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Since this is coming up again, I’ll say it again: the reason we don’t actively promote “Rebirth of Pan” is because there are rumors that the author - listed as Jim Brandon - is William Grimstad, who can read more about below. Horrible, horrible guy. https://twitter.com/dailygrail/status/1344862491810037762
Had we realized the extent of these rumors during the time we shot Hellier 2, we’d have at least tried to source something else when it came to the power names of Pike and Parsons and three-toed iconography, which was where the Pan stuff started to link up to the Hellier case.
Unfortunately, because no one in the Fortean circles would just fucking say any of this, and it was just another rare book on stacks of rare books we were digging into, all we knew at the time was that Jim Brandon was a pen name because he was “involved in NWO conspiracy stuff..”
But that’s the problem with, literally, all of this stuff. UFO leaders are arrested on charges of child abuse, conspiracy theorists devolve into antisemitic dog whistlers, and ghost hunters tell scared religious parents that their kid is possessed because he’s adopted from India.
These are all actual things that have happened. The sad fact is that much of the material that forteans and paranormal researchers unknowingly cite was written by god awful people. Hans Holzer popularized the insensitive “Indian burial ground” trope.
“ancient aliens” theory is thinly veiled racism that implies brown people can’t build complex things without supernatural help. John Keel had a bad habit of objectifying women in his books in some pretty gross ways. Most of these people’s ideas were not great, but people forget.
What I’m saying here is that it’s okay to say that these are bad people, or that maybe their theories had a hidden agenda, because otherwise people don’t know and they’ll continue to popularize these people and their ideas. But the absolute worst thing you can do is defend them.
Obviously the Jim Brandon / William Grimstad situation is way goddamn worse than John Keel describing Jaye Paro as “pretty if she wasn’t so fat”. If Brandon is actually Grimstad, fuck him, he’s a piece of shit, and people should know it. I wish I had.
Holocaust denial is disgusting and despicable, as is white supremacy, and we’d never knowingly promote anyone who supports such vile stuff, much less hold sacred their ideas. I’d hope that much is evident from the people who know us, even from afar, but I wanted to say it again.
These are the dark shadows that dwell in the fringe communities, and I hate to say it, are embraced by a large portion of the paranormal community. It skews far right. Fundamentalist Christian ideas of demons have controlled ghost hunting thought for decades.
This weekend I watched so-called “UFO twitter” say that even racism was to be tolerated if it means disclosure. Every other day I hear how another ritual magician is a rapist. Even the skeptic community can’t have a conference without sexual abuse allegations.
This is a large reason why I have no interest in being part of these communities or trying to earn their praise, why I don’t worship the old guard, and why I’m always an advocate for people doing NEW things. NEW magic rituals. NEW paranormal theories. NEW ideals of inclusivity.
Because too much of the foundation of the paranormal is rotten. Take the good stuff and burn the bridge down. Leave the racists, homophobes, gatekeepers, and their defenders behind and remind people of the horrors across over there, because otherwise the kids will get curious.
And then a bunch of those dumb kids might cite the pen name of one of these pieces of shit in their show about goblins and feel real shitty about it when someone finally coughs up the receipts. Yeah, I’m talking about us.
So back to Jim Brandon and the Rebirth of Pan real quick. The worst part of this whole ordeal is that any cursory research we did on the guy turned up all kinds of praise for him by people we respected. People who supposedly shared our bleeding heart liberal ideals.
But hey, if 2020 taught us anything, it’s that a lot of statues should be torn down. Just because someone had a few ideas that people liked doesn’t excuse their other really horrible ones, especially if they’re hateful of other humans. Fuck ‘em, and fuck anyone who defends them.
