3 Main Perspectives:  Aliens from space  Purely imaginary creatures  Spirits (Immaterial intelligent beings)

Presentation on theme: "3 Main Perspectives:  Aliens from space  Purely imaginary creatures  Spirits (Immaterial intelligent beings)"— Presentation transcript:

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2 3 Main Perspectives:  Aliens from space  Purely imaginary creatures  Spirits (Immaterial intelligent beings)

3 Space Aliens?

4 Survey Results:  Polls indicate that about 93% of the American population believes that space aliens exist.  Approximately 85% of adults believe life exists on other planets—Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 3.

5 Intelligent Life On Other Planets?  Peter Ward, Professor of Geological Sciences and Curator of Paleontology at the University of Washington, and Donald Brownlee, Professor of Astronomy coauthored a book called Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (Copernicus Books, 2000).

6 Brownlee and Ward Write:  “In this book we will argue that not only intelligent life, but even the simplest of animal life, is exceedingly rare in our galaxy and in the Universe.” —Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (New York: Copernicus Books, 2000), Xviii.

7 They Conclude:  “A review of habitable zones—for animals as well as microbes, and in the galaxy and Universe as well as around our sun—leads to an inescapable conclusion: Earth is a rare place indeed.” —Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, 33.

8 Astronomer Carl Sagan Wrote:  “I believe the search for extraterrestrial intelligence to be an exceedingly important one both for science and for society. It is difficult to think of a more important scientific question. But I do not believe that the most efficient method of examining this topic is via the UFO problem.” —UFO’s—A Scientific Debate, ed. Carl Sagan and Thornton Page (Cornell University Press, 1972), 274.

9 Imaginary Creatures?

10 Are All “Abductees” Crazy?  Dr. Susan A. Clancy received her Ph.D. in Psychology for Harvard University.  She does not believe in aliens.  Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped By Aliens (Harvard University Press, 2005).

11 Are All “Abductees” Crazy?  Dr. Clancy personally interviewed people claiming to have been abducted.  “Data from multiple studies indicate that abductees are no more likely than anyone else to suffer from psychiatric disorders.” —Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 5.

12 “Abductee” Demographics  Some of the people Clancy visited with only thought they may have been abducted.  They did not all describe a particular experience of meeting aliens.  “Fewer than 10 percent were actually practicing any religion.” —Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 128.

13 Are All “Abductees” Lying?  “They can’t sleep at night; they’re filled with terror; they can’t concentrate. Some psychologists treat alien abductees for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because many abductees meet the criteria for PTSD.” —Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 130.

14 Athena  A 47-year-old single woman.  She was a professional “channeler,” mostly for alien spirits.—Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 108.  Channeler  a person who purportedly gives their body over to a spirit to speak through them

15 Athena  “Eventually, she stopped answering questions altogether and closed her eyes. Then the upper half of her body began to tremble and she fell to her knees, staring upward, spine rigid…

16 Athena  …Before I could call Security, she began speaking in a new voice—low and feathery. She’d been contacted by an alien who wanted to tell me something.” —Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 108.

17 Sam  He was 65 years old.  He and his wife got involved in meditation in 1991.  “We began going deeper and deeper into meditation, going in trances practically.”—Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 122.

18 Sam  “Then came December 3, 1992. I remember it like it was yesterday. At three A.M. I woke up. I had a strange feeling—as if someone was contacting me. And out of nowhere, aliens jumped into my head….In the course of a month, I was able to contact them as well. They spoke through my body…”

19 Sam  “…Then I heard a woman’s voice, a high-pitched squeel. It was telling me that Pat, my wife, was the reincarnation of Jesus and I needed to kill her...”

20 Sam  “…The aliens were making my legs shake. The police brought me to the hospital. They thought I was having a seizure, but the doctors found nothing medically wrong with me…”

21 Sam  “I lost my short-term memory for about three months. I do remember that Pat brought me to a Catholic diocese in January of the following year. They told me that I was speaking in tongues and that an exorcism was necessary. I can’t really remember what happened, but around that time I stopped hearing the entities…”

22 Sam  “The doctors all told me I had a mental problem, that I had to stay on medication…The doctor who saw me at the hospital wanted to write some medical paper on what happened to me, but I said no. He didn’t understand what had happened—it was too advanced for Western medicine.” Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 122, 123, 124.

23 Clancy Argues  “that alien-abduction memories are best understood as resulting from a blend of fantasy-proneness, memory distortion, culturally available scripts, sleep hallucinations, and scientific illiteracy, aided and abetted by the suggestions and reinforcement of hypnotherapy…

24 Her Analysis: “Still Insufficient”  …But this analysis is still insufficient for an understanding of the phenomenon. As the abductees themselves would say, ‘If you’re telling me it didn’t happen, that I made it up, why in God’s name would I want to?’ That’s the hardest question to answer.…

25 The Abductees’ Experiences  “…are terrifying, nightmarish. They take place in the dark when you’re alone and vulnerable. The alien creatures are repulsive, with vacant black eyes, long fingers, segmented bodies. They steal you away from all that’s safe and familiar, and then they probe and dig into your brains, nasal cavities, genitals, and intestines…

26 The Abductees’ Experiences  …Things are carved out of you, or embedded in you. Even if it seems reasonable to accept the explanatory equation presented above and acknowledged that false beliefs can be created, it’s difficult to understand why anyone would make up such ghastly things.”—Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 138-139.

27 Clancy’s Conclusions  “What can we say conclusively about this diverse group of abductees? In the end, not much. Research on the topic is clearly in its infancy. What we can confidently say is that these people are not crazy…

28 Clancy’s Conclusions  …They tend to have unusual ideas, experiences, and beliefs—ones that don’t necessarily conform to mainstream social beliefs and tendencies. They believe not only in alien abduction, but also in things like ESP, astrology, tarot, channeling, auras, holistic medicine, and crystal therapy.”—Susan A. Clancy, Abducted, 135.

29 The “Occult”  This is commonly called “the paranormal”.  The paranormal involves efforts to access or use supernatural power or attempts to gain secret or hidden information outside the use of the natural senses

30 Paranormal Activities  Seeing ghosts  Trying to predict the future  Astrology (using horoscopes)  Eastern meditation  Attempting to summon spirits

31 Paranormal Activities  Channeling  Poltergeist phenomena  Witchcraft  Astral projection  the process of leaving one’s body to travel to other locations— sometimes embarking on “otherworldly” journeys.

32 Human Contact with “Aliens” Prior to The 21 st Century

33 1758  Emanuel Swedenborg, the famous Swedish scientist and seer, published his cosmological treatise Concerning Earths in the Solar World, Which Are Called Planets; and Concerning Earths in the Starry Heaven; and Concerning Their Inhabitants; and Likewise Concerning the Spirits and Angels There from Things Seen and Heard.

34 1758  He claimed that he had traveled to the various planets of the solar system and even beyond to the planets of the starry heavens.  He later founded the Church of the New Jerusalem, the first of the modern occult religions—The Gods Have Landed: New Religions From Other Worlds, ed. James R. Lewis (State University of New York Press, 1995), 6.

35 1890s  A French medium named Helene Smith claims to have gone to Mars. She returned to describe the Martians and drew pictures of the life forms she encountered. —The Gods Have Landed, 3.

36 1906  An American medium named Sara Weiss met beings claiming to be from Mars.  Immo, her Martian contact, talks through Weiss to the larger spiritualist community…

37 “Immo” Said:  “In planetary language, which all advance spirits understand, Evon Thia (Martian words roughly translated as ‘for love’s sake’) is the watchword of all engaged in the endeavor…

38 “Immo” Said:  …to uplift humanity on both the physical and spiritual planes of being; and such spirits strive ever to unfold such mentalities as are suggestive to their approach.” —The Gods Have Landed, 5-6.

39 John Gordon Meldon Writes:  “Most nineteenth- and early twentieth- century contact with extraterrestrials occurred in a spiritualist context, more likely than not in a séance. The prime mode of contact was phenomenon quite familiar to psychic researchers, namely ‘astral travel.’…

40 Meldon Continues:  …Through astral travel, they could do what flying saucers would later also allow them to do. They could traverse long distances in relatively quick time without worry about such mundane items as g-forces, in the vacuum of space, and escape velocities. In no case did a contactee claim to use any kind of spaceship.” –The Gods Have Landed: New Religions From Other Worlds, 4, 5.

41 More Recent Alien Contact Accounts

42 Whitley Strieber (1985)

43 Strieber Was Not Crazy  “I have examined Whitley Strieber and found that he is not suffering from a psychosis. He is not hallucinating in a manner characteristic of psychosis.” —Donald F. Klein, MD, Director of Research at New York State Psychiatric Institute

44 Strieber Was Not Lying  Ned Laurendi, President of the Society of Professional Investigators administered a polygraph test to Strieber, which Strieber passed very well in 1986. —Whitley Strieber, Communion, 303, 304.

45 Strieber’s Religious Background  He has been a Roman Catholic, a white witch, a Zen disciple, among other religious traditions. —Dan Burton and David Grandy, Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004), 283. Whitley Strieber, Communion, 26.

46 Prior “Poltergeist Phenomenon”  Srieber claims he experienced poltergeist phenomena in the July before his abduction experiences began.  “I was reading at about half past eleven at night, when I distinctly heard footsteps—normal, human-sounding footsteps—move stealthily down our front porch to the area where I had just had a motion-sensitive light installed…

47 Prior “Poltergeist Phenomenon”  …The peculiar thing about these footsteps was that they came from the pool area and moved toward the road, the opposite of the direction that they would have come if it was a prowler from the road…I dashed downstairs but saw nobody even though the light was still on.”—Whitley Strieber, Communion, 13-14.

48 His “Abduction” Memories  “My memory of the one that came before me next is of a tiny, squat person, crouching as if huddled over something. He had been given the box and now slid it open, revealing an extremely shiny, hair-thin needle mounted on a black surface. This needle glittered when I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but was practically invisible straight on…

49 His “Abduction” Memories  …I became aware—I think I was told— that they proposed to insert this into my brain.…The next thing I knew, there was a bang and a flash, and I realized that they had performed the proposed operation on my head. I felt like weeping and I recall sinking down into a cradle of tiny arms.”—Whitley Strieber, Communion, 18, 19.

50 “…Being Raped…”  “There were clothes strewn about, and two of the stocky ones drew my legs apart. The next thing I knew I was being shown an enormous and extremely ugly object, gray and scaly, with a sort of network of wires on the end...

51 “…Being Raped…”  …It was at least a foot long, narrow, and triangular in structure. They inserted this thing into my rectum. It seemed to swarm into me as if it had a life of its own. Apparently its purpose was to take samples, possibly of fecal matter, but at the time I had the impression that I was being raped, and for the first time I felt anger.”—Whitley Strieber, Communion, 20-21.

52 Abduction Accounts’ Characteristics  “Abductees report being floated upwards into a waiting craft. Oftentimes, they pass through walls or other obstacles and feel disembodied, as if their soul only were being taken to the UFO (Hopkins 1987; Fowler 1989). Aboard the ship, abductees report frightening details. They are poked, proded, and molested, most often in a sexual manner…

53 Abduction Accounts’ Characteristics  …They are subjected to painful medical procedures by groups of aliens, and are even dismembered, body parts severed and organs removed, only to be reassembled (Hopkins 1987; Fiore 1991). After the physical ordeal, they are subjected to some sort of spiritual examination.” —The Gods Have Landed, 70.

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55 Shamans  “Witch doctor” or “medicine man”  Found among ancient societies and civilizations living in remote areas of the world.  Communicates with spirits.

56 “Otherworldly” Journeys  Goes on out-of-body journeys.  Sometimes Australian aborigines embark on spiritual journeys to “other worlds” to “converse with the star people.”—Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, 50.

57 Mircea Eliade  Formerly Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago.  He discusses common themes that are found among shamans all over the world based on anthropological data.  Many features of shamans’ initiations closely parallel purported abductees’ experiences

58 “Possession” in India  “The Savara shamanic séance consists in the shaman being possessed by the spirit of the tutelary or by the god, whichever is invoked, who speaks through his voice at great length.” —Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, 424.

59 Reports of Removal of Bodily Organs ( in 1798)  “Colonel Collins (1798) reports that among the Port Jackson tribes one became a medicine man if one slept on a grave. ‘The spirit of the deceased would visit him, seize him by the throat, and opening him, take out his bowels, which he replaced, and the wound closed up.”—Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, 45.

60 Sexual Encounters With Spirits

61 A Goldi (Australian) Shaman’s Experience  “Once I was asleep on my sick-bed, when a spirit approached me. It was a very beautiful woman…She said: ‘I am the ‘ayami’ of your ancestors, the Shamans. I taught them shamaning. Now I am to teach you.’…

62 A Goldi Shaman’s Experience  …Next she said, ‘I love you, I have no husband now, you will be my husband and I shall be a wife unto you….I felt dismayed and tried to resist. Then she said: If you will not obey me, so much worse for you. I shall kill you.’…

63 A Goldi Shaman’s Experience  …She has been coming to me ever since, and I sleep with her as with my own wife, but we have no children.” —Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1964), 72.

64 Eliade Adds:  “As we shall presently see, anyone can have sexual relations with female spirits, yet without thereby acquiring the magico-religious powers of shamans.” —Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, 73.

65 Implants

66 Bodily Implants from Spirits  Spirits allegedly implant objects into shamans’ bodies, too.  “The Wotjobaluk tribesmen believe that a supernatural being, Nagatya, consecrates the medicine man; he opens his belly and inserts the rock crystals that confer magical power.” —Mircea Eliade, Shamanism 45.

67 The Binginga  Members of this tribe believe that two spirits, Mundadji and Munkaniji, “abduct” potential shamans.  Eliade narrates a story about a shaman named Kurkutji.

68 Kurkutji’s Story  “Mundadji cut him open, right down the middle line, took out all of his insides and exchanged them for those of himself, which he placed in the body of Kurkutji. At the same time he put a number of sacred stones in his body…

69 Kurkutji’s Story  …After it was all over the younger spirit, Munkaninji, came up and restored him to life…Then he took him away up into the sky and brought him down to earth close to his own camp, where he heard the natives mourning for him, thinking that he was dead.”—Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, 49.

70 Anti-Christian Messages  Many abductees report that the aliens gave them environmental messages.  Others receive no messages at all.  All theological messages, however, oppose Christian teachings.

71 Some Contactees’ Publications  Voyagers: The Secrets of Amenti (1999), by Anna Hayes.  The Urantia Book (1955) claims to have been presented by celestial beings as a revelation to our planet, Urantia.

72 The Urantia Book Teaches:  “Although Jesus did not die this death on the cross to atone for the racial guilt of mortal man nor to provide some sort of effective approach to an otherwise offended and unforgiving God; even though the Son of Man did not offer himself as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of God and to open the way for sinful man to obtain salvation…

73 The Urantia Book Teaches:  …notwithstanding that these ideas of atonement and propitiation are erroneous, nonetheless, there are significances attached to Jesus on the cross which should not be overlooked.”—The Urantia Book (Chicago, Illinois: Urantia Foundation, 1955), 2016.

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75 Abductions Stopped in Jesus’s Name  UFO researchers Joe Jordan and his partner, Wes Clark, have begun a research group called CE-4 that is dedicated to studying alleged alien abductions.  Joe encountered a Central Florida abductee who was a non-religious man who “had stopped the experience while it was happening.”

76 The Man’s Experience  “There were strange lights in a nearby woods at bedtime, barking dogs. He is up and down a few times, yelling at the dogs while his wife sleeps soundly. Then, lying down again... I couldn’t move... gray fog. I couldn’t see anything, but it was like someone was there. He felt himself lifted off the bed. "I was terrified, so helpless... screaming inside, but I couldn’t get it out.”…

77 The Man’s Experience  “I thought I was having a satanic experience, that the devil had gotten hold of me and had shoved a pole up my rectum and was holding me up in the air... so helpless. I couldn’t do anything."

78 The Man’s Experience  “I said, `Jesus, Jesus, help me,’ or, `Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’ And when I did, there was a feeling or a sound or something. That either my words that I had thought, or the words that I had tried to say or whatever, hurt whatever was holding me up in the air on this pole.”

79 The Man’s Experience  "And I felt like it was withdrawn, and I fell. I hit the bed, because it was like I was thrown back in the bed. I really can’t tell what it was. But when I did, my wife woke up and asked why I was jumping on the bed.” —“Spiritual Warfare? Some Look to Bible for Answers to Alien Abductions,” in Florida Today, August 17, 1997.

80 “…Possibly 400 Documented Cases…”  Joe also reports that there may be as many as 400 documented cases in which an abduction experience ended when the victim called out to Jesus for help. —“Spiritual Warfare? Some Look to Bible for Answers to Alien Abductions,” in Florida Today, August 17, 1997.

81 Summary  Humans first claimed to contact aliens while engaging in a spiritualist context.  Alien abductees tend to have been previously involved in paranormal activities, or be closely related to someone who was.  Abduction accounts closely parallel shamans’ spiritual experiences.  Abductions can be stopped if the victim calls on Jesus’s name or asks Jesus for help.