Archive for May, 2008
May 12th, 2008 | 
Author: As I mentioned in my last post, Christopher Partridge writes the first chapter of the book he edited (UFO Religions). The introductory chapter is called “Understanding UFO Religions and Abduction Spiritualities.” Partridge begins by briefly overviewing “the emergence of contemporary ufology” (pp. 4-7), a discussion that traces the emergence of mass UFO sightings to 1947, with the famous Kenneth Arnold and Roswell cases. He then transitions to how post-1947 UFO sightings began to take on a distinctly religious interpretation — something that was not the case prior to that date.1 As Partridge notes, “The overall point is simply that, whilst there are claims to ‘contact’ with beings from other planets prior to the Arnold sighting, they are not the principal focus of such belief systems and UFOs per se are absent . . . [F]rom the perspective of religious and cultural studies. the systematic religious interpretation of UFOs (i.e., flying saucers) and alien beings and the emergence of specific UFO religions has followed the general rise of interest following the Arnold sighting.”2
Although not specifically a UFO Religion for Partridge, theosophy and its connections to UFOs are important. Indeed, the connections between the two are transparent. In order to process these connections, we first need a brief review of the basic history and tenets of theosophy.
According to one definition, “Theosophy is a doctrine of religious philosophy and metaphysics originating with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. In this context, theosophy holds that all religions are attempts by the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’ to help humanity in evolving to greater perfection, and that each religion therefore has a portion of the truth.”3 The principal religious tenets of theosophy are as follows:4
1. To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color.
2. To encourage the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences, and to vindicate the importance of old Asiatic literature, namely Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian philosophies.
3. To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.
Blavatsky claimed that her theosophical teaching came from a long line of enlightened masters, including Jesus and Buddha, as well as “masters who dwelt on Venus and with whom she was in contact.”5 Blavatsky called these ascended masters from Venus “Lords of the Flame” and “Lord of the World.” These masters were:
“[L]iving persons who had fully evolved through many reincarnations, had acquired and become the custodians of ‘ancient wisdom,’ and now sought to impart that wisdom to humanity in order to lead it into a new age of peace, spirituality, and global community. The masters introduce new scientific ideas into the history of human thought, they warn of potentially harmful developments and catastrophes and ‘having themselves solved and mastered the problems of human living, they make a periodical effort to bring more enlightenment to mankind’. . . . The masters have ‘direct insight into the spiritual, psychic, and physical workings of our solar system,’ and communicate these insights through specially chosen intermediaries.”6
As Partridge notes, “Whilst there are some differences between the theosophical masters / mahatmas of wisdom (who were usually thought to reside in Tibet),7 and the early accounts of aliens, in actual fact the similarities between the two are striking and the differences fairly superficial.”8
Striking indeed. Anyone who has read more than half a dozen pages of contactee material can see the connections already (and we’ll get more specific). One wonders how Msgr. Balducci could have missed this kind of information. No … no occult connections to UFOs and alien contact here. Maybe he just doesn’t want to see the connections. After all, here’s what the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia has to say about theosophy (emphasis mine):
In of a Christian ethical phraseology, theosophy in reality is a form of pantheism
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In my first post I took umbrage with Msgr. Balducci’s claim that the UFO and alien question (or reported phenomena) have nothing to do with the demonic realm. Let’s unpack that a bit.
I questioned Balducci’s claim on two grounds that may not have been clear:
(1) Since we don’t know what UFOs are (if they are in Category Six – sightings that are unexplained), then we cannot rule out hypothesized possibilities until evidence compels us to do so. For Balducci’s claim to have any weight, he has to produce coherent evidence that can convincingly demonstrate that UFOs and their alleged occupants cannot be what his church (Roman Catholic; Christianity in general) would consider demonic. This evidence would have to be put forth in light of what experiencers report and what his faith and its sacred texts say. To my knowledge, Msgr. Balducci has done none of this kind of work (if he has, it isn’t published), and so his argument is merely an argument from the authority of his office.
(2) If one actually does delve into what experiencers say about their contact or abduction experience (whether contemporary or from another historical era), one will see many points of connection between those experiences and what Balducci’s church has historically considered demonic: occult beliefs and teachings, descriptions of demonic oppression, and messages contrary to sound Catholic theology (and the theology of other Christian streams).
Thus Msgr. Balducci has a conundrum: the alignment of his claim with the witness testimony of experiencers and the theological parsing of such testimony when that testimony speaks of ideas and activities that his Church has condemned for centuries. Balducci cannot claim to be correct and his Church be wrong, else he would be subject to discipline from his Church.
One more thing. This is not to say that the Catholic Church could not err in these matters. It is only to say that (1) Balducci, as a Catholic priest, has to articulate a position that the Church would not object to for his claim to have weight with catholics; and (2) Balducci’s claim has to stand up to the historical record of how what experiencers say about UFOs and aliens matches up to historical occult groups and their teachings.
Good luck, Monsignor.
The UFO question is very complex. Anyone who puts any serious time into studying it will know that. Any UFO sighting can be filed (immediately or eventually) into one of several categories:
1. The misidentification of a man-made flying craft (plane or something less familiar).
2. The misidentification of a meteorological or astronomical phenomenon.
3. The misidentification of some other light phenomenon (e.g., flares).
4. An outright hoax (this category seems quite rare, except for perhaps photographic or video evidence).
5. Some sort of imaginary or hallucinatory experience brought on by drugs, alcohol, or stress (this one also appears quite rare in the literature).
6. A sighting of an aerial craft or phenomenon that cannot be explained by the first five explanations.
I’m certainly not unique in breaking UFO sightings into categories. This blog is concerned only with those sightings that fall into the last category–the truly unexplainable sightings, or those for which the five alternatives cannot provide coherent explanation. Many people interested in UFOs, or who have had an unexplainable sighting, commit the logical fallacy of concluding that if the sighting is unexplained, what was sighted must be of extraterrestrial origin. This is purely opinion, not a factual conclusion. With enough investigation, the unexplained sighting may be found explainable in one of the other five, or new categories may emerge. The ET explanation is just one possibility.
With respect to this blog, I’m going to be focusing on how people assume that Category Six must be extraterrestrial, and how many people “sacralize” their sighting and their conclusion, thereby processing the sighting or experience in religious terms.
If you’ve read the “Purpose” page on this blog, you know that the focus of this blog is the intersection of the UFO phenomenon (and its spin-off phenomenon, “alien” abduction) with religion. While my academic and personal background is Judeo-Christianity, I’m not going to restrict the discussion to only Judeo-Christian religion and the Bible. In a manner of speaking, though, I’m going to start there.
It’s been my experience that the vast majority of people involved in ufology (professionally or otherwise) understand that the UFO question is inherently religious. An answer to the question of whether we are alone in the universe or not is inseparable from our perception of the meaning and sanctity of human life and the nature of reality. If it turned out that there are intelligent aliens, humans would inevitably have to merge that information with the worldview they held prior to that information. They would have to process their old understanding of reality–which would include a view of God and God’s involvement in the world–in light of the new reality. Quite understandable . . . but simplistic.
This “processing of information” task in the wake of an ET revelation is what many people think of when they consider the relationship of religion to the UFO/ET question. We assume that the old information must be judged by the new. Personally, I see this kind of processing as having merit in the wake of an assured ET reality–something that we would need to do after we knew for sure that we weren’t alone. But what prior to such a revelation? Should we re-imagine, redefine, and re-articulate religion in response to something strange or terrifying, the nature of which we do NOT have certainty of? Should the old give way to a new that itself is unknown, undefined, and (perhaps deliberately) opaque? Personally, I don’t think so. Not only would I see doing this as inadvisable, I’d say it’s downright foolish. And yet this is what millions of people have been doing for quite a long time when it comes to religion and the UFO/ET question. Under the assumption that something seen in the sky or experienced firsthand “must be” alien, people have redefined reality against the backdrop of something that remains unprocessed. Yes, the sighting or experience may be real, but that doesn’t tell anyone what it was.
What this means is that we need a different kind of processing method for the data as they are right now. The method needs to avoid taking one hypothesis (that someone’s experience had alien causation) as THE way to understand the problem. The ETH can be on the table with everything else, but it is only one of many possibilities. An experience ought to be processed in light of all the possibilities. Yet so many people are predisposed toward one possibility.
For this reason, it’s advisable to be wary of anyone who would claim with certainty what UFOs are or are not, and what claims of ET encounters are or are not. Everything should be on the table. This is precisely the bone I wish to pick with people like Monsignor Corrado Balducci. In case you aren’t familiar with the name, Monsignor Corrado Balducci was an official Exorcist for Rome, former diplomat in the Papal Nunciature in Washington, DC, and past theologian member of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. He is also supposedly an insider who has the attention of the Pope. Monsignor Balducci, now retired, is arguably the highest ranking Catholic official to publicly speak to the issue of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. Balducci has insisted publicly (I know, having been at the X-Conference in 2005 where he said it) that UFOs and ETs have nothing to do with evil, the demonic realm, or the occult.
How does he know?
The short answer is, “he doesn’t.” Amazing how so many people in ufology hate arguments from authority (especially religious authority) have embraced Balducci, who offers nothing but that for his position. Balducci’s dogmatism on a matter that has not been proven to even be existent in our known reality simply goes to far. But worse than that, it shows an ignorance of the history of the UFO contactee and abductee phenomena. Had Msgr. Balducci bothered to get into the academic literature on this subject (and there’s a lot of it), he would never have made such a silly statement. There are dramatic points of correlation between what contactees and abductees say about their experience, and the information they were given by their contactors or abductors, and well-known occult movements, thinkers, and writings. Frankly, there is abundant evidence against what Balducci says. That evidence needs to become known in the UFO community so it becomes part of how the UFO/ET question is processed.
As solution to making this material known to the UFO community, I’m going to be taking readers through a series of scholarly works on UFOs and religion. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but that doesn’t matter. Virtually everyone in the UFO community is poorly informed when it comes to this kind of material. It’s time to raise the bar on how we process the problem.
The first book we’re going to work through is UFO Religions