Mystical Experiences of the UFO Kind

I confess I believe in UFOs, just not of the space alien kind. My experience with UFOs started with my neighbor, who was a professional astronomer. When not introducing the neighborhood to the wonders of the sky, he studied UFOs. My neighbor thought of UFOs as not of this world. However, he remained skeptical of them being space aliens.

Meanwhile, one summer while playing baseball, a UFO appeared over our heads. It cast a deep black shadow on a cloudless blue sky. All of us simply stood in awe of this strange disk with blue and yellow lights. Then as suddenly as it came, the UFO zipped off.

Then we all started talking at once. We asked each other, “What was that? What did we just see?” Whatever it was, everyone agreed that their experience was mystical. What surprised me was that some of them said the UFO deepened their faith. (Most of the people playing were from the local Lutheran Church.)

Investigators of the unknown, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark noted that the rise in UFO sightings coincided with the beginnings of space exploration. Meanwhile, the burgeoning eco-spirituality movement brought out more reports of Bigfoot, the Dover Demon and other strange creatures of nature. The two authors believe that people were unknowingly creating these phenomena. Joining together unawares, disparate people formed an unfocused group mind. This unconscious uniting pushed various kinds of UFOs and strange creatures into being.

After studying reports of encounters with alien beings, Clark and Coleman noted that people would experience UFOs in the context of their culture and era. Some saw fairies, others angels, and modern people space aliens. Understanding what these beings are is to “understand the incomprehensible.” They summarized it as (emphasis theirs): “The UFO mystery is primarily subjective and its content primarily symbolic.”

Clark and Coleman described the continuing fascination with UFOs as being rooted in “future shock.” (Note 1) They define this as “the acceleration of changes has become unbearable and the future unimaginable.” This makes living in the present problematic. Therefore, in their opinion, some people seek liberation from Western materialism by having UFO experiences. Furthermore, Carl Jung regarded UFOs as the myth for modern times.

However, people have pondered UFOs long before that. The noted astronomer Johannes Kepler wrote to Galileo, “I must point that there are inhabitants, not only on the moon but on Jupiter, too.” Various mainline theologians in the 18th and 19th Centuries advocated those extraterrestrials be included as members of God’s family. Meanwhile, Swedenborg and Emerson wrote of the mystical qualities of UFOs.

A field of theology has developed to understand UFOs in a religious context. Ted Peters, a Lutheran theologian, defines Astrotheology as (emphasis his) “that branch of theology which provides a critical analysis of the contemporary space sciences combined with an explication of classic doctrines such as creation and Christology for the purpose of constructing a comprehensive and meaningful understanding of our human situation within an astonishingly immense cosmos.”

In a paper, “Introducing Astrotheology,” Peters states the four tasks of the astrotheologian. First is to “(1) overcome geocentrism and anthropocentrism.” Second is to “(2) set the conditions for the debate between a single incarnation versus multiple incarnations in Christian soteriology.” Third to “(3) offer an internal critique to the space sciences.” Finally. “(4) contribute to public readiness for the day of contact.” In short, develop “a theology of nature (emphasis his) that is cosmic in both space and time.”

In considering UFOs, Peters cautions against the ETI (Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Myth. The ETI Myth is one subtle influence in regarding UFOs. This myth refers to the belief that ETs exist and that they are more advanced than humans. When contact is made, the Earth will be blessed by these aliens. A corollary of the ETI Myth is the Ancient Astronaut Theory. This is the belief that aliens came to Earth in prehistory and became Gods.

In fact, Tom Delonge and Peter Lavenda in “Sekret Machines: Gods, Man, and War,” claim that “All religion is UFO religion.” They write, “It slowly dawned on me (Lavenda) that UFOs might very well be the key to everything we are searching for, as human beings on this planet. They are the missing link in our consciousness, in our understanding of reality and of the parameters of time and space.”

Belief in the UFO Gods allow people to stand in awe of the heavens. With aliens, people can experience the Divine under the blessings of science. Alien contact (and disclosure) is only a day away from official validation, thereby making that more credible. Technology as developed by aliens is an expression of the Divine. Science has melded with religion to satisfy the longings of post-modern people.

From what I have read and experienced, UFOs are other than Gods. They are a part of our Cosmos much like Ancestors and Land Spirits. They are beyond human understanding and not necessarily Ancient Astronauts of the Space Alien Kind. For me, UFOs have deepened my belief in the Cosmos.

Notes:
Note 1. From Alvin Toffler’s book “Future Shock” (1970): A condition of distress and disorientation brought on by the inability to cope with rapid societal and technological change.

Works Used:

Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman, “Creatures of the Outer Edge.” San Antonio: Anomalist Books. 2006.
—-, “The Unidentified.” 2006.
Andrew Collins and Gregory L. Little, “Origin of the Gods.”
John Michael Greer, “The UFO Chronicles.”
Dr. Allan Hunter, “Spiritual Hunger: Integrating Myth and Ritual into Daily Life.”
Gregory L. Little, “The Archetype Experience.”
Diana Walsh Pasulka, “American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.”

Moderns and Mythology: The UFO Gods

I first became acquainted with what I call the UFO religion when studying the Sumerian Gods. Starting in 1976, Zecharia Sitchin (Note 1) wrote a series of books detailing how humans are the slave species of these Gods. Sitchin said that he realized from reading the Sumerian myths that aliens had colonized the Earth. For him, the myths were not mere stories but actual history. According to Sitchin, the Annunaki (the Sumerian Gods) created people to mine gold for them.

Pondering Sitchin, I discovered a cottage industry of authors starting with Erich von Daniken (“The Chariots of the Gods”) who claim that ancient aliens are the Gods of humanity. Not only that, humans are a construct of these aliens. An example of this cottage industry is a recent title is “DNA of the Gods: The Annunaki, Creation of Eve and the Alien Battle for Humanity (2014)” by Chris Hardy. It would appear that ancient aliens (the UFO Gods) satisfy the sensibilities of post-modern people.

How did the UFO religions become so popular? To start with, modern industrial people regard the old myths as irrelevant and stale. They want new myths which are global in scope and value modern sensibilities. They also want myths to be scientifically true. This follows what Joseph Campbell wrote about myths in general. (Note 2) He said that they should be plausible and fit with the scientific awareness of the time.

Secondly, the old faiths represent the old world of restricted freedoms and ignorance. The replacement religions are rooted in corporate materialism, which gives a terrifying vision of decaying societies. Therefore, the new religions must embrace things beyond this world. UFOs and aliens are more accessible in this post-modern world than the Gods.

Today, the reverence that was allocated to the Gods is now for the Myth of Progress. In modern industrial society, the idea that literal Gods exist is scoffed at. The ancient myths have become fairy tales. If the Gods do exist, they are psychological constructs or archetypes that spring from the subconscious of humanity. In other words, humans are the creators of the Gods. However, this leaves an inner emptiness.

Believing in the UFO Gods allow people can stand in awe of the heavens. With aliens, people can experience the Divine under the blessings of science. Alien contact (and disclosure) is only a day away from official validation, thereby making that more credible. Technology as developed by aliens is an expression of the Divine. Science has melded with religion to satisfy the longings of post-modern people.

Hence to some, the ancient myths have become accurate histories of prehistory. The aliens with their technology encouraged primitive humans to believe that they were Gods. In the UFO religion, this means that one day, humans could meet the aliens on their own terms. Then humanity could be Gods thereby fulfilling the promise of the Myth of Progress.

The monoculture of the industrial world has homogenized diverse world cultures into one bland one. The monomyth of this culture encourages people to mix and match various myths into an uneasy whole. As the Gods and heroes are relics of the past, so the UFO mythology is for the future. It allows for the myths to be explained as alien interventions. Religious history then becomes the history of aliens on the Earth. Mysticism in the modern materialistic world is the belief in alien Gods.

Notes:
Note 1. Zecharia Sitchin claimed to be able to read both Sumerian and Akkadian. According to Sitchin, these aliens came from the Twelfth Planet of Nibiru, which had collided with Tiamat, and formed the asteroid belt. (Nibiru and Tiamat are names of Mesopotamian Gods.) One of the last books he wrote was “The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial God.” Another was “There were Giants Upon the Earth: Gods, Demi-Gods, and Human Ancestry, the Evidence of Alien DNA.”

Note 2. Joseph Campbell, noted mythologist, said that (1) “myths should awaken the ‘mystic function’.” (2) The image of the universe that the myth provides should be in tune with the scientific awareness and general knowledge of the actual world. (3) “Myths should validate the norms of society that have adopted it.” (4) “Myth can act as a guiding force for each person.” (5) In their original versions, myths are for the underdeveloped mind.

Further reading:
John Michael Greer, “The UFO Chronicles.”
Dr. Allan Hunter, “Spiritual Hunger: Integrating Myth and Ritual into Daily Life.”
Diana Walsh Pasulka, “American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.”
Paul Wallis, “Escaping from Eden.” And “The Scars of Eden.”

Mythology and Moderns: Paul Wallis and “Escaping From Eden”

Originally an Archdeacon of the Anglican church in Australia, Paul Wallis now “researches the world’s mythologies for their insights on our origins as a species and potential as human beings.” He explores “our shamanic and mystical traditions, ET contact, and our place in the universe, and how we can be more conscious and more awake for a better human experience.” Wallis regards mythology to be a monomyth told through the prism of individual cultures. He says “as I joined the dots from one mythology to the next I could see that the very strangeness of the stories and the unlikely repetition of those strange motifs stand as evidence that in these mythologies lies a body of ancient collective memory.”

To Wallis, mythology is sacred storytelling. He writes that “it is the memory of us, who we are and where we have come from. Ancient stories survive for a reason because generations have connected with it. The stories tell us a recognizable truth about the world we live in.” This is the manner in which he approached reading the Bible.

As an Archdeacon, Wallis wrote extensively on Christian hermeneutics, which is the practice to find hidden meanings in texts. Biblical hermeneutics can be divided into four parts – literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical. The literal is the physical dimension – “the thing is what it is.” The moral asks “what is the ethical intent of something.” The thing is evaluated by a set of abstract principles. Allegorical is the mirroring between the thing and what it represents. “Everything stands for something else.” Finally, there is the anagogical (metaphysical) – “What is the higher reason beyond the thing.”

Wallis grappled with the writings of Genesis, which for him held too many contradictions. Since he wanted to reconcile all of them, Wallis first looked at the names of Adam and Eve. The Adam (of the Earth) stories were about Earthlings. The Eve stories (the Living) were of the living. He could feel the current of the clarity and depth of those particular words.

Then the walls fell when Wallis tackled the word “Elohim.” This term could either mean “God,” “Gods,” or a special class of beings. If YHWH was referred to as Elohim, Wallis asked then what was being interpreted. Wallis decided that the word meant “Sky People,” (Note 1.) who were powerful but mortal beings. (In other words, they were extraterrestrials.) Reading the myths of Genesis, he became aghast at the violence against humanity as told in The Tower of Babel, the Flood, and the Fall. (Note 2.) (Note 3.) The myths of the Old Testament are therefore a history of aliens behaving badly according to Wallis.

Researching further, Wallis concluded that the world myths were describing extraterrestrials as Gods. His new understanding of the word “Elohim” made him question the nature of his reality. In “The Scars of Eden,” Wallis relates how the myths detail space aliens experimenting on humans.

Wallis claims that in organized religion, there is no such thing as an informed orthodoxy. Instead, there is a mainstream doctrine that defines and polices heterodox thought. This doctrine brushes away other interpretations. He concludes that there is a deliberate forgetting that happens in this process. Therefore, the fact that the Gods are aliens is forgotten, while the Gods as divine beings is enforced. Wallis believes that religion’s role was to have everyone toe the line.

Wallis uses the principles of the Enlightenment to apply to the interpretation of myths. The Enlightenment says that people should think for themselves, and base their beliefs on reason. Hence any beliefs derived from tradition should not displace a reasoned judgement. (What is left out is that tradition can be a source of truth.)

According to Wallis’ reasoning, the Gods were based on humanity’s contact with a technologically superior species. His personal gnosis of space aliens ruling humans is based on scientific literalism. He sought to find the literal truth of mythologies. Embracing freedom of thought, Wallis now sees alien Gods.

In my opinion, Wallis exchanged one orthodoxy for another. For many modern people, belief in aliens is possible, but not in Gods. He has embraced the new religion of UFO Gods. (Note 4) Wallis has simply displayed the biases of the modern industrial world. That world insists on a monoculture and a united theory of everything. Therefore, ancient myths are homogenized into one monomyth of human uniqueness.

Notes:
Note 1. Wallis refers to “Elohim” as “Powerful Ones/ Sky People/ Engineers.”
Note 2. Wallis believes that the True God (his capitals) is the creative source of humanity with a vision of love and justice. The True God is the “harmonious source of all things.”
Note 3. According to Wallis, Jesus of the Gospels came to liberate people from hierarchies and from living in fear.
Note 4. The UFO religion has its doctrine and dogmas. The central one is that extraterrestrials have been a part of human affairs since prehistory.

Further reading:
John Michael Greer, “The UFO Chronicles.”
Diana Walsh Pasulka, “American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology.”
Paul Wallis, “Escaping from Eden.” And “The Scars of Eden.”

The Power of Thought in Ritual

One ritual, I remember was a seidr conducted by a seidrwoman. She led the group to the Gates of Hel’s Domain. We were to wait on the side of the Living, while she went into Hel’s Domain. During the seidr, she relayed messages from the Dead and the Gods to us. After the seidr, we quietly discussed among ourselves what had happened and what the messages meant.

Later I had an individual seidr with the seidrwoman. During the session, the Egyptian God Anubis spoke to me. The difference between the two seidrs was remarkable. In the first, the group had absorbed the energy of the Beings from the Otherside. In contrast, I directly experienced the raw energy of Anubis. It took me a day to recover that seidr.

Ritual, by its nature, lives in the liminal place between this world and the Otherworlds. Moreover, it collapses the distinction between humans and the Divine. Time becomes non-existent. Furthermore, ritual unites the people who are present into a community of one mind.

The group mind, which is formed by the ritual, connects humans more concretely with that of the Gods. By its own force, the group mind transcends the ordinary present. Comprised of the welding of many minds, the group mind can attain more power for deeper contact.

Investigators of the unknown, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark noted that the rise in UFO sightings coincided with the beginnings of space exploration. Meanwhile, the burgeoning eco-spirituality movement brought out more reports of Bigfoot, the Dover Demon and other strange creatures of nature. The two authors believe that people were unknowingly creating these phenomena. Joining together unawares, disparate people formed an unfocused group mind. This unconscious uniting pushed various kinds of UFOs and strange creatures into being.

As a Roman Polytheist, doing a ritual correctly for me is paramount. As a group, we are demonstrating our respect and reverence to the Gods. Since a ritual is liminal space, proper performance is needed to ensure that humans keep the Pax Deorum (Peace of the Gods).

Works Cited:
Ariely, Dan, “Predictably Irrational.” New York: Harper Collins. 2009.
Bell, Catherine, “Ritual.” New York: Oxford. 1997.
Clark, Jerome and Loren Coleman, “Creatures of the Outer Edge.” San Antonio: Anomalist Books. 2006.
“The Unidentified.” 2006.
Kahneman, Daniel, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2011.
Zell-Ravenheart, Oberon, “Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard.” Franklin Lakes (NJ): New Page Books. 2004.

Embracing the Supernatural

I confess that I believe in UFOs of the space alien kind. At one time, it was an irrational fear of mine since I firmly thought that a UFO would abduct me. Although I live in the city, I still clung to this absurd fear. It inhibited my movements, keeping me awake at night. I decided to end my torment and get help.

While in therapy, I was presented with several choices. I could believe that UFOs were real but the odds of being abducted by one was nearly nonexistent. I could set up ways to prevent being abducted such as carrying a flashlight. I could decide that UFOs did not exist. I could interpret UFOs as a metaphor for hidden traumas. I could think that my mental illness manifested itself as a fear of UFOs.

I decided to make peace with the UFOs and move on. I did resolve several traumas arising from childhood that I had submerged. I admitted that my fear was silly and debilitating. At the end, I still believed in UFOs but viewed them differently. Now, they add a bit of mystery to the world.

Because of my experiences in resolving my thoughts about UFOs, I understand mental illness more clearly. Therefore I have problems with any Atheist who is a Pagan asserting that the Truth lies only in the reality of science. They usually add that believing in the supernatural is mentally unhealthy. A belief in “literal gods” is a cause for concern since that is rooted in the synapses of the brain. In other words, the supernatural is only the figment of one’s imagination. Because none of it exists, the only path to Truth is through science.

This philosophy is known as “Scientism. It states that science alone can determine the truth about the world. I find this to be very limiting, since, for me, the world is beyond human understanding. Moreover, this philosophy is self-annihilating because it posits that only scientific claims are meaningful. That is self-contradicting since science cannot confer meaning on anything or any idea.

Along with a belief in Scientism, many Atheists who are Pagans also espouse Humanistic Naturalism. According to this philosophy, humans understand and control the world through the scientific method. What occurs to me is that this centers all things on humans to determine how the world should be. That is an awful burden to bear especially if other Pagans do not agree with the assessment that the world is needs to be saved. Since many Pagans have other priorities, it becomes a cause of anger and frustration for these particular Atheists who are Pagans.

As for me, a belief in the supernatural means mental health. I do understand how a belief in the supernatural can be held in suspect. I grappled with my fears of UFOs as being malevolent. My imagination fed into my fears and prohibited me from living a full life. However, for many people, imagination and play lead to a more rounded life. A world without UFOs is a sad, empty one.