SP 12: Erich's Response - The Phillips' Phenoma-Knot

 I'll confess I've never been able to understand phenomenology (yet); in fact it took me three tries just to spell it for this response. My natural instinct as a autodidact, then, is then to dismiss it-- distract the imaginary thesis dissertation professor with a card trick. And another is to urge the realization that once we drift too far into the realm of big words and fixed ideas, we can get lost. Show me the lotus! That's why I always use metaphors to visualize this stuff.

When Rick writes, for example:

`Your' space - is `counted' and counted once - as having a location and placement compared to other spaces. `Every' space you have - HAS EXACTLY `THAT' AS IT'S MAIN ATTRIBUTE. It's unique `moment' of space - as it were. THAT moment, with all its relationship to other spaces - in any form - is a moment of balance that reflects a NOT ABLE TO BE (ness). Now, here's the BUT. BUT, there are `different' types of `spaces' -- some of which -- seem `timelike'. And, some of which, perhaps all of which, have a direct connection to the phenomenology of `our space' that is NOT ABLE TO BE.

I visualize this as a two dimensional chessboard, and "I" am the king, able to move in any direction, one square at a time. However, there may be spirits or enemy pieces in squares very close to mine who can't touch me due to only being able to move diagonally, and so forth. And of course, there's the off board vastness, where the murdered pieces go.

I worry this might not be the correct analogy. That's the rub with phenomenology - it seems too tied in abstract signifiers that themselves seem open to dozens of possible meanings and interpretations depending on their context.

However, all that said, I found Phillips' phenomenology graspable, as it reminds me a little of Seth speaks and a lot of other channeled info I've read over the years (Rick, you're a channel!) The spirits who've channeled through me, I should point out, have tended to be rogues and charlatans, angels and devils disguised as each other... they do this so well I have to take what the angels say with skepticism and appreciate the tough love behind the tortures of Hell. In the end, they're all you, and me, togetherrr-- Sarah. So the question is, do you trust yourself? Can you tell when you're lying to yourself? If you answered yes, then right there, the answer is no.

"Finally, the man who wrote The End Of Time - Julian Barbour - suggests something along these lines as far as how reality gets from one 'moment of space' to the next `moment of space' -- and that being that reality 'follows a path of least resistance' that involves `picking the next moment' based on the criteria of the `best matching space with the least intrinsic difference'."


I haven't read Barbour, but I think I understand the concept of reality 'picking the next moment' -but I also know how little effort is actually involved in making the 'next' picked 'moment' completely separated from the normal path, it's all done with the ease of flipping a cable channel... if you know how (and our social order makes it as hard as possible to know how, and with good reason).

All it involves is a slight shift in brain chemistry, the equivalent of letting go of the structural life raft and trusting to breathe in the salty water... the doors of perception kick open and what was once merely, say, a candle in front of you in the darkness, becomes an axis in time/space, hell, Jesus on the cross, God, Moses' burning bush blazing five miles in the distance as you travel through the desert night, and the eye of a dragon as it slithers on scales of air and smoke through your boudoir, all at once, and you now understand why what to you is merely the picking up of a book off a coffee table is life and death to distant civilizations, cities you can reach only through sleeping, shrinking to sub-atomic level, or traveling to the opposite end of the galaxy, the realization that your entire life and set of memories is all encompassed in every drop of water you sweat out in the jungle heat... it stains the surrounding vines and suddenly the whole jungle knows your story. 

In the end, it's one of those things you need to experience for yourself, the miraculous way all the possibilities and probable realities you see flash in the infinity of transcended space-time gradually shift back to exactly where you were before, with maybe only ten minutes or so elapsed on the clock after what feels like a voyage of hours if not weeks. But outside of these trip tales, what is there left to relate? Direct experience is the only way to 'know' these things are real and true, that ayuhuasca visions are so much more concrete than this reality and that aliens can re-write our history behind us, change the hair of our mothers -- who knows if we're the same person when we wake up from a weird dream? Alien abductions prove, among other things, that time and space can be played with, they are elastic. 

I would agree that time is illusory, and/or relative, but so is space, once you escape our three dimensional consensual reality --even one's own personal non-able to be-ness can be dissolved, re-manifested, obliterated and returned to like a book some elder god reads before bed time. And on that level, so is life, and certainly language. When you transcend time, space is not far behind, and language has to be let go long before that... if you can--through whatever neurochemical or spiritual means at your disposal--get a grasp of this fathomless eternal moment, you won't be able to bring your notebook or microphone. If you do, few of your ramblings will make sense. I remember once for weeks all my inner thoughts assumed a circular rounding word combination form that always ended in 'herculoguard' my unconscious was sending me a message in a code that was one long meaningless word meant to break the imprisoning chain of language:

"Marion Crane" Acrylic on Canvas - 2008 - c. Erich Kuersten

'Melncholilongualnationalismaticallizationonauticalequalitoherculoguard' - for example. It was a tool my unconscious seemed to be using to split open language, like freeze framing a speeding train movie and slowly burning the celluloid.

People who experience smoking DMT or doing ayuhuasca or iboga in shamanistic studies, will tell you--their eyes wide with respect and trepidation--that the world is much wilder and stranger than we can imagine, and it's all right here around us, all the time-- our reality is like Hot 97 on the FM dial, but all you need to do is turn the knob a bit to the left or right and our reality dissolves into static and some mighty strange stations start up, and when you're completely outside it, you realize the whole range of stations is played at once--and has always been playing, just waiting for some radio to tune it in-- the pure possibility and intent. Painters use paint and a brush to create worlds, our pure DNA life intelligence uses space like paint and condensed energy like a brush. Stepping outside reality is like jumping off the canvas, like those old Max Fleischer cartoons, where characters escape the drawing board to observe the ink, the paint, the palette, the brushes, and the absurdly limiting three-dimensionality of their old canvas/reality:



Lon's discussion of remote viewing is applicable to that experience, as while in the 'zone' you can wind up in some weird third-eye spaces, like the time I wound up in what I think was a Chinese bakery... I was in my room, smoky with sage, but all I could smell was baking and hear the clatter of customers and voices coming from what sounded like my own lips in Chinese (I could only see darkness at that time, though, like I was rolling out dough while resting my eyes - was that baker, maybe working down in Chinatown at the moment, taking a closed-eye break and smelling sage?).

When you visualize the space between the channels on that FM dial as the 'not able to be' static, you realize you're held to your current frequency only by the current wiring of your brain, the 10% of its full potential. We're radios that were built to go from 0 to infinity FM, but the aliens set us to Hot 97, for all eternity. Step outside of that station and you find yourself sharing a lot of common space with humanity, nature, past lives, pre-recorded into your DNA messages from ancient space ancestors, and even the pure electric light of the One. It's so bizarre to me that people can't believe in life after death but have no problem accepting the way our voices are bounced all over outer space and across the world, billions at a time, via cell phones, or wi fi, or radio. 

Children at play in the backyard are--in good homes--kept from the fear and anxiety of their parents over, say, taxes or making the monthly mortgage payment. The child is sheltered for a reason - allowed to grow, unhindered by the soul-crushing heaviness of the world. Is this not also why the countless alternate dimensions and possibilities are kept from us? One could argue the grays deliberately re-wired our hard drives so we can't 'escape' this zoo/prison, the way parents might lock out the adult cable channels on their TV or child-proof the internet - but you can also admit to yourself that without that adult channel wiring, 'you' wouldn't even exist. 'You' is the one thing that stays behind when you venture up into the rarefied realms of being. The idea of a 'you' separate from the rest of our common DNA whirligig is just the frosting on a many, many, many-layered cake, a cake we are terrified to cut open, preferring to deny the existence of anything below our creamy vanilla frosting surface.

But in the end, language and writing can only get us so far (the theorizing as to what may lie below frosting level)... direct experience involves not just letting go of the illusion of permanence, but of the need to categorize, delimit, and communicate your experience to others, i.e. the true traveler takes no pictures, leaves no footprints, brings no baggage and was already there to begin with. His is the eye in the pyramid, and when it blinks, he was never there at all. Especially for us writers and thinkers, in the end, that's the hardest thing to let go of, our pen and paper. We get two feet into the void and think 'wow, I can't wait to write this down' Let that go, and there's nothing left but...

Strickler Responds to Phenomenology

"The body is our general medium for having a world." - Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Over the past several months, I have commenced to rejuvenate and hone my capabilities for gathering information on spiritual targets by using my subspace mind. In other words, I shift my awareness from one place to another or remote view.

There is a wide belief that all humans are composite beings, meaning that we have two fundamental sides...a body and a soul. In the language of remote viewing the soul is known as the ‘subspace aspect’ of a person...basically the non-physical component of a human being. When death occurs the physical body is no longer a composite being but continues to exist as a subspace entity. The physical realm of solid matter is both separate from and connected to subspace.

The subspace mind recognizes and processes data differently from the physical mind. You are not inducing an altered state of consciousness. Instead, you are following a set of procedures that allows you to shift your attention from one area of your perception to another.

Science, for the most part, does not accept remote viewing. Those who do believe and study remote viewing want to converse with scientists but often do not want to talk with the public. Scientists do not want to converse with those who study remote viewing but the general public does want to learn about remote viewing. Is it a paradox or a failure of perception?

The question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?” demonstrates the way beliefs can be perceived in different ways. In the case of visual perception, some people can actually see the form of external stimuli in their mind's eye. Those who are not picture thinkers may not necessarily perceive changes in the same manner. Each person’s knowledge creates their own reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed.

Simply a first-person perspective and point of view....

"Every exit is an entry somewhere." - Tom Stoppard

SP-12 The Phillips Phenomenology

First, I want to thank all the writers on the last seed post - some excellent material folks and excellent mindblowing pictures too. I'd also like to recall these words from the first post made in this blog back in July:

The reason is to provide something not readily available to the world; - a discussion by a set group of invited people - about the implications of consciousness to humans and the world as a whole.



Nearly all of the invited people to write on this blog have already proven themselves, via the internet, to possess significant interest in the esoteric with a bent to `open-mindedness' to ideas in general. That is - while still possessing SIGNIFICANT opinions on nearly all paranormal subject manner. Many of those opinions will be supported by direct experiences or even investigations

So, with part of TCI's opening positioning statement above, I want to take an editors prerogative and delve into my absolutely personal writings about what I consider to be HUGE ideas - that I'd like our group of respective minds to respond to if possible. And, it would help to leave all pre-conceptions about EVERY fundamental idea behind when we begin; also, if possible, before beginning - I'd like you to vaguely consider in your mind one of the hottest ideas in renegade physics -- THAT TIME DOES NOT EXIST.

Now, I will not trot out the `common man' idea that `time is just a construct so that our minds can understand the reality our senses digest --- even IF that is entirely true. NO, this is going to go MUCH deeper if I am correct (I defend my ideas as only a theory of course.) Indeed, what I hope to show you in just a few words is that EVERYTHING IS A SPACE - EVERYTHING. Including `time'.

Also, at this time, I will not go into again `how' these ideas came into my head in the 1970's; but, if one explores my blogs enough one can find out more (or the links I provide). But, it isn't important - what is important is that the `ideas' you are about to read `came to me' - and at the time - seemingly - were coming into my head from somewhere else. Call that whatever you want to.

Anyway, dozens and dozens of pages of this material `came' to me over the course of a year or so - a time when I had to have `my notebook' close to me for when the `rushes of information' would `come'. The information also came in the form of one poem even and really can be reduced from dozens of pages to just several `concepts of phenomenology' - in the most basic fundamental sense.

Like other writers on phenomenology - like Sartre and Husserl - the Phillips Phenomenology consists of principals and works outward in a sense from there. And, while in my mind I construct differing ideas on the `structure' and flow of these ideas - I can easily form `structures' that allow any of the ideas to be the `most fundamental' - so hang onto your hats and minds. Remember, leave all your ideas at the door opening.

First, I guess, I will refer to my above blanket statement and cutting edge science - that TIME does not exist -- and my statement, along with this edge science - that everything, yes everything, is a SPACE. Not only that - is a `space' with ONE overriding characteristic BECAUSE IT IS A SPACE - and that is --- that the space --- IS --- NOT-ABLE-TO-BE.

`Your' space - is `counted' and counted once - as having a location and placement compared to other spaces. `Every' space you have - HAS EXACTLY `THAT' AS IT'S MAIN ATTRIBUTE. It's unique `moment' of space - as it were. THAT moment, with all its relationship to other spaces - in any form - is a moment of balance that reflects a NOT ABLE TO BE (ness).

Now, here's the BUT.

BUT, there are `different' types of `spaces' -- some of which -- seem `timelike'. And, some of which, perhaps all of which, have a direct connection to the phenomenology of `our space' that is NOT ABLE TO BE.

Such as the concept of `other spaces' - that are seemingly NOT OURS. That are NOT our space of not able to be(ness). As indeed, the world IS composed of more than us. More than ONE (not able to be). And, when two `real' not able to be's (as opposed to a memory or imagination for now) - yes, I'm talking about YOU and anything else from a book to a spouse - are in the `same perceptual space' - several other aspects of phenomenology `run off' of the not able to be (structure).

Perhaps at this `time' it would be best to broach the subject of `timelike spaces' that are REAL - ie: two real folks sitting in a room; and `timelike spaces' that are NOT REAL - like memories and imagination (but are real in an `other sense - can see how layered this all is I hope).

First, `immediately outside' of ones `space', ones body, - is the entire universe and all of it - to you - is `able-to-not-be'. ALL of IT. IT is the `timelike space for YOU' and YOU are included in the same manner for IT. And, as these NOT ABLE TO BE and ABLE TO NOT BE - `spaces' overlap, literally, `run off' of each other -- something happens. Actualization happens. The REAL happens. The Event happens that corresponds to the perception of the event.

And, that singular event has ONE attribute that is counted as real - an attribute best described as `NOT ABLE TO NOT BE' - the determined real. Our personal `world' is a `past' that `determines' our personal NOW Space. The space of the not able to not be.

Light and consciousness probably determine the `size' of this running off of the not able to not be - but IT is absolutely infinitesimal in it's attachment to everyNOT ABLE TO BE (like you and I).

And, that is because of this upswelling of that `timelike space' the `able to not be'. The able to not be upswells from both the past and the future. It includes all the past events AND unactualized events of the past - IT also includes the entire future. Including all the SPACEs you will ever perceive or have had the opportunity to perceive.

When described this way - The `space' that is timelike --- this `able to not be' space --- IS EVERYTHING EXCEPT one thing -- it is EVERYTHING except `the intentionalities' of your personal `not able to be'. Your now. My now. Your space. My space. Yes, the glimmer of freewill. The spec of freewill that `runs off' of your personal not able to be.

Looking at the world - the reality we see - in this manner - allows for much in the realm of `paranormal'. Indeed, looking at phenomenology in this manner - allows all kinds of `able to not be(s)' to BE in existence. Literally in a different AREA of space - a different description of what space is - compared to  the spaces of matter within the not able to be of real spaces (like you and I).

The `interactions' of these fundamental `concepts';which literally figure into our perceptions of real - produce this incredibly stable reality we seem to experience. Which we also know now due to science advances - breaks down as we get into smaller and smaller units. Things as we know - are NOT solid - but are comprised of MUCH MORE SPACE than `solid'. And, `time' breaks down in much the same way.

Finally, the man who wrote The End Of Time - Julian Barbour - suggests something along these lines as far as how reality gets from one `moment of space' to the next `moment of space' -- and that being that reality `follows a path of least resistence' that involves `picking the next moment' based on the criteria of the `best matching space with the least intrinsic difference'.

Lastly, the permutations of all this phenomenology when applied to imagination and memory and perception and consciousness are staggering. I look forward to all TCI's writers opinions on the matter and our reader base too.

The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics

http:// whatisnotabletonotbeis.blogspot.com

http://theheavystuff.com/?cat=5

SP:11 1897 Airships, and the Little Fellow in the Aurora, Texas Cemetery; Regan Responds

Erich Kuersten made many absolutely right on points about UFO research. He asks, using the Aurora, Texas case as his example, why residents of that town, science, etc. stonewall UFO researchers at a given point:

What is the reason for all the refusal to let science and ufology blunder in to try and prove the truth of the legend? Where does disrespect end and legit quest for understanding begin?

Of course we can broaden Erich’s question to all other UFO cases where this occurs, as well as paranormal and Fortean events like Bigfoot and other cryptid encounters, hauntings, etc. I think one reason this resistance to researchers “blundering in” is due to a fear of looking ridiculous. This fear runs so deep, it becomes far more important than answers or clues to Really Big Questions, like the nature of UFOs and the existence of aliens, or, Bigfoot, and so on. Fear of looking silly, gullible, or naive, of being hoaxed, or somehow taken in. Those fears loom over any truths that may be discovered.

As a side note and a bit off topic, look at the criticisms of researchers like Linda Moulton Howe. Howe, who has done significant work in the field of UFO and related research, like cattle mutilations, has been heavily trounced by others for her gullibility in some cases. Agreed, to a point, but so what? Do moments of hope, even gullibility in some cases, wipe out previous work, the data revealed? We’re human, regardless of philosophical stance on research, and when it comes to the soup that is Fortean-Esoteric-Paranormal-UFO stuff, we can’t afford to continue pretending things are so neat and tidy, clear and obvious. We are not objective beings, and we are often being played by forces we are barely aware of, and certainly don’t understand.



Erich writes:

Meanwhile, the evidence is already in and overwhelming if you're willing to accept it, to make the connections.

The evidence certainly is overwhelming, and we are reminded not to mistake evidence for proof. And yet, when one experiences UFOs, entities, Bigfoot, etc. for themselves, one can say that is proof. At least proof of something pretty huge; as to what that experience (craft, entity alien type being, Sasquatch, ghostly figure) is, can be further explored. Seeing a UFO with aliens inside, doesn’t necessarily “prove” there are non-human beings in spacecraft from other planets visiting earth. They could be fairies, Djinn, or government spooks. But they are, and they are most decidedly real. And sometimes, to quote Freud, a cigar is just a cigar.

Erich asks, of mystery and process:

Or to let somethings be a mystery?

I know Erich is asking this in context of UFOs and aliens, but I’ll extend this to other subjects as well, like Bigfoot. I accept that Bigfoot exists, even though I’ve never seen one. (Yet.) I accept it exists because I personally know many who tell me they have seen one, and I believe them. I also accept that the evidence points to its existence, and I have spent many years studying the stories of witnesses -- many who’ve had UFO and high strangeness events embedded within the Bigfoot encounter -- that I find fascinating. I may not believe everything literally, but I believe that, at the very least, a Sasquatch was seen, and in many cases, something profound occurred that extended the already profound experience of seeing a Bigfoot in the first place. I don’t need a body to prove Bigfoot exists, I don’t care if it’s ever proven it does, I don’t give a damn if science or the world finds this proof, especially if it means capturing or killing one. There is no -- NO -- justification for supporting a “kill” philosophy in regards to Bigfoot.

Likewise UFOs; first of all, they indeed exist. We see objects in the sky all the time. “Do UFOs exist?” is most decidedly the wrong question.

For myself, who’s seen several UFOs, experienced missing time, and all kinds of other high strangeness episodes, since childhood, involving UFOs and entities, I don’t need proof. I don’t need to justify or even explain. I don’t need to do anything. I am, however, compelled to explore, and also share. I'm not sure why,  it’s just part of the process. Take it or leave it, like it or not, believe me or don’t.

Erich asks us:

What do YOU believe? And in the end, do you really need everyone else to believe it first? Are you afraid to pick a truth and make the jump, to just answer your own multiple choice rather than spying on all your neighbor's papers?

More excellent questions posed by Erich. This is why I’m not bothered by the tricksters, hoaxers (well, I am to a small degree, but not by much), and more importantly, the  ones much of UFOlogy hold in disdain, like the contactees. Who knows if the paranormal Bigfoot witnesses are nuts, or the contactees were liars? Their experiences are simply too rich and complex to dismiss as simple deceits. A few out and out liars within the global experiences of the weird doesn’t justify the exclusion of these kinds of stories. And what of the UFO Police; those who demand that certain types of witnesses, researchers, theories and experiences be excluded -- shunned --from their would be tidy world of UFO research? 

It gets back to the ugly side of human nature, that fear of looking silly. Researcher A is serious, damnit, and he or she shall not be tainted by associating with researchers delving into reptilian encounters or channeling aliens or Contactees or psychic Bigfoot. These stories may be full of it, but, within those stories is something we are missing by rejecting them. And that is the deceitful, playful, sometimes dangerous, sometimes merely mischievous, force of the thing itself; the very UFO/Fortean phenomena Researcher A, along with the rest of us, are studying.

And then there’s another unpleasant side to human nature: arrogance. We get so stuck in our egos, our personas, our need to be right (rather, to appear to be right), that we simply won’t let others play.

A recent example of the need for control over theories and research was the thuggish antics of crop circle researchers Michael Glickman and Gary King, who demanded that Colin Andrews be removed from the list of presenters at the Power Places International Crop Circle Conference this past summer.  If the coordinators of the conference did not agree to dis-invite Colin Andrews, Glickman and King said they would not appear. What a sad and distressing combination of arrogance and fear.  Withholding information -- and possibilities -- from other researchers as well as the public is unethical. It clearly speaks to the fear within, as well as the fear of others -- you, me, us, -- to think for ourselves. (Rather than dis-invite Andrews and give in to Glickman and King, the conference directors canceled the conference altogether.)

So, we don’t get to exhume bodies, kill a Bigfoot, get invited into the halls of Big Science to play with their toys, and yet we continue to frantically grasp after proof, after things that will say I’m Right, You’re Clearly Deluded. Forgetting that such proof will never be enough, will never satisfy, will never end such experiences, and will never completely answer anything.

Dead Bigfoot body: how does that explain the high strangeness aspects of BF encounters? What of protections for the creature -- what kind of being is it, and how does it affect culture, religions? UFOs proven to be from, Mars? Are the countless other UFOs from Mars as well? Do we suddenly forget about the man made UFOs that are covertly and illegally operating in our skies, with ill intent? (social engineering, chemical warfare, etc.) This Holy Grail of Proof, once found and offered, will only reveal more questions, and we'll find, it really wasn't proof at all.

We are always in the front room, to use the anthropologist’s example. No matter how much we may think we’re in the know, there are many more rooms to explore. We move into one, or two, if we’re lucky, and told we’re “in.” Some of us believe that. Some of us refuse to believe there are more rooms; or that, those rooms are of no consequence. Those rooms are just the broom closets, not worth investigating. Well how do you know, if you haven't looked?

SP:11 1897 Airships, and the Little Fellow in the Aurora, Texas Cemetary

An interesting episode of TV's 'UFO Hunters' described the trouble and 'blocking' Ufologists received from Aurora, Texas residents when trying to exhume an alleged 100+ year old little Martian body from the local cemetery. The researchers even detected radio active metal under the ground by the grave, which was allegedly removed in the night through some tubing (?) by the locals or CIA, so that the next day the detectors detected nothing.

All this intrigue made me think of Lovecraft stories like "The Shadow over Innsmouth," wherein the few non-sea monster-hybrid-townsfolk are tight lipped and standoffish to curious visitors, lest they find themselves washed up against the docks the next morning, apparently drowned, their lungs filled with seaweed.

So what real life version of a Lovecraftian elder god's threat could the Aurora townsfolk's have for refusing the Ufologists? Is it that the locals are afraid there's some truth to the legend, that hellfire will rain down if the tomb is disturbed? Where does thrill-seeking disrespect end and the legit quest for understanding begin? It's a bit like those old 'tests' to prove witchcraft, throwing the suspect in the lake and if she sank and died, she was innocent. The ufologists want to prove 'the truth' and help write a new history of tomorrow with physical evidence. Meanwhile, the evidence is already in and overwhelming if you're willing to accept it, to make the connections. What good is one more smoking gun going to do? What's wrong with the smoking gun of Dr. Leir's alien implants? What more do you want?



Another analogy on hand is a recent short film I saw recently on TCM, wherein a journalist is sent to cover a magic act, and ordered to get photos explaining how each trick is done. It doesn't occur to him or his editor that they'd be destroying the magician's livelihood. Who cares? It's the old western compulsion to cut everything open and see how it works, to loot the foreboding mystery from every still-dark corner of the world.

The end issue in all this is, what does it take to make you/us switch our paradigm to accommodate the truth of extraterrestrial visitors? Or to let some things remain a mystery? Or to heal the wound between science and supernatural? To stop trying to do the math, to see the ancient astronaut writing on the wall, and stop waiting around to learn  'how the trick is done'? Imagine the average layman being told the earth is not flat like we thought, does he instantly demand evidence? What good would lectures on magnetic fields and revolution matter to an illiterate 17th century peasant?

Another last example of the importance of mystery is the spiritualist's use of props and intentional fakery--projections, crystal balls, plastic skulls, etc.--to create illusions as kind of a perception-enhancing booster to real magic, the suspension of disbelief creating a rift where genuine strangeness may seep through. Or at any rate, its sometimes easier to hear the ugly truth if it comes from Tarot cards and not a 'worried' friend - if she told you straight up you need to quit drinking you may just run out of the room, but if the cards hint at a grave danger approaching through drugs or alcohol, that's different.

In AA speaking engagements I'm always using the analogy of coming to believe in a higher power in terms of a dog trying to understand physics by chewing up a math book. Not only can't the dog understand physics that way, but in chewing it up destroys the book that might have illuminated others. The dog must take it on faith physics exists, and not chew up its master's math book. Mainstream scientists refuse to believe something can ever exist that can't be proven by chewing on a text book.

That's why I support the Aurora choice to let their demon stay buried, in other words, rather than let the dogs of research chew up their graveyard math book. And as far as Ufology goes, I understand the need for it, and I believe we're all indebted to researchers and cutting edge thinkers on the subject... but at a certain point each seeker needs to stop searching for more evidence and ask him or herself on an individual basis: how much is enough? What does it take for YOU believe? And in the end, do you really need everyone else to believe it first? Are you afraid to pick a truth and make the jump, to just answer your own multiple choice rather than spying on all your neighbor's papers?

 In the end, the universe is subjective, and as it gets closer and closer to this realization science itself starts to disintegrate. Once this happens it quickly backs up, like a polar bear on a melting ice floe trying to make it back to firmer ground.

Similarly, the more Ufologists bicker over their own hypotheses the more they sound like regular bullshit scientists... the Ufologist becomes like Uncle Tom in the ghetto of para-science, trying vainly to impress the mainstream by being rigorous and empirical. But alas, this is one butterfly that can't be pinned to any board. In examining the alien issue clearly one must first throw away the pin, the board, the jar, the net, the math book, and even one's own two eyes (open the third one)... transcend space and time through meditation, lack of sleep, entheogens, madness, whatever, and you can get a horrifying glimpse of it - the terrible void around which all the spiderweb illusions are spun as bedeviled protection and the only thing that can possibly float us past the mandibles of the Other is love and complete surrender.

On that note, my last metaphor involves waking up in the middle of the night to find a giant tiger on top of you in bed, licking your cheek. If your first move upon coming to your sleepy senses is to scream in terror and try to push it off yourself, you will be instantly ripped to shreds, but if your first instinctive move is to rub it behind the ears and go "aww pretty kitty" you will gain a fuzzy ally. Can you go do the same when moving in your astral body past the demonic gatekeepers of the eternal moment? It's hate and fear that make us dense enough to be eaten, that gut level response of fear or love is what determines what gate we go through. Not even the hungriest of tigers can eat a sunbeam.