Thoughts on conscience, entities, ufos plus AYAHUASCA

[Psychedelic_Alchemist]

Turn On, Tune In, Get Better: Psychedelic Drugs Hold Medical Promise
Psychedelic drugs are poised to be the next major breakthrough in mental health care
Aug 14, 2014 |By Roni Jacobson

Credit: NICOLAS NEUBAUER Alamy
Almost immediately after Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD in the 1940s, research on psychedelic drugs took off. These consciousness-altering drugs showed promise for treating anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and addiction, but increasing government conservatism caused a research blackout that lasted decades. Lately, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in psychedelics as possible therapeutic agents. This past spring Swiss researchers published results from the first drug trial involving LSD in more than 40 years.

Time for a Psychedelic Spring?
Although the freeze on psychedelic research is thawing, scientists say that restrictive drug policies are continuing to hinder their progress. In the U.S., LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, DMT, peyote, cannabis and ibogaine (a hallucinogen derived from an African shrub) are all classified as Schedule I illegal drugs, which the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration defines as having a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical applications—despite extensive scientific evidence to the contrary. In a joint report released in June, the Drug Policy Alliance and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies catalogue several ways in which they say that the DEA has unfairly obstructed research on psychedelics, including by overruling an internal recommendation in 1986 that MDMA be placed on a less restrictive schedule.

The DEA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintain that there is insufficient research to justify recategorization. This stance creates a catch-22 by basing the decision on the need for more research while limiting the ability of scientists to conduct that research. The June report recommends transferring responsibility for drug scheduling from the DEA to another agency or nongovernmental organization without a history of antidrug bias, such as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. No matter how it happens, until the drugs are reclassified, bringing psychedelics from research into clinical practice will be an uphill battle.

 

[Wade]

There is a convergence of topics in this thread worth pondering yet again.

Boy, ain't the truth Brother ! Gene should put a warning label on the forum home page about being possibly addictive. I'm trying to pull away...just a bit... because I have a full dance card and need to give more time to other pursuits and tell myself not to check out what's being posted on the forum (but I do). Tbe thing is it's not so much the number of posts it's what's being said because of all the interesting points of views, many of which never occured to me.

What's more the thoughtful..but not necessarily empirical..number of articles that people stumble across just gives me other more thing to mull over. And I'm a champion "mulleroverer" Awhile back when I first joined I posted several times that before bedtime I had to take a product called Rescue Sleep (Not a drug/narcotic Randall ) because I couldn't turn my brain off at night just before I lay down as i was mulling over issues such as this. I conquered this "affliction" after a bit, but it looks like I may have to start popping Rescue Sleep once more.

Disclaimer : I am not acting as a shill for RS, I just find it really, really works.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Rescue Sleep? Hmmm....

 

[Randall]

What studies would those be?

My studies have been largely informal where over the course of hundreds of discussions ( now including this one ) I've asked for clarification from people who use the word "spiritual" what they think it means to them. I've considered the perspective of so-called "spiritual" people in numerous videos. I've discussed it in person with members of the religious community, read dozens of books that include "spirituality" as a component. I've contemplated the usage with respect to the arts, of which some study included university level art history courses. I participated in round-table discussions with philosophers, some of whom were retired professors, and I've compared all these varying points of view with each other and the common definitions found in dictionaries, encyclopedia, and other places ( like the Internet ). This informal survey has taken place over the course of some 50 years since I first attended Sunday school as a kid.

Not sure if any of the above counts for anything in your books, but whatever the case, so far as I'm concerned, it's all irrelevant anyway. I'm not seeking answers or making any claims based on some kind of authority that I or anyone else may have. I've simply arrived at this point in time with the understanding I posited, and that is that the word "spiritual" seems to be a convenience term used by mystics, and in practical terms I can't distinguish it from the word "personality". I gave examples and I've posed the question as to why we should invoke the mystical when it only seems to cloud the issue rather than clarify it. If you have any thoughts on that please share.

 

[Randall]

I noted this sentence in the article Chris quoted from above: "Research suggests that sense of unseen presence experiences are related to unusual activity in the temporal lobe of the brain (Persinger & Valliant, 1985)." What does that sentence mean? Anyone? In the meantime, I'll try to find the Persinger source and find out what he meant.

Persinger claims in his studies that by stimulating parts of the brain he was able to generate vivid realistic perceptions of objectively non-existent things, including people, in the minds of those who participated in the experiments, so vivid that these objects appeared to be real and in the same environment as the subject, not merely as pictures inside their heads, and although I don't recall the specifics, the part of the brain associated with those perceptions may have been as Chris has quoted, the temporal lobe. I've seen a couple of videos that show some of the equipment, including his "God Helmet", a device that delivers a precisely controlled magnetic field through various parts of the brain.

 

[boomerang]

There is a convergence of topics in this thread worth pondering yet again.

Is someone whose core values have been changed by virtue of experience with entheogens "enlightened", or (as traditional western values would suggest) cognitively "damaged"? I think we see both. I would be cautious in writing off the psychonaut as merely deluded.

To clarify a specific point: By "both" I don't necessarily mean cognitive damage and and enlightenment embodied in the case of one particular person using entheogens. I do not think a neurological price is inevitably to be paid. We can can cite cases both of individuals who have come away from use (or misuse) of so called psychedelic substances with emotional or cognitive trauma. On the other hand, I have listened to numerous podcasts by people who have used all manner of hallucinogens, multiple times (I take them at their word), and are intellectually as sharp as the proverbial tack. Nuance of language can be important and I should have proofed my post one extra time before pressing 'Post Reply'.

This wide variance in personal experience among users is one of the reasons why I believe so many hallucinogenic street drugs should be considered with caution beyond whatever risks might be inherent in the genuine molecule. Partaking of Ayahuasca in its natural setting amongst people with centuries of experience it is use would probably be much safer than, say, downing tabs of pseudo-LSD brewed up in someone's garage.

 

[Burnt State]

I've posted this idea previously, but it's just a reminder that entheogens used to play very powerful roles in society to help all manners of personal development and discovery. A number of studies are currently underway to explore their role in easing anxiety for those in paliative care, working through cancer and facing mortality. I can't think of a greater gift, but to use hallucinogens for healing purposes.

While I recognize there's a lot of bogus activity and con-artists at work regarding DMT and Ayhuasca, serious researchers point to the capacity for this drug to help alleviate people of serious personal addictions to other damaging drugs such as heroin. Experiences report that while on their trip they are able to journey to that specific moment in their life that set them on their path of self-destructive behaviour, confront, understand and then heal themselves.

Hallucinogens have powerful benefits that could be gifts to our society if used properly, as opposed to only for recreation, or as E.L. Wisty described, sitting around in rooms and talking bullshit with each other. Timothy O'Leary did some serious damage to society in some ways in his cheerleader campaign to tune in and drop out. While these drugs do clearly pull back the bullshit of our society and peel off the layers of consumer blindness to reveal bigger truths, we just have not really got a society structured in a manner that would make the use of such powerful, transformative plant materials to be of proper use in our culture, at least not here in the west. But there is some good that could come from understanding proper application of these substances, and they have zero to do with UFO cults.

The Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study was also recently highlighted in a News article, "Opening Doors of Perception: Psychedelic Drugs and End-of-Life Care" in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"The emotional, spiritual and existential distress that can often accompany a diagnosis of cancer often goes unidentified and untreated in cancer patients. Patients who have benefited from psilocybin clinical research have reported less anxiety, improved quality of life, enhanced psychological and spiritual well-being, and a greater acceptance of the life-changes brought on by cancer. It is a welcome development that this promising and novel clinical research model utilizing psilocybin has begun to gain clinical and academic attention," Bossis notes.

From: Potential of psilocybin to alleviate psychological and spiritual distress in cancer patients is revealed -- ScienceDaily

 

[Randall]

I've posted this idea previously, but it's just a reminder that entheogens used to play very powerful roles in society to help all manners of personal development and discovery. A number of studies are currently underway to explore their role in easing anxiety for those in paliative care, working through cancer and facing mortality. I can't think of a greater gift, but to use hallucinogens for healing purposes ...

Let's remind ourselves here that this thread didn't start out as an exploration of the medical benefits of hallucinogens for someone with serious mental or health problems. It started out with a post by a seemingly healthy normal person who decided to get into it for reasons that are still unclear. It also has to do with the subject of UFOs because that is in the title of the thread, and we've seen posts that touch on the subject of contacting ultraterrestrials while high on drugs. We've also seen it talked about as a shamanic ritual.

So while I don't deny the possible therapeutic benefits of drugs for people with some serious medical problems, it's a whole other matter to advocate that perfectly healthy people get into doing drugs to contact aliens. No matter how disappointed @Christopher O'Brien is with my position, it doesn't matter how anyone spins this. It still spells UFO contactee drug cult, and I'm equally disappointed at the number of people here who have refrained from liking the posts where I've pointed out the risks, urged caution, and pointed out the huge hit in credibility that the field of ufology would suffer from advocating this approach.

 

[Constance]

Ride along on a trip to meet God in M. Persinger's magnetically manipulated Faraday booth:

Wired 7.11: This Is Your Brain on God=

extract: "Every so often during one of America's little creation-science tempests, some humorless rationalist like Stephen Jay Gould steps forward to say that theology is an inadequate foundation for the study of science. Noted. And vice versa."

 

[Randall]

Neurotheology? - There's a new one for me ( link )​

 

[Constance]

I noted this sentence in the article Chris quoted from above: "Research suggests that sense of unseen presence experiences are related to unusual activity in the temporal lobe of the brain (Persinger & Valliant, 1985)." What does that sentence mean? Anyone? In the meantime, I'll try to find the Persinger source and find out what he meant.

The paper at this link, "Spirit Controls and the Brain" by Bryan J. Williams & William G. Roll, surveys the significant psychological, parapsychological, and neurological literature concerning 'temporal lobe' involvement as well as interhemispheric phenomena in experiences of an unseen 'presence' in psychics and mediums, persons with dissociative identity disorders, and normal populations. Here is the abstract:

The mediumistic phenomenon of spirit control or trance personality has been present since the early days
of psychical research, and remains an aspect of mediumship that is not well understood. Roll (2006a) has
argued that humans possess a dual mind, the mind of the left brain hemisphere and the mind of the right
brain hemisphere. The left hemisphere uses the sensory-motor system of the body to interact with local
objects. It is the principal seat of language and thereby gives rise to the idea of an individual self that is
associated with the body. The right hemisphere uses an extrasensory-psychokinetic system to interact
with nonlocal objects and gives rise to a transpersonal or long body self. In this paper, we propose that
spirit controls may be conceptualized as mental constructs that are created and personified by the
medium, and that they represent identities consistent with the medium’s left hemispheric sense of self.
The emergence of spirit controls is predicted by Persinger’s (1993) model of vectorial hemisphericity. A
comparison of spirit controls with the alternate personalities of dissociative identity disorder (DID) shows
that the two are similar in several respects and suggests that they may result from the same neurological
processes. Ways in which the proposal may be tested further are suggested.

As a young science and a complex one concerned with anomalous communication across distances, parapsychology must test many hypotheses concerning how such communication (and the obtaining of physical information at great distances as in remote viewing) takes place. It seems obvious to me that the effects of EM fields on the body, brain, and mind can't account for the veridicality of anomalously received information from discarnate entitites. Nor can neuroscience do so alone since consciousness and mind are still not understood. One thing seems clear to me: that the brain necessarily facilitates consciousness and mind (for us) given our physical embodiment, and the brain's two hemispheres provide an individual consciousness and mind with differing perspectives on the physical world (to varying degrees among different individuals). While Persinger might think that electromagnetic changes in the atmosphere are sufficient to produce all anomalous experiences, the Williams and Roll research struggles with the ways in which the brain attempts to identify the origin or source of anomalous experiences and information. The simple answer is essentially the same one Persinger supplied, summarized at the conclusion of the Wired article I posted above: we ourselves construct the presence that feels 'other' to us out of some kind of existential-psychological stress. Something like 'we experience only the shadow of our own 'self'. I think this hypothesis is too simple to account for the veridicality demonstrated in mediumship investigations archived for 130 years by the SPR and similar research institutes, and can't begin to touch many cases of remote viewing, psychically assisted archaeology, multiply witnessed apparitions, and much more. It will take at least a hundred years of new interdisciplinary research to bring us closer to what's going on in anomalous communication and cognition experienced by humans.

Constance.

Mysterious Minds: The Neurobiology of Psychics, Mediums, and Other ... - Google Books

Thank you for that link, Manx. It went directly to a search of relevant sections of the book, the first of which matches my own view at this time:

“In summary, there are numerous apparent connections between ESP research data and the findings of neurobiology, including brain waves and other neuroelectric changes, neuroanatomy such as hemispheric differentiation and temporal lobe sensitivity, as well as memory processes. This does not mean that ESP can be reduced to neurobiology, but, rather, suggests that the two disciplines are quite compatible in a variety of ways. The claim that parapsychological data are contrary to mainstream science does not hold up under scrutiny, at least with respect to neurobiology.”

 

[Randall]

Here's a list of "Experts"​

 

[Constance]

Randall (ufology) wrote: "It still spells UFO contactee drug cult, and I'm equally disappointed at the number of people here who have refrained from liking the posts where I've pointed out the risks, urged caution, and pointed out the huge hit in credibility to the field of ufology that advocating this approach carries with it."

I realize that ufo research is of paramount importance to you, and that you are extremely concerned with general public perceptions of the ufo subject and ufo research. But there are other subjects equally important, and in some cases more important, to our species and its future. For me and some others here, understanding the nature of reality {which requires the use of consciousness and mind} is higher on the list of significant subjects. And while you have composed for yourself an interpretation of reality that you find unambiguous and thus satisfactory, many people in the world today do not share your certitudes and satisfactions.

 

[Randall]

And here we go :

Shamanism Aliens & Ayahuasca : Graham Hancock Pt.1:​

"Researcher and author Graham Hancock presented his thesis that "supernatural" entities such as aliens and fairies are infact transdimensional beings that humans encounter during altered states of consciousness. The ability to shapeshift has been ascribed to both modern aliens as well as elves and other entities reported centuries ago, he detailed ... "
​

 

[Tyger]

Let's remind ourselves here that this thread didn't start out as an exploration of the medical benefits of hallucinogens for someone with serious mental or health problems. It started out with a post by a seemingly healthy normal person who decided to get into it for reasons that are still unclear.

The reasons are unclear because either you haven't read UFocurious' posts throughly, or you have an inability to garner the requisite information from text. I am tending toward the latter situation. However, the question does hang in the air: do you willfully fail to interpret correctly as a failing, or is this a game where you pretend you think one way when you know full well UFocurious has been more than crystal clear about why she is taking this path?

It also has to do with the subject of UFOs because that is in the title of the thread, and we've seen posts that touch on the subject of contacting ultraterrestrials while high on drugs. We've also seen it talked about as a shamanic ritual.

And this - what? - offends you?

So while I don't deny the possible therapeutic benefits of drugs for people with some serious medical problems, it's a whole other matter to advocate that perfectly healthy people get into doing drugs to contact aliens.

I don't think anyone here has advocated that - only given the context that 'aliens' appear to be contacted. This is a new area for me and I am fascinated. If 'aliens' are contacted under drugs - what are 'aliens' to begin with? What do you mean by 'aliens'? What is being experienced that 'aliens' becomes a word that is used to describe what is being seen? Is it a cultural filter? If the person were religious - as in Catholic - would the 'aliens' be called 'angels'? If so - why? If not - why? Seems like a fertile area for research.

No matter how disappointed @Christopher O'Brien is with my position, it doesn't matter how anyone spins this. It still spells UFO contactee drug cult, and I'm equally disappointed at the number of people here who have refrained from liking the posts where I've pointed out the risks, urged caution, and pointed out the huge hit in credibility that the field of ufology would suffer from advocating this approach.

There may not be 'likes' because you're not 'getting' the point of the thread - and no one wants to derail the rather interesting topic the OP has fielded for discussion. The OP clearly has her bases covered. I am interested in hearing her story - not brow-beating her into a cease-and-desist. I don't even know her. She is far better positioned to know what is right for her. As someone said - she is an adult.

As for the 'field of ufology' - I think you have created too high a bar for ufo enthusiasts. It's mainly a hobby for most people - perhaps a passing interest for the 'talented amateur' - and hardly a 'field' as is Anthropology or Sociology. That being the case - 'the field' cannot 'advocate' anything. Enthusiasts do what they want. You can't control this one, Randall.

 

[Psychedelic_Alchemist]

And here we go :

Shamanism Aliens & Ayahuasca : Graham Hancock Pt.1:​

"Researcher and author Graham Hancock presented his thesis that "supernatural" entities such as aliens and fairies are infact transdimensional beings that humans encounter during altered states of consciousness. The ability to shapeshift has been ascribed to both modern aliens as well as elves and other entities reported centuries ago, he detailed ... "
​

I'd seriously recommend that you read Hancock's book Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. It's a fascinating theory that he posits and deserves much closer scrutiny. If people report meeting aliens under the influence of psychedelics, then who or what exactly are these so-called aliens?

And I'm still having a hard time connecting ayahuasca with a UFO drug cult. People don't generally partake of ayahuasca to meet or chat with aliens, or because they want to take a ride in a flying saucer.

 

[Burnt State]

Pardon me, Ufocurious, as I'm about to pee in the pool and support ufology on a point or two and challenge the contention that the machine elves come from an independent and substantial reality, like the grey aliens that some, but not all, experienccers of DMT report as written about in The Spirit Molecule. I started researching this notion of people experiencing the greys while on DMT along with the experience that people have on hallucinogens and why it is that the experience that they carry with them from their trip is as real as any reality they've previously experienced.

While I would like to believe in this alternate, seemingly substantial reality, as I also know, that like you, Ufocurious, the experience that we carry from profound emotional, sacred moments in our lives do become living and breathing memories with purpose. It is its own reality. While no one knows what's really taking place durng these high octane fueled journeys, there is a suspicion that during such intensities the power of belief in this altered reality is something facilitated literally by the intense emotions themselves. During traumatic moments many believe they have exceptional recall but it's often quite different from that. See: DMT, Aliens, and Reality—Part 2 | Psychology Today (some of the tone here towards the end I don't side with but the opening is sound)

So I'm going to make a leap and proclaim that the likelihood that anyone is tripping into a twilight zone of a reality just beneath the one we're sharing right now is probably just the entheogens talking and not anything real at all. Anyone who has taken goblin acid can tell you just how quickly you can find yourself in the land of ugly dwarves, but that does not make it real. Some drugs just happen to produce very specific visual effects i.e. intense colour, geometric patterns, machine elves, grey aliens ! And as per the article above (it has a good part 1 too) some people's absorption ability just make them more likely to trip right into the land of unknown & profound presences.

So it might just be possible that a lot of alien abductions and/or humanoid contact by single witnesses may simply be spontaneous DMT brain releases - it's possible. Some of these may happen to people in waking states, or as they are going downstairs to check on something after a long shift at the hospital and see what that nurse saw in her living room as per the recent Paracast episode with Chris Rutkowski. I know that this is doubtful talk, but it does come from a sincerity that I have that doubts very much that alien entities go around abducting people - my influence from reading @trainedobserver is a big one; I don't deny it.

Still, I do leave the door open for the possibility of alien visitation in our skies, or some odd trickster element, or even ultra or intraterrestrial that create such incidents in the populous for reasons unknown. But I do not think we will contact them with entheogens. They have their value in society, but I don't think that's one of them.

And now, for what it's worth, I think that ufology might be right when it comes to lone individuals concocting realities out of the hallucinatory realm that instead of benefiting their inner development or bringing about healing, may in fact be emotionally charging themselves with completely unhealthy thoughts that can lead to a different gate after all.

Principally, I had a sudden vision, or I should say a concept or a "truth", that was so out there that it terrified me that I had gone so far as to think it, no matter what I was high on. I was "told" that all human life on earth was merely a long-term genetic experiment by extraplanetary life-forms alien to us. Our very existence was owed to them although it was in their program not to have us realize this. I had been chosen to be allowed to know the incredible secret to human existence: that these aliens had taken their own genetic material and hybridized it with primates found on the planet at the time of their arrival millions of years ago (only a short time in their scale), resulting in we "humans." All human ideology about religion, God, self-determination, and most of all, our perception that 'we' are the only ones in control of what happens on this planet, were shown to me to be a total joke, a delusion that we create ourselves. The tendency to see "Gods" as essentially human models (Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc.) was shown to me to be all part of their plan. The catch-22 was seamless and perfect - I had been shown the awesome truth, but of course I can never reveal it to the world because I will only sound insane to everyone. For a moment the Heaven's Gate people seemed to be more sane than anyone. That's when I knew I was really out of it. It was scary that I would even think such a thing.

From: DMT and Alien Presence

I'm not rescinding previous comments about their benefits but it appears that there is some evidence of other outcomes. Imagine if this pereon returned with Marshall Applewhite's message & conviction instead of fear? I would prefer to believe that this has everything to do with a misguided individual acting irresponsibly. But isn't that what some say is exactly what people who believe in aliens are doing? I don't see this as just another paradox, but a line of inquiry to be followed for certain. I really don't want to lump all my favourite "otherworldly" narratives into just a DMT accidental brain spill either. I don't believe that for a minute. Many narratives of odd encounters involve way more than just one person and so it all just can be follie au deux.

 

[Wade]

it was an interesting narrative by isomer, and perhaps cautionary. But i would say that people who are fixed in a westernized biblical belief system would be the ones that may be in for a shock, if one is truly open-minded i don't think there would be any psychological damage. we don't know this guy's background but what he reported here isn't anything that we ourselves haven't brought forth in this very forum. Hell, As i mentioned earlier in this very thread Mike brought up the suggestion elsewhere that we could be living, breathing large capacity thumb drives, which i find interesting. I don't know if i entirely agree with the sentiment but i'm open to the possibilities. Now being i've never indulged in any drugs i can't say with 100 % accururacy how i would come out of my trip but i don't think i would have any existential crisis blowback even if my trip was not unlike the one that isomer spoke of. Whether my wake up call comes as a post from my aussie friend or i have it told to me first person by a DMT-induced alien I'm probably going to handle it with the same "Spooky Mulder" aplomb. It basically comes down to the end user. You are either ready for it or are not, if someone ever asked me if i thought such as substance was bad my reply would be do you think that fire or firearms are bad. In the right hands they can be beneficial,in the wrong hands they can be deadly. same thing with rat poision, a pencil, a knife, or box cutters. i could go on but i won't.

 

[Randall]

I'd seriously recommend that you read Hancock's book Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. It's a fascinating theory that he posits and deserves much closer scrutiny. If people report meeting aliens under the influence of psychedelics, then who or what exactly are these so-called aliens?

Thanks for the recommendation.

And I'm still having a hard time connecting ayahuasca with a UFO drug cult. People don't generally partake of ayahuasca to meet or chat with aliens, or because they want to take a ride in a flying saucer.

I haven't made the claim that any particular UFO drug cult presently exists at this time ( although it might ). What I'm doing is pointing out that all the ingredients are there. The ingredients are:

• The title of this thread which connects UFOs and ayahuasca use = ( UFOs + drugs ).
• Ayahuasca which is used in shamanic ( primitive native religious ) rituals = ( an unorthodox religious component )
• Links to content that features the experience of observing and/or interacting with aliens while on drugs = ( the alien contactee component while on drugs )
• The video I posted in which it is posited that the connection between the use of ayahuasca and alien contact is real = ( all components brought together into a unified belief system ).

Whether or not all the ingredients have gelled into an identifiable cult, or is still a loosely connected movement, we're still dealing with the same problem, which is the use of drugs to produce hallucinatory alien contactee experiences that the subject believes are real encounters with some external reality.

I hope that helps to clarify the issue. If not, perhaps try comparing it to exploring abductions via hypnotherapy. That is already at the contentious end of the spectrum in ufology. Imagine endorsing drug induced hallucinations? Virtually nobody would take ufology seriously. This is clearly way out in the fringe culture. If ufology is to retain any credibility, we simply cannot endorse the use of hallucinogenics for the purpose of making alien contact. Neither can we take drug induced hallucinations of alien contact seriously. From a ufology perspective, it is imperative that it be presented as a cultural phenomenon within the bounds of objective ufology studies. Only if some substantial and verifiable evidence emerges from this fringe culture should it be considered to be a valid form of research and exploration into genuine alien contact.

 

[boomerang]

I began my armchair research on UFOs in the old brick and mortar bookstores of yore. As no doubt many here have. I recall being so very puzzled that books on the study of UFOs were cached under the same general headings as ghosts, ESP, altered states of consciousness etc. I felt as if I had come looking for science and that the subject was being "dissed" in being made to keep company on store shelves with things that were decidedly non-scientific.

After thirty years of reading, discussion and watching the best documentaries available, I now understand. This is, as I said earlier, not a hard science. It's not even close. There is no avoiding many of the seemingly unrelated woo topics into which we have delved here over the years in pursuing answers to the UFO mystery.

This is not to say that "anything is possible" or that no disciplines apply. But we are like tourists green and ripe for the picking in a strange land, confronting savvy locals with their own set of rules. The UFO is, in itself, an altered state that rudely accesses our consensual reality without consent !

Relevance cuts an incredibly wide swath here and I see no way of avoiding that. Or even if we should.