hitchhikingfrog

Within the last few weeks, some collaborators and I have made an attempt to digitize and upload our personal cryptozoological literature collections, as well as a significant effort to seek out hard-to-find articles, reviews, and books. Cryptozoology as a subject suffers immensely from inaccessibility - the key pieces are often decades out of print and outrageously expensive, or available only to restricted markets. The lack of a dedicated academic forum has led cryptozoology enthusiasts to become insular - those with similar perspectives congregate in Discord servers, email chains, or private forums and don't share their work with others. r/cryptozoology remains the most accessible mixing ground, with regular contributions by a wonderful assortment of individuals I've had the pleasure of associating with over the last five years, but even then the quality of content shared has fallen significantly in recent memory - this is a byproduct of insularity, everyone is on such differ...

Howdy, the first half-dozen or so of my posts act as mirrors for Reddit posts and adhere largely to that style, just modifying the contents of these posts slightly, I will eventually come back and amend these when I decide on a cohesive format for my posting. I’ve decided to compile and combine the key points and quotes from each of Bernard Heuvelmans’ ISC papers in one single post for ease of access - the goal of this post is to demonstrate what Bernard Heuvelmans viewed as cryptozoology. Having this information compiled in one place is key for any discussion regarding what cryptozoology is or is not. I’ve only included ISC remarks here, so this is not a complete review of his stances, which grew and changed over the course of his life. I hope to compile, translate, and share remarks from his other books and articles in the near future, which is difficult as I am not well versed in French, but to quote Bernard “No serious researcher ever overlooks a work because it is pub...

Howdy, the first half-dozen or so of my posts act as mirrors for Reddit posts and adhere largely to that style, just modifying the contents of these posts slightly, I will eventually come back and amend these when I decide on a cohesive format for my posting. Recently, an acquaintance of mine took the time to scan, compile, and upload their copy of an incredibly significant, what may in fact be the most significant, cryptozoological book ever published - Michel Meurger and Claude Gagnon’s “Lake Monster Traditions - A Cross-Cultural Analysis”, first published in English in 1988. The 1982 French version has been available on the Internet Archive for some time , but now the English version is accessible for all. I cannot emphasize how necessary it is to read this book if you have any genuine interest in cryptozoology, this is the book that pushed cryptozoology forward into modern cultural anthropology. I’ve collected a section of relevant notes below for th...

Howdy, the first half-dozen or so of my posts act as mirrors for Reddit posts and adhere largely to that style, just modifying the contents of these posts slightly, I will eventually come back and amend these when I decide on a cohesive format for my posting. This post is a brief introduction into what has become one of my personal favorite areas of cryptozoology - the wildman cultural archetype. It’s a bit informally written, apologies if the run-on sentences are a little much. It’d be best to start by defining “wildman cultural archetype”. Wildmen are hirsute human-like figures which are reclusive and culturally inept (either lacking culture or having very little culture), separated from humans proper in local cosmologies. Oftentimes wildmen possess uncanny strength, exaggerated genitals, and backwards feet. You’re all familiar with wildmen - Sasquatch, Orang Pendek, Almasti, Wodewose; wildmen are universal and constant. A cultural archetyp...

Howdy, the first half-dozen or so of my posts act as mirrors for Reddit posts and adhere largely to that style, just modifying the contents of these posts slightly, I will eventually come back and amend these when I decide on a cohesive format for my posting. Supernatural is an anthropological term without an adequate definition (see Dein 2016). Anthropological disciplines survey a variety of cultures, and having terms which can be reliably applied across different cultures is incredibly useful, but a naive goal that’s often doomed to fail. “Supernatural” is a term rooted in the West, science has drawn a clear line between “natural” and “supernatural”. There are many cultures where this is simply not the case. As such, people using the term should define it within the context of the cultures being discussed, something that very rarely happens. This issue affects cryptozoology in two ways. Cryptozoology has historically excluded Western supernatural beliefs...