longhouse folk […]
The Moon-Eyed People
[Supernatural folklore and ancient monuments go hand in hand in Europe. In the Americas, the connection is not so well known.] When the first historic European cultures, the Celts, moved […]
This House is Haunted!
The title of this quick end-of-the-year article is inspired by Guy Lyon Playfair’s 1980 book on the shocking two-year episode of the Enfield poltergeist (North London, UK), which Playfair investigated […]
The Black Creek Who-dat
The common term for a significant period of hysteria about some kind of typically paranormal subject is flap. I’ve seen flaps about upstate New York involving UFOs, Men-in-Black, cases of […]
King Number One
Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Call’d Robin Goodfellow… William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Halloween for most of […]
Thirteen Ghosts of the Western Door: The Niagara All-Stars
The Halloween season is here, and for most of a month the imagery of things and beings supernatural and paranormal will besiege us in every medium. It shows us that […]
The Hill of Dead Witches
To some extent we English speakers are raised on Aristotelian – Greek – thinking. Our whole conceptual system is based on absolutes and zero-sum games. (“Indeed, you have persuaded me, […]
Magnus and the Hidden People
Traditions about races of magical, more-or-less human beings – fairies, leprechauns, Little People – exist in the folklore of many parts of the world. If the average person has an […]