Satanic claptrap
I have to confess that my fortean principles slipped a bit when reading FT439. When I saw in Phantom Flings that one of the brides married her ghost groom atThe Asylum Chapel (p.8), I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that was somehow appropriate. Shame on me!
I found ‘The New Demonology’ by Bob Rickard (pp.46-50) to be an excellent treatment of the craziness surrounding the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare. I hate to think what the parents and children must have felt and experienced during this insane saga. I remember reading Michelle Remembers many years ago. I don’t recall how I came to read it, but I remember thinking then that it was a heap of nonsense. I’m surprised I even remember it. Bob also mentions Dungeons & Dragons being identified as a Doorway to Danger. In my early 20s I played regularly with a group of fellow enthusiasts (I know you’re thinking ‘geeks’), and nobody who has ever played the game could possibly connect it to Satanism.
Further to the Forum piece on ‘Amazing Facts About Strange Stories’ (pp.52-53), I recall a children’s annual my grand-parents had. It was dated 1935, and had a science fiction story set in the future of 1948. In it, people flew about with the equivalent of jet packs. I seem to recall a wire cage, strapped to the flier’s back, containing a propeller. Although I was quite young when I read it, I must have made a mental note of the dates because it was clearly a future that hadn’t come to pass. The future that had come to pass a few years later was sadly quite different.
The review of The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill (p.55) reminded me of a cheap ‘The World’s Most Amazing…’ type of book I once read. I nearly threw it straight in the bin when I read the very first line of the very first article: “Betty and Barney Hill were a typical American couple”. I think I’m the one who got taken for a ride there.
Dave Miles
By email
SIMULACRA CORNER
We are always glad to receive pictures of spontaneous forms and figures, or any curious images. Send them (with your postal address) to Fortean Times, PO Box or to
