Bramley: The Gods of Eden

A current review of William Bramley's The Gods of Eden by Philip Coppens. I read this book years ago, and liked it then; I still like it. I think, as Coppens comments, Bramley’s book

is overlooked as being too out there. Or, as Coppens says, it has a cult status. Either way, it doesn't seem, even after all this time, to be among the first dozen or so books on UFO researchers lists. And yet, as Coppens points out, Bramley’s book preceded David Icke and all the others, and with far less silliness.

The Gods of Eden is about alien creation/design/intervention but before you roll your eyes and sigh “Oh no, David Icke and green lizards” give the book a chance. One of Bramley's main areas of focus is the binary opposition of the human condition: war/peace. Religion preaches love, tolerance while at the same time, religion promotes and supports killing, oppression and tyranny.

Speaking of UFO studies itself, Coppens quotes Bramley:

"There are few subjects today as full of false information, deceit, and madness as ‘flying saucers’. Many earnest people who attempt to study the subject are driven around in circles by a terrific amount of dishonesty from a small number of people who, for the sake of a fleeting moment of notoriety or with the deliberate intention to obfuscate, have clouded the field with false reports, untenable ‘explanations’, and fraudulent evidence. Suffice it to say that behind this smokescreen there is ample evidence of extraterrestrial visitations to Earth. This is too bad. An in-depth study of the UFO phenomenon reveals that it does not offer a happy little romp through the titillating unknown. The UFO appears more and more to be one of the grimmest realities ever confronted by the human race.”

That’s bleak . And a big elephant in the room none of us want to talk about. What if it’s true? Quite possible. If so -- if that is all there is - - it’s a long cold unpleasant existential road to be on. (Already my mind is swirling around this tangent. . .)

As to the “reality” of that final photograph that will provide the proof:

As to the notion that if UFOs are extraterrestrial aircraft, there should be an undisputed photograph of one by now: “Anything can be disputed. The dispute simply means that someone has chosen to quarrel.” It is logical, and though we do not subscribe to it, we can understand…

Coppens has many good insights of his own into Bramley’s book that are worth reading.

Among other things, Bramley’s work is concerned with the Trickster force; the oppositional tensions of existence on earth. Not only the afore mentioned war, but UFO studies, as previously noted. As Coppen writes, speaking of the book:

But it showed powerful examples of the central bank scams, it showed how contradictory humanity really is, and does indeed seem to be tricked into working in one direction, even though neither side really wants that outcome. (italics mine)

That part: how we are "tricked" so often, about so many things, and especially about 'all this' -- all this Fortean, weird, UFO stuff -- is another elephant in the room. It's maddening, all the more so because this very Trickster prescence is as much a part of it as anything else. It wouldn't be without it. And yet we forget that constantly, or refuse to acknowledge it at all. While all the time we're bedazzled by disinformation, silliness, our own fears and desires, their fears and desires. . . it's a mess. It's confusing and deceitful. It's seductive. The pathological skeptic-troll who dogs the UFO researcher with snide rants about wasting time, or lying, or being mentally unbalanced is as much in this mess as the rest of us. We're all being manipulated. (But I'm starting to swirl again so I'll leave off for now.)

It's a very good review and it was good to see someone remind us of William Bramley and his work.

If you haven’t read The Gods of Eden, I hope you do soon.

Book of Thoth Contest Winners

The Book of Thoth Contest Winners results are in.

Congratulations to all the winners, including, ahem, me. The only winners I know are Lesley, author of The Debris Field blog, and Odd Things, of the blog by the same name. But congratulations to all!

Lesley’s article: Nazi's and The Philosophers Stone
Odd Things: Mythology, the ages of man and the extraterrestrial hypothesis
My article: Flying Saucer Kooks, and A Look Into Colin Bennett’s Looking for Orthon

Red Ice Radio; Trickster's Realm

Tim Binnall, creator of the Binnall of America website (where he very kindly publishes my column Tricksters Realm twice a month,along with Lesley of Debris Field, Khyron, and others) and interviewer himself of many a solid UFOlogist, like Stanton Friedman, etc. (his latest with John Greenwald Jr. was very good) was interviewed himself recently.

You can listen to the interview on the Red Ice site.

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This week's Tricksters Realm:
You can read my latest piece for Binnall of America on my Trickster's Realm column, where I say "thanks" to all those out there who give us so much UFO news, resources, etc. and virtually for free, using their own monies in order to give us these things. Taking Things for Granted,

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Marginalization of UFO "Buffs"

Two related blog entries by two blog authors on the marginalization of UFO "believers." Lesley, of the DebrisField blog, has good comments about this. In her essay Ufology: A Cult of Personality she writes:

Beyond that, for ufology to be a cult there would need to be a belief system that everyone followed. Anyone who is a member of ufo updates would quickly realize that ufologists agree on almost nothing. They all have their own theories and personalities and anyone who thinks they would all agree on anything, except that there are strange things in the sky, has never spent any quality time with a ufologist.”

Exactly.

As Lesley points out, sure, there are the “cults” within UFOlogy; the Raelians, etc. To consistently use those groups as an accurate representation of UFOlogy is dishonest, as those who rabidly attack UFO studies know full well.

On the Sanity for Sale blog, there is a good piece:

UFOs: To Believe Or Not To Believe.
The author writes:

”You may have noticed that, in the media, UFO believers are usually referred to as buffs, a term used to diminish and marginalize them by relegating them to the ranks of hobbyists and mere enthusiasts. They are made to seem like kooks and quaint dingbats who have the nerve to believe that, in an observable universe of trillions upon trillions of stars, and most likely many hundreds of billions of potentially inhabitable planets, some of those planets may have produced life-forms capable of doing things that we can’t do.”

In contrast, those who believe in Jesus, God, other forms of mainstream religions are not only acceptable, but considered honorable, trustworthy people. A recent poll (I forget where I read about this) revealed that the majority of voters would not trust an atheists as president. The tension between Upstanding Religious Person and UFO “Believer” is hypocritical, one could say, but it’s a given oppositional juxtaposition in the realm of the Trickster.

As both articles point out, many mega-skeptics and anti-UFOists refer to a “belief” in UFOs, which automatically calls up the memes of: faith, blind faith, miracles, religion, cults, craziness, delusions, and hallucinations. With such labeling, the UFO witness, writer, researcher and investigator are dismissed. People who study UFOs are “buffs” as the author of the Sanity blog says, or they’re “enthusiasts” which some anti UFO skeptics insists on calling those of us who are involved in UFO research (meaning, from a non chronic skeptic perspective) “enthusiasts,” as if we’re all fanatical NASCAR fans. Both terms further trivialize the subject, and more to the point, those who are involved in its study. By consistently using these terms and phrases: buffs, enthusiasts, fans, believers, etc. the topic of UFOs, and those involved with UFOs in whatever way, are presented to the culture as goofy, eccentric, unintelligent, uneducated. Certainly not a topic to be taken seriously, nor the humans involved with the topic. (Unless it’s to debunk, deny, and discredit the topic. Then those people count of course.)

Our culture -- our infrastructure -- has many ways it perpetuates anti-UFOism, along with anything outside of the mainstream. Misdirection, disinformation, appropriation, trivialization, marginalization, outright lying and dishonesty, questioing the patriotism, morality, sanity, intelligence and or honesty of UFO "believers," are among the dozens of ways this populates throughout our culture.

More Skepticism Pieces

Seems that a lot of bloggers are writing about skepticism past few days; here’s something from the Doubtful blog: Poor Professional Manners. A lot of us have been blogging about skepticism and I’ve noticed we’ve been saying the same things, in one way or another:

Be nice

Skepticism is good and fine and of course, neccessary, however:

There are many who say they are skeptics, and they’re nothing of the kind. (And to make the distinction between true skeptics and the fundies, we use various descriptive labels to make those distincitons)It is those types we have an issue with

Too Busy for Myself

Comment from
Rick over on TDG about my anti-skeptic piece on American Chronicle:

(Jesus in a Saucer)

American Chronicle's R. Lee discusses the new meme of skeptics to discredit the UFO phenomenon; label it as a religion. Look out, R. Lee, I bet they have a voodoo doll in your likeness.

LOL. As I told him, that explains all these mysterious aches and pains I’ve been having!

I forgot to mention, in my writing recap, my blog entry over on
The Daily Grail; it’s a response piece to Michael Prescott’s excellent piece on fanatical, bullying skeptic tactics:

More insights into pathological skepticism, or “chronic, cultural” skepticism, to use Colin Bennett’s terms. (See Bennett’s article Scepticism as Mystique, December UFO magazine, December 2006.)

This is from author Michael Prescott’s blog and his recent article
Bully for skepticism!


“Item: After the publishing house Macmillan announces acquisition of Immanuel Velikovsky's book Worlds in Collision, which makes unorthodox claims about the origins and history of the solar system, famed astronomer Harlow Shapley lobbies the publisher to prevent the book's publication. He fails. According to philosopher David Stove, Shapley then arranges for "denunciations of the book, still before its appearance, by an astronomer, a geologist, and an archaeologist," none of whom have read it. Other reviews by "professors who boasted of never having read the book" follow, and Velikovsky is "rigorously excluded from access to learned journals for his replies." The anti-Velikovsky forces then compel the firing of the long-time Macmillan senior editor who bought the book, even though it has become a bestseller. They also get the Hayden Planetarium's director fired "because he proposed to take Velikovsky seriously enough to mount a display about the theory." Under intense and continuing pressure, Macmillan eventually transfers the book to rival Doubleday, "which, as it has no textbook division, is not susceptible to professorial blackmail."

As the above shows, the tactics of these chronic skeptics are unethical, though sadly typical. Why the Pelicanists, etc. seem to prefer to behave like Bette Davis on her best flamboyant drama queen melodrama days is an intriguing sociological question to ponder.

I’ve given up on the pondering part long ago; I’ll leave that to others who study the sociology of scientism. Still, I enjoy, and believe it’s a worthy act, to point out the actions that range from amusing to outrageous, of the “skeptoids.”

No matter how many times those of us who point out these behaviors and tactics state that it is the actions, not mere skepticism itself, that is the issue, it falls on deaf ears. Prescott writes:

“I’m not endorsing the validity of all the unconventional theories mentioned above. In particular, I think Velikosky and Reich are unlikely to have been correct. All that interests me, in citing these instances (and there are many others that could be added to the list), is this question: What are the powers of establishment science so afraid of? Why would people who are genuinely confident that they have reason on their side resort to character assassination, ostracism, threats, and even police action to enforce their opinions?

In other words, why do the self-styled defenders of reason, science, progress, and civilization so often act like bullies and thugs?

Excellent questions.

Irrational rationalists also resort to hyperbole and thin skinned, over the top silliness, as in comparing being called a “thug,” or a “skeptoid” to being called a racial or ethnic slur, as I wrote this September (The Usual Purple Tinged Hyperbole About UFOs

Rabid skepticism abhors the UFO-abduction phenomena of course, and doesn’t hold back when it comes to television. I found an interesting post at UFO Updates from 2001. Posted by John Velez, it discusses the PBS NOVA program on UFOs and abductions as written about by Terry Hansen in his excellent book, The Missing Times.

There are endless examples of course: The Amazing Randi and his on-going battles with Uri Geller, the sTarbaby scandal, Phillip Klass, etc.

Thuggish and dishonest tactics, as well as disingenuousness, have always been a part of scientism in general (they are scientism) as well as UFOlogy. No doubt much of it is intentional disinformation, the rest, picked up by the individual rabid skeptic, and, unaware he/she is being used, happily passes along such behaviors.

While this campaign of disinformation and witless acceptance by unsuspecting individuals can be said of many a UFOlogist, that’s another article for another day.

Robert Anton Wilson

The man is really something.

Please go to his blog; you'll be moved by his humor, his acceptance, his style.

Thank you Mr. Wilson for all your work and words.

COLLECTOR OF DATA

Sometimes I am a collector of data, and only a collector, and am likely to be gross and miserly, piling up notes, pleased with merely numerically adding to my stores. Other times I have joys, when unexpectedly coming upon an outrageous story that may not be altogether a lie, or upon a macabre little thing that may make some reviewer of my more or less good works mad. But always there is present a feeling of unexplained relations of events that I note, and it is this far-away, haunting, or often taunt ing, awareness, or suspicion, that keeps me piling on. ~ (Charles Fort, Wild Talents)

I’ve always been fond of this quote. It resonates with why, and what, I’m doing around here. (Or, what I think I’m doing.) I think a lot of UFO writers, bloggers, etc. can relate to this quote.

It’s a nice bit of synchronicity, finding this quote. Trying to tune out Mr. Bush’s speech on MSNBC, yet perversely unable to turn it off; I was idly doing a search for UFO and Fortean quotes. (on my new laptop! yeah for me,) and came across the above quote.

Aside from ignoring/not ignoring Mr. Bush (notice the blue tie he was wearing? It’s all just to lull us more and more into the apathetic acceptance of continued slaughter. . . ) I was wondering what to do with an article I’ve been working on. It’s not an article yet, it’s just a nudging idea right now.

Years ago, I started to collect items about animals. I don’t know why; I just know I found the strange behavior of animals, from the family pet to animals in the urban wild and elsewhere, fascinating. This included odd and unexpected actions of known, mundane animals to OOP (Out of Place) animals. I had no idea what to do with these news clippings and articles, but I kept a huge file. In college, studying folklore, I thought I could do something with this, but never came up with anything substantial. (There was one thing actually, which was going to be my thesis/final project, but “dueling professors’ got to me, and that was that. Two years of grad school and nothing to show for it. Except I really dig folklore. Now it’s working its way to a book.)

I put those aside awhile ago, not sure if I still have those. But like most of us Fortean sloggers, I can’t help myself, and notice these kinds of items all the time.

The past few days, it seems to be calling me again. Maybe this time I’ll do something with it, once I get inspired.

Confessions of a UFO Dilettante (D. Brenton's blog)

Daniel Brenton, author of The Meaning of Existence and all that blog, has written another insightful, and reflective, piece on UFOlogy. Not only UFOlogy as UFOlogy, but all of us in here.

Like Daniel, and so many other bloggers out there who write on UFOs and Fortean things, I’ve had a fascination -- and personal experiences -- with UFOs and related things since childhood.

Brenton brings up the idea of ‘value’ in the context of a personal involvement with UFOs; all this blogging, writing, more writing, discussion, exchanges. A search indeed.

He also brings up the complicated matter of abductees and experience as well as UFOlogists, among other things.

It’s the “truth” and, as my favorite philosophy professor said to us years ago, the truth is different for each of us. Many call that a contradiction, others a paradox. Either way, it’s the truth. (hee.)

Whether one brings the personal to all this in terms of experiences of UFO sightings and all manner of paranormal/Fortean stuff, or the personal in the sense of . . . just themselves, somehow, their willingness to share some of themselves in their research, studies, documentation, it’s all good, it’s all needed, it’s all valid.

Most of all, it contributes in a real (or “truthful”) way towards this journey.

'UFO' DOES NOT MEAN LITTLE GREY MEN

A New Meme: We All Know UFO Really Means Aliens From Outer Space by yours truly.

UFO MAGAZINE: LEHMBERG ON CSICOP

I’ve decided that Alfred Lehmberg is the Keith Olbermann of anti-chronic skepticism.

Lehmberg, as many of you who read these UFO blogs know, is either respected and liked, or considered a “troublemaker” (At best. After all, he did win the
2006 Zorgy Award for ‘best UFO/paranormal troublemaker.’)

The usual division continues: the dysfunctional skeptics attack, and in typical fashion, respond with outrage when called on their stuff. Those that respond to the chronic skeptic’s actions are harassed, stalked, followed, insulted, mocked, hacked, lied to and lied about. One anti-UFO, chronic skeptic has a banner on his blog: The Lehmberg I Hate You Foundation, which doesn’t make sense to me, but then, much of the skepti-loons insults and humor is full of non-sequitors.
Another suffers from the paranoid delusion that I have “sent” Lehmberg to his blog to act up and “fight” on my behalf. (If only I had that kind of power! )

Others call him a loon, and worse. Even those who still can’t make up their minds if they’re in or out regarding UFOlogy don’t get it: they take issue and end up siding with the Pelicanists when it comes to Lehmberg. That’s not surprising though; for if they weren’t in the position of fence sitter and hill hopper they wouldn’t be so confused to begin with.

So the lances are still being thrown at the rest of us, and when we pick them up and throw them back, we’re accused of “name calling”
on the same level of a racist flinging slurs, and stirring up trouble simply because, (they accuse, and falsely) we have nothing better to do. All kinds of arrogant, paranoid, and defensive behaviors rise up like some ugly, slime covered, multi headed sea monster. Like some ugly, slime covered, multi headed possessed sea monster, for they do not give up. Not ever. They trail behind them grudges, old insults and injuries, and when they can’t reach back there to pull one out, they simply lie. They may flag, but they never quit.


A recent program on
20/20 (which I never watch, but just happened to catch the last few minutes of recently) reenacted the famous psychological Milgram experiment (That is a whole other topic for a very different column.) Among other things, the new experiment suggested that a moral/ethical voice, a positive voice, even if in the minority, can change things for the better. That one lone voice can change the actions of others. That’s a very good thing of course, and in the context of UFO Land, a reason to encourage others, as I always say, to speak up. To tell their stories, their experiences. And to speak up against chronic skepticism.

There have been some recent comments on pathological skepticism from other bloggers,(including myself) - it’s about time. Daniel Brenton’s


An Open Letter to the UFO Community is one.
In the January issue of UFO Magazine, Alfred Lehmberg’s column An Alien View, is titled CSICOPING a Feeling. (Of course, the recent news is that CSICOP, in a sort of Keystone Cops kind of move, renamed itself CSI )

Whenever one of us goes on about all the types of skeptics; all the qualifiers and modifiers: skeptibunkies, chronic skeptic, fanatical skeptic, skepti loon, pathological skepticism, irrational rationalism, etc. one thing that always happens is the knee jerk denial. “Why, I’m a skeptic! How dare you call me that?!” and no matter how many times you explain to the hopping little Pelicanist that “if the shoe doesn’t fit, don't wear it” they can’t hear it. All the games played around the disingenuous denial that they are a skeptic are just that: games. Designed to distract, deny, and most of all, discourage.

Lehmberg writes:

”True skeptics are never the issue,reader.

I know that, many of you know that, but the ones that need to know that don’t. Skeptics, Lehmberg writes, are a good thing. But it is not skeptics he is holding up for the thick minded thugs they are; it is, to repeat:

”Skeptics[tic are not to be confused with scurrilous skepti-bunkies, ponderous Pelicanists, or insipid CSICOPians and scurvy klasskurtxians.”

Lehmberg addresses many aspects of CSICOP and their lie that they are concerned with skeptical thought:

”Since the very beginning and as typified by the Dennis Rawlins imbroglio over the StarBaby paper, any research critical of or in opposition to that CSICOPian party-liners remains remarkably non-included in these not so efficacious bibliographies. Why was StarBaby published in FATE Magazine and not in the Skeptical Inquirer?

Good questions. There are more:

Why can’t Dr David Rudiak get a peer review for his Mogul-balloon investigative work in the same canted CSICOPian rag? Frank Feschino for Shoot Them Down? Stanton Friedman for MAJIC? Robert Hastings for UFOS and Nuclear Missiles? Richard Dolan for UFOs and the National Security State?”

As Lehmberg notes, “why indeed.”

Excellent article. And UFO Magazine overall this month is very good; in fact, since they went back to the newsprint and once a month format, the magazine is better than ever.