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RELS 225 2009-03-23: UFO ReligionsRELS 225 2009-03-23: UFO Religions

AttendanceAnnouncementsReview: Solar Temple

Triggers? External or Internal, or what combination?

UFO Religions

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AnnouncementsAnnouncements

Today, March 23: deadline for The Rev. Bernard A. MacDonald Memorial Bursary.

http://www.stfx.ca/academic/catholic-studies/macdonald-bursary/B-A-MacDonald-Bursary.html

Thursday April 2: Religious Studies thesis defenses3:30 to 4:30, Nicholson Tower 3rd floor seminar room

Wednesday April 8: Religious Studies book launchKornel Zathureczky: Messianic Disruption of Trinitarian Theology Campus Art Gallery 4:00-5:30

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UFO ReligionsUFO Religions

UFOs: non-religious? Mythological characteristics:spaceborne saviours? Demonic figures?

First sighting: June 24, 1947: Kenneth Arnold, Boise Idaho.By early 1950’s: mostly skeptics; claims to have made contact.

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Similarities to 19th C. Spiritualism.Similarities to 19th C. Spiritualism.

Descending gods, deliver wisdom and messages of warning, hope, or apocalypse.

Interstellar abductionAlso Men in Black harass UFO observers.Appear to chosen few.Messages passed on to others (by trance, automatic writing)Groups tend to be loose and short-lived.

Presuppose spiritually significant beings between human and ultimate reality (God).

Expanded consciousnessPsychical phenomena; “signs” producing faith.

Channelling: Instructions from spiritual teachersWisdom tends to Theosophy: karma, reincarnationSpiritual evolution possible, by effort, initiation, and acquired wisdom

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Similarities to fairy talesSimilarities to fairy tales

Otherworldly “little men” (Jacques Vallee)Appearance like elves or goblinsTime not passing (like into a fairy mound)Changelings (half-human pregnancies)Experience: subjective or objective impossible to prove (Thomas Bullard)

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ContacteesContactees

George Adamski (1952) Flying Saucers Have Landed.In Mojave desert“Orthon” from Venus Religion is “science of life, without temples.

Truman Bethurum (1954) Aboard a Flying Saucer.Also MojaveFrom ClarionNo war, divorce, taxes

Fry 1954Warning from past earth civilization: atomic warfare

Angelucci 1955

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Explanations:Explanations:

Cold War, anticommunismWorld can become better

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Early OrganizationsEarly Organizations

Conventions (1954-1977)Fry: Understanding, Inc.Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs (1957)Heralds of the New Age (early 1950’s)Cosmon Research Foundation (1962 martyred Gloria Lee)Christ Brotherhood (1956). Halsey disappeared 1963Association of Sananda and Sanat Kumara (When Prophecy Fails)Mark-Age (1956) Charles Boyd GentzelUnarius (1954) Ernest L. NormanAetherius Society (1955) George King

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1970’s- UFO cults1970’s- UFO cults

Human Individual Metamorphosis (1975)Bo & Peep, “The Two” “to the level above human”

“The Four: A Christian Newsletter of the Tribulation” (1980’s) (in Ottawa and Kansas)

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M.I.B.M.I.B.

Gray Barker, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (1956)1953 Three men in black suits visit Albert Bender of Conneticut, director of “International Flying Saucer Bureau”. Bureau ends.Mechanical walk and voices.

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AbductionsAbductions

John Fuller (1961): Barney & Betty Hill abducted in New Hampshire

Medical experimentsMissing time

Budd Hopkins & David JacobsLaboratory animals?

PregnanciesWhitley Streiber: Communion and Transformation.

Ultimately benign aliens

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So What?So What?

Concerns expressed by:American Humanist Association Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the ParanormalSkeptical InquirerSkeptics UFO Newsletter

Promotes credulity and authoritarian truth in charismatic figuresGlorifies pathological psychosisAre UFO movements religious?

Use categories from myths & religionWe are not aloneBeings with supernatural abilities to harm & heal, like angels & demons.

HomeworkHomework

For Wednesday:We’ll cover Heaven’s Gate.Read “Finding Heaven’s Gate” article on Moodle.Write the online quiz

For Monday:Read Chapter 8 in Comprehending CultsNo quiz!Come prepared for discussion.