A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

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Jehovah, and the others of the East and Mideast have at last reached the age of retirement.” 219 The new bible, entitled OAHSPE (O=earth, AH=sky, SPE=spirit) was quite long (some 1008 pages), and provided details of the history of the higher and lower heavens for the preceding 24,000 years as well as a brief history of the 55,000 years prior. OAHSPE captured both the critical attitude taken toward traditional religion by the displaced utopian tradition and the sense of human divinity so central to the New Age. Between her exposures to Theosophy, the Great I AM and OAHSPE, Martin was well versed in the notion that higher truths emerged through celestial dictation. Following her initial experience with automatic writing, Dorothy Martin began receiving messages from more exalted personages. Primarily these messages originated with beings residing on the planets Clarion and Cerus; beings Dorothy would come to know as the “Guardians.” Note that these beings no longer claim their point of origin as Venus or Mars, two planets that figure largely in earlier occult/extraterrestrial lore. This was increasingly the case as empirical knowledge of the two latter planets increased. Among these Guardians was Sananda, a figure destined to become her primary interlocutor. 220 Sananda, it turned out, was none other than the current incarnation of Jesus Christ—“his new name having been adopted with the beginning of the ‘new cycle’ or age of light.” 221 Here again we see the figure of Christ salvaged via the materialization of the spiritual—casting him as an extraterrestrial. Jesus is alive; he just lives on another planet. 219 Texe Marrs, Book of New Age Cults and Religions: The Newest Information Revealed and Explained (Austin, Texas: Living Truth Publishers, 1990) 231. 220 Note the slight variation on “Ananda,” a Hindu term for bliss. An element of orientalism persists in Dorothy Martin’s philosophy, recalling the Eastern leanings of its nineteenth century theosophical predecessor. 221 Festinger 36. 143
One message from an assistant of Sananda worked an interesting variation on the standard trope of alien concerns raised by the advent of nuclear fission. In the years following World War II many of the messages received from space brothers indicated concern that our use of atomic weaponry might threaten both the life of our planet and the balance of the universe. Sananda informed Martin and her followers that these very same weapons had an unexpectedly desirable effect. We have at last contacted the Earth planet with the waves of ether that have become tactacle [sic] by the bombs your scientists have been exploding. This works like an accordion. When the condensation leaves the carceious level of the ether or atmosphere levels that support a large light layer of marine life, it causes a barrier to be set up. Now that the bombs have broken that barrier we can break through. That is what your scientists call the sonic barrier. We have been trying to get through for many of your years, with alcetopes and the earling timer. 222 Thus it turned out that not only did the atom bomb create broad concern amongst the members of the galactic federation but it also created the opportunity for them to communicate their concerns. New technology, like the spiritual telegraph and the light and sound ray of yore had once again closed the gap between the seen and the unseen, between the material world and the world of spirit. It was the erasure of this gap, in the logic of the displaced utopian imaginary, that was the first step toward the dreamed of social transformation. The messages imparted by Dorothy Martin’s interstellar informants would become the current stock and trade of New Age philosophy. Underlying all messages was the sense that the world was due for an awakening. “The world mind is still in lethargy. It does not want to awaken.” 223 And of course it was the chosen role of the operative, in this case Martin, to assist in awakening the world mind by conveying the teachings of the space brothers “to those who are ready.” 224 Martin’s first apostles were the Laugheads, referred to in When Prophecy Fails as Dr. Thomas and Daisy Armstrong. Both of the Armstrongs were occult aficionados, as well as 222 Festinger 38. 223 Festinger 38. 224 Festinger 38. 144
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The Extraterrestrial in US Culture
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The Extraterrestrial in US Culture
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III. Chapter 2: Contact…………
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oth in their rich and bizarre detai
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Fukuyama also describes the histori
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and belonging that are native to th
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modernity, Weber stressed over and
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While positivism would emerge as th
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figure that serves as a medium betw
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sources of Spiritualism, Swedenborg
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The series of moments and discourse
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estful comprehension. It straddles
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The second chapter examines the eme
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Ch.1 The Dead INTRODUCTION Since th
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sense this dream of perfected commu
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political registers as well. This c
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In the late eighteenth century, Mes
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inverted form) along which the unde
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consciousness that is highly mobile
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up the process of thinking”. 38 S
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umor - and irony - would have it, w
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sense that Swedenborg’s researche
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Spiritualist movement, whose medium
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minded, loves to roam in the woods
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etween humans and God as unthinkabl
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esearches was a tailor by the name
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concerns and from the fact that the
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simultaneously in the world of the
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which God has revealed to them and
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assessed the Fox sisters as the “
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each in turn Lockwood elaborated hi
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as miraculous or supernatural? 85 T
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hearts of men to help their brother
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the corrupting influence of the wor
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All manner of proscribed activities
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dawn of a new era, and you must not
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qualities the coarser and heavier t
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full of mischief as any child in th
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keynote in public (and much of the
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masculine traits), the figure of th
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The first was that all world religi
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space brother religion, The Great I
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and the menopauses.” 141 A genera
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Ch.2 Contact INTRODUCTION Contact w
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as spiritual aspirations embodied.
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magazine, the latter edited by icon
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featured female characters who were
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keeping with the recurring integrat
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Page 123 and 124: Ch. 3 The Saucer INTRODUCTION The t
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Page 141 and 142: signing.” 210 Gill’s amused res
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Page 145 and 146: DOROTHY MARTIN While ufology began
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dystopian, or in the language of No
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In the space brother scenario, the
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Everything is now. The past is now;
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effectively cut off from that possi
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eaching our innate potential. The h
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It is in this desire for dissolutio
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abductees feeling like guinea pigs.
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attack. Nietzsche writes of the blo
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Hill. Barney recalled his first gli
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The Gaze as philosophical and psych
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constituted modes of visuality. To
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traum or dream further indicates th
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educed not in the relatively benign
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will of the abductee—all speak to
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esultant exposure to the Real. The
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understood moorings, left to drift
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desired utopian state. The Others c
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were, more or less, ascended master
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Reports back from the spirit realm
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generally silent, but when they do
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to narrative structural positionali
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sensibilities, though one that woul
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of full transparency between interl
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aber, W.W. “A Guide
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_____. “Adamski, George (1891-196
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_____. Discipline and Punish: the B
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_____. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan
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_____. Something about Soulcraft. N
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Streiber, Whitley and Anne, ed. The
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