Apr 08 2008
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Whitley Strieber And His Aliens Deconstructed
A thoroughly inclusive and reasonably fair overview of Whitley Strieber’s alien ouvre is now up and available at at Rigorous Intuition. Aeolus Kelphas neither endorses nor condemns, and examines Strieber’s experiences as symptoms of a possible pathology, but one rooted in real experiences, at least real to Strieber:
The nature of Imaginal reality is fluid, subjective, ever-changing. It shifts to suit the needs of the moment (and the percipient). The nature of actual reality is fixed, unchanging, objective, a take-it-or-leave-it, like-it-or-lump-it proposition. While actual reality is always a question of either/or, Imaginal truths are quite happy to remain as both/and. (For example, in Transformation, when Strieber’s young son begins to have his own visitor experiences, Strieber asks him if he thinks the beings are real. His son replies, “They can be.”) Just as religious and political organizations grow increasingly tyrannical, soulless and mechanical the more established they become, so it is with Imaginal realities. Alien “grays” are considerably less protean or magical beings than faeries. This appears to be the result of being reduced to an almost physical, literal presence that can be understood, encapsulated, and restricted by the human mind, and by its most cherished faculty of reason.
The article also shines a bright light on the many contradictions in Strieber’s public statements, which I have always tended to ignore in favor of the overall message: a non-human intelligence is interacting with us. I’d be interested to see Whitley’s reaction.
Thanks to Posthuman Blues.
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April 8th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I say GOD DAMN! that was a great read.
And I agree completely that the more I read Strieber, the more simmilarities I find between him and Carlos Castañeda.
The question is: Will he succeed where Carlos failed? will he ever achieve impeccability?
April 9th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I’ve always known that Whitley was not being honest about his experiences. Think about it: Whitley was raped (sodomized). It is bad enough for a woman to be raped but it is much worse for a straight man to be raped by being sodomized. No man in his right mind would then immediately turn around and write a book about his rape and present it in detail. That is so completely unnatural and out-of-character.
Carl Jung would not have described Whitley as psychotic or insane. Carl would have described Whitley as neurotic.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Hi Greg
glad you like the piece
maybe you can stick my name in there, so long as you are quoting from it?
thanks
the writer ; )
http://www.aeoluskephas.blogspot.com
April 10th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Wonder what George P. Hansen thinks about Strieber — although maybe it’s already in his book or on his website.
Anyway Hansen’s latest expose on the Stargate Conspiracy (CIA - alien agenda) should give strong second thoughts about relying on one individual as providing some sort of model for reality. Clearly there’s been much disinformation and misinformation in the alien abduction scene.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Aeolas.. great write. In some ways I feel sorry for Witney. For all his previous writing before Communion who would take it serious; especially, if they are uneducated to the reality of the so called alien abduction reality.
There are more sceptics that derail the truth of what is experianced as a truth to the experiancer. Sure many cry like babes and say oh they must be on drugs; cause, it didn’t happen to me or it’s one of those tricks the brain plays on its’ host. Sure those pesky greys maybe evil if they do exist; yet, the pink monkey is more evil as with the masses funding projects like the Montalk project and putting a grave sender in as a leader. Who prides himself on sending everyone elses children into a war of unethical slotter and is also based on lies. At least it appears Whitney admitts when he is wrong even if he is neurotic as the Sage suggests Carl Jung would label him to be. Yet, who’s not to say that Carl was neurotic himself, explaining away realities of some to a self created delusion to get his more then 5 minutes of fame and a pocket full of dirty money to pass around after his death. Many of his followers have become delusional to the facts and realities of today and from the past. Til someone can prove these phenominas; plus, many more don’t exist I will believe and become a sceptic just like the Sage, I do enjoy your input though; eventhough, I’m not scared to say I believe in the experiances I’ve had even if I can’t prove or disprove them as a reality to the lost mass of sceptics.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Sasdave,
If Hitler admitted he was wrong, would that pardon his immoral behaviors? Even a sociopath can admit they are wrong but that doesn’t excuse their behavior.
Jung said that everyone was neurotic, including himself, but only differed in the degrees of neurosis. You cannot judge Jung by his followers, you can only judge Jung on what he spoke or wrote. The vast majority of people who claim to follow Jung have not read any works of Jung and have no idea what he really said about the paranormal outside of one or two out-of-context quotes. They are followers of Jung in name only, not in deed. Jung had no money other then the money donated to his work by a few rich individuals. Besides, this is not about Jung, this is about Whitley. How many men have ever been raped by being sodomized and then turned around and went public about it? I will answer that question for you — only one and that was Whitley. Rape is a very traumatic experience and not something that you candidly share with perfect strangers unless there is something wrong with you. Would you share a rape experience with us if you had one? That is a big red flag right off that this guy is not being honest with us.
From a scientific point of view, experience is subjective, unreliable, and prejudiced. For example, two people can go through the Matterhorn at Disneyland and experience two different things. One can experience fear while the other can experience fun. This simple contradictory experience shows why experience cannot be a test or proof of truth. Experience cannot tell us beforehand what it would be like for you or me to ride the Matterhorn. For example, I might find the ride boring instead of fearful or fun. Experience needs to be validated by facts because without a material (or factual) description of the Matterhorn, your experience means nothing. Experience without corresponding facts is called storytelling. For example, everyone experiences dreams but that doesn’t mean that whatever anyone experiences in those dreams is reality or not and therefore dreams are not a valid form of scientific proof of anything. Experience therefore is limited because you choose what you want to experience or don’t want to experience and therefore experience is often limited only to what you happen to choose.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Hi Sage.
So lemme get this straight: Whitley chose to experience anal rape… and that makes him a neurotic?
Don’t get me wrong. Part of me agrees with you, and I have yet to give Strieber’s accounts the final seal of total credibility. That doesn’t deprive them of being utterly fascinating, though.
And I for one think that the man’s ambivalence feels honest. Because that’s probably what happens when you face something so utterly mind-blowing. Whether that mind-blowing experience comes from outer-space, another dimension or merely the man’s own psyche, well… we are still trying to figure that out.
Although the essay that triggered this discussion in the sense that maybe the origin of the experience does not matter at all, as long as you are able to grow from it. And the idea that there may be some kind of purpose in the mix between positive and negative feedback from Strieber is also worth of note; although maybe the guy is simply bipolar…
I still enjoy his books though. Their latest novels were interesting, although not as good as “Majestic”, IMO. But “2012″ was way better than “The Grays”. Supposedly both books have been optioned to become movies; it will be interesting to see what ripples are being triggered by that.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Sage…Like the red pill I some of your output I agree. The point is I never choose the experiances that I have had happen to me. Maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time or maybe there was a reason for me to experiance what I have. Never knew Jung considered himself neurotic, would explain why you’d think Whitney to be one too. I guess that explains if someone has been searching for proof of the truth of aliens; etc, and doesn’t experiance this phenomina… they would believe that it is all crap. What Witney chooses to do or say is his right as is yours; but, there comes a day when the truth hurts enough that people turn on others due to their self doing. Just because many would not express weird experiances doesn’t mean it is the norm for all. You are right though about certain tramatic experiance regarding silence; yet, some use other means to deal with it. Good or bad doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Writing appears to be one of the means to clear stress. Take care all and have a great day.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Hey red pill!
I have to agree with you too about some of Whitley’s writings being entertaining. I too enjoyed the GRAYS but I thought 2012 was totally fruity. Whitley claims he uses the fiction of these novels because, “I have a storytelling ability that enables me to communicate subtle, hidden things in fiction”. In other words, he is pretending to disguise the truth in fiction.
What is troubling about Whitley isn’t his fiction, it is his own life. Have you ever noticed how Whitley demands to be the center of attraction? For example, listen to Whitley on Dreamland as he continually interrupts his guests to compare their experiences to his own. I would say about half of every show he gives is about himself and his own experiences and how they compare to everyone else. When drones were making the news, all of a sudden Whitley had a drone experience…what a coincidence! When the movie THE DAY AFTER TOMMORROW came out, which was based on based on Art Bell’s and Whitley’s book THE COMING GLOBAL SUPERSTORM, Whitley had to write a novelization of the movie. Whitley constantly has to be the center of attention which I would say appears to be due to an inflated ego.
The origin of EVERY experience is your mind and that is why all experience is questionable. To determine what actual reality is apart from yourself, you have to resort to things outside of yourself as standards by which to compare your experience to, things such as rulers or scientifically based methods. Without that comparison and attempt to find flaws in your experience, you are only deluding yourself. History is full if examples of where progress of civilization was held back due to this inability to question one’s experiences.
It isn’t that Whitley states both negative and positive experiences, but that he states contradictory negative and positive conclusions. That is not consistent with someone with bipolar disorder but someone who can’t get their story straight (hint, hint).
April 11th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
sasdave,
You ALWAYS choose the experiences you have happen to you. Experience is not simply what happens to you, but how you choose to interpret what happens to you and then how you in turn react to the experience and determine where that experience takes you. How does one “experience” a mountain? Or let’s say you are sitting in the passenger side of a friend’s car when someone in the back seat throws a snake on you. You probably will experience fear. Then all of a sudden you realize it is not a real snake but a rubber one. Now that same snake will cause you to experience relief or humor. Now let’s say that when someone in the back seat throws a snake on you, you panic and run out of the car never to return. You will forever remember that experience as the time when a real snake was thrown on you. You would not question your experience because why would you react in fear if it wasn’t a real snake? You “saw” a real snake and it “acted” like a real snake. There would never be any question in your mind that it was a real snake, even though it was not a real snake. It is human nature to stick with our first impressions, especially the more emotional they are. This is the exact opposite approach to the scientific one, and the scientific approach is the only method that has ever worked in telling us what reality is actually like. All other methods have only led to delusions.
The same goes for evaluating other people’s claimed experiences. The question is, can we distinguish the fact from the fiction? Yes we can. For example, I don’t think anyone would have problems determining if Aesop’s Fables is fact or fiction because it is obvious that in everyday reality, plants and animals do not talk in human languages, so any claims that they do are obviously fictional. Likewise, in Whitley’s stories, mentally healthy straight men do not go around telling perfect strangers in great detail how they were sodomized. You do not talk about how good the visitors were to you and therefore they are pure evil or how evil the visitors were to you and therefore they are pure good. How many books do you know have fiction mixed in with non-fictional parts that want to be taken seriously? There are none. How can you trust a book that purports to tell you the “Truth” and then uses a tall tale to convey that “Truth”? You can’t. These things do not happen in real life. This does not mean that we cannot glean some wisdom or truth from reading Whitley’s books, but why would I why choose a fairytale in an attempt to find wisdom or truth? That in itself is not wise.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Sage, you may be right in that Whitley may always be looking to be the center of attention. But there’s one thing that seems to contradict the idea that he is a person who constantly needs to inflate his ego: In all the books he has written —that I’m aware of— there never appears a photo of Whitley. I think that it’s pretty interesting.
I like reading his blog posts at Unknowncountry.com —although I HATE the fact that he charges a suscription fee for some of the website’s content
“It isn’t that Whitley states both negative and positive experiences, but that he states contradictory negative and positive conclusions. That is not consistent with someone with bipolar disorder but someone who can’t get their story straight (hint, hint).”
Sometimes, but not always. The idea that his experiences wre traumatic and at the same time very educational —I was gonna say enlightening, but I think we all agree that Strieber doesn’t really act likea enlightening individual— is not inconsistent in itself.
That’s why I think Strieber ressembles Castañeda so much. Don Juan —and please, let’s not enter the argument whether Don Juan was a real person or not, in the end I don’t think it matters— used to say that Carlos’ greatest flaw was to try and rationalize the experiences he had under non-ordinary reality states, while Don Juan posited that as humans we will always be doomed to make wrong interpretations based on our limited experiences, apart of social conditioning.
So in the end I think the man HAS had encounters with the unexplained. Whether he has interpreted his experiences correctly or not, that’s another matter entirely.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
“Or let’s say you are sitting in the passenger side of a friend’s car when someone in the back seat throws a snake on you.”
What FUN friends you must have, amigo!
“Likewise, in Whitley’s stories, mentally healthy straight men do not go around telling perfect strangers in great detail how they were sodomized”
That’s kind of an absolute argument, don’t you think. True, I would never tell a stranger that I was molsted as a child, but I can’t be 100% certain that there’s at least ONE person among the 6 1/2 billion humans who might be different. You could say that person would be clearly mentally unstable, but then again, WHO is 100% mentally stable? Even the most “normal” of persons would act like a maniac under the propper circumstances.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:12 am
What’s really ironic about the comparision of Strieber with Castaneda is that the latter has been already proven to be a fake, yet the whole “shamanic-UFO-drug-sex magic-internet” scene refuses to acknowledge this. Anthropology Professor Rodney Needham has an excellent expose on Castaneda (and I hope I’m spelling his name wrong) that demonstrates he stole (plagarize, libel, forged, whatever) his “shamanic” experiences from a book on a German going to Japan to do zen training.
Doubly ironic is that, as Professor Needham details, the German also lied about his zen training.
April 12th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Sage, Personally I really don’t know a lot regarding Whitneys real experiances and or false ones, possiblly gleaned from other books etc. It is funny that you bring up the snake thing cause for some strange reason my mom is completely tramatized by snakes. I’d keep asking her what experiance she had that would make her freak just from the sight of them. To her memory nothing bad had happened to her. No experiance then why the terror. She is not the only one that fall under this catagory. I have my theories on this subject; yet, I’d have to write a paper on it and you can bet it would not be taken too serious especially on a scientific level. By the way interpeting a experiance is one thing; but, having someone that hasn’t had a experiance interpet or explain away someone elses experiance is like showing a blind man photos of the group of sasquatches you met last week. Regarding the above mention regarding the probe thing, I partly agree. Yet, there is a time and place for all things and for one there are worst things happening in local hospitals that would be best not said. Most people are happy just to get out alive so what’s the diffrence when you servive an abduction experiance. The differance is many understand a hospital trauma; but, not a unexperianced questionable abduction experiance.
April 12th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Just because Whitley does not publish pictures of himself only proves that Whitley is not narcissistic, not that he has an inflated ego.
TS — “That is not consistent with someone with bipolar disorder but someone who can’t get their story straight (hint, hint)”
RP — “Sometimes, but not always”
So continually contradicting oneself sometimes it can be consistent with someone with bipolar disorder? Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder, not a logic thinking disorder, so having or not having bipolar is irrelevant to Whitley’s continual contradictions. Being bipolar does not make one tell lies or deceive themselves.
This brings us back to that rape thing. Would you mind publically posting here, in graphic detail, how and what you do when you masturbate? Of course not! Yet that is the equivalent of what Whitley did when he published his book, VERY SHORTLY after he was raped. It also was not normal behavior for Whitley since he did not repeat his actions with any other part of his life, indicating that what he did, he did not do unintentionally. Need I remind you that a lie is an intentional deception?
“Even the most ‘normal’ of persons would act like a maniac under the propper circumstances”
Those circumstances, if you look them up, are not present in Whitley’s life.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Fear of snakes is an inherited behavior or instinct, so it is not necessarily your Mom’s fault or due to anything she experienced. Carl Jung wrote a lot about human instincts.
Some things can only be known via experience, but all of those things are mental phenomenon only, and never physically real phenomenon.
“The differance is many understand a hospital trauma; but, not a unexperianced questionable abduction experiance”
Hospitals are real places that you can see anytime you wish to put the effort into visiting one, but ETs and their vehicles are not real things that you can see anytime you wish to put the effort into seeing one. Worldwide there are about 10,000 UFO sightings a year. How is it that the vast majority of those sightings are only seen by very few people at a time, even when it is over densely populated areas? I can tell you why — localized mass hysteria. Yet when something just as unusual as a UFO sighting/abduction occurs, but it is real, it is all over the news and in the workplace. For example, one day a giant weather balloon passed over my house. It was reported as a UFO by some and was in the newspapers and people at my work were talking about it. Real things are noticeable by everyone, not just a select few as it is in UFO circles.
Everyone who has ever had an abduction experience has survived it. It is guaranteed you will survive it because it always only takes place in your imagination.
April 13th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Sage, as I wrote before I agree that Strieber might be bi-polar. That kind of disorder affects the judgement you make about your experiences and feelings —”I love my wife so much” “I can’t stand that bitch anymore”— but the question would be: those Strieber’s experiences caused him his disorder, or is his disorder what provokes the experiences he claims he had?
No, I wouldn’t write about my onanistic behaviours on the net. But then again I’m not a writer. Writers bare their souls bare everytime they put words on papers. I once read that a novel is a letter a writer sends to himself, to discover things about him he wouldn’t find out any other way.
I once read in Strieebr’s website hat, many years after he wrote Communion, a person explained to him that the device that was apparently used to probe him was simmilar to the ones used by vets in artifitial insemination operations. Of course, the most interesting thing about all this business, is why would an advanced race be needing to use such primitive equipment? If we conclude that this negates the experience entirely, we might be wrong. It only implies that we know very little about what’s going on, or who is conducting these abductions— if they are tuly happening at all.
Because the thing is this: even if all of it occurs in the abductee’s mind, that’s not reason to stop studying the phenomenon to find a way to help these people. These people ARE still victims, even if they are victims of their own mind.
PS: Hi Drew, thanks for the input. Look, I know that Castañeda was probably only a fraud, in the sense that waht he wrote came most likely from his own imagination. But all the same I enjoy and praise his books, and I still think you can find very valuable things in them. Things like taking responsibility for your actions, how to respond to the petty tyrants, or even the most outlandish things like the methods to work in lucid dreams.
The Bible might just be all an incredible piece of fiction, but it’s in fiction where you can find the deepest of truths. That’s the way we humans work: we tell lies to ourselves as a process to uncover the truth.
Thanks to eveybody for this entertaining conversation. Enjoy the rest of your weekend
April 13th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Well Red Pill Junkie my whole argument is that science IS a religion and I think cutting edge technology is based on apocalyptic mysticism which is causing the global ecological crisis. Professor David F. Noble’s “The Religion of Technology” (1996) is the recommended read on this.
For example I was just talking with “Dave” whose family is in Church of Assemblies of God or something like that, claiming some 50 million members, most of them newly baptized in the Third World in the last couple decades.
Now there’s an amazing relation between the CIA and evangelical churches and alien abduction disinfo, etc. — for example the genocide of Mayans in Guatemala (Jose Arguelles) or the indigenous cultures of IndoChina (Moonies).
But anyway Dave showed me the 16 written tenets of his church — the first being that the Bible is “God-inspired” text (but not necessarily literally true) and then it follows that baptism and the holy spirit enable speaking in tongues, healing and most importantly the ability to be physically immortal when the world is destroyed. How convenient — but most significantly is the utter fascination with technology that these evangelicals have. Basically the evangelicals are “new blood” coming in from the suburbs to replace the “urban degenerates” like me, who had evangelical great-grandfathers, but then declined into rational normalcy, or even worse, past rationalism back into pagan witch-craft. haha.
But anyway alien abduction is just part of this larger technospiritual psychological transformation. You can read my blogbook for details:
mothershiplanding.blogspot.com
April 14th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Thx for the link Drew
April 14th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
In the sense of “I love my wife/I hate my wife”, Whitley does show bipolar behavior, but showing bipolar behavior is not having bipolar disorder. Since it is not pervasive in any other area of his life or even of the visitors, Whitley does not have bipolar. Jung had a similar imaginary experiences with this imaginary friend, Philemon, and what Jung suffered from was neurosis. That is what I guess Whitley suffers from.
“I wouldn’t write about my onanistic behaviours on the net. But then again I’m not a writer”
Come on red pill! Your soul is no different than a writer’s. Their feelings are the same as yours or mine and for you or I to be sexual raped by being sodomized. Ditto for being artificially inseminated. It is still forced and very embarrassing to any mentally healthy male. Quit trying to find excuses for Whitley’s not-so-normal behavior just so you can find excuses to believe.
“Why would an advanced race be needing to use such primitive equipment?”
Before you start asking that or any other question, first answer the question if such an advanced race ever visited us or if that was all a make believe storytale. When you can answer that question, then everything else will fall into place.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
“Well Red Pill Junkie my whole argument is that science IS a religion and I think cutting edge technology is based on apocalyptic mysticism which is causing the global ecological crisis”
You need to look up the definitions for religion and science. They in no way, shape, or form cross paths. In a nutshell, science is simply the practice of finding flaws — and you cannot make a religion out of that. You can *ALWAYS* trust scientific reasoning, which is something you can never say for any other philosophy, belief, or method.
Now what scientists practice isn’t always science, and that is what you and David Noble are confusing with religion. Anytime any person is confronted with the unknown, they habitually project their own personality’s onto the phenomenon. Before people discovered the world was round, the edge of the Earth was populated with Kraken, sea serpents, whirlpools, and other imaginary dangers. I see something similar to that happening in Quantum Mechanics but again, what we see happening there is not practicing science.
If someone can pretend in a make believe God for which there is absolutely no actual evidence could ever exist, it is no small step from there for them to believe in ETs or remote viewing or any other make believe and unscientifically-based fantasy. Yet when you put any of those beliefs to the test, they fail, but no one wants to really do that to their beliefs because no one wants to see their investments fail…even for scientists who cannot admit that what they are practicing is not science.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am
“Come on red pill! Your soul is no different than a writer’s. Their feelings are the same as yours or mine and for you or I to be sexual raped by being sodomized.”
My feelings are not different to those of a writer or any artist, but the way they express them is different. Artists need to be courageous in some aspects of their self to show the work that is the fruit of their dreams and fantasies. A high-school teacher once told us that artists are nothing more than ’sublimated neurotics’. I think you may be able to agree with that definition
“Before you start asking that or any other question, first answer the question if such an advanced race ever visited us or if that was all a make believe storytale. When you can answer that question, then everything else will fall into place.”
You are right. I cannot answer that question, maybe I never will.
But boy I sure wish to find out. Greg Bishop once told in an interview that Ufology is the new Alchemy, that the purpose of it was no to reach the ultimate goal of creating the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ and turn lead into gold (or in this case, to find the uncontrovertible proof of extraterrestrial visitation); but in reality the purpose of Alchemy was to transform the alchemist from within, to turn the ‘lead’ of his soul & intellect into the ‘gold’ of enlightment.
I happen to agree with that.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Sorry a little behind…. Sage, Fear is one thing; but, intense unexplainable terror over a small creature that probably has just as much fear of humans. You may praise Jung for his explanation of what you appear to think is imagination and think that cause scientist can’t prove the above means it is all hogwash. Well scientist like Jung as you quoted were financed by rich bed fellows. The problem is that there are others in this world that don’t lie for money or fame. Until you experiance what may have happened to others tread a little lighter or do what you will as there is a differance between reality and Jungs explainations for imagination.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
“My feelings are not different to those of a writer or any artist, but the way they express them is different”
No matter what the words, they are still the same human feelings. What convincing reason can you come up with why you or I could get raped by being sodomized, and then immediately turn around and publish details of our rape to the world? Would it be for the money? Would it be for the fame? Would it be due to brain damage or mental instability? And don’t forget to act all candid about it as if nothing really all that bad happened. Something has to explain that unusual behavior, behavior that has been reported nowhere else. Before you can do or say or believe anything else about Whitley, you have to explain that very out-of-place behavior. It is a red flag that cannot be ignored, because in the pursuit of truth, nothing is ever overlooked or neglected.
“A high-school teacher once told us that artists…”
Whitley is not an artist, he is a writer.
“Greg Bishop once told in an interview that Ufology is the new Alchemy”
Alchemy was a primitive and naive attempt to understand the reality of how matter could react with other matter. Experimental reactions were observed and cataloged but rarely were understood beyond their symbolic allegories. Because of the careful cataloging of the outcome of the experiments, Alchemy eventually was able to blossom into the science of chemistry. UFOlogy is like Alchemy only there is no systemic method to test the reality of the allegories, therefore UFOlogy is all about allegory and no attempt at understanding reality. That explains why there are dozens of different tales of what “really happened at Roswell” yet nothing that could be put into a wheelbarrow and taken home. Someday UFOlogy will evolve into…nothing. It came from nothing and it will return to nothing.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Sasdave, fear and terror are the same thing, they only differ in degree. If humans did not fear snakes in some degree, there would be a lot less humans today, so the instinct is appropriate.
As Jung would say, lions and tigers did not evolve sharp teeth just so they could feed on dandelions, they have instinctive behaviors to go along with those sharp teeth, namely as carnivorous predators that tear apart their prey. Humans also have behaviors to match their natural physical capabilities. Humans do not have the teeth of lions or tigers so we do not have the behavior of that of tigers or lions. Heck, even a bare-handed 200 pound human is no match for a 50 pound predator like a Doberman or Pit Bull. We cannot even outrun them. We have the typical behaviors of a mammal, that is scavenger, and as would be prey. Even predators instinctively know, without being told, to avoid rattlesnakes, so why would the physically wimpy human mammal be the only exception?
Do not resort to the logical fallacy of ad hominem. Who Jung was financed by or who he slept with or what his sexual orientation was or any other reason you can think of to discredit or dismiss the person of Jung, does not dismiss any of the science he did. Science stands on it’s own, no matter who does it. That’s because science doesn’t rely on money or fame, it relies on reason, experiment, and facts. You can dismiss Jung all you want because he is irrelevant, but you cannot dismiss his science unless you use science to dismiss his.
Experience that cannot be backed up with verifiable evidence, is useless. That is not an opinion, that is a logical fact. I can claim that I met Einstein when I was a child, and he wrote down The Theory of Everything for me. Now you might say that is a wonderful experience and write it down in a book and claim that therefore there must be a Theory of Everything because you have written down an experience that claims that, but what what good is it? It is for entertainment and nothing more, and it will never ever be able to tell us anything about reality. The logically proper thing to do is dismiss stories that cannot tell us anything about reality and stick to the stories that can. That is how progress is made and that is why UFOlogy is no further along today than it was 100 years ago. It has continued to stagnate in all that storytelling BS.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
“Something has to explain that unusual behavior, behavior that has been reported nowhere else.”
Haven’t you ever read the dreadful vivid accounts of the Holocaust survivors? Maybe that’s one of the reason such people go out and publish those horrible memories, because otherwise people would easily forget, or deny such atrocities ever happened. Or perhaps the reasons are much more selfish than that, perhaps it is a psychological necessity to drive out those dreadful memories, lest they fester inside your mind and drive you insane. Ask yourself this: Why did Picasso paint “Guernica”?
“Whitley is not an artist, he is a writer.”
And I’m sure my dad would conclude that Kurt Cobain was no musician, but a depressed lunatic that made horrible noises with his voice and his guitar. But that is merely a subjective appreciation.
“UFOlogy is like Alchemy only there is no systemic method to test the reality of the allegories, therefore UFOlogy is all about allegory and no attempt at understanding reality”
The idea of linking Ufology with Alchemy WAS allegorical too, my dear Sage. If a person embarks in the study of Ufology, it may either launch him to false nonsensical beliefs, or it may help him question the assumed realities of the world. At the same time, Ufology forcedly compels you to learn about history, biology, astronomy, mithology, psichology, sociology, philosophy, theology, politics, art & literature and a very long etcetera; so even if you never learn the truth abou UFOs it still a darn good hobby because it can help you grow intelectually.
Or, at lest, it damn sure beats “American Idol”!
But, getting back to the Alchemy allegory, as corrosive chemical reactions, you have to be careful with the mixtures, or they will explode in your head. And it’s also advisable to go out of your lab and take a bit of fresh air once in a while
Oh, and forgive me for meddling in your discussion with Sasdave, but I think I disagree with your statement that “Experience that cannot be backed up with verifiable evidence, is useless”. That may not be true, since even an experience that formed only in your mind COULD be of use if you know how to act accordingly. Let’s take the example of an alcoholic that sufferes an episode of delirium, and this episode gives him such a scare that he decides not to drink alcohol again; this would be a case where a completey subjective individual experience can be beneficial, if only to the individual itself.
Perhaps UFO experiences are something like this, completely individual experiences,meant EXCLUSIVELY for the person who witnesses it. But that does not mean that they are devoid of a higher purpose, nor that they cannot be useful in that person’s life.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Sage… I realize fear and terror are close to the same depending on the degree of the experiance. Same as you telling those that have experianced alien abduction or an anal probe. People react differantly depending on their character…etc. As previous stated Jung had a imaginary friend so it can be believed that he also had a few nuts loose so why take his side on something that you and he have not experianced. Personally I am not siding with Whitney or Jung because they both probably wrote to make money. I’m sure both are or were fine gentlemen as are you. The problem I see is that what ever experiances I’ve ran into or encountered have been real even if you or Jung believe it to be imagination or because me and my witness didn’t have the gutts to go back and plaster cast the huge prints that may have been left. Assuming everyones’ experiance is fake, due to no proof makes one a fool. Yet, believing everything will also do the same. Reading alot of the crap on the net will not prove anything so I agree with you regarding the need for proof. I guess from your last comment I was a little to rough on Jung so are you on those that have had experiances questionable to you is all BS. By the way are you from the school that believe “Those that know don’t talk and those that talk don’t know.” By the way RPJ it appears I am not that worthy as Jung and Science are the proof that imagination is king.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
“Haven’t you ever read the dreadful vivid accounts of the Holocaust survivors?”
Yes and they waited many years before talking about it and even then they did not talk in detail about getting raped and how the rape felt while the other person was inside them.
“Ask yourself this: Why did Picasso paint ‘Guernica’?”
For the same reason that people like to go to the Circus or that rotten.com exists — because people are fascinated by death and violence. Of course, that has absolutely nothing to do with Whitely getting sodomized and then immediately going out and writing a book about it and then thinking, why hasn’t anyone else ever been sodomized and then immediately gone out and wrote a book about it or described it public meetings, etc.
“The idea of linking Ufology with Alchemy WAS allegorical too, my dear Sage”
So what? It still does not change the fact that Alchemy was not a allegory but real life, whereas UFOlogy is not real life but an allegory.
“Ufology forcedly compels you to learn about…”
Nonsense. Of the hundreds of thousands of UFO books out there, maybe only three have any serious actual science in them. The vast majority of UFO books have nothing to do with any of that. I’ve seen lots of pseudo-science (anti-gravity “theories”, over-unity devices, ESP, etc) but extremely few with any science in them at all (usually historical or psychological in nature, such as Carl Jung’s FLYING SAUCERS or Thompson’s THE UFO BOOK OF LISTS).
“I think I disagree with your statement that ‘Experience that cannot be backed up with verifiable evidence, is useless’…Let’s take the example of an alcoholic that sufferes an episode of delirium, and this episode gives him such a scare that he decides not to drink alcohol again; this would be a case where a completey subjective individual experience can be beneficial, if only to the individual itself”
Delirium is a medical condition that is precisely defined and scientifically observable. And the “usefulness” of the experience is still useless to anyone but the drunkard, since it tells us nothing factual about actual reality.
“Perhaps UFO experiences are something like this”
Of course they are, if they are actual experiences and not deliberate hoaxes or lies. If primitive African natives can find meaning and purpose from a discarded Coke bottle, surely meaning and purpose is something we can find with *ANY* experience. But again, each experience will be different, as will the meaning and purpose and therefore the experience by itself will do nothing to help us understand reality, although it will help us much in understanding the psychology of people.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
“People react differantly depending on their character”
Which is exactly why we cannot rely on experience to tell us what reality is like. Ask ten different people what reality is for them and you will get ten different answers — none of them will still tell you what actual reality is like. For that you need logic and reason and a scientific methodology.
“So it can be believed that he also had a few nuts loose so why take his side on something that you and he have not experianced”
I’m not interested if Jung was nuts or not, I’m only interested in his repeatable objective observations, validated experiments, and confirmed data. You on the other hand, do not appear to be interested in objectiveness, repeatable experiments, or valid data. You seem to believe you can know reality simply by filtering through discussions about it — discarding what you don’t like and keeping what you do like to hear about it.
By the way, lots of people have imaginary friends and it is normal and healthy and many circumstances.
“Personally I am not siding with Whitney or Jung because they both probably wrote to make money”
Since you do not know that for a fact, you cannot make that judgment based on sound reason.
“The problem I see is that what ever experiances I’ve ran into or encountered have been real”
How do you know what real is or not? How is that done?
“Assuming everyones’ experiance is fake, due to no proof makes one a fool. Yet, believing everything will also do the same…so I agree with you regarding the need for proof.”
My point exactly. The only logically proper thing to do when presented with a claim given in the absence of evidence is to dismiss that claim. Factless claims are not at all as useful as fact-filled claims.
“So are you [rough] on those that have had experiances questionable to you is all BS”
No experience is questionable to me, only facts are questionable. If an experience cannot be backed up with facts, how could you ever know it was a lie, a hoax, a delusion, an illusion, a hallucination, or a fact? Without facts and reason, you will never be able to distinguish between those things and forever being chasing your tail and getting nowhere.
“By the way are you from the school that believe ‘Those that know don’t talk and those that talk don’t know’”
No, I am from the school that only believes in facts.
“By the way RPJ it appears I am not that worthy as Jung”
That is your decision, and your decision alone, to feel that way, but you will never find me judging your worth as compared to any other person — or even as compared to my own feelings.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Sage, you put way too much emphasis on science and extrospective investigation. Introvertive investigation is equally important; true, useless to the rest of the world, but if it helps YOU to be a better person, what the hell do you care?
We seem not to reach an agreement about the reason why someone like Strieber would write about being sodomized. You are in the position that no one in his right mind would ever do that, and so put judgement in everything Strieebr has to say. I for one am afraid of reaching such a fundamentalist conclusion. BTW Strieber has recently writeen a new post on his blog, and from what I read and understood, he really regrets not giving double thoughts to the decission of including what he first thought was a secondary detail, but im which the rest of the world has focused is entire attention. He forever will be “the probed man”, and obviously after that no other abductee would dare make the same claim.
We should ask ourselves if such emphasis says more about ourselves and our culture, than about Whitley Strieber as an individual. Would the same have happened if Strieber was say, japanese? I’m pretty sure that if Strieber had been borne in Latin America, he would have never included that part of the experience, for the latin culture is extremely prejudist with sexual roles.
Yes, many UFO books (maybe 99% of them)have a lot of seudo-science, but THAT is precisely why you need to learn about science, to compare and make your OWN mind, outside the points of view of ufologists.
Once again we come to the same crossroads, where you posit that science is the ONLY tool to learn something about the world, where I posit that is very useful, but merely one of many. What can science tell me about Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons? If I learn all there is to know about said composition —historical time frame, metric structure, etc— it would probably not change one hiatus the deep emotion I experience the moment I hear the first part of “Spring”.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Sage, For someone that says he’s not a writer your doing quite well. You previously stated Whitney was only writing for money and Jung was financed by rich patrons. Couldn’t their also be a group that is funded to take any proof that would make this subject(aliens, sasquatch,etc) more understandable… I guess area 51 and all those underground bases are not proof that something is going on. This phenomina is so scattered it is a no brainer that the wise one’s believe it’s all in the imagination. You imagine what you will; but, I know the differance between imagination and reality. Even if my reality is differant then yours and those that coup by talking to their imaginary friend(s). The only reason I became intrested in this subject was due to strange experiances I’ve had and others have had. Most of them were effected differantly then I as they won’t talk about it through some self created fear or something. I don’t need any more proof to understand something is a miss and I am open to proof that I am wrong. Whether Whitney made up his experiances is on thing: but, all I know is he made some very valid points in “Communion” that woke me up to questions of my past, especially why people fear this subject and his own confusion. If anyone is able to find proof I hope it is you Sage; because, life is too short to argue over the mysterys of life and the experiances we each stumble through. Like my brother said sometime ago, Why do you even bring up that sighting of the sasquatch it only makes people uncomfortable and you won’t make any friends cause it can’t be proven. If I remember in the past you said something similiar about silly stories so I end this with. I believe even if Jung and his imaginary friend and you say it’s all imagination. Good luck in your search for proof you won’t find it on the net or books.
April 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“You put way too much emphasis on science and extrospective investigation”
It is impossible to put TOO much emphasis on science.
“Introvertive investigation is equally important; true…but if it helps YOU to be a better person, what the hell do you care?”
Then why study UFOs? Have UFOs made anybody a better person yet? UFOs is not an introspective phenomenon so it is irrelevant.
“You are in the position that no one in his right mind would ever do that, and so put judgement in everything Strieebr has to say”
I have only judged one statement by Steiber. I would believe someone could do what Whitley did, in their right mind, if there were at least one other example like that, but there are none. Unusual behaviors require unusual explanations. Notice how Whitley does not regret being sodomized, he regrets people’s (natural and expected) behaviors for his unusual confession.
If one wants to learn some science, should they read Aesop’s Fables or Encyclopedia Brittanica? Which one is more likely to teach you some science? UFO books are no better than Aesop’s Fables for finding science.
“You posit that science is the ONLY tool to learn something about the world, where I posit that is very useful, but merely one of many”
Then why can’t you name any other tool that has ever worked better than science? Maybe because there is no other?
“What can science tell me about Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons…it would probably not change one hiatus the deep emotion I experience the moment I hear the first part of ‘Spring’”
What does your personal experience or emotions tell me about Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons?
April 17th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
“It is impossible to put TOO much emphasis on science.”
Preach the word, brotha!
“Have UFOs made anybody a better person yet? UFOs is not an introspective phenomenon so it is irrelevant”.
Some alleged contactees manifested a substancial change in their belief system: they became more focused in a spiritual aspect of life, and they advocated for world peace and end of nuclear threat. The whole “space brothers” movement of the 50s & 60s is filled with such examples. So, one could argue that their experience —even if they misinterpreted it, or was a complete figment of their imagination— caused them to strive to become better persons.
“If one wants to learn some science, should they read Aesop’s Fables or Encyclopedia Brittanica? Which one is more likely to teach you some science? UFO books are no better than Aesop’s Fables for finding science.”
Tell me Sage, did your father use to read you tales of Aesop as a bedtime story, or did he choose to read to you from the Webster dictionary??
Maybe a kid who reads Aesop is later encouraged by his curiosity to learn biology and zoology. Likewise with Ufology. Many of today’s astronomers and engineers were highly inffluenced by sci-fi like Star Trek. So, how can you proclaim that nothing good can come from exposing oneself to a couple Ufology books?
“Then why can’t you name any other tool that has ever worked better than science? Maybe because there is no other?”
Art is one of the greatest tools to learn about men and the world they live in.
“What does your personal experience or emotions tell me about Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons?”
It tells you in a very objective way, that Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons is a musical composition that has the pecularity of povoking a very strong emotional response in some people, and that it could also do the same to you because a)you are not deaf, and b)you happen to be human aswell.
Would you mind answering a question Sage: What would you do if you happened to see a UFO? I mean, not a dull little light in the sky, but something cool like the object seen in LA in 1942, and since it caught you by complete surprise, you weren’t able to get any phsyical experience whatsoever, to validate your experience objectively?
April 17th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Sasdave,
Your one and only one comment on Whitley was, “Whether Whitney made up his experiances is on thing: but, all I know is he made some very valid points in ‘Communion’ that woke me up to questions of my past, especially why people fear this subject and his own confusion”. That is very possible, afterall, I’ve read the reports on “Simply reading about an event can alter memories”. They are called false memories and they are very easy to acquire.
Now as for the rest of your post, I have no idea where you are going with this in regard to Whitley. All I will say is that there is no evidence that Area 51 and all those underground bases were specifically constructed to study UFOs and ETs. You say you know the difference between imagination and reality, but I believe you cannot do that, not because of something personal about you, but because I have observed that the vast majority of people cannot do that (case in point: Global Warming, Iraq and “we don’t want the smoking gun to be an A-Bomb”, Intelligent Design, etc). There is only one reality and it supersedes all other claims of one. You say you are open to proof that you are wrong, but the problem is what you consider as “proof”. There is nothing wrong with believing in Sasquatch or UFOs or ETs or the paranormal, so long as as it is okay that no one else believes with you. When you start taking non-belief as a personal thing, there is something wrong with you then, not the non-believer.
“Good luck in your search for proof you won’t find it on the net or books”
You are right about that but at least the net and books can give me a great head start on where to go to find proof — presuming there is any to find to begin with.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Sage, (Simply reading can alter memories, these are false memories.) So they say; yet, I had these memories before reading Communion, Whitney appeared to just repeat those memories. Is it possible that false memorie syndrome was coined for those to explain away situations that science and doctors couldn’t explain or believe as they were to radical or unbelievable.
Regarding later part of previous post. It was a statement to explain that witnesses of sittings whether it is sasquatch or questionable sky craft are forced to be silenced due to the fact they were unable in one way or another to get proof of their experiance. Those like myself that do talk about some of their experiance are labled accordinally to the mind set of the disbeliever.
Regarding about finding proof regarding sasquatch I have a few good ideas of where to look on this island. The only problem is that inner fear that haunts me from the short; yet, drawn out experiances I had in the past; eventhough, that huge creature did not show any reason for fear when he(she?)finally crossed our path. Sometimes I wish I didn’t experiance that grand creature; yet, I will know if one is close by when I do decide to go back in the woods or forest.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
“I had these memories before reading Communion, Whitney appeared to just repeat those memories”
“(Simply reading can alter memories, these are false memories.) So they say; yet, I had these memories before reading Communion, Whitney appeared to just repeat those memories”
So you say, but if you had read the article(s), it wasn’t just say so, it was repeatably demonstrable experimentation and the people in those studies, just like yourself, also believed they had had their false memories all along, even before reading about the event.
Do not assume that you can reasonably explain away something you never bothered to research or read to begin with. That is one of the differences between an educated guess and an uneducated guess. It possibly indicates that you are not interested in the pursuit of truth, but in maintaining your own version of it.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:59 am
So it gets down to that I am not intrested in the pursuit of truth; because, yours doesn’t match mine. Wow the Sage that bases some of his truth on a man with imaginary friends. You for one have no clue what research I’ve done or my experiances in these matters. I don’t proffess to say that I know the full truth. It would be easy for me to agree that what I experianced was imagination, yet with witnesses it changes the equation. You can hide behind your false beliefs and cry foul; but, I have no reason not to grow with the incrediable experiances I have been blessed or not blessed with. Why don’t you join a debate club seems to be your calling as I for one have told you I have no proof for you and your science buddied; except, my words of my experiance.