Multidisciplinary Artist, Creator of Ong's Hat the Original Proto- Alternate Reality Game and Online Legend Trip, Mythological and Liminal Fiction Author
Chapter dedicated to Ong’s Hat in Destinations Across Paranormal America 2 by Hugh Mungus Excerpt: It’s a widely held belief the legend of Ong’s Hat is the fictional brainchild of … Continue reading Destinations Across Paranormal America 2
Excellent observations on the Ong’s Hat/Incunabula mythos from Spittle Gauze Lists seem to have a certain power over people. It is hard to find any form of media that does not … Continue reading Lists as Narrative Structure: Hawkeye #3 and Incunabula
There is an Ong’s Hat section in this French article, from the site Tryangle about starting your own religion, titled: TUTORIAL: HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN RELIGION? Excerpt (machine translation): … Continue reading TUTORIAL: HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN RELIGION?
A batch of emails has alerted me to another strange synchronicity re: the Ong’s Hat material. This time it involves the infamous scene in the Ong’s Hat graphic novel (included … Continue reading Lions and Tigers and Chinese Freemasons in San Francisco, oh no!
Recent article from French magazine, Internet ACTU. The article is in French, so if your French is rusty you’ll need to run it through the translation platform of your choice. … Continue reading Transmedia, de la rébellion à la récupération
“Might we contrive one of those opportune falsehoods … so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city.” … Continue reading In Beautiful Dreams – Nurturing narratives and the forgotten potentials of digital culture
Sec. 1: MW 2-3:15 & T 6:30-9 (film screening) / Sec. 2: MW 4-5:15 & T 6:30-9 (film screening) This course examines three major folklore genres – legend, rumor, and … Continue reading English 3700: American Folklore: Legend, Rumor, and Conspiracy Theory
You may view some excerpts here or buy the book. Few have ventured into the many heavily guarded, top-secret locations scattered across the earth. Even fewer have emerged with stories … Continue reading Chapter on Ong’s Hat included in Mack Maloney’s Beyond Area 51 (Chapter 9: The Mystery of Ong’s Hat)
From the Eyeless Owl “Might we contrive one of those opportune falsehoods … so as by one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the … Continue reading Taking Back Transmedia
Matheny himself was there at the beginning of the ARG, when the increasing prominence of online media got him thinking about new forms of storytelling. “I’ve been a tech person since the Eighties,” he reminisces. “I was an IT expert and moved up into software, and I used to play the Steve Jackson games a lot. I also played the Flying Buffalo play-by-mail games, which were kind of like a LARP but done through mail, phone and faxes. You would send your mailing address and your phone number and you would start getting stuff in the mail.
If one takes the Turnpike to exit four and follows Route 70 east, they will come to Route 72 at Four Mile Circle. Taking a hard left leads to a … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: Piney Ghost Town or Gateway to Another Dimension?
Óli Gneisti Sóleyjarson Technilcal College of fHafnarfjordur, Iceland Folklore Volume 124, Issue 2, 2013 review
“…to vanish without having to kill yourself may be the ultimate revolutionary act…” The Sacred Jihad of Our Lady of Chaos
“..That story again! Man, that’s old hat..” …some Buddtown local
Ultimately, the strangest tale about Ong’s Hat has to be about the Incunabula Papers. In the papers, it’s claimed, Wali Fard, an American expatriate and follower of tantric and shamanistic magic, returned to America after the fall of Afghanistan to the Soviets. He laundered his savings by buying 200 acres of land near Ong’s Hat, including the former Ong’s Hat Rod and Gun Club. There, with several other people who had followed him from New York, he founded the Moorish Science Ashram.[16]
We were told to look at this map to see a strange egg shaped ridge which some locals swear is the remnants of the old Ong’s Hat Ashram. Sure enough, there it is. Spooky!
On the Internet, seekers investigate anonymous manifestos that focus on the findings of brilliant scientists said to have discovered pathways into alternate realities. Gathering on web forums, researchers not only share their observations, but also report having anomalous experiences, which they believe come from their online involvement with these veiled documents. Seeming logic combines with wild twists of lost Moorish science and pseudo-string theory. Enthusiasts insist any obstacle to revelation is a sure sign of great and wide-reaching efforts by consensus powers wishing to suppress all the liberating truths in the Incunabula Papers (included here in complete form).
Here’s some free versions of Ong’s Hat for Kindle and as an ePub (for iPad, Nook, Sony Reader, Adobe Dimensions, et al). I’ll be putting these up on the newly redesigned incunabula.org (see design here) in 2012. Thought you might want to grab one now as my holiday present to you.
In a day and age when legends are as likely to be transmitted online as they are face-to-face, folklorists have begun assessing how our established concepts apply to the digital realm. The convergence of different forms of media has increasingly diminished the traditional boundaries between folk and popular culture and the digital and analog world. If the legend continues to thrive under these new conditions, folklorists will want to determine how the closely related legend-trip has similarly transitioned to the online environment.
In Legend-Tripping Online: The Search for Ong’s Hat, Michael Kinsella seeks to answer this question using the example of the Incunabula Papers—a conspiracy theory, an alternative reality game, and a mystical experience all wrapped into one. The “Incunabula Papers” refers to two documents, Ong’s Hat: Gateway to the Dimensions! A Full Color Brochure for the Institute of Chaos Studies and the Moorish Science Ashram in Ong’s Hat, New Jersey and Incunabula: A Catalogue of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Curiosa—Conspiracy Theory, Frontier Science & Alternative Worlds. Allegedly produced by banished Princeton faculty studying chaos theory at the Moorish Science Ashram in Ong’s Hat, New Jersey, these rogue professors perfected a device known as The EGG, which made possible interdimensional travel. The group then “embedded within [the Incunabula Papers] enough clues for its intended readers” to join the quest “but not enough for those with little faith to follow.” For folklorists this legend complex provides new challenges capable of expanding the body of legend scholarship. Legend-tripping online will not replace legend-tripping in the “real world,” as folklorists have found with some other forms, but rather exists in addition to and follows the same principles as the classic legend-trip.
I’ll be on OTHER WORLD RADIO tonight at 8pm PST
OTHER WORLD RADIO
with Sandra D. Sabatini, Host
http://www.OtherWorldRadio.ning.com
Show starts USA: 11PM EDT USA / 10PM CDT / 9PM MST / 8PM PDT
Overseas listeners please check for your local time difference at: http://www.WorldTimeEngine.com/
Ong’s Hat: The Beginning is now available on iTunes for your iPad, iPhone and other ePub compliant readers. It is reasonably priced at$4.99 USD. I will also be releasing an … Continue reading Ong’s Hat eBook Now on iTunes
Source: http://monoskop.org/log/?p=8717 On the Internet, seekers investigate anonymous manifestos that focus on the findings of brilliant scientists said to have discovered pathways into alternate realities. Gathering on web forums, researchers not … Continue reading Monoskop Log reblog – Michael Kinsella: Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat (2011)
Ong’s Hat Chapter from This is Not a Game
Incunabula Originals Scans as a PDF Mail Culture and Historical notes:In the late 70s and early 80s a network culture emerged that pre-dated information exchange via BBS/Fidonet/Internet (Arpanet) type … Continue reading Scans of the original mail-art version of the Incunabula: Ong’s Hat documents: PDF
Recently I found myself in the northern California town of San Jose on business. Looking at the map I realized that I was only minutes away from the infamous Santa … Continue reading Ruins Left Behind by the California Travel Cult: Incunabula- Ong’s Hat
“Note: This is just an opinion piece based on vague feelings, concepts and ideas with no foundation in reality. I cant back up one shred of what Im talking about here. … Continue reading What Really, Really, Really Happened at Ongs Hat?-DarkPlanet
Joseph Matheny speaks to “Rupert” and “Abel” about their alleged upbringing in the Ong’s Hat Ashram and their witnessing of the alleged delta force raid. Ong’s Hat Survivors: Interview Transcript (PDF) … Continue reading Ong’s Hat Ashram Survivors?
