This is a real transition. Traces of “spirit” still linger after the Retreat, and I watch them go helplessly. They – it, the Spirit - is not under my control, and I do not know what it is intellectually. One of the original19th century anthros – Emil Durkheim, I believe – read the literature of his time about Australian Aborigines, and postulated that religious spirit consisted of the internal reaction to group cohesion made through ritual. In other words, spirt and what it came from – God – were reflections of celebrations of human solidarity. A bit too reductionistic for me, but I do recall the great cohesion we had as children in the classroom. In hindsight, it was special, but it did not have the impact of Spirit, or bring about such insights. I think Durkheim was only superficially correct. Spirit brings group cohesion, but it does not bring about the Holy. That remains somehow above.
But we transition here to something one of our readers has been pining for for months – ETs! For many years I have read references in the UFO literature to Jaques Vallee’s Passport to Magonia, and at last bought myself a copy for Christmas. Vallee is a scientist by training, and in 1969 finished compiling information on “others” that stitched together folklore, religious beliefs, and UFO sightings in a way that was revolutionary for its time. But as Vallee himself put it in his new forward, his connections have become so commonplace that now they do not stir much excitement. As I am only about 10% into the book, I agree: the tales of UFOs and fairies are interesting, but no longer surprising. I do not yet know what his final speculations to the information will be, but as he himself said, he was not writing to bring about final conclusions – but only to raise serious questions.
That he does, and much more. As I am now a cheesehead, so I take as an example the story of Joe Simonton of (very rural) Eagle River, Wisconsin @ early 1960’s. One day, Joe heard a sound like knobby tires on wet pavement, and stepped out of his house, only to find a classic saucer of modest size in his front field. From out of the ship stepped a couple of short people who looked “much like Italians.” They spoke to him in passable English – except they were heard as if his ears were in his gut – asking for water. Joe was obliging, and brought them a bucket of water from the house (while not being freaked out at all. Good ‘ol Joe!) This they brought back to the saucer, where Joe could see they were cooking odd little cakes on something that clearly acted as a griddle. Finished, Joe asked for some, and the aliens happily gave him three cakes before closing the hatch and taking off.
That was that, but Joe thought he’d tell the local trooper about it, who then had the caked analyzed by a government lab. Findings: typical buckwheat cakes. Alas.
But Vallee finds that this bizarre incident has great precedence in Celtic folklore, where even today people believe in the “gentry” or “good people” in Scotland, Ireland and the Celtic regions of France. Here, it is traditional that these ‘aliens’ – described as not angels or humans, but as a superior race in between – to ask for cold water, and to eat, and often share with humans, oat or buckwheat cakes.
The point being: that the dream-like absurdity of Simonton’s little Italians has vast precedent, and as such, has at least an archetypal meaning for humans. In that, we might begin to understand the UFOs, who can be seen as modern interpretations of the gentry. Just as the gentry, modern aliens also populate a dream-like and often ludicrous space, doing incredible things for unknown reasons, often leaving traces of their presence, but never enough – never enough! – to nail them down to this world.
With this, I must refer to Carl Jung’s world of the unconscious. Here is not just the dream-world of Freud, with its reactions to the conflict of desires in the waking world, but also a special place of great insight that is a reality unto itself – that is, that is as real to the individual (and unconsciously, to human kind in general) as the waking world. Here, normal rules or logic do not apply. Rather, meaning does, and much like religious literature, the meaning often remains gobbledy-gook without a guide or special insight. We are dealing here with another code of being, and other beings no less strange to us than, say, crocodiles, whose mentation is also a matter of observation and insight into another world.
But unlike the normal visage of the crocodile, the world of faires and UFOs is meant to call us outside of our quotidian selves to (at least) another level of being that somehow is very important. How much, we do not know, and will not know until we fully grasp the unconscious. This, however, is not much easier than grasping the notion of God, for this world exists behind and beyond our normal discursive mentation. As the Hindu riddle goes, understanding the unconscious is much like tasting the tongue. It is not a riddle to be reasoned out, but to somehow be grasped.
As far as I have read the book, I believe this is what Vallee is trying to impress upon us – that something very big is going on, something that is both new and as old as humanity itself. Somehow, too, this unconscious sometimes bleeds into our normal reality to influence us. This, then, is a riddle of importance, but how? What is the meaning of Bigfoot and UFOs and fairy creatures? To what enchanted or alien land are these images trying to bring us? Perhaps within a few hundred more pages of Vallee’s book, the vision will become clearer. Perhaps it might also lead us to understand the spirit that is calling us in religion, fading and returning with a language and will of its own. FK
But we transition here to something one of our readers has been pining for for months – ETs! For many years I have read references in the UFO literature to Jaques Vallee’s Passport to Magonia, and at last bought myself a copy for Christmas. Vallee is a scientist by training, and in 1969 finished compiling information on “others” that stitched together folklore, religious beliefs, and UFO sightings in a way that was revolutionary for its time. But as Vallee himself put it in his new forward, his connections have become so commonplace that now they do not stir much excitement. As I am only about 10% into the book, I agree: the tales of UFOs and fairies are interesting, but no longer surprising. I do not yet know what his final speculations to the information will be, but as he himself said, he was not writing to bring about final conclusions – but only to raise serious questions.
That he does, and much more. As I am now a cheesehead, so I take as an example the story of Joe Simonton of (very rural) Eagle River, Wisconsin @ early 1960’s. One day, Joe heard a sound like knobby tires on wet pavement, and stepped out of his house, only to find a classic saucer of modest size in his front field. From out of the ship stepped a couple of short people who looked “much like Italians.” They spoke to him in passable English – except they were heard as if his ears were in his gut – asking for water. Joe was obliging, and brought them a bucket of water from the house (while not being freaked out at all. Good ‘ol Joe!) This they brought back to the saucer, where Joe could see they were cooking odd little cakes on something that clearly acted as a griddle. Finished, Joe asked for some, and the aliens happily gave him three cakes before closing the hatch and taking off.
That was that, but Joe thought he’d tell the local trooper about it, who then had the caked analyzed by a government lab. Findings: typical buckwheat cakes. Alas.
But Vallee finds that this bizarre incident has great precedence in Celtic folklore, where even today people believe in the “gentry” or “good people” in Scotland, Ireland and the Celtic regions of France. Here, it is traditional that these ‘aliens’ – described as not angels or humans, but as a superior race in between – to ask for cold water, and to eat, and often share with humans, oat or buckwheat cakes.
The point being: that the dream-like absurdity of Simonton’s little Italians has vast precedent, and as such, has at least an archetypal meaning for humans. In that, we might begin to understand the UFOs, who can be seen as modern interpretations of the gentry. Just as the gentry, modern aliens also populate a dream-like and often ludicrous space, doing incredible things for unknown reasons, often leaving traces of their presence, but never enough – never enough! – to nail them down to this world.
With this, I must refer to Carl Jung’s world of the unconscious. Here is not just the dream-world of Freud, with its reactions to the conflict of desires in the waking world, but also a special place of great insight that is a reality unto itself – that is, that is as real to the individual (and unconsciously, to human kind in general) as the waking world. Here, normal rules or logic do not apply. Rather, meaning does, and much like religious literature, the meaning often remains gobbledy-gook without a guide or special insight. We are dealing here with another code of being, and other beings no less strange to us than, say, crocodiles, whose mentation is also a matter of observation and insight into another world.
But unlike the normal visage of the crocodile, the world of faires and UFOs is meant to call us outside of our quotidian selves to (at least) another level of being that somehow is very important. How much, we do not know, and will not know until we fully grasp the unconscious. This, however, is not much easier than grasping the notion of God, for this world exists behind and beyond our normal discursive mentation. As the Hindu riddle goes, understanding the unconscious is much like tasting the tongue. It is not a riddle to be reasoned out, but to somehow be grasped.
As far as I have read the book, I believe this is what Vallee is trying to impress upon us – that something very big is going on, something that is both new and as old as humanity itself. Somehow, too, this unconscious sometimes bleeds into our normal reality to influence us. This, then, is a riddle of importance, but how? What is the meaning of Bigfoot and UFOs and fairy creatures? To what enchanted or alien land are these images trying to bring us? Perhaps within a few hundred more pages of Vallee’s book, the vision will become clearer. Perhaps it might also lead us to understand the spirit that is calling us in religion, fading and returning with a language and will of its own. FK
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