Week 1: Observation as Evidence

What the course studies, why it insists "applied" is not decoration, and the observe–classify–countermeasure method that structures the semester.

How to observe something that should not be there.

22 February 2027

Open the slides

The course’s name invites a joke it has stopped acknowledging: an anomalology course studies whatever a normal course would put in a footnote. This course insists the “applied” is load-bearing — the point is not to catalogue the anomalous for its own sake, but to observe it, classify it against a working scheme, and respond to it with a countermeasure that can be tested against the next case.

Stated once, plainly, because everything else in the semester assumes it: the eeriness this course studies is already hidden under the surface of ordinary life — a doorway, a stairwell, a forum thread, a group chat — not imported from anywhere exotic. Nothing on this course’s syllabus asks you to believe in the extraordinary; it asks you to look properly at the ordinary.

Outline#

• what this course studies, and why “applied” is not decoration
• the course’s actual thesis, stated once: the eeriness under study is already hidden in ordinary life, not brought in from anywhere exotic
• the three-part method that structures every phase of the course: observe, classify, apply a countermeasure
• the sourcing standard, previewed: a case is logged by what it did (behaviour), corroborated by a second observer, before it’s written up — atmosphere alone doesn’t clear that bar
• how the comparative warding unit (week 3) and the later desk-study and literature-synthesis phases extend that method rather than replace it
• what changes once fieldwork starts in week 4, and what stays the same

After this lecture#

This week’s practical puts the observation half of the method into your hands before you’ve seen anything worth writing down — deliberately, so the habit is set before the material gets stranger.