January 18, 2015 — Greg Bishop

[LatentCauses]

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to Greg riffing with Gene and Chris. A couple of thoughts from the show
1. The usual feelings of frustration from the inadequacy of our language to wrap around the topic. It's a phenomena that seems to exist outside language, outside our physics and is not subject to our notions of causation. It is arguably the one thing that humans study that controls the terms upon which it is studied.
I heard jacques vallee recently express his thoughts as to why no one manages a half decent up close photo; and he speculated that it knows the photographers intent, and can place itself anywhere it likes in time and space in relation to that intent. Not surprising that missing time then should be a commonly reported feature of the ufo encounter.
2. I sometimes wonder if we were designed, or developed by evolutionary methods, a brain structure that simply can't contemplate it in any useful structural way in usual States of consciousness in the course of a life. Hence the need for self-science in the form of consciousness altering practices. The ayahuasca/dmt experience comes to mind as does the lucid dream. Or you you can wait for the end of life with a curious attitude and die with the intent to remember. Or if you want to express the ineffable take up poetry
3 one of the members mentioned Kastrup and Kripal ( pronounced cry-pal). Bernardo Kastrups book Why Materialism is Baloney (terrible title...) is worth a read as a fairly sophisticated extension of the " brain as filter" idealism school of mind. His idea is that intelligence arises from consciousness the way that whirlpools and eddies form in water flow. Vortexes and density fluctuations etc. Jeffrey Kripal is a rising star coming out of academia and gets a big endorsement from George Hansen of The Trickster and the Paranormal fame.
4. My ufo fly-on-the-wall experience - I'd take any of the encounters, and there are a surprising number of them from pretty reliable witnesses, when sasquatches get lowered from a ufo and wander off to do whatever bizarre theatre they do. Stan Gordon's recounting in Silent Invasion gave me goose bumps, as did a Linda Moulton Howe interview with an ex serviceman in Washington state who recounted walking in the woods when he bumped into John Keelesque small asiatic -featured space suited aliens dropping off a sasquatch.
Upon being discovered they tasered him with a pistol that shot electrical static (like an untuned old TV set) which morphed into a leaping wolf headed, lion bodied mythological creature that gave him an electric shock and short lived blindness!

Something is having fun with us I think.

 

[Wade]

Good One!

John Keelesque small asiatic -featured space suited aliens dropping off a sasquatch.
Upon being discovered they tasered him with a pistol that shot electrical static (like an untuned old TV set) which morphed into a leaping wolf headed, lion bodied mythological creature that gave him an electric shock and short lived blindness

When did this supposedly happen ? It sounds old school.

I like the someone is having fun with us sentiment and if you go back and look at many high strangeness events you'll see a lot of instances where given the description of the crypto/humanoid it could have ended badly...taking into account many encounters could have involved drugs, drink or just plain lack of sleep or psychological issues...but people just ended up getting scared s***less.

Having said that it seems if you talk about UFO'S it is not a matter of fun...especially in South America...given the accounts of abductions and/or exposure to harmful rays. Charles Bowen's The Humanoids has a few not so warm and fuzzy encounters.

 

[SRL+]

Kastrup and Kripal ( pronounced cry-pal). Bernardo Kastrups book Why Materialism is Baloney (terrible title...) is worth a read as a fairly sophisticated extension of the " brain as filter" idealism school of mind. His idea is that intelligence arises from consciousness the way that whirlpools and eddies form in water flow. Vortexes and density fluctuations etc. Jeffrey Kripal is a rising star coming out of academia and gets a big endorsement from George Hansen of The Trickster and the Paranormal fame.

Overall, I like what Kripal has to say although when interviewed on Whitley Strieber’s “Unknown Country” he seems to be in agreement with Linda Howe in that cattle mutilations are mostly caused by other worldly forces. Chris O’Brien has pretty much upended that thought.

Kastrup has tremendous insight as weaving the thoughts of Vallee, McKenna, Jung, among others into what may be considered as truly out of the box thinking. Although I must say that the title of Roberto’s latest book “Why Materialism is Baloney” doesn’t seem to embody that wisdom. The title to his second book “Dreamed up Reality” suited his thinking much better.

 

[darka1404]

Great show

 

[darka1404]

I have a question I'm a tracker raised hunter by na grandfather when I was young a person said he saw a Bigfoot I'm in Kansas I was thinking him a bit nuts. At that time there were a a a few ufo sighting I went to the area found tracks dismissed them as fake was I wrong to dismiss them so fast?

 

[Constance]

Overall, I like what Kripal has to say although when interviewed on Whitley Strieber’s “Unknown Country” he seems to be in agreement with Linda Howe in that cattle mutilations are mostly caused by other worldly forces. Chris O’Brien has pretty much upended that thought.

It would be helpful if @Christopher O'Brien would respond to that last sentence. Chris?

 

[LatentCauses]

Good One!


When did this supposedly happen ? It sounds old school.

I like the someone is having fun with us sentiment and if you go back and look at many high strangeness events you'll see a lot of instances where given the description of the crypto/humanoid it could have ended badly...taking into account many encounters could have involved drugs, drink or just plain lack of sleep or psychological issues...but people just ended up getting scared s***less.

Having said that it seems if you talk about UFO'S it is not a matter of fun...especially in South America...given the accounts of abductions and/or exposure to harmful rays. Charles Bowen's The Humanoids has a few not so warm and fuzzy encounters.

1977 - Snohomish, Washington – which I believe is smack in the heart of Sasquatch territory right? I have attached the PDF of the report if you're interested. Allegedly there was some trace evidence, and perhaps most importantly, the guy was so scared he reported to local police who visited the property, and the encounter got a write up in the local newspaper.

I love this particular report because it's so bizarre you'd be hard-pressed making up.

You are spot on with the sinister South American encounters. Very early on in my UFOlogical enquiries I came across the Colares flap in Brazil in the mid 1970's again ( very busy period in 20 century UFO history apparently) which coloured my initial perceptions rather negatively as to the intent of this intelligence.

Heavily investigated by the Brazilian military over the course of six months and some of their write-ups are available in PDF online as a result of FOI enquiries. Some are in English but most are in Portuguese unfortunately. Over the course of a year numerous villagers at the mouth of the Amazon were plagued by craft freezing them in beams of light leaving them with coin sized burn marks on their chests and thighs. Needless to say they were terrorised. There is a fairly compelling documentary on that flap floating around on you tube. Jaques Vallee was impressed by this one and it gets a mention in Confrontations from memory.

 

[LatentCauses]

Overall, I like what Kripal has to say although when interviewed on Whitley Strieber’s “Unknown Country” he seems to be in agreement with Linda Howe in that cattle mutilations are mostly caused by other worldly forces. Chris O’Brien has pretty much upended that thought.

Kastrup has tremendous insight as weaving the thoughts of Vallee, McKenna, Jung, among others into what may be considered as truly out of the box thinking. Although I must say that the title of Roberto’s latest book “Why Materialism is Baloney” doesn’t seem to embody that wisdom. The title to his second book “Dreamed up Reality” suited his thinking much better.

Thanks for pointing out this earlier work. Wasn't aware of his other stuff. Another one for the reading list - sigh...

Anyone influenced by Terence McKenna is just fine by me

 

[LatentCauses]

Overall, I like what Kripal has to say although when interviewed on Whitley Strieber’s “Unknown Country” he seems to be in agreement with Linda Howe in that cattle mutilations are mostly caused by other worldly forces. Chris O’Brien has pretty much upended that thought.

Interesting. I'm halfway through Stalking the Herd, and my impression was that O'Brien and Perkins conclude that every contending theory has sufficient counterpoints to exclude it. A true case of all and/or none! Perhaps another example of this thing controlling the terms upon which it is studied?

In the circumstances I can forgive Kripal for going too far out on a limb on this occasion

 

[SRL+]

One and all let us hope that Jeffrey gleans his information from “Stalking the Herd”, and not “An Alien Harvest”.

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

Overall, I like what Kripal has to say although when interviewed on Whitley Strieber’s “Unknown Country” he seems to be in agreement with Linda Howe in that cattle mutilations are mostly caused by other worldly forces. Chris O’Brien has pretty much upended that thought..

I think Stalking the Herd demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that multiple explanations are needed to be applied to the mute mystery. Aliens don't inject cows w/ barbiturates, ketamine, nicotine, mescaline, anti-coagulates, potasium cyanide or shoot livestock w/ conventional firearms or utilize conventional helicopters. There are way too many cases that appear to have mundane elements present that suggest more down-to-Earth explanations for a vast majority of "real" cases. You've read the book Constance, you tell me!

 

[Burnt State]

I think Stalking the Herd demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that multiple explanations are needed to be applied to the mute mystery. Aliens don't inject cows w/ barbiturates, ketamine, nicotine, mescaline, anti-coagulates, potasium cyanide or shoot livestock w/ conventional firearms or utilize conventional helicopters. There are way too many cases that appear to have mundane elements present that suggest more down-to-Earth explanations for a vast majority of "real" cases. You've read the book Constance, you tell me!

Ok, so when you look at these different phenomenon we always seem to see the borders or edges of things that come into view just a little on either side. Cattle mutes have evidence of both nefarious human activity and paranormal sequencing. Bigfoot leaves tracks but dematerializes on either side of them, MIB appear to be intense military types as well as surreal characters out of time and UFO's are liminal experiences, twilight visitors. They are physical and then they dissolve. The manifestations of these phenomenon are global, all around us, possibly incredibly close by, intersecting with us, and at times deliberately aware of us as they manipulate situations.

The other piece about how they match our expectations of aliens, hairy monsters in the woods, sea creatures, centaurs and leprechauns also seems to be pretty indicative of an intelligence. It plays with our own cultural memes and interacts with our perceptual systems to produce what they do. They are ghosts in the machine, these seemingly immaterial representations of material objects, these co-products of our own imaginary capacities instigated by some thing outside us. It seems like they're just around the corner.

 

[DissectionStalker]

The other piece about how they match our expectations of aliens, hairy monsters in the woods, sea creatures, centaurs and leprechauns also seems to be pretty indicative of an intelligence. It plays with our own cultural memes and interacts with our perceptual systems to produce what they do. They are ghosts in the machine, these seemingly immaterial representations of material objects, these co-products of our own imaginary capacities instigated by some thing outside us. It seems like they're just around the corner.

Spacebrother picked-up on this idea that each UFO experience is highly unique and tailored to the individuals mind's eye and POV.

Another insightful point was if another witness is at the exact same location in the space time continuum, then will they see the same thing? We know this can happen BUT not always! When the experiences are not shared at the same space time continuum, then it may be safe to assume the experience is happening only in the mind's eye of the experience'r and is not really external in nature. (Such as bedtime/sleep abductions, but this also can happen in alert waking states too.)

 

[Burnt State]

I agree with most of that, but some of it suggests that we are being directly experimented on. I tend to disagree with that "someone else's property" paradigm. It's far too depressing and only leads to paranoid thinking.

 

[LatentCauses]

It plays with our own cultural memes and interacts with our perceptual systems to produce what they do. They are ghosts in the machine, these seemingly immaterial representations of material objects, these co-products of our own imaginary capacities instigated by some thing outside us. It seems like they're just around the corner.

Nicely expressed Burnt State! ambiguity and paradox seemed to be everywhere in these areas. I'll provide an example if I may. I consider myself very much left brain orientated, logical and sequential in my thinking, and, alas, hardly a creative bone in my body. I work in a similarly aligned profession.

True to the anecdotal type, I've not experienced a UFO, out of body experience, or any other spontaneous phase change, however, I have actively sought over the last couple of years certain experiences in these areas.

These include past life regression hypnosis, taking hallucinogens in float tanks, CE5 group sessions with Stephen Greer's mob that try to communicate mentally with these things, and numerous sittings with mediums of varying ability. Next on the list is that machine that Anthony Peake always mentions in introductions to his book that pulses light on closed eyes and is said to interact, speculatively I might say, with the pineal gland. I should mention that I suck at meditation, combined with an inquisitive nature, hence my laundry list...

What is the one commonality between all these experiences? - A very high degree of ambiguity, both in the retrospective objective classification of the experience itself, and in one's own conviction that one can know what you are knowing. So you can't safely know what you are experiencing, and what you experience you remain unsure of.

In other words, something out of the ordinary is going on, but there appears to be no apparent way to separate your experience of it from whatever it is.

Past life regression is a great example – much to my surprise, I was a reasonable hypnotic subject, and the experience of being hypnotised is quite unusual, and very discernible subjectively from your usual state. Also there was no doubt whatsoever that my mind was producing quite distinct images from the two time periods that I purportedly lived in the past. however, I was also acutely aware, whilst under hypnosis of a need to please the therapist by providing details when requested. As a consequence I sit on the fence, and remain equally of the belief that I was doing no more than mining my subconscious for images from books, media, documentaries etc and putting them into a narrative, as I am that I spent time as a viking oarsman and a North African pottery merchant in past lives.

CE5 was equally bizarre and highly ambiguous. Were the tiny moving pinpricks of light behind the clouds mere stars whose position we were confusing? Were the soft percussive noises that commenced shortly after the group meditation simply the sound of fireworks floating up from somewhere near the base of the hill? I'll never know.

I'm labouring the point here, but needless to say, I think one of the main issues for all of us interested in these experiences/phenomenon lies in the nature of knowing what we know. It's an epistemological problem first and foremost IMHO.

I certainly think it helps if you can enjoy the ambiguity, and see our physical experience in the nature of a paradox generation engine. And that's why I like the Greg Bishop's of this world as I think they inherently understand that as soon as an assumption is made about a state of affairs, an anti-structure is immediately generated, and "proved" by subsequent experience.

 

[Constance]

I think Stalking the Herd demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that multiple explanations are needed to be applied to the mute mystery. Aliens don't inject cows w/ barbiturates, ketamine, nicotine, mescaline, anti-coagulates, potasium cyanide or shoot livestock w/ conventional firearms or utilize conventional helicopters. There are way too many cases that appear to have mundane elements present that suggest more down-to-Earth explanations for a vast majority of "real" cases. You've read the book Constance, you tell me!

My impression was that in your (and Perkins's) view there are a number of possible factors/sources/explanations that can be argued to account for various cases and groups of cases -- i.e., no single explanation trumps all and accounts for all cases. Which is why you and Perkins are planning a follow-up volume surveying and evaluating the variety of possible explanations for different cases and groups of cases, right? I thought it would be good to tag you to this thread to have your response here in response to S.R.L.'s post above:

Overall, I like what Kripal has to say although when interviewed on Whitley Strieber’s “Unknown Country” he seems to be in agreement with Linda Howe in that cattle mutilations are mostly caused by other worldly forces. Chris O’Brien has pretty much upended that thought.

Maybe it was unnecessary to do so.

 

[DissectionStalker]

taking hallucinogens in float tanks

It would be fascinating to learn more details about this. What was experimented with and experienced?

Thanks for sharing your experiences! Fascinating!

Btw, IIRC, Spacebrother experimented with DMT(?) and saw UFO's all over the night sky. (Recalling by vague memories here.)

 

[Constance]

The other piece about how they match our expectations of aliens, hairy monsters in the woods, sea creatures, centaurs and leprechauns also seems to be pretty indicative of an intelligence. It plays with our own cultural memes and interacts with our perceptual systems to produce what they do. They are ghosts in the machine, these seemingly immaterial representations of material objects, these co-products of our own imaginary capacities instigated by some thing outside us. It seems like they're just around the corner.

I often wonder what kind of 'intelligence' in this immense, perhaps boundless, universe could/would occupy itself this way with our little local world and our particular species of life.

Or does it do so everywhere, with every species evolving on every planet from here to wherever?

 

[DissectionStalker]

One thing seems certain from my POV... with all the nature cams, outdoor camera stills and video and surveillance taken with billions of frames captured every day 24/7 around the world these experiences can not occur without the Human mind somehow focused and present to produce the experience too. These "events" never are captured on camera independently by remote without a mind present and focused to experience it.

It seems obvious there is a co-dependency, and Carl Jung seems to have targeted what may be going on. If we can sleep and remember lucid dreaming as if alive inside it, then we can have these waking dreams too. DMT seems to be another clue too. That's not to exclude other possible causation too. If matter and thoughts are holographic in nature, then somehow we might manifest these experiences too.

 

[LatentCauses]

I often wonder what kind of 'intelligence' in this immense, perhaps boundless, universe could/would occupy itself this way with our little local world and our particular species of life.

Or does it do so everywhere, with every species evolving on every planet from here to wherever?

Perhaps an intelligence that is bound to us, was the form from which the physical world was printed, and maintains all biological processes?