It appears that the Sinbad/genie/Shazaam topic has reached critical mass and journalists are covering it as “new” news.
For long-time Mandela Effect readers, that topic isn’t new. (There are over 110 comments in our related conversation that started in 2015.)
I wanted to explain (talking at my computer monitor, which doesn’t care one way or the other) that, no, I don’t “fervently believe that Nelson Mandela died while in prison.”
For me, it’s a fact. Whether or not anyone else shares that memory, I know that I saw his funeral on the TV in the 1980s. And, many elements of what I recall match what others report.
To me, it looks like some journalists are missing the point of this site. Or, they think we take this topic — and ourselves — far more seriously than we do.
I thought the many interacting worlds concept finally gave our conversations a possible foundation, at the very least. I thought I could finally stop defending this concept.
(Really, I’m ready for lighter, more interesting and speculative “what if…?” discussions.)
Instead, I see new articles labeling the Mandela Effect as “false memories,” with the same tired arguments that this is entirely confusion or a mental disorder.
So, because I need to say this, and speaking only for myself and those I discuss this topic with in real life…
Most of us do fact-check our own memories and what others report. We’re looking for something we may have misunderstood.
We don’t insist that Mandela died in the 1980s, or any time other than the 2013 date he passed from this world. (If we did, this would be a very different kind of website, and include conversations about conspiracies.)
Some people (including me) remember Mandela’s funeral long before 2013.
Others don’t.
My theories include the idea that some events happen in different time spans for different people.
And really, some of the iconic artists we lost in 2016… I’d love to find out they’re alive & well and continuing their creative projects, in this reality or another one I can access.
We’re not “Berenstein ‘truthers’.” We know that a casual browse of any public library’s shelves (or Amazon’s book lists) will show Berenstain.
Well… mostly. Typos happen. Amazon has been correcting most of them at their site, ever since George Takei mentioned the Berenstein/Berenstain topic. (He remembers “Berenstein,” too.)
Some people recall Shazaam (or a movie with Sinbad as a genie). Others don’t. That’s normal for these alternate memories. I don’t know anyone who claims to recall — with certainty — 100% of the memories on the main list.
We accept that some of our memories may be flawed, faulty, or downright wrong. That’s normal for anyone and everyone.
Maybe our source was wrong. Maybe we misinterpreted something, in passing (no pun intended). Maybe we just forgot. Human errors happen.
What we agree upon:
- Many of us share unorthodox memories.
- Something odd (and fascinating) might be happening.
From my side of the dashboard, some of these “alternate memories” are eerily consistent, even when I didn’t publish the earliest reports. That’s intriguing.
Most of us don’t think this is a conspiracy.
It’s just something we can’t explain, yet. Sort of like how gravity works. And some aspects of lightning. And whatever Einstein meant by his incomplete time-space theories. Or even why, in some countries, cars stop at green traffic lights.
(But, hey, it might be a conspiracy. Or there may be some media manipulation involved. I haven’t a clue.)
The Mandela Effect is quirky. It’s weird. It’s fun, if you step away from the topic and look at it intellectually. (I’m trying not to seem insensitive to those who feel traumatized by this subject. I’m also mindful of the anxieties of those convinced this is a conspiracy.)
This site has been based in, “Okay, what if alternate memories are mostly accurate? What if alternate realities exist, and we can interact with them? Then what…?”
As I see it, Mandela Effect is poised at a cool, kind-of-unsettling seesaw fulcrum, between sci-fi/fantasy and physics.
I’m not saying that anyone is making this up. Those who have those memories — including me — we’re relieved to find others with the exact same memories, or at least memories that match on too many points to be “coincidence.”
But, I’ll admit that anything we might deliberately do with what we’ve learned from our conversations… that takes us into speculative areas that aren’t as well-grounded as the memories we share. I want to make that distinction clear.
At this point:
The Mandela Effect is recognized as something real, independent of how the individual explains it. (That includes everything from snarky skepticism to fervent belief.)
The topic of parallel realities — and their possible interactions — is becoming more credible. And, that data has been provided by people who (mostly) don’t care one way or the other about the Mandela Effect.
It’s time for me to have fun with this topic, instead of defending it or trying to moderate conversations best held at Reddit. (Reddit provides a far better home for active conversations about individual memories, and for correlation of them.)
So, I wish you a very happy holiday season… whichever of the 50+ seasonal holidays you celebrate. (Or none of them, if that’s your choice.)
In 2017, let’s take this topic beyond individual Mandela Effect incidents.
Let’s look at the bigger picture. Let’s examine more of the speculative, “what if…?” sides of this topic.
And, let’s see where this takes us.
Happy new year!
The post Shazaam, Sinbad, Genies, and Seriousness appeared first on Mandela Effect.
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