Visions from Dream Land (1/31/24)

When examining the topic of otherworldly influences on human affairs, we must journey into the most ancient past of history and the deepest ares of the psyche. Those littles voices in our heads, often seen as the angel or devil on our shoulder should be recognized as a sort of intuition, or perhaps a better word is the daemon, i.e., the spiritual piece separate and between from organic life and divinity. We do things termed superstitions naturally because they make us feel as if we have control over some unseen dimension, though in other cases it is this other world said to exert itself directly over human affairs. Which causes the other to move? Take our custom of disease management today with needles, pills, and medical terminology, and compare it to the use of crosses, consecrated water and bread, and latin texts in exorcising a demon. It is exercise after all that keeps us healthy, a condition we are said to lose if we were happened upon by a demon in and ancient and more recent times, or a microbe in very contemporary times. Whatever the conditions, the dream world seems to bleed over into waking reality, against encouraging us to ask which is real - perhaps both. The experiences of the shaman are precursors to the details of human interaction and pact making with angels and demons, fairies and little people, and in contemporary times beings from beyond our world. From the dream world and mind into heaven and hell, and eventually elfland and spaceships. The UFO phenomenon as it stands is as ancient as shamanic practices. In the distant past humans saw stars, lights, angels, etc., and as time ticked away, we began to see pillars, shields, chariots, baskets, and boats. Before we can jump straightaway to flying spaceships there is critical necessity in addressing the 1896-1897 airship sightings across the United States. Such sightings began in San Francisco in November, 1896, and although they ceased by early 1897, countless reports suddenly were documented across the country in other major cities, though sometimes there were rural sightings. In the most common cases, large crowds witnessed the event, which included turbine wheels and glass windows behind which people watched the inhabitants below. The ships would drop anchors and rope, and display characteristics of classical UFOs, i.e., abrupt altitude and speed changes, hovering, and displaying powerful lights. According to a Houston Post article from April 26, 1897, quoting man named Mr. Frank Nichols, who had the opportunity with speak the crew of the ship. This what was described: “The ship or car is built of a newly-discovered material that has the property of self-sustenance in the air, and the motive power is highly condensed electricity.” It is certainly convenient that despite the historic use of silk to produce an electrical charge, or maybe even the Baghdad Battery, the first electric transmission line in the United States was constructed in 1889. The 1890s were ripe for electric innovation but it still took until after World War I for even half of the country’s homes to have that magical light. Over the ensuing decades, and after much hype about Foo Fighters, Ghost Rockets, and even etheric discs, and of course the Roswell sacred site, Sputnik 1 was launched into space - October 4, 1957. Then on April 12, 1961, the Russian Yuri Gagarin was the first human to reach space, followed closely by the first American, Alan B. Shepherd, on May 5, 1961. As we approached the famed lunar year of 1969, planning to invade another planetary body or moonlit, there was an explosion of what is clearly unconscious projections of our own subconscious fears of otherworldly terrestrials stepping foot on our planet. This fear of the unknown and both the military and entertainment promoting of the same, led to the modern UFO myth today of flying spaceships invading our world. We must therefore consider one of the final arguments made by Jacques Vallee in Passport to...