>From Harry Veeder: > The 'threat' might be taken more seriously if the number of > people abducted each year exceeded the number of people killed > in car accidents.
>From Terry > We don't know that it doesn't. One theory is that everyone has been > abducted, sampled and tagged. Both Harry and Terry bring up important issues that reveal why, IMO, "The Abduction Paradigm" often gravitates into the hotly contested debates that have raged on and on between skeptics/debunkers and true believers for decades. It also goes to the crux of my "treatise", where I attempt to bring forth what I perceive as a subtle often overlooked perception in the rush to either prove or disprove the alleged reality of this phenomenon. Again, I'll say for the record that it is entirely conceivable that a certain percentage of abduction experiences may indeed be the result of something akin to a "catch and release" program; perhaps the work of off-world exo-biologists making entries in the Galactic Encyclopedia - the revised edition... "Mostly Harmless." However, I've come around to the suspicion that the majority of alien abduction experiences are the result of a timeless, ancient phenomenon, a unique and valid human experience that is just as "real", and IMHO, a possibly whole lot more important. About a month ago I had the privilege of conversing with another experiencer (an abductee) at an informal pot-luck gathering held in the Milwaukee area. She is one of the luckier ones in the sense that she is both highly intelligent, perceptive, and emotionally balanced. She received adequate emotional support as she began unraveling the suppressed memories locked within herself - that comprised the essence of her "encounters." Like many exeriencers, she has come around to the conclusion that her "encounters" are NOT occurring strictly in the physical sense. Like many experiencers, she finds it more plausible to believe that her "encounters" are occurring in what she describes as a "...multi-dimensional" environment. As one can surmise right here, the boundaries as to what is we consider "real", particularly what is considered "physically" real are being blurred beyond the point where the current paradigms of scientific investigation can ascertain their validity. It is far too easy at this point for most skeptics trained in objective rational thinking to assume (quite logically I might add) that these experiences/encounters are nothing more than creative fabrications of the mind. "Please forward these notes to the psych ward." But there is IMO much more to this mystery than what the current rigors of objective investigation can effectively analyze. What skeptics often have a difficult time rationalizing away (even though many have attempted to do so valiantly, I might add) is explain why so many experiencers, independently and completely unbeknownst to each other, continue to describe experiencing a series of events, the details therein, with incredible similarity to each other. Again, I repeat: With incredible similarity to each other. Within our western objective oriented culture experiencers have independently recounted with incredible similarity what could be described as classic UFO abduction scenarios. Here are just a few experiential conundrums that have been independently recounted countless times: --- * Of being rendered helpless to resist. Not only do some experiencers feel they are rendered helpless many, after they recall their experiences later, feel they have, in a sense, betrayed their own integrity, their own souls, because they were either unable or unwilling to resist. Many can feel a sense of shame and/or defeat because they recall accompanying memories of their own rebellious attitude suddenly, in an instant, shifting or transforming to becoming willing participants. This shift in perception can later cause many experiencers as assume they must have been temporarily "brainwashed" or that some form of alien "mind control" was extended over them. The more emotionally adjusted experiencers, on the other hand, eventually begin to suspect there is something more interesting transpiring between themselves and the "aliens". Many begin to perceive a conscious partnership is in the process of evolving. Granted, some may perceive this transformation, such a partnership, as classic Stockholm syndrome at work. However, and IMHO, there seems to be much more going on here than brutal acts of "terrorism", where victims attempt to align their sense of survival with the enemy in order to regain a sense of safety. For one thing, the "transformation" to a willing participant is often instantaneous, for example, the moment an "alien" touches them. * Of having surgery performed on your body. Of being examined, typically in the gynecological sense. Eggs are removed from females - sperm removed from males. * Of at subsequent abductions being shown their "offspring", the result of their eggs (and sperm) having been "combined" in some fashion with "alien" DNA components to produce "hybrids." * When being shown their "hybrid" offspring, they are asked to "nurture", to extend their human love towards the hybrid. Often the "hybrids" are perceived as weak or sickly. It is often made clear to the abductee, particularly "mothers" that the essential missing ingredient is "LOVE", that the "mother" needs to extend her love towards these "hybrid" children in order to make them healthy. * Of being shown highly detailed futuristic scenes, "movies" of global apocalyptic events that will soon transpire across the planet. They are told these events will occur if we don't clean up our act, especially our misbehavior towards the environment. Such "movies" typically evoke strong and primal emotional responses from within the experiencer. Experiencers often feel overwhelmed, helpless to rectify such catastrophic events. For example, the experiencer I conversed with last month described being shown a catastrophic scene where the state of California simply loses its footing, so to speak, and slides into the Pacific Ocean. --- For me, when I add these kinds of unique and independently experienced and subsequently correlated "encounter" tags together, the notion that most UFO abductees are the result of scientific expeditions, of nuts-and-bolts "catch and release" programs strikes me as inadequate speculation. I also find it to be equally inadequate to speculate that this is nothing more than creative fabrications of an overactive imagination. The amount of intimate participation seems to be far more involving that what would typically be required of "tagged" specimens. I should add here that the experiencer I met last month expressed the personal opinion that she suspects FAR more individuals are being "abducted" than what is presumed. She has come around to the belief that pretty much everyone on the planet is having these encounters/experiences, regardless of whether they recall them, and/or admit them or not. Regardless of whether one buys into this possibility or not, the nature of these "encounters" hint of a manifestation of events, of encounters with something far more interesting than simple cataloguing in mind. Before this follow-up post becomes excessively too long (and various lurkers begin pondering whether it might be in their own best interest to chew off a tentacle in order to escape entrapment), I'd like to add one more fly in the ointment. At present there seems to be, IMO, an ongoing tendency for the abduction scenario (the abduction paradigm if you wish) to be interpreted far too literally, both in the skeptic/debunker camps, as well as within the believer camps. If I could leave the curious reader with just one insight, a concept that hopefully a few might consider pondering at their own leisure, it would be to explore both the possibility and subsequent ramifications that these timeless experiential encounters may themselves be the manifestations of a vast symbolic oriented meta-language, a unique universal form of communication that has probably been with us since the dawn of humanity. If one is willing to entertain this concept... this "meta-language" as possibly being a more precise architecture in which to walk down the halls of this vast and mysterious mansion, the nature of the experiences, particularly in the collective sense, will begin to have the capacity of taking on a far richer dimension and potential value for both the experiencer and the listener. In a sense it almost becomes irrelevant trying to determine WHO or WHAT is pulling the strings that seemingly generate these experiences - who might be behind the curtain that Toto spots. Could it be "them", or is it just an alienated portion of "our self", or could it be the manifestations of a timeless dance that everyone participates in? In the end what may matter most is simply the experience itself. In other words: It IS what it IS. What may matter the most, what might turn out to be the best "bang for our buck" would be to simply listen to the recounting each experience as they are recalled by individual experiencers. We might chose to listen, not necessarily to take such accounts literally (or not), but rather to simply allow ourselves to experience the vast psychological textures of what is being revealed, particularly within the universal-like patterns being manifested. In every real sense that I can think of, the recounting of the experiencer experience may be no less valid than all forms of art, dance, music, and countless other manifestations and achievements associated with our species. Someday, I hope groups of experiencers will be invited to recount their experiences not just at MUFON gatherings, but just as equally at CISCOP gatherings. The point being: It's not a matter of trying to prove or disprove whether such experiences are "real" or not. In the end it may be more a matter of simply allowing ourselves to listen and subsequently ponder what such experiences (cloaked in universal patterns) might possibly mean to each and every single one of us. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
