CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
What we love about the "Mandela Effect" phenomenon (have you been following it?) is that it's sweeping the masses into wonderment in ways that might approximate the rise of Spiritualism. The average person is instantly swept into an alternate universe when he or she ponders things such as: "I remember the phrase being 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' and not 'Magic mirror on the wall'" or "Didn't the Statue of Liberty used to be on Ellis Island?" How very brilliant to frame collective "false" memories as artifacts of parallel universes bleeding into one another. We took great pleasure in working up a little video about the phenomenon, relating it to Heidegger's perspective on the Uncanny and encouraging folks to use the Mandela Effect for personal empowerment. We suggest forgetting the old motto, "Be the change you wish to see" -- instead, "Free the strange you wish to flee." (That's a Googlewhack in this universe.)
