Survey Time

[Ian Young]

James asks...

> What kind of experience of/opinions on 'the occult' in Real Life do you
> all have?  I'm interested to see whether there's a higher proportion of
> 'believers' here than elsewhere in RPG's. 

I think I fall into that category of skeptical, academic interest in
wierdness in general, and the occult/religious in specific.  I had the
strange fortune of growing up in a town where such groups were represented
rather openly -- if you knew where to look and with whom to speak.

The only really wierd thing I'll mention here is something that has nagged
at me ever since I first read anything to do with the archetype rules.  I
have two would-be avatars of The Flying Woman in my immediate family -- my
mother and my eldest sister.  Both of them tell the curiously similar story
of "flying" as young girls.

First, my mother tells of how, one day, she was skipping out the back door
of her elementary school.  Just as she got to the very steep steps leading
down to the playground, she missed a skip and stumbled.  She reports that
she distinctly recalls hovering high over the playground and looking down
on everyone below.  The next thing she knew, she was standing on the
ground, about 10 or 20 feet away from the foot of the stairs, with no
scuffs, cuts or bruises from a fall.

My sister, Julia, talks about how one day she had climbed up on the roof of
my parent's one-storey house.  Standing on the corner of the roof with
about a 15 drop, she was trying to figure out how to get down.  The next
thing she knew, she was standing on the ground some 20 feet away from the
house with no scuffs, cuts or bruises as well, but no recollection of how
she got down.

So, you see, when I read about The Flying Woman, I found it all rather
spooky, wondering upon what inspiration the author had drawn, and if he was
familiar with other such stories.  John?  Greg?  Care to shed a little
light on this?

Gone,
Ian