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#1215157
Anna Ghislaine
Numbers of miracles and apparitions declined with the invention of photography. They rose again with the invention of digital photography and Photoshop. Funny, that.
10/6/2010 3:23:31 AM
#1215158
Yep. 2000 years of waiting, and the only trends that matter are the ones in the past thirty years.
10/6/2010 3:24:19 AM
#1215160
Imroy
"Everywhere we turn, folks seem to have more accounts of the supernatural than ever before, at least in our current memory"
Gee, could that have something to do with increasing media coverage? Not to mention a growing population.
10/6/2010 3:26:04 AM
#1215169
LC
"Here's another question I've been pondering - what is all this shit about angels? Have you heard this? Three out of four people belive in angels. Are you fucking stupid? Has everybody lost their mind? You know what I think it is? I think it's a massive, collective, psychotic chemical flashback for all the drugs smoked, swallowed, shot, and obsorbed rectally by all Americans from 1960 to 1990. Thirty years of street drugs will get you some fucking angels, my friend!"
- George Carlin
10/6/2010 3:42:38 AM
#1215170
WMDKitty
Whoa. Someone missed the announcement about the brown acid....
10/6/2010 3:45:06 AM
#1215175
Swede
Meanwhile, in the rest of the world (outside the US and Mozambique), we have no reports of spiritual manifestations whatsoever.
(Not outside highly dubious taobloid papers that would make the Quibbler look sane, that is.)
10/6/2010 3:49:12 AM
#1215180
Fedup
Snow Poltergeist and the Seven Types of Ghosts
10/6/2010 3:52:40 AM
#1215183
Fedup
".... young "ghost-hunters" who were listening for the sounds of a legendary "ghost" train (there had been a crash in 1891). One of these ghost hunters was killed and another severely injured when a real train came by and ran them over (at three a.m. on a Friday last month). "
Nothing to do with standing on the train tracks,in the dark, at 3AM
10/6/2010 3:54:50 AM
#1215198
Percy Q. Shunn
lol
"Ghost" train?
LMFAO!
10/6/2010 4:12:01 AM
#1215210
Hasher
OoohKay, I'll try to keep calm.
First of all, turn-of-the-century jitters, global warming, the end of the cold war, the recession etc. have made enough people unhappy about the present and future and likely to retreat to dreams of the past. Witness, for example, the popularity of magical fantasy literature, and compare it with the futuristic sci-fi of an earlier generation who thought atomic power and space flight were going to solve everything.
Obviously in such a climate there will be those who want the magic to be real, either new-agers or people who have returned to the arms of conventional religion. Some of these will delude themselves and others that they have really experienced the supernatural, either out of genuine belief or because they crave attention and validation.
The fact remains that no paranormal phenomenon has been proven in any compelling manner (i.e. a manner that does not rely on belief). Many contradict each other. To take a pair of examples on the Spiritual Warfare front, Michelle Smith/Padzer claims to have been saved from Satanism through her catholic faith and the intervention of the Holy Virgin who healed her scars so that she seemed to have no sign of the satanic abuse she alleges. Meanwhile the equally zealous crew around Jack Chick will tell you that the Catholic church is satanic and the Holy Virgin is the Babylonian queen Semiramis. Both sides have equal amounts of "evidence" and are equally sure of their claims. There are many other examples, but you get the point.
Finally, 3A.M.? What does Satan do? Run around the earth at the speed of its rotation keeping up with whatever part of the world is at three hours after midnight right now (and somewhere is at any given moment) or does he simply ignore the effects of legally-instituted time zones, daylight saving/BST inaccurate clocks etc and just wait till the bedside clock of his latest victim reads 03:00?
10/6/2010 4:33:55 AM
#1215212
The L
Or is it just that every time one person writes a book about the supernatural that catches on, MILLIONS of hacks come out of the woodwork creating copycat books?
Also, bear in mind that the first book doesn't have to be true in order to sell--this phenomenon works just as well with lies (Malleus Maleficarum, The Satan Seller, Michelle Remembers...)
10/6/2010 4:36:28 AM
#1215216
..Because those testomonials are just as reliable one on aliens, bigfoot and other cryptozoology crap.
"MY BULLSHIT IS TASTIER THAN YOURS!"
10/6/2010 4:45:57 AM
#1215237
TGRwulf
"...were all the rage..."
LOL, you just said yourself that religion is a fad dude.
"young "ghost-hunters" who were listening for the sounds of a legendary "ghost" train (there had been a crash in 1891). One of these ghost hunters was killed and another severely injured when a real train came by and ran them over (at three a.m. on a Friday last month). "
That is fucking legendary stupidity right there.
10/6/2010 5:07:30 AM
#1215239
Mister Spak
Who you gonna call?
10/6/2010 5:10:42 AM
#1215246
nutbunny
Oh! I need to get my theremin out for some Accompaniment
10/6/2010 5:23:12 AM
#1215256
Pup
There aren't more, you just hear about more because we have better communication networks now than we had, say, 10 years ago...
10/6/2010 5:31:02 AM
#1215268
timjamiller
I just love how the real train is being claimed as evidence for the ghost train.
I bet the ghost-hunters were extremely excited that they heard the sounds of a train, and saw the lights. Then they realized that there were never any apparitions--they were staring down the barrel of a 100 ton beast.
10/6/2010 5:46:44 AM
#1215275
dionysus
Since all of the bases have been covered by other posters I wanted to comment on this:
and the news story -- on normally skeptical CNN
It pisses me off that these news networks waste time on such superstitious nonsense. Sure, I realize that they have a right to report anything they want to (and IIRC Fox News even won a case where it was ruled that they could LIE on the news) and that they have lots of time to fill but to me it seems that being a news station gives you a certain amount of responsibility as people tend to put their trust in the 'news' presented there and even if you put tabloid nonsense on there people will swallow it just because it's on the news. Not much I can do about it except complain though as, like I said, they have the right to report whatever they want.
10/6/2010 5:55:59 AM
#1215285
John_in_Oz
You realise that your 3 A.M. is my 7 P.M., right? No ghosties or goblins anywhere. Why are the spirits flying around the world at the earth's rotational velocity? Or is there a different local set of spirits for each area that can only come out when the earth is in a particular location? And what about the Poles where it can be light all night- are they ghost free 6 months of the year or what?
10/6/2010 6:09:24 AM
#1215302
Doctor Whom
About three a.m.: why does this continue to pop up in accounts of both spiritual and occult occurrences? Is it the devil's hour (the dark reverse of the Hour of Mercy) or simply a time of night when (again) the veil thins?
Or maybe people who are awake then are more likely than usual to be suffering the effects of sleep deprivation?
10/6/2010 6:23:55 AM
#1215308
Table Rock
"Tell him about the Twinkie."
10/6/2010 6:34:20 AM
#1215309
Doubting Thomas
There have been runs -- rashes -- of various manifestations. In the 1980s, there was an eruption of alleged apparitions of the Blessed Mother, apparitions that continue around this world to this day. In the 1990s, angels were all the rage -- manifesting very boldly, and filling bestsellers.
Yeah, funny how beliefs and sightings of different supernatural phenomena seem to run in trends, as if it was just people believing in the latest supernatural fad. And it's not like authors pick up on these fads and write books about them knowing they'll sell, is it?
10/6/2010 6:34:22 AM
#1215317
aaa
So, how did you like it when i slipped some LSD to tap water?
10/6/2010 6:47:30 AM
#1215359
JohnTheAtheist
Yo, don't forget the guy that saw Jesus in that dog's asshole. The veil is definitely thinning.
10/6/2010 8:21:53 AM
#1215381
Orion
Spikes in UFO sightings correlated with screenings of X-files episodes featuring UFO's
10/6/2010 8:57:36 AM
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