Brad Steiger’s Shadow World
When I first became interested in the UFO puzzle I was a firm devotee of the works of people like Donald Keyhoe and Leonard Stringfield - the “nuts and bolts” brigade, in other words.
Throughout my teens and early twenties, things were relatively black and white: UFOs were alien spaceships; extraterrestrials were abducting people for their DNA; and a wealth of alien debris and pulverized ET corpses - recovered from a variety of crashed UFOs - was carefully stored away at secret military bases all across the United States.
But then, one day, I woke up.
It became clear to me as time progressed and as I began to delve into other, more esoteric and - what some would call - mystical areas, that the modern day mystery that we call the UFO, was in reality merely the latest incarnation of a phenomenon that has been with us for probably as long as we have existed (and maybe even longer).
Today, I am as convinced as I ever was that a small percentage of UFO reports represent something unknown, something from elsewhere, something truly alien in a literal sense - but not extraterrestrial in origin.
Manipulation, camouflage, exploitation, deceit, trickery and deception are its calling cards. I know not at all what the origin of the UFO mystery is, but I do not believe that its presence on our planet is of benefit to us as a species in the slightest.
We are a pawn in a bigger picture; and while there is indeed interaction between our species and this other intelligence, the simplistic angle of “aliens are coming to Earth to steal our DNA so they can bolster their dying species” is far too simplistic, sci-fi driven, and wide of the mark.
As I have said before, DMT, altered states and the use of archaic rites and rituals are far more likely to invoke a UFO experience than looking at the stars on a dark night and hoping the Martians might land ever will.
And that all brings me to Brad Steiger’s book, Shadow World, re-published by the good folk at Anomalist Books seven years after it first appeared.
Now, Shadow World is most assuredly not a UFO book. So, you may ask: why am I making it the subject of today’s blog-post? Okay: bear with me.
Steiger’s book deals with life-after-death and the multitude of beings, entities and creatures that seemingly inhabit those twilight realms that exist beyond our own. Yet, as with the UFO issue, the spirit world is not all that it seems.
Everyone loves a good ghost story; and the creepier the better - even more so with Halloween just around the corner. However, Shadow World reveals that the other-side is not just spooky and creepy: it can be downright sinister and dangerous too.
Poltergeists, animal spirits, classic cases of loved ones returning after death and more feature prominently within the pages of Steiger’s book.
However, it is with respect to two key issues of Shadow World that I draw your attention: Spirit Mimics and Spirit Parasites, as Steiger accurately describes them.
As the author says: “The nastiest beings in Shadow World are the Spirit Parasites, entities that are especially dominant in places where murders or other acts of violence have been perpetrated. These entities can accumulate to make any house a repository of evil. Hideous and grotesque in appearance, they most often manifest as reptilian-type entities [Italics mine]. Quite likely, Spirit Parasites are the traditional ‘demons’ encountered throughout human history. They are also capable of possessing unaware or vulnerable humans.”
With respect to Spirit Mimics, Steiger says: “…they appear to be entities who wish to impersonate men and women in order to experience the full range of human emotions, especially those of love and companionship. And then there are those more distasteful encounters, when these entities behave in ways that are mischievious, bordering on cruel. I have come to term these entities Spirit Mimics, for they generally do excellent impersonations of us humans. For quite a period of time, these mimics can do a remarkably good job of fooling the men and women with whom they have chosen to interact [Again: italics mine].”
Although Steiger does not go down the alien path in Shadow World, it became clear to me on reading his book that the other-worldly entities - and their actions and activities - that he discusses are eerily similar in many ways to those of our so-called “aliens.”
Of course, as most students of ufology will know, such parallels have been made on many occasions - the problem is that for the die-hard “nuts and bolts” crew, it’s far easier to ignore such controversial matters.
The work of Whitley Strieber, example, demonstrates for me, at least, that our “aliens” may inhabit a realm of existence that straddles both the physical world and that of the after-life. There are numerous accounts of so-called alien abductees experiencing phenomena in their homes and lives that an investigator of what, in simplistic terms, we might call “the paranormal” would ascribe to the work of spirits and poltergeists. Whereas the ufologist would point to little grey men with large black eyes as being the culprits.
The reptilian appearance, the mimicry, the deception and the desire on the part of the entities that Steiger talks about to “experience the full range of human emotions”, sound awfully like our alleged aliens who earnestly claim to come from far-off star systems and worlds with weird and wonderful names, and who use us, exploit us, manipulate us, and do indeed seem to want to understand the nature of human emotion.
Interest in the human soul (and not always a positive interest - from our perspective, at least) on the part of the “ETs” is a recurrent theme in some of the more enlightening ufological works. However, you’re unlikely to see such issues discussed at some of the bigger, popular UFO gigs that are held every year. Why not? Simple: It ain’t good for business, that’s why. And, so, such matters are often relegated to the side-lines; when in reality they might be integral parts of the puzzle.
And Shadow World reveals more than a few disturbing events in which the human soul seems to be a key factor.
So, what’s my point? Well, it’s this: in the same way that the work of people like Strieber and Strassman delves deep into areas that are not at all popular with those of an “It’s all ET” mindset, so Steiger highlights case after case that will not sit will with those who see the afterlife as being one based merely around the simplistic “love and light” approach.
And although Steiger does not address the matter, a reading of his book offers further evidence (as far as I am concerned, at least) that the entities that some of us view as aliens, that some view as gods or demons, and that others view as evil spirits whose sole purpose of existence is to create misery and terror, may well all be different aspects of a single intelligence that has been with us in varied forms since time began.
Brad Steiger’s Shadow World tells us much about the harrowing nature and intent of entities that, as he notes, may well be “multidimensional beings.”
The book may also, albeit inadvertently, give us a deeper insight with respect to where we should really be looking for the answers to the UFO puzzle.
And with that, I think I’m going to go outside, start a bonfire and burn my first edition of Flying Saucers Are Real.
Ufology of the 1940s and 1950s is redundant. Utterly redundant. Yet some nostalgia-driven souls still fly the flag for the “good old days” when the subject was simple, when George Adamski hung out in the Californian desert and met people from Venus, and the “aliens” regularly landed to collect their “soil samples” - always ensuring that they were seen by someone whose story would bolster the belief that, yes, ET was here.
You should buy Steiger’s book for what it tells us about the afterlife, the spirit world, and some of the stranger, malevolent, and downright hostile beings that inhabit our planet - for this reader, they may just be your little grey men, too…
To learn more about Brad Steiger’s Shadow World and purchase copies, click here.
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Oct 09 2007 
October 9th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Yeah I just read two of Steiger’s books — one on reincarnation and the other called “Minds of Space and Time” — a title that I think is from H.G. Well’s “journeys of space and time.”
To be honest those books had a big impact on me but mostly I’m amazed at Loring G. William’s hypnotism skills. I know that qigong Master Chunyi Lin can read people’s past lives and so could yogi H.W.L. Poonja, subject of the amazing biography: “Nothing Ever Happened” but… a dude from New Hampshire? haha.
It’s unfortunate that there seems to be next to no information on Loring G. Williams on the internet…anyone? Or that Steiger’s books are more akin to campfire stories than anything resembling reality testing. He often doesn’t give people’s full names which to me seems at least a minimal standard for testimony.
Still I know that what he describes — all the skills of healing at a distance, and spirit travel are definitely possible. He just makes it seem so easy although he acknowledges that only a few people are really good hypnosis subjects.
When I saw the equilateral black triangle up close that night I had a dream of gray aliens giving me the once over. My sister also had a similar dream the same night. Even still not for a moment did I think that I had been subjected to some interdimensional spirit visitation because I’m just too familiar with how my subconscious plays out in my dreams.
For example last night’s flying dream was amazing! haha
October 9th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
The book may also, albeit inadvertently, give us a deeper insight with respect to where we should really be looking for the answers to the UFO puzzle.
Such as?
October 9th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
RPJ:
Chiefly, I’d say that the parallels between the entities cited in Steiger’s book and a significant number of UFO events/entity/abduction cases leads me to think that - given that I personally conclude we are looking at related phenomena - employing some of the “occult” (and I use that as a simplistic term, I would stress) means and methods to contact certain other-wordly entities may offer similar success re contact in the UFO arena - and much more so than via SETI etc, etc.
A classic being Crowley’s LAM. Did he require advanced technology, beaming signals into space etc? Nope. Did he contact something very akin to Strieber’s visitors or certain entities that I know the DoD was concerned about in the 80s and that they believe were linked to Jack Parsons and his links with Roswell? Almost certainly.
So, i think as well as doing the ghost/paranormal research community a great favor by publishing this book, I think he has given the UFO community something to think about in terms of alternative ways in which we might contact the so-called “ETs.”
That’s just my view of course; and I’ve already had a couple of emails from outraged ETHers moaning that I’m dabbling in dangerous areas.
Dangerous they may well be - I’ll be the first to admit that. But they’re far more successful than spending millions on sending messages into space via radio or Voyager type missions.
October 9th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Great points Nick. It’s my perspective that what we’ve come to identify as the “UFO phenomena” at the very least should be studied from every possible angle, this being one of paramount importance. Interpretations can and will be varied, but the topic as a whole will always be interesting for me because it appears to be a reflection on our own respective dispositions. You have the nuts and bolts materialist oriented scientific crew, and the mystical or occult analysis which is seeing more light of day thankfully. At the very least, we’re learning more and more about each other regardless of what answers we may unearth about the phenomena itself.
And I’m not sure if it was Crowley himself, or perhaps Kenneth Grant who described LAM as an “ascended master”, but that’s a topic that has always captured my interest. But, anyway, consider me a lurker stepping out of the mist to make a comment. Keep fighting the good fight Nick!
October 9th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
OK I’m at the University of Minnesota computer database and found McClennon’s work on anomalous experiences (including alien abduction vistations) as part of his “ritual healing theory” — that the “high hypnotizable” are actually selected as adaptive behavior based on Darwinian evolution.
Then I found this:
Title: Increased anterior corpus callosum size associated positively with highly hypnotizable and the ability to control pain
Author(s): Horton JE, Crawford HJ, Harrington G, Downs JH
Source: BRAIN 127: 1741-1747 Part 8, AUG 2004
Cited References: 88 Times Cited: 11
Abstract: This is the first MRI study to report differences in brain structure size between low and highly hypnotizable, healthy, right-handed young adults. Participants were stringently screened for hypnotic susceptibility with two standardized scales, and then exposed to hypnotic analgesia training to control cold pressor pain. Only the highly hypnotizable subjects (HHs) who eliminated pain perception were included in the present study. These HHs, who demonstrated more effective attentional and inhibitory capabilities, had a significantly (P
October 9th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
So, i think as well as doing the ghost/paranormal research community a great favor by publishing this book, I think he has given the UFO community something to think about in terms of alternative ways in which we might contact the so-called “ETs.”
But, in light that you “… do not believe that its presence on our planet is of benefit to us as a species in the slightest.” The question then is: should we?
This reminds me of the experiences of alleged peruvian contactee Sixto Paz Wells, sho started his encounters with beings that claimed to come from Ganymede after a session of “automatic writing”. After a couple of messages received in this way, the group of young friends finally got to meet the beings (which they described as men with slightly mongolic facial features) at the Atacama Desert of Peru. Sixto Paz went then to form the group “Misión Rama” that was the center of quite a few controversies…
October 9th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Let us pretend that invisible pink elephants exist.
Now let us make up excuses for why they do not appear to everyone (except for myself or someone I know that you cannot meet for yourself).
Then let us continue making up reasons for the make believe reasons for the make believe excuses for why they do not appear to everyone.
A discussion of that type could go on forever and ever because when does the make believing ever end and the reality ever begin? And the difference between pretending invisible pink elephants exist and pretending in multidimensional beings, the afterlife, the spirit world, or now the new and improved Shadow World III? Not a damn thing — they are exactly alike. So what is the point of all this?
Did you read the book Love Never Dies: A Mother’s Journey From Loss To Love by Sandy Goodman? How about What To Do When You Are Dead by Craig Hamilton-Parker? Yes, everybody has their own pay as you go version of where you go and what you will see and what will happen after you die. But not only are they self-contradictory at times (see the Amazon review for Craig’s book for example), they contradict each other. At least one of these stories has to be false, but which one? How do one decide? Well, apparently whichever story sounds good to you is the one you must choose. No research or evidence is needed or wanted, just some itching ears and the desire to be told a semi-good non-fictional story for $15 or more.
Did you know that Shadow World is Brad Steiger’s third book on the topic? Do you think that anyone, anywhere in the world has come any closer to having an encounter with any alleged shadow beings from the alleged shadow world, much less found actual proof of it’s alleged existence, after reading all these books? Of course not. Does Brad’s advice for having encounters with the shadow world work? Of course not. Then again, the reason it will not ever work for any of us is because they are just like invisible pinks elephants and –insert lame excuse not based on science or logic here–.
What do all these books have in common to each other? Their purpose is to make someone money. No book publisher will publish something that they do not believe will make them money. It is not to enlighten you with facts or truth, otherwise they would be classified as University textbooks. That is they way all book publishers work and that is the only purpose non-fictional books serve that I have found. This is snake oil at it’s finest.
Imagination is limitless but reality has limits.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
RPJ:
Whether or not we should or should not contact these entities is a very good question. As I mentioned, I see nothing of benefit to us; but maybe contact might allow us to see behind the veil so to speak, and get some sort of inkling as to what’s going on. Maybe…
October 9th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Sage:
I would have to disagree.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
111uminate:
Good to see you here. I’ll be doing something else that delves more into Crowley hopefully next week.
October 9th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Hey Sage.
I really don’t know if Steiger’s advises to “call” beings from the so-called Shadow World are of any use. I’ve not fallen into his trap of prchasing his book… yet.
But I do know this: If I pretended to summon an airline jet to land in my backyard using only my telephone, and no plane would materialize, it would not disprove the existence of jets, it would just prove that my method was not the right one for the job, and/or that my backyard is not the most suitable place for a jet to make its appearance (it is kind o small you know)
Yeah I know, I know, here I am using pretend examples once more. What can I say? MEA CULPA
October 9th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Imagination is limitless but reality has limits…
Actually, I think the opposite is true; reality is really limitless but we fail to see it because we’ve allowed our imaginations to become imprisoned by our concepts. ‘When the only tool you have is a hammer you tend to go around treating everything like a nail’, as the saying goes. Not only do we need the full power of our imaginations, I suspect, if we expect to even begin to make sense of this kind of material, but I think the activation of this imagination in itself has tremendous liberatory potential, regardless of what the ultimate intentions or actual characteristics of the shadow world denizens may truly be. If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t have wasted my time studying and thinking about this stuff -without coming to any definitive conclusions - for the past three decades.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:16 am
An interesting article, Nick. Like you, I also used to be a “nuts and bolts” believer, but now see a paranormal/occult connection to the UFO phenomenon, something which has been with us throughout our history. I’m firmly of the opinion that whatever underlies paranormal manifestations, is not very nice, and that humans would do best not to encourage it into their lives. The experiences of witnesses to the paranormal are enough to convince me that this is so. People who report seeing strange things are often ridiculed and accused of being crazy or telling lies. These people often doubt their own sanity after seeing such things. Do these reactions occur simply as a result of natural human scepticism? Or is it yet another part of the head games this phenomenon plays with us? I hope the wider UFO community opens its eyes to the paranormal/occult connections. I truly believe something is toying with us, and the best way to deal with it, is to be aware of its games.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I think the moment that anyone feels frustrated by the phenomenon is the time to examine your assumptions and expectations regarding it.
I also think that reality is infinite and we limit our imagination. We live in an imaginary world surrounded by the products of our minds. What extra-dimensional abilities do we posses and how far can our imaginary world be extended?
Isn’t there a “Far Side” cartoon about nightmare elves pulling levers and such in front of video sceens of people dreaming? The tail wags the dog perhaps.
See Henry Corbin’s book, “Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth…” for more on imaginary realms.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Yeah there’s also a theory that ghosts are the dreams of dead people. Getting back to the hypnosis thalamus origin which Steiger relies on quite a bit — in my own experiments with Salvia thalamus override I discovered something fascinating about spirits.
A dude online has combined Salvia with DMT and found that the DMT elves got conquered by the Salvia elves, causing their body parts to be confused and their clothing mixed.
Basically DMT and Salvia work on the lower energy center, that I’ve mentioned before — what Gurdjieff details as the instinct-sex-moving center but it’s just the electrochemical energy. So once the third eye is activated for visions then a person can demonstrate paranormal abilities in the three centers, the second being electromagnetic and the third being light-information (called respectively in China, chi and shen).
My experiment was using third eye full-lotus against Salvia which microgram wise is the strongest psychoactive drug on the planet (and legal in most places!!). I found that indeed the electromagnetic power created by the Third Eye is stronger than the Salvia and therefore when the 10x caused all my “colleagues” to have a forced OBE spirit trip (that freaked them out so bad they never smoked salvia again) for me my spirit was just half way out of my body, while in full-lotus.
I laughed at the Salvia — haha. No elves, no visions. So I smoked stronger Salvia and kept hitting the highest Salvia level — six or blackout. Since I was in full-lotus I never collapsed but once when I came to I could see rainbows around my hands even though my eyes were closed with a hat over my eyes in a pitch-black room! It was awesome.
But the spirit travel from DMT and Salvia is still on the lower astral realm because it’s just electrochemical power and not electromagnetic power. Western technology is also on the lower astral realm — ever since the Brahmins developed deductive logic from left-brain mind yoga, that started with the creation of undead zombies or jnanas achieving eternal liberation at the heart chakra with no astral realm travel (i.e. the origin of humanism).
So the grey aliens could very well be a real manifestation of these lower astral realms that are being contacted more with the increasing use of plasma quantum chaos technology.
This issue is very similar to the Djinns in Yemen which are strongly believed in — you know elves with tails that can attack people. Arabs pay great respect to the Bedouins who are in better contact with these spirits but when Westerners poo-poo the reality of the Djinns the Arabs similarly attack the reality of sex-change operations in the West.
haha.
October 10th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Interresting post Nick, but I disagree with your attitude. I think you are too cynical.
I am an abduction experiencer(from Europe btw) but I also practice shamanism. I came to see the connection between UFOs and occult/mystical stuff long before I knew your blog existed.
The world of the spirits(or shadow world or whatever you like to call it) is a savage and chaotic place, but I disagree that it’s entities’ “presence on our planet is of benefit to us as a species in the slightest”. There are many kinds of different entities, and some of them can even be good allies.
To claim that it is all evil tells more about our contemporary western culture and it’s helplessnes in dealing with these entities, than about the entities themselves.
Concerning these matters there is an
interresting article written by a western occultist and practicer of voodoo.
http://www.key64.net/content/post/738-Live-and-Let-Die
What I claim come from the basis of personal experience. I have seen lot of weird sh*t during my life. There is one thing that worries me about the people who just think about this stuff, but do not spend time doing some real magikal Work. They put too much weight to their speculations, without understanding that in practice their models do not work very well.
When speculating about these matters
it should be useful to think about
a saying that is popular within chaos
magic cirles: “Nothing is true,
everything is permitted”.
One comment about reptilians: in shamanism snake is often a healer and I have many friends of snake kind in the Otherworld. Many of the are not bad, just plain weird.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Black Jaguar:
Thanks for the comments. As you may know I do practice chaos magic and have done for a long time, but usually don’t bring that up in UFO discussions.
Maybe the experiences I’ve had and people I’ve spoken with have attracted the negative entities that are undoubtedly out there, and the “good” ones have remained out of reach.
I don’t dispute that as a possibility; but as far as the UFO issue is concerned, I have to say that I have grave doubts that these things are our friends - even though they may claim to be.
October 10th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
SAGE “Imagination is limitless but reality has limits…”
“Actually, I think the opposite is true; reality is really limitless but we fail to see it because we’ve allowed our imaginations to become imprisoned by our concepts.”
“What extra-dimensional abilities do we posses and how far can our imaginary world be extended?”
How many of you here have a problem telling if MOTHER GOOSE is a description of real life or imaginary? Why can you not apply that same reasoning to UFOs or ghosts? You seem to naively believe that no matter what you imagine, if you can imagine it then it must be able to exist outside of your imagination as actual reality. Clearly that is not true otherwise we would have pigs and geese and wolves that could speak English and build houses, as described in MOTHER GOOSE or CHRONICLES OF NARNIA or thousands of other fairytales. What is real is never imaginary but the reverse is not true — what is imaginary is not always real. You have to learn to tell the difference. It is obvious to many of us that reality and imagination are not the same thing. One is a property of inner thought; the other exists independently of what one thinks or believes about it.
The one and only reality we have come to know and PROVE exists, is most certainly limited. Take the Laws of Relativity or Gravity for example. These “laws” are invariant objective observations of the way reality is known to work, and the description of their observed limits is very clearly and mathematically defined. In many of our imaginary worlds though, gravity has no limits and the speed of light is routinely exceeded. You can imagine another reality all you want but until you can DEMONSTRATE to us another reality outside of your imaginations, it is silly wishful thinking. You cannot prove or disprove anything with your arguments, therefore they are useless to argue anything with.
“If I pretended to summon an airline jet to land in my backyard using only my telephone, and no plane would materialize, it would not disprove the existence of jets, it would just prove that my method was not the right one for the job, and/or that my backyard is not the most suitable place for a jet to make its appearance”
What that would prove is that imagination alone cannot influence anything in real life. Try your experiment with invisible pink elephants or English speaking geese and see if your logic still applies then. You will find it is just as invalid then as it is now. If you want to know if airline jets exist, you do not sit around trying to imagine if they exist, you go out and find one. It is no different with UFOs or ghosts except that UFOs and ghosts cannot be found to exist outside of our imagination.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Sage, I’ve never at any moment concluded that my little imaginary experiment would automatically CONFIRM the existence of any kind of imaginary being we can come up with. I would be as arbitrary as your rejection that unexplainable phenomena are the mere result of self-delusion or hoax.
What’s the difference between a pink elephant and a UFO? Well, for one thing people keep telling about their UFO sghtings, I browse the web daily and I haven’t yet found any claims of magenta-colored pachiderms. But of course we have discussed AD NAUSEAM our different opinions regarding the validity of personal testimonies…
We both agree in the existence of airline jets because we have had personal experiences with them. If we want to ride in one of them, we know of a certain proven methodology that can be validated by any third party. The problem is that, IMHO, there are things in this world that cannot be measured in the same empirical forms. There are things that must be experienced in a deeply personal way, and if someone else would experience they might not get the same results. Does that take out validity or importance to those experiences? I think not.
Allow me to copy a little extract of what Sam Harris said during his lecture “The problem with Atheism”, he was discussing the subject of religious experiences claimed by all kinds of people throughout history, and although it may have nothing to do with UFOs, I beg you to bear with me, since I think those words may be relevant to what I’m trying to say:
“But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can’t borrow someone else’s contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn’t make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.
To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope. Judging their metaphysical claims is another matter: many of these can be dismissed as bad science or bad philosophy by merely thinking about them. But to judge whether certain experiences are possible—and if possible, desirable—we have to be able to use our attention in the requisite ways. We have to be able to break our identification with discursive thought, if only for a few moments. This can take a tremendous amount of work. And it is not work that our culture knows much about.”
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t really know if the claims of pople who write books like “Shadow World” are a lot of hogwash or not. It could be, and it may be a good idea to put them to test. Like I have often written to you in the past, t be skeptical in this hobby is a very prudent stance. But I do believe there are things in life that cannot be empirically validated for all of us. Take lucid dreaming as an example, I could tell you I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences while sleep, when I was somewhat consciuos and could manipulate the structure of my dream at will (to a degree at least), you couldn’t understand what I’m talking about unless you try it yourself, but even that is not guarantee that you’ll get the same results. 2 different persons might try a glass of the same bottle of wine, but maybe just one of them has enough sense of taste to discern the subtleties and complexities of the brew that would help him identify whether is a Pinot Noir or a Caubernet Savignon; for the other guy it might just be fermented grap juice and nothing more.
Objectivity is a good philosophy but it can only take you so far, I don’t say we dismiss it, I only say let’s be open to the possibilities, and maybe then we’ll begin to experience things we thought to be impossible.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Excellent, excellent post!
October 11th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Thanks Nick. Great post. Of course everyone knows we pretty much agree on these things.
I’m glad to see you are reacting to fundamentalist thinkers with the appropriate response!
One thing I do disagree with you on is what you see as the completely negative nature of the phenomenon. The “bad” side seems to latch onto those who either don’t know what they’re doing, or are interested for egotistical reasons. This is why Israel Regardie recommended a thorough course of psychotherapy before engaging in any sort of occult practice.
This would seem to lay the blame on people who mess with these things, unknowingly or not, and indeed, this is where I believe that most of the problem resides. Weak constitutions are the devil’s playground, whether it’s UFOs or ritual magick. An electric saw will cut off your hand, if you don’t know how to use it.
Unfortunately, those who innocently get in the way of the saw are mowed down before they realize it.
I’ve heard and read many accounts of people who want to get rid of negative influence being able to do so if they really want to. There are of course whose who will always be unlucky.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Maybe it’s like that documentary “Grizzly Man”. The guy wanted to live with the bears he loved, he got too close and in the end the bears killed him. Was it the bears fault? No, they just did what they do: being bears.
Of course, bears are not known of abducting people of their beds, that’s where my comparison abruptly fails
October 11th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Greg
Good points; and I think with hindsight that there is much merit in the idea that people get from the phenomena what they put in - and a negative mindset may attract negativity.
I do, however, also wonder if some events that seem beneficial and positive only seem that way because we don’t see the full picture.
Rather like the cows who get fed by the farmer and looked after (which could be termed positive and perceived - however a cow perceives things! - as a positive experience, but then finally gets sent to the slaughter-house…
October 11th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Or it could very well be the other way around Nick, you perceive something as negative before understanding the full picture, like a little kid who gets to go to the dentist. Sure it huts and it’s scary as hell, but in the end is for your own good.
I think that’s the approach Strieber has mantained all this time.
I have written on other sites that whether a negative situation can be a great opportunity for growth is entirely up to us. Kind of what Castañeda meant when he wrote about “los Pinches Tiranos” (the petty tyrants). The greatest masters are usually the harshest ones who are not afraid of hurting our feelings and constantly push us to better ourselves.
Whether we acquire the wisdom to realize why they did what they did, and thank them, is another matter entirely.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
“Well, for one thing people keep telling about their UFO sightings, I browse the web daily and I haven’t yet found any claims of magenta-colored pachiderms”
So, by your “logic”, all claims of “the big one that got away”, told by fishermen all over the world all the time, must also be an invariant fact and never a tall tale? There is no difference between invisible pink elephants, the big one that got away, and UFOs. They are all unprovable, full of excuses for why there is never any proof left behind, no matter how many times it happens, yet people continue to discuss it all the time anyway as if just mere talk about it will somehow make it magically real. Can you can tell us how you know if MOTHER GOOSE is real or a fairytale? I do not think you can.
“The problem is that, IMHO, there are things in this world that cannot be measured in the same empirical forms”
Name one…if you can.
“So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t really know if the claims of people who write books like “Shadow World” are a lot of hogwash or not”
No guessing needed — they are a lot of hogwash. The claims that the more people doubt claims given in the absence of evidence or before they have seen the evidence for themselves, the more it “would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science” is another example of hogwash. As Wilson Mizner once said, “I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education”. That is what my University textbook on scientific reasoning says too.
It is interesting that you would use lucid dreaming to try and support a belief in the paranormal. Dreams belong to the realm of the imaginary, so how are you going to use something that is imaginary to prove that the paranormal is real? That argument simply does not work. Your taste testing example only proves my view all the more, since the experience of tasting tells us nothing about reality, since ten different people can all taste the same wine and come away with ten different descriptions, and yet still not tell me what it would taste like to me. Experience is useless for that kind of thing.
Science has an extremely successful history to back itself up with. No other method can even come close, let alone take us further than science ever has or could.
“He is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes
what is wrong.” (Thomas Jefferson)
October 12th, 2007 at 1:46 am
I think we should be wary of assuming that aliens must either be spiritual beings or technological flesh-and-blood beings. Could spiritual beings not develop physical technology of their own with which to travel between the worlds? And should we necessarily assume that the spiritual domain is a timeless world which remains exactly the same as it was when our ancestors first perceived it?
I also think we should be wary of thinking that any particular group of entity witnesses has a more accurate perception of the Otherworld than any other group. A hick farmer encountering a pair of humanoids and a self-styled New Age shaman encountering Trickster Machine Elves (or whatever the current fashionable term is) may well be encountering different aspects of the same phenomenon, but both may be equally incapable of perceiving that phenomenon’s ‘true’ nature.
My intuition tells me that the more ‘theory’ someone brings to their encounter, the more biased their experience of it will be. If you expect to see DMT Machine Elves then that’s probably what you will see. But that doesn’t give you the right to jump up and down and claim that you’ve seen the true face of the wizard behind the curtain. You’ve simply seen what your cultural conditioning has prepared you to see.
October 12th, 2007 at 9:10 am
““The problem is that, IMHO, there are things in this world that cannot be measured in the same empirical forms”
Name one…if you can.”
Well, what about God for starters? Yeah I know, another fairytale figure isn’t it?
Ok, using more “scientific terms”, how about that sense of oneness that some astronauts like Edgar Mitchell have experienced when viewing the Earth from a high orbit, that all life and energy in the Universe is all connected with a sense of purpose? These feeling, it seems, is also deeply connected to what Zen meditation can accomplish, according to some of our fellow commenters. But if we have never meditated, or gone into space, How are we to confirm such “wild claims”? We hear these descriptions, but how are we to really understand what they are poorly trying to convey into words, if we don’t experience it in the flesh?
“It is interesting that you would use lucid dreaming to try and support a belief in the paranormal.”
That was not my intention if you paid attention to my post. I merely tried to put an example of experiences that cannot be measured with empyrical methods, and that have varying subjective interpretations from person to person. To say therefore that those subjective interpretations should be completely discarded since it cannot add anything to our knowledge, would seem to me a rather rushed or imprudent decission.
Your taste testing example only proves my view all the more, since the experience of tasting tells us nothing about reality, since ten different people can all taste the same wine and come away with ten different descriptions
To say that would then be to conclude we will NEVER be able to discern reality in itself, since all experiences are subject to personal interpretation. Ah! but we can rely to objective reasoning, can we? Only there’s one liiitle problem: To assert that objective reasoning can describe the true nature of the world… is in itself a SUBJECTIVE posture
Science has an extremely successful history to back itself up with. No other method can even come close, let alone take us further than science ever has or could.
Yes, science is great, when dealing with the HOWs of life, but I don’t think it’s the best instrument when dealing with the WHYs. To assert than only science is the valid method to contemplate everything in the Universe, seems to me also a FAITHFUL posture, and I choose… to doubt it
October 12th, 2007 at 11:10 am
RPJ:
It could indeed be the other way around and not negative.
I have to say, however, that I’m wary of a phenomenon that stays in the background, avoids open contact, does nothing positive for us, yet seems to be closely connected to us in so many ways - abductions being one.
To me, it’s almost as if “they” are ensuring the survival of the “herd” (us)…
October 12th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Graylien:
I’m convinced that much of what you say is indeed correct. Strieber has noted that these beings seem to straddle both the physical world and the realm of the dead.
And it may well be that this is due to technological developments, rather than anything “supernatural” or “spooky”, or via the stereotypical image of rapping on tables and asking if “there’s anybody there whose name begins with G…”
I also agree that I think that the development of how these things appear and manifest to us is indeed based upon our own cultural conditioning.
But it’s these issues that make me wonder if we are dealing with aliens (in the ET sense), or something that is literally alien beyond words and that we are still nowhere near understanding - certainly in terms of origin, and for the most part with respect to its intent too.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
(SAGE) “The problem is that, IMHO, there are things in this world that cannot be measured in the same empirical forms Name one…if you can.”
(RP) “Well, what about God for starters? Yeah I know, another fairytale figure isn’t it?”
Exactly.
“Ok, using more ’scientific terms’, how about that sense of oneness…”
There is nothing scientific about any vague “sense” of anything. You feel whatever you want to feel, so feelings can prove nor disprove anything except that you feel whatever you feel like feeling. Some people have feelings of love for spinach and some people do not. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing.
(SAGE) “It is interesting that you would use lucid dreaming to try and support a belief in the paranormal.”
(RP) “I merely tried to put an example of experiences that cannot be measured with empyrical methods and that have varying subjective interpretations from person to person”
Facts need no interpretation. The only things that have varying interpretations are politics, religion, and arbitrary opinions.
And lucid dreams can be studied empirically, otherwise you would not have ever heard of them.
(SAGE) “Your taste testing example only proves my view all the more, since the experience of tasting tells us nothing about reality, since ten different people can all taste the same wine and come away with ten different descriptions”
(RP) “To say that would then be to conclude we will NEVER be able to discern reality in itself, since all experiences are subject to personal interpretation”
The fact that we have been able to discern reality is proof that your conclusion is not valid. Certainly all experiences are subject to personal interpretation but all experience is also able to be subjected to scientific methodology to determine if that experience — no matter what the personal interpretation may or may not be — was based on reality or imagination.
(SAGE) “Science has an extremely successful history to back itself up with. No other method can even come close, let alone take us further than science ever has or could”
(RP) “Yes, science is great, when dealing with the HOWs of life, but I don’t think it’s the best instrument when dealing with the WHYs. To assert than only science is the valid method to contemplate everything in the Universe, seems to me also a FAITHFUL posture, and I choose… to doubt it”
You need to learn the difference between faith and fact. Science is founded on doubt, not faith. And it is the only method that has *SUCCESSFULLY* been demonstrated over and over that it works. No other method has had *ANY* significant success. No religion, no other philosophy, no political ideology — nothing. Do you want to stick with what you hope and wish will work, or do you want to go with a winner?
October 13th, 2007 at 6:01 am
At a subatomic level, reality seems to be more about possibilities than about concrete facts. Is an electron a wave or a particle? It’s simple question, but it doesn’t have a simple answer. Which seems to rather belie the naive doctrine that “facts need no interpretation”.
Unfortunately most self-styled sceptics seem unaware that Science has changed a little since Newton’s era.
In my opinion, the difference between Science and Skepticism is that scientists are always willing to explore new possibilities, while skeptics are not. Science is forward-looking, while skepticism is backward-looking.
October 13th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Thanks for the input Graylien. Yes, it almost seems that with quantum mechanics, we have reached a line when we realize that, at the most fundamental bricks of matter and energy, the very fabric of reality is subject to the interpretation of the observer. We see what we want to see.
“You feel whatever you want to feel, so feelings can prove nor disprove anything except that you feel whatever you feel like feeling”
Well, I’m getting the feeling that you’re kind of reaching a bit with your argument
“Facts need no interpretation. The only things that have varying interpretations are politics, religion, and arbitrary opinions.”
Oh! so in science there has NEVER been a change of interpretation of the facts? Well, I’ll be! That’s the first time I’ve heard that one. So scientists have believed ALL the time that the universe is more than 13 billion years old and that originated after the Big Bang eh?
BTW, did you know that one of the very first proponents of the ocurrence of the Big Bang theory was a CATHOLIC PRIEST? the belgian Georges Lemaître. In act the term “Big Bang” was a used to mock such preposterous idea. After Hubble and others confirmed the fact that the Universe expanded, the term sticked. So science is not without a bit of irony, it seems.
“The fact that we have been able to discern reality is proof that your conclusion is not valid”
Mmmm, I’ll better hurry and send an urgent e-mail to CERN then, to stop them of spending so much time and energy in the building of the Large Hadron Collider. There’s no need to embark in the investiation of whether the Higg’s Bossom exists or not, because, according to you, we have already discerned the total aspect of reality. And you call ME faihful my friend?
Look Sage, as I’ve written ealier, I welcome skepticism when it’s based on a fair openness to look at new things with an unbiased judgement. You say science is based on doubt, and you are absolutely right on that. I migh even add that, to some of us, our faith is also based on doubt. People who do not doubt they might be wrong are fundamentalists, and you can find them filling ranks not only in religius sects, but also in the halls of Academia. If you don’t believe that science is also based on consensus that can sometimes be completely wrong, you should ask for a refund in that “Scientific Reasoning” course you took in college.
I hope we can continue our discussions without embarking in byzantine diatribes to prove the other one wrong.
But I’m beginning to doubt it.
Have a good weekend.
October 13th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Red Pill,
Quantum mechanics is irrelevant to our non-subatomic reality — unless you can demonstrate that a human being can go through both slits of an interferometer at the same time. It is only a mystery to particle physicists, but many New Age types misconstrue quantum physics to apply to everything when it clearly only applies to subatomic particles.
“I’m getting the feeling that you’re kind of reaching a bit with your argument”
Which as you can see, your feelings prove nor disprove that claim — just like I said those kinds of “arguments” would be unable to do.
“Oh! so in science there has NEVER been a change of interpretation of the facts”
That is not what I said. All interpretation is mis-interpretation, even when scientists do it. Do not confuse scientists with science and do not confuse facts with the interpretation of facts.
“BTW, did you know that one of the very first proponents of the ocurrence of the Big Bang theory was a CATHOLIC PRIEST?”
But it was never the same Big Bang theory as we know it. It was a much different theory with the same name.
“There’s no need to embark in the investiation of whether the Higg’s Bossom exists or not, because, according to you, we have already discerned the total aspect of reality”
Again, that is not what I said. I said that we have been able to DISCERN reality, not that we already KNOW everything there is to know about reality.
“I migh even add that, to some of us, our faith is also based on doubt”
That depends on how you (mis)use the word “faith”. That is an example of the logical fallacy of ambiguity. I was not talking about faith in the sense of “trust” but in the sense of “belief without evidence”.
“I hope we can continue our discussions without embarking in byzantine diatribes to prove the other one wrong. But I’m beginning to doubt it”
I would doubt that too when someone uses words like “byzantine”.
“Have a good weekend”
Thanks. You too.
October 14th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Nick says:
“Strieber has noted that these beings seem to straddle both the physical world and the realm of the dead.”
That may be just what they want us to believe.
October 14th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Nick says:
“Strieber has noted that these beings seem to straddle both the physical world and the realm of the dead.”
That may be exactly what they want us to believe.
October 14th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
rpj says:
“the investigation of whether the Higg’s Bossom exists or not”
Given that Higgs is male, it’s not a question of whether his bos(s)om exists or not, but rather how large it is.
(That should be “boson”
)
October 15th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
LOL!! What a typo! My apologies John, and Sage, and all you guys.
That’s the problem with trying to think in a language that’s not your own I guess… and with browsing for other type of (ehem) content in the web while typing
October 15th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Hey, it just came to me, so that’s why in order to find the Higgs “bossom”, they need to build the Large HARDON Collider (LOL!)