From 2002’s The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere, some of my favorite quotes:

“The nocturnal butterfly. In ancient cultures, the moth represents a form of the psyche, or the soul immortally trapped in the hellish death realms. Mothman. Well, that’s what the Ukrainian’s called him. Rough translation of course. There were a hundred sightings in Chernobyl when the nuclear pump went down. Galveston, nineteen sixty nine, just before the hurricane. They saw it. But seeing isn’t always believing.” ~ character of Alexander Leek, played by Alan Bates.

John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don’t they just come right out and tell us what’s on their minds?
Alexander Leek: You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?

Alexander Leek: If there was a car crash ten blocks away, that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are. But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.

And a bit of synchronicity for myself; if you read the comments left at his blog, you’ll where he mentions listening to the interiview with Tim Binnall and the “Paranormal Pastor,” who warns against getting too obsessed about the darker side of esoterica. I was just again thinking about that today; I’ve had an idea for some months now about a project — maybe a blog, site, or a book, not sure where I wanted to go — about the “dark side” of one aspect of Forteana. Then thought better of it. I have enough going on and there’s enough dark side stuff on its own to occupy any student of high strangeness.

Greg Taylor, who runs the awesome site The Daily Grail, published a journal last year of great articles on the occult, the esoteric, the Fortean. Writers like Nick Redfern, Greg, and many others contributed. Fortunately, Greg has just published Volume 2 of Darklore, which include an article on Mothman by me! I am very honored to be in such fantastic company. Volume 2 contains articles by Nick Redfern, Theo Paijmans, Taylor, Jon Downes, and many more.

You can find Darklore Vol 2 on Amazon.com as well as The Daily Grail site.

Thompson starts off by reviewing the film Mothman Prophecies. He professes to be confused about Richard Gere’s character and Mothman, apparently he was expecting Gere to fly around in a giant moth suit. I suppose Thompson can’t be blamed too much for thinking along these lines, since he writes he wasn’t familiar with Mothman before the film.

Being a skeptoid, he naturally makes all kinds of sarcastic assumptions about the witnesses; this after doing “research” into the mOthman story. He also comes to the expected conclusions: mass hysteria, Mothman “ended” in the nineteen sixties, and of course, the skeptibunkie talking point that Mothman was just a silly old barn owl. The owl theory is, of course, the favorite skeptibunkie theory of all time to explain away Fortean events. Mothman was an owl, the Flatwoods “Monster” was an owl, the Kentucky, Hopkinsville entities were owls. (For more on the owl theory nonsense, visit my blog Snarly Skepticism.)

On the surface, the dream sounds terrible; horrible hurricanes keep coming, destroying property, knocking out power, hurting and killing people, etc. Lots of water and flooding.

As usual with my dreams, I am often one of the “characters” sometimes switching back and forth between characters, and then I’m in the “audience” watching the dream. Last night’s dream was like this.

The dream itself: I get premonitions of a coming storm, or hurricanes. The time frame for these events is roughly anywhere from 24 hours before the storm or hurricane, to a just a few hours before. I do what I can to alleviate and protect; I board up windows, move furniture, make sure kids and pets are safe, make sure there’s food, etc.

We watch these storms, and they’re beautiful. Something about the thunder and lightening and the power of the wind; the power of the water, is fantastic. At the same time, we, at least I, know the danger that goes with it. But I’m not afraid, just very cautious and practical.

While the dangers of these storms are real, the Mothman sense is real, there’s also a feeling of almost silliness in the melodrama. I mention to someone in the dream, in the midst of a hurricane, as we’re taking cover behind furniture and boarded up windows, that “this movie” (meaning the dream) “is one of the cheesiest movies to be made.” (I remember looking at one of the people in the dream, in the room we’re all in, behind a turned over sofa up against a window. She had jet black, piled high Valley of the Dolls hair.) It’s a move that’s so bad it’s good, sort of. A real campy movie, destined to be a classic, alongside Plan 9 From Outer Space. Okay, maybe not that bad. er, good. I mean, who can resist that movie? Remember the shot of the flying, mooing cow in the movie Twister? I love that one little shot; it’s so silly and campy, such an obvious big thriller block buster ploy. There was a sense of campy Towering Inferno melodrama in the midst of the beauty and power of the storms — and their dangers — as well as the very serious, non-melodrama (meaning, don’t be trifling around) of Mothman, even though he was unseen.

(Note: I just noticed something; after I had written this, and was proofing it, I saw the connection between my mentioning Valley of the Dolls and Sharon Tate. Sharon Tate, one of the actresses in Valley of the Dolls, was, of course, murdered by Charles Manson. (Actually, she wasn’t murdered by Manson himself; but that’s another issue.) Colvin, in his book Mothman’s Photographer II, mentions Manson, and the strange and uncomfortable associations with Manson, West Virginia, close proximity to Mothman and Colvin himself, mind control, and so much more. All those threads, connections and synchronicities we know to expect in this realm.

Like the dream itself, Mothman’s presence is about even if not overtly stated.)

Before going to sleep, I read a little bit of Colvin’s Mothman’s Photographer II. (I’m just about at the end of the book.) I hadn’t read very much at all, maybe two or three pages. I was very tired, so went to sleep after a few minutes. Couldn’t keep my eyes open at all.

The dream had Mothman coming to me. Appearing to me. Mothman was responding to my call; even though I was doing no such thing. Not intentionally. But in the dream, it was made clear that even thinking about Mothman, and certainly doing things like getting up blogs and all, was enough to get Mothman’s attention.

In a previous dream I posted about here, Mothman wasn’t malevolent. He was a helper, although very distant, almost cold, seeming that way simply because he, or it, was not human, and we, as humans, don’t have a way to express these differences.

But in last night’s dream Mothman was a bit on the creepy side. I think it was because this was more of a warning, or reminder that, yes, Mothman “this way quickly comes” but you better not be messing around just for the hell of it.

There was more, something about other people who didn’t have the best intentions and weren’t up to much good; far “creepier” than Mothman, and so on. It’s here that the dream fades and gets vague.

As with many dreams, it wasn’t the details that were important, it was the emotions, the sense of the thing, that was the message.

The “warning” isn’t that dire, nothing so dramatic in my case. Maybe more like a gentle reminder to be aware. . .

I had just finished reading a section in Andrew Colvin’s Mothman Photographer’s II, where he talks about being responsible for one’s own enlightenment, as well as the potential danger of getting too close and too deep with all this stuff, as we all know. Some researchers have just gone too far down that rabbit hole, without ever landing. It’s important to be grounded even while chasing after all these things.

I was still thinking about this this morning, when I woke up. For some reason, it was on my mind first thing. Then I log on and see this item and link on The Anomalist, to Brad Stieger’s Dangers And Hazards Of Exploring Shadow World. In this piece, Stieger writes that:

It takes more than watching a couple of specials on a cable channel and reading a few books to become a paranormal or UFO researcher.

It takes years of study and listening to others who have wisdom and insights to share, among other things.

This is an important article. Stieger goes on to relate the experiences of a group of college students who got too close before knowing what they were doing. The theories as to why things got out of control are extremely interesting, and right on, in my opinion.

Keep in mind that at the center, or at least close to, of all this stuff, is the Trickster, or Cosmic Joker, or whatever you want to call it. It plays with us, it messes around, it thinks things are hysterically funny. Problem is, what “it’ considers amusing is often dangerous to us; sometimes fatally dangerous.

Stieger goes on to include other accounts as well.

Maybe that’s what the meaning is behind the superstitions of Christianity and other mainstream religions about attempting to penetrate the mysteries of the Divine, the Creator, God/s. (“God works in mysteries ways; not for us to question why” kind of thing.) It got perverted somewhere along the way, but is it possible the original intent was to warn of getting into something before you’re ready?