Comments on: John A. Keel: Demonologist?

By: truman

truman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:45:29 +0000

o K I’ll give you a nother resample:

King James I was DEFINITELY a demonlogogist, was ‘e not?

Yet, if you came up to him in walmart and said, “what do you do?” he would not have replied by saying that he was a demonlologist, but rather that he was king of England and Scotland, nae?

By: truman

truman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:43:16 +0000

What I ‘posed to do now? I don’t see no “edit” feature!

By: truman

truman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:36:17 +0000

IT IS OFFICIAL!

John Keel is the World’s Best UFOlogist: World’s Best Page

Deciding whether someone is an “-ist”: it is what they DO, not what they say that they are. If he studies demons, then he is a demonlologist, whether he admits to it or not.

By: daledrinnon

daledrinnon — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:16:04 +0000

If I might add a word quickly (no slight on Loren intended) What happened in Mothman sightings as far as Keel’s recounting implies is that there were some initial sightings of something generally referred to as “A Big Bird” and then “Birdman”, but little interest in it until people starting calling it “Mothman” and more sensational rumors began circulating almost immediately. This included several people’s assumption that it was something supernatural (in fact, one of the local guys I meet every now and then at the local pub at the end of my street was in the area at the time and recounts his memory of the bridge collapsing as if it were yesterday. But he does not believe in Mothman.)

By: Lisa62

Lisa62 — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:00:24 +0000

By the way, Mr. Coleman, is there a specific point in time you can go to and say, “This is where the Mothman stories started changing?” Was it a gradual evolution? Or did one person change their story, leading to the rest to do the same, in a jump-on-the-bandwagon mentality? Or is just what the public has come to see as the Mothman, leading people, who might have fuzzy memories 40 years after it happened, to think they saw something different too.

By: Lisa62

Lisa62 — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:42:43 +0000

I’ve always thought a demonologist was more in the line of what the Warrens did: going to houses or people being attacked by very evil things. As far as John Keel is concerned, I’ve never quite known what to think of him. I like his work; I’ve read, I think, everything he’s written. But the problem I have with him, unlike Mr. Coleman, who puts down facts in his books, which go in a logical sequence, without a lot of speculation, is that Mr. Keel jumps from thought to thought, from one thing to another. His books are interesting, his ideas are interesting, but I’m always left exhausted after reading one of his books, because there seems to be no logical order behind them..possibly there is to Mr. Keel’s mind, but very confusing to a reader. Sometimes, at the end of his books, I’ve been more confused than at the beginning. I do think there are energy forces that interact with us on our planet at times, we understand so little of the universe, and we always put a nuts and bolts aspect to UFO’s, instead of thinking they might be more like thought projections. I think there might be energy sources that do touch down on Earth and toy with us on occasion. Goodness knows, our planet is ripe for any thing coming around that feeds on strife and confusion. Are these Keel’s ultra terrestrials? I don’t know, but perhaps.

By: Rillo777

Rillo777 — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:26:50 +0000

It’s always good to keep an open mind to all possibilities. But I doubt if any one answer is right for all situations. Each must be analyzed with the human element in mind. Some people are credible and exact in their reporting, others are easily excited and prone to exaggeration whether they realize it or not. It’s tough sometimes to sort them out, but I am certain that there is more going on than most people care to believe.

By: cor2879

cor2879 — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:16:03 +0000

Though I most certainly believe in a spiritual realm (and yes angels and demons), I tend to approach Cryptozoological events from an earthly perspective. A close examination of the Mothman accounts do not, of themselves, yield any leaning to a supernatural explanation to me.

Much like the Jersey Devil, which often gets classified as supernatural but there is much (speculative) evidence that rather points to a physical animal instead of a true ‘devil’.

I once tried reading John Keel’s book “The Mothman Prophecies” but I just couldn’t get into it.

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:59:33 +0000

And I never received your letter…

By: daledrinnon

daledrinnon — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:17:27 +0000

The more I read about mothman, the more it sounds like some kind of an owl pretty much demonized by witnesses from the onset. Owls are in fact traditionally associated with witches and such.

I wrote to both Loren Coleman and John Keel circa 2000 via Fate magazine about the idea of creating a role-playing game based on the “Goblin Universe” theory (the parallel-dimensions reading of the term): Keel wrote back to me on the bottom of the same letter in return that if I stole his stuff he would sue me (in a pleasant tone of voice) and went on to ask about the old-fashioned manual typewriter I was using. Needless to say, the game never got off the ground.