Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (61 page)

4
. Ibid., 3–4. I have removed all use of italics when quoting from these two authors.

5
. Ibid., 11.

6
. Ibid., 20.

7
. The children were not present in August. They were in jail, imprisoned in an attempt to put an end to the embarrassing spectacle. The apparition acted, at first, as if it did not know the kids were absent. Witnesses reported the usual thunder and bright flash followed by the familiar little cloud over the tree. It quickly rose and melted away this time, however.

8
. Ibid., 36–37.

9
. Ibid., 41–43.

10
. Ibid., 65–68.

11
. Ibid., 76.

12
. Ibid., 63.

13
. Ibid., 47.

14
. Ibid., 57.

15
. Ibid., 91. For a newspaper photo, see ibid., 92.

16
. Ibid., 137.

17
. Ibid., 140.

18
. Ibid., 143–45.

19
. Ibid., 156.

20
. Paul Misraki,
Les Extraterrestres
(Paris: Plon, 1962). On September 18, 1962, Vallee visited Misraki in his Paris apartment just as this book was coming out (FS 1:66–67; see also 1:155–62).

21
. Fernandes and D'Armada dedicate over twenty pages to this substance and the various theories used to explain it (
Heavenly Lights
, 83–104).

22
. Fernandes and D'Armada,
Celestial Secrets
, 151–52.

23
. Ibid., 153.

24
. Ibid., 94. The fullest treatment of this psychotropic reading of aliens, now focused on DMT and ayahuasca, is Rick Strassman, Slawek Wojtowicz, Luis Eduardo Luna, and Ede Frescka,
Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies
(Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 2008). The authors sum up their thesis thus: “that the secret gateway to alien worlds may be hidden inside our own minds and that humans already have been traveling in space and time and making contact with alien species,” via the chemical triggers or brain-filter suppressors of nature's psychotropic plants (3).

25
. Stanley Krippner and Michael Persinger, “Evidence for Enhanced Congruence between Dreams and Distant Target Material during Periods of Decreased Geomagnetic Activity,” in Fernandes, Fernandes, and Berenguel,
Fátima Revisited
.

26
. Persinger's readings also bear obvious parallels to the earlier work of John E. Keel, a Fortean writer who advanced a very similar set of electromagnetic or “superspectrum” readings of occult phenomena in his many books, including and especially
The Eighth Tower: The Cosmic Force Behind All Religious, Occult and UFO Phenomena
(New York: Saturday Review Press, 1975).

27
. Fernandes and D'Armada,
Celestial Secrets
, 42. They give no date.

28
. Michael A. Persinger, “The Fátima Phenomenon,” in Fernandes, Fernandes, and Berenguel,
Fátima Revisited
, 7.

29
. Raul Berenguel, “Mind Control and Marian Visions—A Theoretical and Experimental Approach,” in ibid., 63. Indeed, there is other research to suggest that exposure to high levels of electromagnetic radiation can produce many of the classical UFO (and Marian) phenomena: paralysis, loss of consciousness, visual impairment, and amnesia among them (
Celestial Secrets
, 89).

30
. Fernandes and D'Armada,
Heavenly Lights
, 22. Similarly, Vallee notes that the Arabic astrological sign for Venus was seen on the unidentified flying object witnessed at Socorro, New Mexico, on April 24, 1964 (IC 134–35). The witness, a patrolman named Lonnie Zamora, insisted on seeing a priest before he spoke of what he saw, “because he thought he might have seen something diabolical” (FS 1:110).

31
. Fernandes and D'Armada,
Heavenly Lights
, 21. See also
Celestial Secrets
, 237.

REQUIRED READING

1
. Jim Schnabel,
Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies
(New York: Dell, 1997), back cover blurb.

2
. David M. Jacobs, ed.,
UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge
(Lawrence: University Press, of Kansas, 2000), 2.

INDEX

Abbot,
Edwin,
21
,
187
,
258
;
Flatland
,
21
,
187

abduction: and Agobard,
161
; and altered states,
280
; Creighton, Gordon,
166
,
303n36
; experience of electromagnetically reproduced,
280
; and Ezekiel,
153
,
191
; and folklore,
215–16
,
285
; and Fuller, John G.,
165
; and Hill, Barney and Betty,
165–66
,
207
; and history of religions,
273
; and Mack, John,
23
; and metalogic of encounter stories,
170–71
; ninth-century version of,
161
; Schirmer, Herbert,
273
; and the sexual,
163–66
; and science fiction,
166–68
,
209–12
,
273
; and Simon, Benjamin,
165–66
; and social-control thesis,
167–69
,
185
,
282
; and Villas-Boas, Antonio,
164–66
,
303n36
.
See also
UFO phenomenon

Abrams, M. H.,
71–72
;
Natural Supernaturalism
,
297n98

absurdity,
146
,
159
,
170–71
,
182
,
212–13

agnosticism,
73
; coining of word by Thomas Huxley,
40
; and Fort, Charles,
99
; and Jung's view on flying saucers,
245
; and materialism,
45

Agobard, Archbishop of Lyon,
160–61
,
196
,
303n31
;
De Grandine et Tonitruis
,
160–61

altered states: and abduction,
280
; and altered words,
57
; and America's religion of no religion,
231
; awakened,
206
; and drugs,
256
; of eros,
90
; and evolution,
83
; and filter thesis,
256
; and Fort,
132
; of history,
21
; and history of religions,
271
; and magnetic sleep,
219
; of Myers,
57
,
83
; and the paranormal,
271
; and the psychical,
271
; reproduced in alien visitation lab experiments,
280
; and science fiction,
6
; and technology,
173
; and UFOs,
246

American Psychoanalytic Association,
15

Anatomy
of a Phenomenon
(Vallee),
152
,
155
,
156

Ann Arbor case,
301n8

Anton, Ted,
Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu
,
292n42

apophasis,
292n49

apports,
8
,
290n3

Area
51
,
184

Arnold, Kenneth,
151–53
,
203
,
207
,
248
,
301n12

Arpanet,
175
,
180
,
304n56

Astounding Stories
,
208

As You Like It
(Shakespeare),
98

Atmanspacher, Harald,
Recasting Reality
,
291n20

Atwater, F. Holmes,
Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul
,
305n70

Aubeck, Chris,
Prodigies
,
309n50

authors of the impossible, explanation of category,
25

automatic writing,
25
,
61
,
80

Bacon, Francis,
13

Balfour, Arthur,
53

Ballou, Robert O.,
William James on Psychical Research
,
291n18

Balzac, Honoré de,
239
,
240
;
Louis Lambert
,
240
;
Ursule Mirouet
,
240

Barkun, Michael,
A Culture of Conspiracy
,
303–4n49

Barrett, William,
53
,
54

Barthes, Roland,
220

Basel sighting,
153

Bateson, Gregory:
Mind and Nature,
309n51
;
Steps to an Ecology of Mind
,
309n51

Batman,
147
,
301n7

Baudelaire, Charles,
239
,
241

Beauregard, Mario,
261–65
;
The Spiritual Brain
,
261
,
311n26

Beckman, Fred,
181

behaviorism,
194
,
255

Bender, Courtney,
What Matters?
manuscript,
310n5

Bennett, Colin,
111
,
112
,
308n34
;
Politics of the Imagination
,
111

Bequette, Bill,
151

Berenguel, Raul,
281–82

Berger, Peter,
218
,
238
;
The Heretical Imperative
,
309n44
;
A Rumor of Angels
,
238
;
The Sacred Canopy
,
309n44

Bergier, Jacques,
186
,
205–6
,
307n10

Bergson, Henri: and creative evolution,
85
,
217
,
231–33
,
245
; and
élan vital
,
85
,
232
,
245
; and filter thesis,
73
,
264
; and James, William,
85
; and the mystical,
232–33
; and psychical research,
84–85
,
204
,
232–33
,
256
;
The Two Sources of Morality and Religion,
298n118

Bible: and Fort,
95–96
,
101–2
,
118
,
129–31
; and Ruskin,
40
; and Sidgwick,
49
; and Vallee,
190

Binet-Sanglé, Charles,
Le fin du secret
or
The End of the Secret
,
229

biolocation,
186

biology: as different from Fort's metaphysic,
136
; evolutionary,
70
,
72
,
117–18
,
124
,
260
; neuro-,
261–63
; and psychology,
69
; quantum,
175
; super-,
96

Blake, William,
217
,
273

Blavatsky, Madame,
51
,
55

Bloom, Harold,
20

Blum, Deborah: and apparitions coming clothed,
75
; on Blavatsky,
55
;
Ghost Hunters
,
291n18
; on Myers loving ghost of Annie Marshall,
89–90
; on Palladino,
51
; on Piper,
56
,
57
; on Twain, Mark,
295n45

Boehme, Jacob,
72

Book of the Damned, The
(Fort),
100
,
298n1
; Dreiser as agent for,
97–98
; and James, William,
300n30
; and the paranormal writing us,
99
; and Pauwel,
206
; and Super-Sargasso Sea,
127
; and Super-Story,
125
; and transgressive thought of Fort,
107–8
; and UFO fibralvina,
280
; and Wells, H. G.,
300n37

Bourdieu, Pierre,
218
,
220

Bowen, Charles,
The Humanoids
,
303n36

Boyer, Pascal,
Religion Explained
,
310n7

brain, left/right hemispheres of,
59
,
259
,
266
,
269
,
270
.
See also
Human as Two; neuroscience

Braude, Ann,
51
;
Radical Spirits
,
295n51

Braude, Stephen E.,
12
,
193
,
290n12
;
ESP and Psychokinesis
,
290n12
;
First Person Plural
,
290n12
;
The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations
,
290n11
;
Immortal Remains,
290n11
;
The Limits of Influence
,
290n12

Brazilian UFO Wave of 1977,
183–84

Brennan,
Marcia,
295n45

Breton, André:
The Automatic Message
,
296n72
; and fantastic realism,
206
; and Méheust,
217
,
222
; and Myers,
58
,
76
,
83

Broad, C. D.,
73
,
256
,
284–85
;
Lectures on Psychical Research
,
284–85

Browning, Robert,
86

Bucke, Richard Maurice,
63
,
84
,
231
,
264
,
297n82
;
Cosmic Consciousness
,
297n82
.
See also
cosmic consciousness

Buddhism,
11
,
200
; epistemology of,
254
; and mysticism,
33
,
159
; and neuroscience,
120
; and science fiction,
247
; significance of decapitation in,
311n10

Bullard, Thomas E.,
157–58
,
215–16
,
246
,
302n28
;
UFO Abductions
,
285