Weird Tales and True Mysteries: The Legacy of Fate Magazine with J.W. Dotson MD, Begins October 14
Three-Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, October 21 - November 4, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$90 Paid Patreon Members / $100 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
UFOs, Fortean phenomenon, ghost hunting, cryptozoology and lost continents: since 1948, Fate magazine has been transmitting weirdness into North America and beyond. During the psychedelic era, it featured articles on alternative spirituality and the paranormal: witchcraft, demon possession, ESP and parapsychology, tarot, and Eastern mysticism. Two ongoing columns entitled “True Mystic Experiences” and “My Proof of Survival” featured first person accounts of supernatural experiences.
At its height in the 1950s,Fateboasted 100,000 monthly subscribers, with single copies widely available at newsstands and in local libraries. Today, this treasury of the strange has largely vanished from library shelves, and only a handful of issues have been digitized. Over the course of three class sessions devoted to the history and content of this once influential magazine,, J.W. Dotson, MD, will share scanned articles and images from his personal collection of over 200 issues, as well as selections from a microfilm archive.
We will begin with a focus on the post-war UFO craze of the late 1940s and early 1950s, examining alien contactee stories and art, supernatural personal experience columns, and advertisements for secret societies and fringe groups. Moving into the counterculture era of the mid-1960s and beyond, the class will explore mystical topics like astrology and tarot, as well as the fantastic material culture of promotional images for divination tools and newly published occult books and services. In the final session, attendees will vote on their favorite topics and dive deeper into the top three subject areas.
For those who are interested in further Fate investigations, the instructor can provided pdf’s of scanned material and instructions of how to locate microfilm sources.
J.W. Dotson MD is a psychiatrist and an independent scholar fascinated by cultural and anthropological olfaction studies, ethnobotany and medical astrology. James has presented esoteric fragrance lectures as part of The Scent and Society series at the Institute for Art and Olfaction and the Experimental Scent Summit (2020 & 2025) and is a recurring speaker for The Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival and Morbid Anatomy. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Archive of Healing.
Three-Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, October 21 - November 4, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$90 Paid Patreon Members / $100 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
UFOs, Fortean phenomenon, ghost hunting, cryptozoology and lost continents: since 1948, Fate magazine has been transmitting weirdness into North America and beyond. During the psychedelic era, it featured articles on alternative spirituality and the paranormal: witchcraft, demon possession, ESP and parapsychology, tarot, and Eastern mysticism. Two ongoing columns entitled “True Mystic Experiences” and “My Proof of Survival” featured first person accounts of supernatural experiences.
At its height in the 1950s,Fateboasted 100,000 monthly subscribers, with single copies widely available at newsstands and in local libraries. Today, this treasury of the strange has largely vanished from library shelves, and only a handful of issues have been digitized. Over the course of three class sessions devoted to the history and content of this once influential magazine,, J.W. Dotson, MD, will share scanned articles and images from his personal collection of over 200 issues, as well as selections from a microfilm archive.
We will begin with a focus on the post-war UFO craze of the late 1940s and early 1950s, examining alien contactee stories and art, supernatural personal experience columns, and advertisements for secret societies and fringe groups. Moving into the counterculture era of the mid-1960s and beyond, the class will explore mystical topics like astrology and tarot, as well as the fantastic material culture of promotional images for divination tools and newly published occult books and services. In the final session, attendees will vote on their favorite topics and dive deeper into the top three subject areas.
For those who are interested in further Fate investigations, the instructor can provided pdf’s of scanned material and instructions of how to locate microfilm sources.
J.W. Dotson MD is a psychiatrist and an independent scholar fascinated by cultural and anthropological olfaction studies, ethnobotany and medical astrology. James has presented esoteric fragrance lectures as part of The Scent and Society series at the Institute for Art and Olfaction and the Experimental Scent Summit (2020 & 2025) and is a recurring speaker for The Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival and Morbid Anatomy. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Archive of Healing.
Three-Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, October 21 - November 4, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$90 Paid Patreon Members / $100 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
UFOs, Fortean phenomenon, ghost hunting, cryptozoology and lost continents: since 1948, Fate magazine has been transmitting weirdness into North America and beyond. During the psychedelic era, it featured articles on alternative spirituality and the paranormal: witchcraft, demon possession, ESP and parapsychology, tarot, and Eastern mysticism. Two ongoing columns entitled “True Mystic Experiences” and “My Proof of Survival” featured first person accounts of supernatural experiences.
At its height in the 1950s,Fateboasted 100,000 monthly subscribers, with single copies widely available at newsstands and in local libraries. Today, this treasury of the strange has largely vanished from library shelves, and only a handful of issues have been digitized. Over the course of three class sessions devoted to the history and content of this once influential magazine,, J.W. Dotson, MD, will share scanned articles and images from his personal collection of over 200 issues, as well as selections from a microfilm archive.
We will begin with a focus on the post-war UFO craze of the late 1940s and early 1950s, examining alien contactee stories and art, supernatural personal experience columns, and advertisements for secret societies and fringe groups. Moving into the counterculture era of the mid-1960s and beyond, the class will explore mystical topics like astrology and tarot, as well as the fantastic material culture of promotional images for divination tools and newly published occult books and services. In the final session, attendees will vote on their favorite topics and dive deeper into the top three subject areas.
For those who are interested in further Fate investigations, the instructor can provided pdf’s of scanned material and instructions of how to locate microfilm sources.
J.W. Dotson MD is a psychiatrist and an independent scholar fascinated by cultural and anthropological olfaction studies, ethnobotany and medical astrology. James has presented esoteric fragrance lectures as part of The Scent and Society series at the Institute for Art and Olfaction and the Experimental Scent Summit (2020 & 2025) and is a recurring speaker for The Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival and Morbid Anatomy. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Archive of Healing.