Imago Dei

So far as I can tell the idea that we were created in the image of God is found only in the Abrahamic religions, that is, it is only found in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And too often within those religions it appears that the truth of the matter is that God was created in the image of humanity. I suppose that one could infer from the Greek pantheon that they also were created in the image of humanity. At least that is the case of the artwork and myths. However, that doesn’t mean that humanity was not created in God’s image. If there is a God, and I believe there is, then God is not corporeal or material as we understand it. God is of a substance that we cannot see or touch. For millennia, it has been called spirit, and the metaphor for God is the wind or breath. One cannot see the wind except for the way that it interacts with other things. We can see it move the trees; we can see it create waves in water, yet we cannot see it itself. However, we can feel it. We can feel gentle cooling breezes, it can exert force on us and it can be destructive. That may be where the metaphor breaks down unless we are referring to spirit. In that vane it can be beneficial, and it can be destructive.

I personally intuitively believe that the creator is conscious energy. For me the word spirit and the word consciousness are interchangeable. Likewise, the word God is synonymous with creative consciousness.

This means that to say that humanity is created in the image of God one is saying that the human is first and foremost, divine, eternal, conscious creative energy. However, when one looks a little deeper, one finds that the aboriginal people across the globe and millennia thought that we were essentially and foundationally spirit. What they meant, and what the idea in the Abrahamic Religions must mean, is that humanity is composed of eternal spirits at the core. Hinduism and Buddhism believe that the human is essentially spirit and on a cycle of samsara. This is the Hindu word for reincarnation. Taoism sees the Tao as an ineffable and unknowable spirit. The American indigenous people speak of and teach their people that there is a great spirit of which they participate in.

Likewise, the Egyptians believed in a conscious creative spirt and it was allegedly passed on to the Greeks by Pythagoras. The Greeks then developed the idea of the Logos as being the creative source and the divine seed. Plato believed and taught that there was a spiritual and ideal object for all of material reality. They likewise believed in a reincarnation of sorts.

Today, panpsychist ideals teach that consciousness is foundational to reality. There are physicists and cognitive scientists theorizing the same idea. So, to say that this concept is ubiquitous is a definite understatement of fact.

Is it possible that we can be spiritual and not religious? I think so. It should be agreed upon that the term God describes the creator, and even in polytheism, there is always one supreme creative source. Is it possible to redefine God? I believe it is. If we realize that there is one foundational source of reality, and it is consciousness, then it follows that we are describing God. Whether one calls the creator God or consciousness it is still the same concept. It is describing the same exact thing. It is through our consciousness that we participate in the divine nature. We are indeed creators, and as a scripture states it is yet unknow what we may become. I personally believe that it is unlimited. Yes indeed, we are Imago Dei, born in the image of God.

Reimagining Reincarnation

 The idea that mind or in other words consciousness is foundational to reality is as old as recorded history. Likewise, some form of reincarnation is as old as these spiritual traditions. The concept of judgment and heaven or hell related to one lifetime is not historically ancient compared to the idea of reincarnation.

And yet, the theories of the operation of reincarnation are less than optimal. The concept of being trapped in circular perpetuity, solely based on the judgment of good and evil deeds, is based on superstition. It begs the question who is judge and what qualifications do they have? However, in my opinion, the concept of some form of reincarnation is the only spiritual explanation that makes sense to me if indeed we are eternal spiritual beings. Of course, there is the possibility that we are not eternal and the one life we have is a mere matter of lottery. That certainly is not very appealing. Especially when one looks at the development of humanity in a historical sense. Very few people, in view of the myriad of individuals who have lived win the birth lottery. Most over history do not.

Further, if consciousness is foundational, and we are sentient conscious beings then we are directly related to the source of creation via our consciousness. This brings to the front the question. Is the creative source a singular entity or is it a collective? If a singular entity to what purposes does it create and if a collective how does that work practically? My answer to the first question is that it is a collective. My answer to the second question is it is a paradox. It is both singular and a collective. Which is which is decided by the point of view or perspective of the observer.

At the foundational level is appears as a collective, that is God is in all and all is in God which is a pantheistic view. However, from the viewpoint of the individual conscious agent, or if you prefer individual soul, the source is greater than and outside of the individual and while the individual is conscious and a part of consciousness it is not the whole and therefore appears to be panentheistic. Now, if you are an evangelical Christian reading this, before you blow an aorta, realize that Jesus taught pantheism. He said that he was in the father and the father was in him and subsequently that he and the father was in humanity and humanity was in he and the father.

So what’s to reimagine you ask? I will try to answer. If consciousness is the creative source, and if it is a collective in which the whole is greater than the parts it must be acknowledged that the parts are the same substance as the whole. In other words, the parts are consciousness as is the whole. This is why the metaphor in Genesis states that we were made in the image of God. God is equal to creative consciousness. As the Kybalion states the ALL is mind. The ALL is merely one of the names we give God. It is the all-mighty creator. Guess what, we are each severally and jointly an integral part of it.

Most all ideas of reincarnation have the whole in charge and the parts subservient to the whole. This is the idea behind karma. It is also the main idea with reincarnation in Jewish Kabbalah. The idea is that the soul revolves and revolves until it earns either Nirvana or Ola Ham Ba. In the Hindu expression it is called Samsara and in the Jewish view it is called Gilgul. The end goal in each of these is becoming reunited with the creative source. However, in reimagining reincarnation I believe that one is never separated from the divine source.

What then is the purpose of creation? Here is my opinion of it. For me it is the only thing that makes sense. Consciousness has knowledge. However, it does not have experience. That’s where we conscious agents come into the picture. We incarnate to gain experience of the knowledge that we have as a collective. The knowledge is eternal. The dimensions are infinite. The exploration is likewise eternal. However, we choose to incarnate, and we choose to rest in the collective. In our choices we all equally experience pain and pleasure; we participate in good and evil. Eternally we are amoral. Eternally we are love and peace. Eternally we cannot be harmed. Yes, I am thinking of an infinite myriad of experiences.

I will leave you with this thought. Dr. Bernardo Kastrup is a computer scientist, a psychologist, and a philosopher. He theorizes that we all may be dissociative personalities of the one great creative mind. For me, while not totally convinced, it is a real possibility.

Christ Awareness; The true anointing

Christ, Greek CHRISTOS, means anointed or anointing. Actually, the Greek word for anointing is CHRISMA, however, they are etymologically directly related. Thus, in my view, Christ is the awareness of the divine presence within and chrisma is the awareness of the divine presence. However, I am of the opinion that for one to be aware of the divine presences one must be a part of the divine presence. One hears in evangelical Pentecostal circles and churches the term anointing often. You will hear things like that sermon was anointed, or this or that person is anointed.

An example of anointing where it is not mentioned but inferred in Luke chapter twenty-four. Luk 24:32  They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" This indicates that they felt the divine presence, which is the anointing, and thus they were anointed. After all, John stated that as Jesus was in the world, so are we the same in the world. He was anointed because of the indwelling Logos and therefore we too are indwelled by the divine Logos. The indwelling divinity is our direct connection to the divine presence, the divine parent. The Gnostic “Gospel of Truth” states that we forgot who we were, and Jesus brought remembrance of the Father and our familial relationship which constitutes or true identity. We are divine. All humanity are children of the divine parent. I use Parent instead of father because divinity is androgynous. Both the divine masculine and feminine are within the Parent.

Now on to the anointing. There is the real anointing and there is the fake anointing which is really a product of emotional hype. The true anointing attends the presence of the divine source. It can be described as a burning within the heart, but it is likewise accompanied by an unfathomable peace and love. It is a feeling. It is not an emotional feeling, but a deeper feeling and it is like pleasant fire.

It is interesting because I have experienced the anointing in unlikely places. I have experienced it at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. Jesus or God was never mentioned. The Glide Ensemble their choir was completely anointed. The reason was they feed thousands of people every day in the San Francisco Tenderloin District. They house many more as well. They are doing the work of the divine spirit. They are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and giving shelter to the homeless. There is an inexpressible peace at Glide Memorial. At least there was when Cecil Williams was pastor back in the 1990’s.

I experienced the anointing one evening waiting for the BART train at the Del Norte station in Richmond CA. Across the tracks on the opposite platform two obviously drunk people were arguing about whether or not the woman was a child of God. She was forcefully and coarsely demanding that she indeed was a child of God and of course she was as she too was indwelled by the divine nature. She was in the imago dei, the image of God.

I experienced the anointing in the presence of two Mormon Elders that were praying for a sick child, listless with a fever, and watched as the child came to life and was playing feverless in the middle of the floor after they anointed him with oil and prayed for him.

This causes me to reason how dare some individuals claim that they have the anointing and others do not because they believe in a certain set of facts about the divine parent? This in view of what they consider the anointing is merely emotional hype. If there is no unfathomable peace and love, there is absolutely no anointing! When one judges that another does not have the anointing, they are judging God, they are judging Jesus because he said that we are divine, the parent is in us and we are in the parent.

 

The Conscious Cosmos: A look at the Kybalion and why it is the perfect statement of Hermetic Teaching.

I was introduced to the Kybalion about four years ago by my son. Being a theologian, I was somewhat skeptical of it at first glance. It did, however, have a message that resonated with me to a degree. I was likewise skeptical of Hermes Trismegistus. Over the four-year period that has all changed. I now think that the Kybalion is one of the most accurate mystical works in existence. Since that is quite a bold statement, I will share my reasons and the process I went through to arrive at that conclusion.

The Kybalion was published in 1908 and was written most likely by William Walker Atkinson. I say that because he used the Pseudonym “The Three Initiates. This was what gave me pause, but it also started me on the path of exploring Hermetic teaching. In that pursuit, I found that there was a writing called the Corpus Hermeticum and of course I read it several times. I was still at that time skeptical of the Kybalion. I read a book by Tim Freke and Peter Gandy entitled “The Hermetica; The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs” and learned more about Hermes and the Hermetica. I also obtained a copy of The Corpus Hermeticum translated by G.R.S. Mead, and later the translation by Brian Copenhaver.

This study convinced me that The Hermetica was indeed ancient wisdom, and that Greek philosophy was built on it. I still, however, did not give the Kybalion the respect that it deserves. By this time in my journey, I was becoming familiar with Hermetics and the works of William Walker Atkinson. I also read his works entitled the Arcane Teaching and the Arcane Formulas. They are an excellent companion to the Kybalion and are very helpful in understanding and implementing the law of attraction.

Now for my view of the Kybalion; I now see that the Kybalion expresses the nature of consciousness as the creator without religious trappings, and presents an explanation that is compatible with current scientific understandings of quantum physics. It presents ideas that are compatible with panpsychist and idealist philosophy. It states that we are in the All and the All is in us, and while it agrees with various religious doctrines about the nature of reality, it does so without the superstitious and judgmental aspects that accompany religion.

And yet it offers an assurance of the benevolence of the All and how it relates to us and how we can rest in the knowledge. The following quote is more assuring than any of the promises found in the bible. It does so without claiming that any souls will receive punishment from deity. And more than any other thing it does not anthropomorphize the creative source. Here is the quote I find so assuring: “So, do not feel insecure or afraid — we are all HELD FIRMLY IN THE INFINITE MIND OF THE ALL, and there is naught to hurt us or for us to fear. There is no Power outside of THE ALL to affect us. So we may rest calm and secure. There is a world of comfort and security in this realization when once attained. Then "calm and peaceful do we sleep, rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" — resting safely on the bosom of the Ocean of Infinite Mind, which is THE ALL. In THE ALL, indeed, do "we live and move and have our being." ~The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 31). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

It also gives a better definition of what we have called demons in the past. It is an encouraging message as even those that may be considered demons will not always have to remain in that state. Here again is the quote: The legends of the Fallen Angels have a basis in actual facts, as all advanced occultists know. The striving for selfish power on the Spiritual Planes inevitably results in the selfish soul losing its spiritual balance and falling back as far as it had previously risen. But to even such a soul, the opportunity of a return is given — and such souls make the return journey, paying the terrible penalty according to the invariable Law. ~The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 52). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

You see in the above quote that even the demons have a chance to rehabilitate.

The seven principles of the Kybalion explain all of the aspects of material and spiritual reality and Atkinson gives important insight into how to use the law within the ALL to transmute circumstances by using law against law. Using the higher law against the lower law.

While it explains and elucidates the divine, it does so without moral judgment. That is not to say that it ignores morality but that it provides the understanding to motivate moral behavior in a non-religious way. It presents these ideals in a spiritual way. The one who reads the Kybalion and begins to understand its teachings will move higher on the plane of vibration toward unification with the ALL. It shows that it is a process that happens over various incarnations into a variety of planes and dimensions of existence. In fact, it teaches that the planes of existence are infinite, existing within the ineffable ALL.

The quote, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear” is a reality for me. When I was ready for understanding, I was introduced to the Kybalion. To anyone who is a panpsychist or a philosophical idealist, one who believes that consciousness is foundational to reality, I cannot recommend more highly any work than the Kybalion.

 

The Conscious Cosmos: Why I believe in the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth

There are many scholars who doubt the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. However, I am quite certain that he was indeed a historical figure and that he was a mystic and master as well. Was his message misunderstood and coopted? Most definitely! I come to that conclusion based on all of the writings from the first three centuries CE. This includes some of the orthodox canon and the writings of the Nag Hammadi library. Was he sent from God? Well, that depends on your definition and understanding of God. If you see God anthropomorphically as a sky parent who had a literal son, then you have missed the mark. However, if you see God as the creative source of the universe, if you see God as creative consciousness, and you see the son of God as a metaphor for individual conscious agents that are an integral part of the divine, having a divine nature, then yes, indeed he was sent by God.

It is his message, that for me proves that he was a historical mystical figure, a miracle worker that was misunderstood because of the audience he came to, and the belief system they held about the creator and the nature of reality. If what I am writing scares you as heresy, my hope is that you get over it. If you think I am trying to evangelize the world to this idea, you are wrong. Could humanity benefit from what I believe Jesus real message was? Yes indeed! It actually adds mystical understanding to all of the messages and explanations that have gone on before it. This is why I believe that it should be a part of eclectic and syncretistic spirituality. Yes, I use the word spirituality and I use it without shame or hesitation. If consciousness is fundamental to reality, then it is ineffable, and spirituality is as good a descriptor as any.

Moving on to the reasons I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is a historical figure and a mystical master. It includes the Gospel of John, parts of Paul’s epistles, the Gospel of Truth, and other writings from the same time period. This theory does not include orthodox teaching, anything evangelical, or fundamentalist. Yet it does include parts of orthodox Christian scripture. It likewise includes Hermeticism, Platonic, and Neo-Platonic philosophy. One could add Taoism into the mix as well.  All of those traditions involve a “parent and an offspring” metaphor to the creation of reality. It is in that area that the message of Jesus advances the metaphor. Further, the advancement of that metaphor is dependent on a mystical message, most likely from an individual. That is how it has worked over the course of millennia and so there is no reason to doubt it in this instance.

The unique message in which Jesus advanced spiritual understanding was that the parent offspring metaphor includes all of humanity. This can be gleaned by looking at a universal coherent message that permeates all of western civilization across millennia, beginning with Egypt and Sumer, Hermeticism, Greek and Platonic Philosophy, the Stoics and culminating with two revelations that Jesus made that were not explicit before his ministry. He also taught that God was the parent, but additionally, a loving parent, and that all of humanity was God’s offspring and an active participant in the divine nature. All other claims prior to that had God at a distance, apart from the creation. There was no familial reference. Today, there are many who refer to the concept of being a child of God without realizing that it is known largely by the teaching of Jesus.

This revelation went on to be mystically revealed to Paul. Rom 8:38-39  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  (39)  nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.” It was Jesus that introduced this concept in his teaching.

Many may ask, “didn’t Jesus also teach about hell?” That requires that one be able to clearly see the Jew-Gentile distinction that is in the pages of the New Testament. Jesus was a Jewish prophetic mystic and miracle worker. He did his work within the context and culture of first century Judaism. It was first century Jewish Pharisaic teaching that taught about hell (Gehinnom.) His references were a hyperbolic reaction to that teaching. Paul never mentions hell. Why? Because his mystical revelation was to bring the message to both Jew and Gentile and to present it as a spiritual reality. One can see the Jew-Gentile distinction everywhere in the New Testament and Paul taught that the wall of separation was torn down by the ministry of Jesus. So then, Jesus’ ministry was twofold. First, it was to call the Jewish nation to change their mind about their relationship with deity. Second, it was to inform both Jew and Gentile that God, the creative source was a loving parent.

In the Gospel of Truth, accredited to Valentinus by Irenaeus, the mission and message of Jesus was to overcome the forgetfulness that humanity has and remember its true nature which is divine. God the Father is a loving parent and upon incarnation humans no longer remember the fact. Jesus’ message was to restore that knowledge. Valentinus was a student of Pauline Christianity and founded a group of believers that were called Valentinians after him. They were considered heretics by the early church fathers, and their works were destroyed. It was the serendipitous find of Nag Hammadi in 1945 that gave us many of their writings. I am not saying that they had all and exclusive truth. I am saying that they had an important part of the Jesus message, and it would be beneficial today. Not that it is necessary for us to carry on as the offspring of the creator or to gain some kind of eternal nature. We are that already. But it would help us to realize that we are divine and that the divine is love and love is out natural state of being if we but remember who we really are.

Jesus realized that he was anointed with the divine Logos or the mind of God. This made him God’s son and he went on to teach that the same thing is true of each and everyone of us. I will close this with Paul’s words. This is from a letter that is credited to Paul by most all scholars.

Php 2:5-8  “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,  (6)  who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,  (7)  but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,  (8)  he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”

We all do this when we incarnate. We become obedient even to the point of death. It does not have to be a cross. In our emptying process, we forget our divinity and Jesus restored that. That message is so unique that I believe there really was such a person that delivered it.

  

 

The Conscious Cosmos: Unified Field of Consciousness

This is an explanation of my theory of panpsychism. Assuming that consciousness is the foundational element of reality then it seems to follow that consciousness and energy are interchangeable. As the words of the poem, the primal dream flowed into my mind in 1974, I wrote “energy and thought, inseparable conceived the primal dream.” The above illustration is in the shape of the current graphic representation of the universe. Everything within the universe consists primarily of waves. The waves have particle potential and can result in matter. The original creative observer is consciousness itself which historically has been called the Logos, by Greek philosophy, Hermeticism, and Christianity.

Consciousness created individual conscious agents through sacred geometry. These conscious agents are integral to all of the dimensions and yet, the sum of conscious agents is greater than the individual parts. When I speak of conscious agents, I think of them similarly to Dr. Donald Hoffman in his book “A Case Against Reality.” This leads to the paradox of pantheism and panentheism. Both are true, as the Kybalion states in the principle of polarity. “All truths are half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” The way it is resolved is in the truth that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts which is pantheism, and the individual conscious agents are a part of the whole, cocreators and that is panentheism.

To what purpose you may ask? I like a variation of how Dr. Hoffman answers the question what is consciousness up to? It is answered in a YouTube video. A Donald Hoffman Quote from his YouTube lecture on the Weekend University Channel entitled “Is Reality an Illusion?” It begins at roughly 1:13:38 into the video.

Quote:

“If we start with consciousness being fundamental then there is an interesting question; that is what is consciousness up to and why? What is consciousness doing right? And when we think about consciousness inside space and time we often think about it in terms of evolutionary theory and we say maybe consciousness helps you to survive somehow, maybe its an accident, but now we can think differently. Space and time are not fundamental. Evolutionary theory is not fundamental. Consciousness itself is fundamental.

So, what is consciousness up to? I don’t know, but I have only found one idea that is deep enough so far to take the idea seriously. I’m not saying it is right but it’s at least deep enough to be interesting and to take seriously. Kurt Godel, around 1930 proved what are called incompleteness theorems. What Godel discovered was that effectively, the exploration of mathematical truths is unending. There is no way to be omniscient about mathematical truths and what’s interesting about that idea then, is that if consciousness is fundamental and consciousness is all there is then mathematics, consciousness and that endless exploration of mathematics is endless, then that means that exploration of the possible varieties endless and is exploring, it’s a theorem that will never stop. And so maybe that is what consciousness is up to. It is constantly exploring itself!

So what’s happening right now, where we go, we talk, we have questions, we have lectures and so forth. This is just consciousness in space using space time as a virtual reality exploring one of many, many different possibilities, worlds in which there are attended spaces. Dimensions of space is irrelevant there is no dimension.”

I am not a mathematician, and if you want to accuse me of trying to turn science into “woo” go ahead. What I am writing here is intuitive. However, it resonates deeply with me, and I believe that it is correct. So let me explain the above quote in more spiritual and mystical terms. I do not think this explanation is incompatible with Hoffman’s far more scientific explanation.

Consciousness is knowledge. The ancient Greeks called it Gnosis. However, knowledge lacks something. What you may ask? It lacks experience. Knowledge is awareness of all the potential. It is aware of possibility. Experience completes knowledge. One cannot truly understand love without experience. Nor, can one know pain without experience. One can know it exists but only through experience does it become complete knowledge. We participate in the divine nature in order to complete knowledge with our experience. The possibilities are endless and infinite. One could say that we are God experiencing creation.

This is not limited to one life in one plane. Quite the contrary. However, we are also able to rest at will. I do not see reincarnation as a karmic hamster wheel that one is trapped on. It is not a punitive alternative to purgatory or hell. We all, in an egalitarian fashion, based upon our choosing experience joy and pain, good and evil. The unified field of consciousness, the All, God if you prefer, is the eternal present. As Eckhart Tolle states it is the Now. Energy cannot be destroyed it can only be changed. I think that the best illustration of what I am saying is that it is similar to a video game. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. You can get tired, even exasperated so that you put the game down only to become refreshed, perhaps bored, and you pick the game up and try again.

Experiential knowledge is ever increasing as we alternate between being whole consciousness to conscious agents and back and forth.

The Conscious Cosmos: Skinwalker Ranch and the Skeptics

I am inserting a large portion of text from Frank Salisbury’s book the “Utah UFO Display.” It will be presented later on after a more detailed explanation. I think it points to the fact that what we currently see going on with the UAP/UFO phenomenon is not straight forward but purposefully has a highly nuanced narrative. It is suggested in my view by the recent theories and proofs in physics and cognitive science. They are so recent that they are not naturally considered in any discussions about the phenomenon or for that matter material science in general. Three things are important in this idea. First is the recent Nobel Prize in Physics given to three men who proved that the universe is not locally real. Second and equally important is the work of Dr. Donald Hoffman and his students from the University of California that shows that it is quite likely that space-time and the material universe arise out of consciousness. Third and not least, are many philosophers that have put forth very thoughtful explanations of panpsychism.

I have long had an interest in a panpsychist, panentheistic view of reality. The works of Aldous Huxley such as the “Doors of Perception,” Abraham Maslow’s “Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences,” and Fritjof Capra’s “The Tao of Physics” have influenced my thinking along with what would be best characterized as mystical experiences. It is only recently that what was once considered woo-woo has become more respected by some scientists. So while that is my bias up until recently I was skeptical of the UFO phenomenon. The thing that changed that for me was the first three seasons of the History Channel’s docuseries “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch.” Now as the fourth season emerges, the skeptics are growing stronger. I think that may in part be because they do not seem to have a scientific voice that influences their editing.

I am confident in the veracity of the team and the owner of the Ranch Brandon Fugal. I am somewhat skeptical of how the History Channel has presented them so far. I believe that they are on the frontier of scientific investigation. However, it is important to emphasize that they are dealing with something that can be material and can be mental or conscious based. That fact should be emphasized in the docuseries. If then the critics continue to be skeptical so be it. I believe they will shortly be shown wrong as current science unfolds in the areas mentioned above. However, to emphasize the science as strictly physicalist is a mistake. Let me repeat, given the new advancement mentioned in the first paragraph, I would like to share a portion of Salisbury’s book that demonstrates a world-wide ubiquitous examination of the phenomenon. Not just on Skinwalker Ranch, but across the globe and not just recently but for the last seventy years. The inserted quote speaks for itself.

“In 1977, at the First International UFO Congress in Chicago, J. Allan Hynek presented his thoughts in a speech “What I really believe about UFOs.” (See Hynek, 1980.) “I do believe,” he said, “that the UFO phenomenon as a whole is real, but I do not mean necessarily that it’s just one thing. We must ask whether the diversity of observed UFOs… all spring from the same basic source, as do weather phenomena, which all originate in the atmosphere” or whether they differ “as a rain shower differs from a meteor, which in turn differs from a cosmic-ray shower.” We must not ask, Hynek said, what hypothesis can explain the most facts, but we must ask, which hypothesis can explain the most puzzling facts. “There is sufficient evidence to defend both the ETI and the EDI hypothesis,” Hynek continued. As evidence for the ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) hypothesis he mentioned, as examples, the radar cases as good evidence of something solid, and the physical-trace cases. Then he turned to defending the EDI (extradimensional intelligence) hypothesis. Besides the aspect of materialization and dematerialization, he cited the “poltergeist” phenomena experienced by some people after a close encounter; the photographs of UFOs, sometimes on only one frame, not seen by the witnesses; the ability of some UFOs to change form right before the witnesses’ eyes; the puzzling question of telepathic communication; the fact that in close encounters of the third kind, the creatures seem to be at home in earth’s gravity and atmosphere; the sudden stillness in the presence of the craft; levitation of cars or persons; the fact that some witnesses develop psychic abilities after an encounter.

“Do we have two aspects of one phenomenon or two different sets of phenomena?” Hynek asked. Finally he introduced a third hypothesis. I hold it entirely possible that a technology exists that encompasses both the physical and the psychic, the material and the mental. There are stars that are millions of years older than the sun. There may be a civilization that is millions of years more advanced than man’s. We have gone from Kitty Hawk to the moon in some seventy years, but it’s possible that a million-year-old civilization may know something that we don’t…. I hypothesize an “M&M” technology encompassing the mental and material realms. The psychic realms, so mysterious to us today, may be an ordinary part of an advanced technology.”

Salisbury, Frank B.. The Utah UFO Display: A Scientist Brings Reason and Logic to over 400 Sightings in Utah's Uintah Basin . Cedar Fort, Inc.. Kindle Edition.