Religious-Spiritual
Fortean Times
Lightning Or Legendry?: The Chase Vault Moving Coffin Mystery Revisited
The moving coffins of Barbados have been a staple subject of books on the unexplained for over a century, and yet no one has so far provided a wholly satisfactory solution to the mystery. BENJAMIN RADFORD argues that we might have been looking in the wrong place...
10+ min |
November 2019
Fortean Times
The Haunted Generation
Bob Fischer Rounds Up The Latest News From The Parallel Worlds Of Popular Hauntology...
3 min |
November 2019
Fortean Times
The House On The Borderland In Search Of William Hope Hodgson
In his new book, EDWARD PARNELL goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles and explores how these haunted landscapes shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema. Here, he arrives in Cardiganshire to look for the house in which the neglected master of weird fiction William Hope Hodgson wrote one of his greatest works.
10+ min |
November 2019
Fortean Times
Fortean Traveller: 117. The Mediæval Crime Museum, Rothenburg, Germany Fortean Traveller
STEVE TOASE feels the thumbscrews tighten as he explores a grisly collection exploring the history of mediæval torture and its relationship with the law
7 min |
November 2019
Fortean Times
Where Ghosts Gather
In 1977, Usborne published World of the Unknown: Ghosts, the children’s book that inspired a generation of junior forteans. Four decades on, following a concerted fan campaign, the book is back in print... and the perpetually haunted BOB FISCHER tracked down its pleasantly surprised writer, Christopher Maynard, to discuss its genesis and unexpected impact.
10+ min |
November 2019
Fortean Times
A Bang On The Head
MARK GREENER explains how traumatic brain injury can change personality, creating serial killers and even vampires.
7 min |
November 2019
Fortean Times
Bodies On Ice
Couple who went missing 75 years ago ... found by chance in thawing Swiss glacier
2 min |
October 2017
fortean times
happy old christmas
you thought it was all over, but due to the orthodox refusal to accept the new fangled gregorian calendar, many people – from margate to memphis – will still be celebrating christmas in january. ted harrison goes in search of some stubborn old traditions...
8 min |
january 2017
Fortean Times
Medical Bag
Fortean follicles equal permanent frizz for little girls and youthful locks for cancer patients
3 min |
November 2017
Fortean Times
Out Of The Shadows
In an extract from a new book celebrating the history of Boscastle’s Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Professor Ronald Hutton introduces the photographs of Sara Hannant, which aim to bring a range of enigmatic objects from the museum’s unique collection to life.
3 min |
Christmas 2016
Fortean Times
The Face In The Window - Windowpane Ghosts And Lightning Daguerreotypes
One of the most fortean of lightning phenomena is the “lightning daguerreotype,” where a face or figure, often recognised as a particular deceased person, is mysteriously etched upon a windowpane. Chris Woodyard traces some of the fenestral flaps of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
10+ min |
Christmas 2016
Fortean Times
Conjuring Asia
Marvel’s Doctor Strange is just the latest in a long line of seekers after truth who have headed to the Mystic East in search of spiritual enlightenment and supernatural powers.CHRIS GOTO-JONES recalls the Western magicians who transformed themselves into turbansporting seers, and examines the continuing appeal of Orientalism’s magical myth.
10+ min |
January 2017
Fortean Times
Pelting Presecution
A poltergeist that throws hot stones is making life a misery for a Bulawayo family
3 min |
September 2017
Fortean Times
Nosewitness the Smell of High Strangeness
Research into strange phenomena has tended to concentrate on visual and audio data, but witness accounts of everything from UFO encounters to monster sightings often contain intriguing references to supernatural scents and paranormal pongs. JOSHUA CUTCHIN argues that it’s time we took olfactory evidence for forteana seriously…
10+ min |
February 2017
Fortean Times
Searching For The Place Of The Skull
As pilgrims descend on the holy land to celebrate easter, Ted Harrison proffers a word of caution: if you’re looking for the location of jesus’s crucfixion and burial then, tradition aside, you need to investigate a growing list of competing sites. Just where exactly was golgotha?
10+ min |
April 2017
Fortean Times
Blood-Suckers And Time-Travellers
A drunken warning from the future, plus violence against suspected vampires breaks out in Africa
3 min |
December 2017
Fortean Times
Medical Bag
India’s electricity eating “Living Light Bulb” and the man who swallowed a traffic cone
6 min |
December 2017
Fortean Times
It Happened To Me...
The road beyond the village drops and twists steeply, so I drove cautiously.
4 min |
Christmas 2017
Fortean Times
Monkey Business
Monkey selfie copyright battle ends at last
1 min |
Christmas 2017
Fortean Times
Living With Gods
DAVID V BARRETT visits a new exhibition at the British Museum with an emphasis on the universals of religious practice
4 min |
Christmas 2017
Fortean Times
Followers Of Female Jesus Busted
More members of the Church of Almighty God arrested as China cracks down on religious cult
2 min |
September 2017
Fortean Times
Britain's X-Files 2017
DAVID CLARKE sifts through the latest batch of UFO files released by the National Archive
5 min |
September 2017
Fortean Times
The Changing Mask Of Krampus
Mixing medieval superstition with 19th century Catholicism, the devilish figure of the Krampus has undergone a surprising revival in recent years. Al Ridenour reconnects with the dark side of Christmas, tracing Krampus’s roots in Austro-German folklore and exploring the figure’s continuing evolution and growing popularity in the 21st century.
10+ min |
Christmas 2016
Fortean Times
Tamám Shud The Mystery Of Australia's Unknown Man
On 1 December 1948, a man’s body was found on the beach of an Adelaide suburb. Who he was and how he died have remained a mystery for nearly 70 years, despite a trail of bizarre and tantalising clues. ROY BAINTON re-opens Australia’s weirdest cold case file.
10+ min |
March 2017
Fortean Times
Ancient Assassins?
BARRY BALDWIN sifts through the evidence at a pair of classical crime scenes in an attempt to figure out who done what to whom in a saga of political conspiracy and family plots that makes Game of Thrones look like The Waltons...
10+ min |
March 2017
Fortean Times
The Taking Of Dr Moore... And His Return
As he embarks upon a comprehensive survey of historical claims for levitation and other forms of supernatural transportation, BOB RICKARD will be posting occasional bulletins in FT on some interesting cases, such as this fairy abduction from 17th century Ireland.
9 min |
March 2017
Fortean Times
Touching The Void
DAVID HAMBLING looks at scientific attempts to probe the mysteries of the Great Pyramid
4 min |
Christmas 2017
Fortean Times
Strange Continent
Unfazed by Brexit, ULRICH MAGIN and THEO PAIJMANS round up the weirdest news from across Europe...
8 min |
Christmas 2017
Fortean Times
The Occult Life of Montague Summers
Was Montague Summers a priest or a dabbler in the dark arts? With one foot in the Catholic Church and another in the world of the supernatural, he has been claimed as both.
10+ min |
January 2017
Fortean Times
Twenty Years of 'Myths Over Miami'
IAN SIMMONS wonders what happened to the strange children’s mythology uncovered by journalist Linda Edwards
7 min |