Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact - Above Top Secret

them. These apparitions are scarce, to tell the truth. But why should it be otherwise? Is it notenough for one of us to see an Angel, in order for all of us to believe in the other Angels?Paracelsus was probably born in 1493, and only two years earlier Facius Cardan had recorded hisobservation of seven strange visitors directly related to the creatures of the elements who would beso puzzling to the great philosopher. The incident is preserved in the writings of his son, JeromeCardan (1501-1576), who is well known to us today as a mathematician.Jerome Cardan lived in Milan and was not only a methematician but also an occultist and aphysician. In his book De Subtilitate, Cardan explains that he had often heard his father tell theparticular story and finally searched for his record of the event, which read as follows:August 13, 1491. When I had completed the customary rites, at about the twentieth hour ofthe day, seven men duly appeared to me clothed in silken garments, resembling Greek togas,and wearing, as it were, shining shoes. The undergarments beneath their glistening andruddy breastplates seemed to be wrought of crimson and were of extraordinary glory andbeauty.Nevertheless all were not dressed in this fashion, but only two who seemed to be of noblerrank than the others. The taller of them who was of ruddy complexion was attended by twocompanions, and the second, who was fairer and of shorter stature, by three. Thus in all therewere seven. He left no record as to whether their heads were covered. They were about fortyyears of age, but they did not appear to be above thirty. When asked who they were, theysaid that they were men composed, as it were, of air, and subject to birth and death. It wastrue that their lives were much longer than ours, and might even reach to three hundredyears' duration. Questioned on the immortality of our soul, they affirmed that nothingsurvives which is peculiar to the individual... When my father asked them why they did notreveal treasures to men if they knew where they were, they answered that it was forbiddenby a peculiar law under the heaviest penalties for anyone to communicate this knowledge tomen. They remained with my father for over three hours. But when he questioned them as tothe cause of the universe they were not agreed. The tallest of them denied that God hadmade the world from eternity. On the contrary, the other added that God created it frommoment to moment, so that should He desist for an instant the world would perish.... Be thisfact or fable, so it stands.Nearly three centuries later, in September 1768, a young man of sixteen was traveling to theUniversity of Leipzig with two passengers from Frankfurt. It rained most of the journey, and thecoach sometimes had trouble moving uphill. On one occasion when the passengers had left theirseats to walk behind the horses, the young man noticed a strange luminous object at ground level:All at once, in a ravine on the right-hand side of the way, I saw a sort of amphitheatre,wonderfully illuminated. In a funnel-shaped space there were innumerable little lightsgleaming, ranged step-fashion over one another; and they shone so brilliantly that the eyewas dazzled. But what still more confused the sight was that they did not keep still, butjumped about here and there, as well downwards from above as vice versa, and in everydirection. The greater of them, however, remained stationary, and beamed on. It was onlywith the greatest reluctance that I suffered myself to be called away from the spectacle,which I could have wished to examine more closely.... Now whether this was apandemonium of will-o'-the-wisps, or a company of luminous creatures I will not decide.The young man in question was Goethe. You will find this sighting in the sixth book of hisautobiography, according to movie director and occult scholar Kenneth Anger, to whom I amindebted for this very interesting discovery. Would the German poet and scientist have had occasionto learn more about the "luminous creatures" had he lived in the twentieth century? If Paracelsus