Australian UFO Researcher
Morley Legg

TESTING THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
A Brief Analysis Of Core Samples

Morley Legg




Gathering clues and insights into ufology has become like a gold rush. Those who know of the veins of reality know that jealousies and infightings can arise as people stake their claims on new findings before the scientific community wakes up. People feel that the knowledge gleaned from a new sighting or encounter could fuel a paradigm wobble that could threaten or revolutionise our concept of religion and science; could even re-stir the old struggle between the conservatives in religion and science, each fighting for the highest ground and the last word.

There are two main players in this prospecting, (actually three if you include the sceptics, but weÆll handle our own scepticism). There are the UFO researchers, the majority of whom believe that science can gradually begin to understand pieces of the mystery of UFOs, and strike gold as a result. The largest and widest group, however, are those orientated in the New Age, which, with their emphasis on intuitive and transcendental development, prefer to believe that their own minds can be used as a tool to tune into and explore, mainly optimistically, other dimensions, other teachings, and the very source of the paranormal.

The efforts of New Agers has resulted in the mushrooming growth of an industry of alternatives - of channelling, astrology, past lives, prophecies, automatic writing, clairvoyance, crystals, tarot, etc. - all areas shunned by mainstream science. Yet it has risen into a mountain. Many ufologists see it as the slag heap on the fringe of the gold mine and a blight on their integrity. (MUFON bars New Age stalls at its Symposiums.) Conventional scientists, if they bother to notice, are contemptuous of it or remain smug that fuzzy reasoning and superstition only confirm the superiority of conventional science.

Certainty is an attitude often flaunted by those investing in their favourite aspect of the New Age. They like to be positive, take many claims as gospel, though their opponents seem equally certain that they are investing in a mountain of delusion.

Paradoxically, through sheer worldwide acceptance, the mountain has become something of a reality and it seems only right that a few core samples should be taken to ascertain what percentage of gold there is in it. Most of the books mentioned in this article/review are those I would not normally bother reading - some were pressed on me. However, the lesson became obvious, that if we only read what we think we will agree with, we fall into the trap of the sceptics: confining themselves to what they prefer, not looking at the evidence for UFOs because they don't believe there is any. I am not saying we should believe this following material, only that we should become familiar with some of the content in order to better judge the mystery as a whole.

If within the next few months you find the sky darkening and temperatures plummeting and electricity no longer works then it means the predictions about us entering the photon belt have come true. You are Becoming a Galactic Human, by Virginia Essene and Sheldon Nidle (1994) is a book about channelled information from Washta, a counsellor of the Sirian star group speaking through the lips of Sheldon Nidle, a fifty year old American. Nidle has been receiving messages from the Sirians since he was nine.

Virginia Essene, a channeller herself, writes a long forward about the Sirian group who say they are intervening to help us - unlike the greys who exploit us. The book has interesting maps about the so-called 'lost' knowledge: how humanity has long been invaded and drained of energy by the Dinoids and the Reptoids, the war between Atlantis and Lemuria, the more recent news of earth rolling into the photon belt, and the manner in which the Sirian

Galactic Federation will help us move from the third dimension to the fifth, which, after the initial cold spell, will raise our spirituality. (There is a parallel to this in a recent report received by Alton from the Ashtar Command that earthlings will undergo a change to higher consciousness, and that landings are imminent) Such are the messages from Nidle when Essene puts questions to Washta. Currently it seems as wise to doubt it all as it is to acknowledge it, but matching it against claims from other sources could help us get any trend in perspective.

Channelling, still an unsolved mystery that has persisted through history, now pours out an at an exponential rate. Because much of the material is dubious and still believed by some people in search of security, true scientific study of it has been neglected. In any case psychiatry still classes it as a personality disorder.

Professor Jon Klimo has made a helpful update on the subject in his book Channelling, Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources (1987, Tarcher LA). Klimo covers the theories of about a hundred researchers for and against the idea of it being a deep wish for the irrational to triumph, or whether some minds can actually tune into messages from a hierarchy of intelligences. He admits to æmessages of deception': '... the original messages of openness and love runs dry and replaced by something manipulative and sour.'

His study ranges from those who only 'channel' from their sub personalities to gifted channellers drawing data from unknown entities, to 'open channelling': individuals unknowingly acting as vehicles for artistic/religious/ scientific creativity or genius from an unidentified source. He raises the notion that, if vast uncharted seas of consciousness have an influence on us, more research on channelling is urgently required.

Channelled information is one aspect, consciously remembered UFO abductions seems quite another, yet it draws the speculation as to whether they stem from a separate or a common origin.

In The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials - They Took Me to Their Planet, the French journalist Claude Vorilhon claims that in December 1973 he met an alien in a UFO who instructed him to take notes over six days to write a book. The first half of the book explains how Elohim scientists seeded the Earth with life over vast stretches of time, created Adam and Eve and gave us religious teachers, Jesus etc.

The Bible is heavily adhered to and our misinterpretations of it are pointed out. The last half is about the alienÆs return two years later to take Vorilhon, who they renamed Rael, to their planet. His account, via their gift of automatic writing seems cloying and idealistic at times. But who knows for sure whether he is genuine or not? The aliens instruct Rael to attract a following in order to establish an embassy in Israel in preparation for a landing. The Elohim said they will try to save humanity once the Raelian Movement gets underway. It has centres in many countries.

Abduction to the 9th Planet by Michel Desmarquete (1993), (ex-French, now Australian, landscape architect living in Cairns) reveals similarities to Rael. Desmarquet claims to have been called outside his home one night in June 1987 and taken physically, by a giant alien female, via a parallel universe to another planet, from which he was returned to earth nine days later. Believable?

When he was interviewed by Phillip Adams on ABC Radio it sounded as if Phillip's quips (insults) were added after the recording was made. Desmarquet was also told about ETs seeding Earth with life and mankind, and adding religious figures like Christ.

The warnings issued about the current behaviour of mankind seems typical of much of the literature. We need to bear in mind that Billy Meier came up with vaguely similar stories and also photographs of space craft. But researcher Karl Korff shadowed Billy Meier and in Spaceships from the Pleiades he claims to prove that Meier concocted long standing hoaxes to prey on the gullible.

Like much of New Age material these are the sorts of books you read and put in the æwait and seeÆ box. We know that there are hoaxes, and that wishful thinking and gullibility are complicating factors. However, it is the sheer volume of claims of alien intervention from different sources that makes one suspect a percentage of it could be true, and that it would be bad science indeed to claim that if some cases are proven fraudulent the entire subject should be shunned.

Important questions are posed by such issues. Where does this channelled material come from? Has the channelled voice/writing/ hallucination/experience some common source? Can an original message be deflected by the culture and expectations of novice channellers?

Dr. Karla Turner, an author respected by ufologists, touches on the less credible aspect of ufology in Masquerade of Angels (1994). Her two previous books Taken (1994), and Into the Fringe (1992), detail her ongoing UFO abduction experiences, firstly with so called aliens and then her suspicion that sections of the US Military, in their efforts to study/copy alien techniques, had probably included her in their abduction experiments.

Both types of her abduction accounts, one lot with aliens and then another with humans in uniform, seemed to run at such frequencies that it surely reduced the chances of her being taken seriously. Yet she has a Ph D and at all times in her writing her humanity and integrity seemed paramount. Her last book (recently she died of cancer) details the true story of Ted Rice, in which she writes in the third person and mentions her interactions with Ted in the closing chapters.

Ted proves to be a gifted psychic though mostly a reluctant one. He seemed guided through life by chance meetings (channelled one could say) to move to different parts of the US as if manipulated to fit into a set plan. Amidst the good fortunes he was often plagued by disappointments and intense anxieties, and visits from aliens at night. The abductions began in his childhood, and the revelations that they were quite other than benign are left to the last chapters.

Ted's reactions in the light of Randall Baer's in the following Inside the New Age Nightmare are interesting. Both have similar New Age backgrounds, and both react in similar ways when they realise they had been deceived by these 'angels of deception', though Ted, through Karla Turner's eyes anyway, seems more worldly and open minded and uses humour as a defence against trauma.

The book offers some interesting theories as to humanityÆs place in existence. It suggests, too, that nuts and bolts ufology may need to go further back on the shelf and that the New Age needs to become a bit more safety conscious.

The aliens once told Ted that space is filled with positive and negative charges providing separate dimensions which give rise to intelligent entities. Ted surmises that we humans are a energy source for these different entities and they may have designed us with positive and negative aspects so both can use us. The polarities in this adjoining dimension to ours are what we generally sense as good and evil, both poles of which may have created and used mankind. It is the oneness of this force which we believe to be God. His story challenges everything we think we know about the universe.

Although badly shaken by reliving the original abduction experience (hidden behind the screen memory) he recovers and adjusts to a more mature religious philosophy. He turns to Jesus and lauds his grandmother's Christian faith and bravery against evil. He also says: 'If humanity is involved in a battle then knowledge and our honesty is our only weapon.'

An initial browse through Inside the New Age Nightmare (Huntington, 1989) by Randall Baer reveals the author to be a fundamentalist Christian from the US Bible Belt relentlessly attacking the enemy. A little perseverance makes one realise it would be wrong to dismiss glibly something that deserves a closer look. His warnings are issued from experience.

Randall Baer came from a strong Christian family and in his youth he rebelled and became increasingly entranced with every aspect of the New Age. In the seventies he rose to prominence and spent 15 years lecturing in many states at communes and seminars. He wrote books on crystals etc, went increasingly into meditations, and into long spells in what he calls the 'Ascension Chamber'. In this device he had the most horrific experience which left him shaken and in terror for weeks.

In desperation he worked hard to be reborn as a Christian which seems to have restored his sense of well-being, thus accounting for his repeated warnings about the dangers of the entire New Age movement. Apart from this, he writes passionately and with convictions, however exasperated one feels about repetitive references to Satan as if Satan is a person we all know well. Is he just a disturbed man on a regressive guilt trip? Is he reverting to religious indoctrination, flipping from one superstition to another? How one reacts to his views is a personal matter.

He says some awful things about UFOs, and of course in ASPR/UFORUM we have been aware of those possible dangers over the years. The world and the universe has always been a dangerous place if one is naive, misinformed or unlucky. Heed Professor David Jacobs' warning about the frightening aspects of UFOs. Heed Kelly Cahill's instinctive warning 'They've got no souls', and Jon Klimo's 'Which channels can we trust, and for how long?' Those who have invested full trust in the New Age as a means of healing, hope and enlightenment will not like his book at all, but it might be wise to acquaint yourself with his views and for your own peace of mind make sure they can be rebutted.

We humans are easily indoctrinated. We automatically copy the culture we are born into, adhere to traditions, wise or unwise, and generally adhere to the local socio/religious maps of right and wrong. We take note of the prescribed areas of dangers and safety that society maps out for us. Baer upsets us because he says our maps are wrong, that only his narrow Christian map is right and all others at variance have been tricked by the worst nightmare imaginable.

When one remembers David Jacobs' pessimism in studying the experiences of abductees in Secret Life, (1992), and Linda Moulten Howe's announcement at the 1995 MUFON Symposium that aliens are 'neither benign, nor neutral ...' we suspect Baer might have had a brush with something similar in his ascension chamber. A pity he didn't risk undergoing hypnotic regression to probe anything not remembered consciously.

He writes: 'From the perspective of past, personal, first-hand involvement in the UFO phenomenon, now viewing it with the eyes of a Christian, I believe that this subject merits the most serious investigation, for it could hold a very real threat to the entire world in both expected and highly unexpected ways.' Sensible enough, but the following is the dominant tone of the book:

'Most people involved in the New Age movement today are so deceived by Satan's lies that they have absolutely no idea of the underlying sinister dangers' .... 'Little did I know that I had fallen for one of Satan's oldest tricks - the use of guru figures as demonic puppets through which to transmit blissful forces that seduce even as they veil the consuming face of darkness behind it all.'.... ' What I thought were Ascended Masters, extraterrestrials, and angels were actually demons in cunning, glowing disguises.'

Such views could provide clues to fundamentalist behaviour in religion or politics generally. In the short sense it is a code adopted to take and maintain total control. But is the compulsion to follow and impose narrow rules imposed on them by some other intelligence, or is it a human coping mechanism to ward off the fear of disobeying channelled commandments? It would be premature to reach conclusions at this point, however, as we have little idea of humanity's standing and vulnerability in the unmapped hierarchies and ecologies of other dimensions.

Baer's book may be depressing and confusing to some of us, but as ASPR/UFORUM is studying and refining maps of what is true and what is delusional we need to acquaint ourselves with such views and explore the motives behind them. In the meantime perhaps a look in the mirror to weigh up any signs of New Age naivety might not be such a bad thing.

One can understand ufologists who are eager for scientific respectability avoiding the murky uncertainties in these books and aiming exclusively for nuts and bolts ufology in our physical world. Be reminded that anyone wanting to either discredit or explain away any darker ingredients in this mountain of assortments will have to come up with answers to chapter five in Kelly Cahill's book Encounter (1996) - the incubus, the dark figure that sucks energy and steals flesh, and interferes with her body and health. And to bring in another side mystery: those into debating the gulf between the pros and cons of repressed memory should study this area which will be completely new to them, because if aliens can remove memory, can they also tamper with it, or implant false memory?

Speaking personally I have long wavered in my opinion of the New Age and, out of ignorance and caution, prefer to keep one foot in scepticism. I once thumbed through Barbara Brennan's books and decided against them because of the mention of past lives, crystals and channelling - because such subjects seemed based on belief and could not be proved. But when I started to read her books I realised there was at least one nugget in the mountain when I was quite moved by the quality of her text, well supported by her scientific qualifications.

The average street-wise 20th century mind remains cynical about much of this material and sees channelling and crystal readings as an age-old ruse to enslave the gullible (which in some hands it is) but unless we make periodic checks on the consistency of the mountain we will never know what has value and what needs to be discarded, and what holds clues to making further progress.

We must also consider the possibility that the optimistic viewpoints of Essene, Nidle, Demarquete and Rael could stem from what psychologists term dissociation. Like erecting a screen memory to seal off a nightmare, you dissociate to impair or censure your perception of something threatening in order to dampen consuming fear or terror. How much of the rosy New Age view of meeting wise aliens or spirit guides is just that? It is a question we need to bear in mind if we want more awareness of who, what and where we are.

The questions raised by these authors are both fascinating and disturbing. They leave us at a cross roads where it seems urgent that we wake up to assemble some more appropriate knowledge to choose the wisest course of action. We currently seem lost in a world that is changing before our eyes, partly because we are seeing it differently, and it is no less painful or difficult to understand. But let's hope the honesty of exploring and meeting the good and the bad head on will at least bring the fullfillment that life is exciting, and also meaningful.


References:
BAER, R., (1989) Inside the New Age Nightmare. Huntington.
CAHILL, K., (1996) Encounter.
DESMARQUETE, M., (1993) Abduction to the 9th Planet. Arafura.
ESSENE, V., & NIDLE, S., (1994)
You are Becoming a Galactic Human. SEE Publishing.
JACOBS, D., (1992) Secret Life. Simon & Schuster, NY.
KLIMO, J., (1987) Channelling, Investigations on Receiving
Information from Paranormal Sources. Tarcher LA.
KORFF, K., Spaceships from the Pleiades.
TURNER, K., (1992) Into the Fringe. Berkley.
TURNER, K., (1994) Taken. Kelt Works.
TURNER, K., (1994) Masquerade of Angels.
VORILHON, C., (RAEL) The Message Given to Me
by Extra-Terrestrials - They Took Me to Their Planet.

Source: Journal of Alternative Realities - Volume 1, November 1996

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