My first brush with the “fringes” was when my family changed its diet when I was 12. For scientists-in-training, when something works, they pay attention and try to find out why. I did not see a generalized scientific description of what caused and cured my father’s artery disease until over 50 years later. At age 16, I had it dramatically demonstrated to me that materialist models of consciousness were false.
Those were my two seminal awakening moments. I tried to broaden my media diet early in my career and asked my Easter Bunny question, but it was not until I met Dennis Lee that my wild ride of awakening began, which culminated with my day on the witness stand. If I had not met Dennis, I would likely not have much worth saying. I got the kind of education that can’t be bought, and I only survived my adventures because of my youth and idealism. I saw many wrecked and shortened lives during my journey.
When I began my studies in 1990, which will not end in my lifetime (unless I get dementia), I approached everything as a scientist and scholar, although I definitely got better at it over the years. I dove into many fringe topics, from alternative medicine to alternative physics to alternative history to alternative media. While I often found gold, there was plenty of fool’s gold to be had, which the undiscerning and unwary often loaded their carts with.
To this day, I am sent Flat Earth “evidence.” I am regularly approached on the Moon landings issue, even by scientists, who want to know if they were faked (they weren’t). Just yesterday, I had to perform my first banning of a Substack subscriber, who wanted to argue that the JFK assassination was actually a hoax. He engaged in sophistry to put the onus on me to prove that JFK was murdered (and he was obviously unfamiliar with the evidence), while insulting me. That is not the first time that I have been approached with the idea that the JFK assassination was faked. Of the many JFK-assassination hypotheses that I have seen in the past 35 years of study, the idea that it was hoaxed may be the nuttiest idea of all, ranking with Flat Earth “theory.” But perhaps the craziest JFK theory came from Washington Post, which argued that maybe there were multiple gunmen shooting at JFK, but they independently shot at JFK at the same time by coincidence. Hyperventilating conspiracists can be beaten on the crazy scale by the mainstream media and other voices of the Establishment.
The methods of science and scholarship are worthy tools to explore the fringes, and I have always used them. When something is convincingly falsified, it is time to move on. When secondary history conflicts with primary history, the secondary history starts to look shaky. Keen discernment is required to navigate the fringes, which relatively few people exercise. There is a mountain of chaff for each kernel of wheat on the fringes. Many times I have watched the undiscerning and unwary dive down rabbit holes to nowhere, never to be seen again. It is a hazard of exploring the fringes.