Tag: contactee experience

212. Clinical Psychologist Dr. Janet Colli Treats Trauma of Alien Contact Experience

Alex Tsakiris
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Interview explores the trauma and eventual spiritual transformation of those reporting alien contact. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Janet Colli author of, Sacred Encounters: Spiritual Encounters During Close Encounters.  During the interview Colli talks about how the trauma caused by these experiences: Alex Tsakiris:   Suppose you have an Iraqi war veteran who walks into your office and says, “I’m suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome,” which 20 years ago was highly controversial, but now we’d say, “Okay,” and you’d have a series of protocols you might take that person through. What are the limits on what you can do with someone like that versus what you do with someone who comes in and says, “I think I had an encounter with alien beings and I’ve had this for a long time and it’s really causing me a lot of stress.” As a clinician, how do you deal with those two situations? How are they similar; how are they different? Dr. Janet Colli:   I would say that the nervous system doesn’t make up trauma. The signs of trauma are pretty well recognized now. That knowledge and those experiences pretty much overwhelmed all of the questions of are people making up things? You want to treat it as trauma and to some degree respect what people are saying even if you yourself are not sure of the so-called objective reality of what happened. You want to be treating that using trauma methods. I use the EMDR a lot, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it really does help the nervous system process things that are difficult. (continued below) Dr. Colli's Website Click here for YouTube version Click here for forum discussion Play It  Listen Now: Download MP3 (44 min.) Read It: (pre-interview) Dr. Janet Colli:   How would you characterize your audience, if I might ask? Alex Tsakiris:   No, I’m glad you did. My audience is very open-minded and progressive-minded so we just call the skeptical nonsense for what it is and say, “That’s just a crazy, irrational worldview that just really doesn’t make sense.” But in the spirit of doing that, I think we have to remain skeptical as well, and when we get into consciousness there are a lot of different people saying a lot of different things out there.

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211. Montana State University’s Ardy Sixkiller Clarke Compiles 1,000 Accounts of American Indian Contact With UFO Phenomena

Alex Tsakiris
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Interview explores the personal accounts of Native Americans and “Star People”. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke author of, Encounters with the Star People: Untold Stories of American Indians.  During the interview Clarke talks about how a spiritual worldview affects the accounts she’s collected: Alex Tsakiris:  If we unpack these experiences with American Indians that you’re talking about, we assume going in that there’s a different spiritual orientation. I think we assume—whether this is true or not—that in American Indian cultures there’s are a different set of givens. What would you say about that? Is that true? Is that a misconception? And, how might that play into these accounts of encounters with alien beings? Dr. Ardy Clarke:   Well, I think again you have to separate tribes. There are some tribes where it’s forbidden to even speak the name of a dead person. Where in other tribes they believe that when someone dies they stay with them for a year. Their spirit remains with them for a year and then after a year they hold a ceremony to release that person. They have ceremonies where they can speak with those who have passed on. They have ceremonies where they can speak with the Ancients or where the Ancients come to them and give them knowledge and answer their prayers or their questions. So it depends on the tribal group, and it’s difficult for me to say, as a general rule, there is this spiritual connection. But there definitely is with some of the tribes. There’s no question about it. Some of the tribes actually talk about the trip across the Milky Way. That when you die you cross the path of the Milky Way. You’ve got a common theme there that the cosmos plays so much a part in afterlife and death and the ability of the deceased that they never really die. They just move on into another dimension and that they can come back and communicate with the living. Alex Tsakiris:   See, I just think no matter what subtle differences you might have in that worldview, I think a worldview that incorporates this spiritual dimension puts you in a completely different place in terms of dealing with the UFO phenomena. Dr. Ardy Clarke:   I do, too, because Native people on a whole are accepting of it. They aren’t skeptical of it. So if you approach it from a perspective that it is part of the universe and that it’s nothing to fear, then that’s one view. But to be skeptical of it and not believe what you’ve seen or to deny that it occurs is a totally different worldview. Dr. Clarke's Website Click here for YouTube version Click here for forum discussion Play It  Listen Now: Download MP3 (45 min.) Read It: Today we welcome author and Professor Emeritus from Montana State University, Dr. Ardy Sixkiller-Clark to Skeptiko. Dr. Clarke has a long, distinguished academic career working with indigenous populations and is here to talk about her fascinating new book, Encounters With Star People. Dr. Clarke, welcome to Skeptiko. Thanks so much for joining me. Dr. Ardy Clarke:  It’s my pleasure. Alex Tsakiris:   Dr. Clarke, tell us about your book. Obviously how you came to write it. Maybe a little bit about the methodology you used. You’ve worked for a long time with Native Americans and are familiar with some of the cultural aspects of that. How did you come to write this book?

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209. Talat Jonathan Phillips Chronicles His Transformation From Political Activist to Spiritual Seeker

Alex Tsakiris
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Interview with activist and author explores his personal journey with Ayawaska, ETs, and energy healing. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Talat Jonathan Phillips author of, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic.  During the interview Phillips talks about finding a balance between the worldly and spiritual pursuits: Alex Tsakiris: If you buy into materialism, if you think you’re a biological robot and that’s all you are -- you’re lost. If you buy into our materialistic culture and this idea that we need to get all we can, and we need to bomb other people so they don’t get it -- all that stuff -- you’re lost. But as soon as you cross that chasm and you say, “Okay, there’s something more”, then I think you run into this problem what we’re talking about. And that is materialism keeps wanting to creep itself back into the equation. So, you’re saying, “I need to take action here. I need to go do this. I need to vote for this candidate. I need to do that.” Isn’t there the risk that we get into this back-door materialism, this “we’re in control” thing? Talat Phillips:   Oh yeah. But I think it’s both. We’ve set up an either/or and I think it’s both/and because if I look at most of my clients, most of them come in and think we’re going to talk about past lives and this and that. But most of them need to get into the material world a little bit. They need to get in their bodies and figure out jobs and live an abundant life. That doesn’t mean buy a mansion but it just means to know how to support themselves and talk with people. I don’t want to deny that aspect because it is important. I denied it for many years of my existence and maybe that was why I was a marginalized activist. On the other hand, I definitely saw this with Occupy. It was very frustrating for me seeing all the projected anger about finances. I do a lot of anger work with clients. It’s good to express anger but when you project it at others it creates more of that fear culture. What I like with Evolver.net is that we’re more like, “How can you create? How can you follow your bliss and your passions and do what you love?” I think Joseph Campbell talks about this. This is a dance we have of integrating.  So I think what you’ve brought up is a great study that we all do. It’s an alchemy of walking as a human and being as a human on this planet. It’s being and doing and creating a right relationship between that. Talat Jonathan Phillips Website Click here for YouTube version Click here for forum discussion Play It  Listen Now: Download MP3 (47 min.) Read It: Today we welcome Talat Jonathan Phillips to Skeptiko. Talat is the author of The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic. He is also the co-founder of a rather amazing web magazine named Reality Sandwich and an equally amazing social movement at www.evolver.net. Welcome to Skeptiko, Talat. Thanks so much for joining me. Talat Phillips:  It’s great to be here. Thanks, Alex. Alex Tsakiris:   Well, your book, The Electric Jesus, is just a great read. I mean, I was just blown away at how it pulls you in and just makes you want to turn page after page. It’s a spiritual odyssey, as the name suggests, but it reads like a Tom Wolfe novel. Tell us a little bit about this book and how it came about and what people are going to find when they read it.

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198. Mike Clelland Struggles to Understand Contact With Alien Consciousness

Alex Tsakiris
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Interview with Blogger and UFO researcher Mike Clelland about reports of contact with alien consciousness. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Mike Clelland, host of the Hidden Experience Podcast.  During the interview Clelland discusses various account of contact with alien consciousness: Alex Tsakiris:  I look at the UFO phenomena and I am challenged to either fit it into that near-death experience, mystical/spiritual framework, or say that it lies outside of that framework. So are the aliens God? Mike Clelland:   I’m sure you could cherry-pick the reports and you could come up with that answer that they are God. In these UFO narratives people come back and they tell what they experienced and so one person in one narrative asked the little gray aliens, “Are you Angels?” And the gray aliens reply, “Yes. But not in the way you think of Angels.” Which is an interesting answer. In another report someone asks the gray aliens, “Did God create the universe?” And the aliens reply, “No. God is creating the universe moment-by-moment.” Alex Tsakiris:   That gets back to the most challenging part of all that which is we don’t understand the nature of that extended consciousness beyond our physical level, so whenever we talk about theatre, then is it theatre to us? Or is it theatre to them? Mike Clelland: I feel like I’m constantly confronted with—and the phrase I will use is “something’s going on behind the curtain.” I’m implying that there’s this other dimensional realm that “they,” these aliens, can access that we can barely access. Maybe we can access it through death; maybe we can access it through psychedelics. Maybe we can access it through intense meditation or through dream realms.  We can access that realm fleetingly. Mike Clelland's Website Click here for YouTube version Click here for forum discussion Play It: Listen Now: Download MP3 (82 min.) Read It: Today we welcome Mike Clelland to Skeptiko. In addition to being a pretty amazing illustrator, Mike is also a blogger and podcaster at www.hiddenexperience.blogspot.com where he tackles a number of paranormal topics mainly centered around alien contact. Now I know that can be a challenging topic for those who haven’t really studied the phenomena very much, but I’m really hoping that in this Skeptiko interview we can jump past all that first-level skeptical silliness because it’s really not that interesting. If you think all this stuff is swamp gas and ball lightning  then more power to you but that’s not really what we’re going to talk about today. What I’m hoping to get into with Mike is questions about this other form of consciousness that many, many folks he’s been coming in contact with and hopefully trying to tie that back to so many of the topics that we’ve talked about here on Skeptiko, be it remote viewing or out-of-body experience or near-death experience, lucid dreaming, psychedelics, all the rest. So with that rather long introduction, Mike, welcome to Skeptiko. Thanks for coming on. Mike Clelland:   Thanks for having me.

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179. What Happened When the “Father of Stealth” Told His UFO Secrets? Hint — It’s ESP

Alex Tsakiris
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When military intelligence insider Ben Rich told this UFO investigator UFOs were powered by the same force that causes ESP everything changed. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with UFO researcher, and author, Grant Cameron. During the interview Cameron explains how his research led him to uncover the connection between ESP, telepathy and the UFO phenomena: Alex Tsakiris: One of the things that we like to do on Skeptiko is to keep pulling on a string and follow it as far as we can. That’s led me to you because when you look at human consciousness and you start looking for explanations for things like telepathy, precognition, out-of-body experiences, and other altered states of consciousness it eventually leads to this UFO thing, and the numerous reports of mind control and telepathy associated with it. So when I heard you say government insiders who really know about the UFO have told you that you can’t really understand this UFO phenomena without having an expanded view of consciousness I was intrigued.  Tell me how you came to this conclusion. Grant Cameron: …We tracked this guy down and he turns out to be Dr. Eric Walker, who was former President of Penn State University. For 15 years he was the Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Defense Analysis, which is the top military think tank for the United States military. He was the co-developer of the homing torpedo. He was friends with Vannevar Bush. He had this incredible, unbelievable background of military and connections with Presidents and stuff like this. So when we go to him, we’re interviewing him as UFO researchers. We’re not thinking about the mind and consciousness; we couldn’t care less about that, no connection whatsoever. We’re talking to him and we’re trying to find out about this supposed UFO group that runs the whole thing, the MJ-12. We’re asking him questions about MJ-12. “Did you have contact with the aliens? How did the thing operate? How did you cover-up the UFO thing?” And suddenly in the middle of one of these interviews in 1990 he suddenly cuts off the conversation talking about hardware, about bodies and all this, and he suddenly says, “How good is your sixth sense? How much do you know about ESP?” And Walker says, “Unless you know about it and how to use it, you will not be taken in.” …Then in 1993 there’s a related story about a conversation that takes place with Ben Rich. Ben Rich was the guy who ran “Skunk Works”, where the U2, the SR-71, the Stealth fighter, the Stealth bomber, they were all developed by what was called Skunk Works. Ben Rich ran it and he would get a number of questions about was this UFO technology? He’s giving a lecture in 1993. He’s dying of cancer. He gives a lecture at UCLA to a bunch of engineers and he’s talking and he says, “We’ve got the technology to take ET home.” He gives his lecture, he finishes the lecture, he’s walking out, and one of the engineers who was interested in UFOs runs after him. He asks, “How are these things propelled? How are UFOs propelled?” And Ben Rich turns around and says to him, “Let me ask you a question. How does ESP work?” Grant Cameron's Website Click here for YouTube version Click here for forum discussion Play It: Download MP3 (68 min.) Read It: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Grant Cameron to Skeptiko. Grant is a highly-regarded UFO researcher who’s made some fascinating connections between what we know about the UFO phenomena and the kind of extended human consciousness we talk so much about here on Skeptiko. Grant is in the process of publishing two new books and regularly blogs at www.presidentialufo.com. Welcome, Grant, thanks for joining us. Grant Cameron: Thanks, Alex, for having me on.

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159. Stanton Friedman on Extended Human Consciousness and Mind Control

Alex Tsakiris
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UFO researcher sees evidence of telepathy in the accounts of UFO witnesses. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Stanton Friedman, author of Science Was Wrong.  During the interview Friedman discusses the implications of his research for human consciousness: Alex Tsakiris: I want to talk about extended consciousness in terms of the research you’ve done because there’s this whole controversy within the field that wants to push everything into the psycho-social explanation. But at the same time we do have to acknowledge, as you did in your work with the famous abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill that we do have reports of telepathy, mind control, psychokinesis, and all the rest. I’m wondering what that evidence tells us about ourselves and our human capabilities that extend beyond what we normally think of as our conscious experience. Stanton Friedman: Well, it’s a very important point because I’m convinced that any advanced civilization will know about telepathy and mind control and communication at a distance. It really came home to me when I was standing at the exact location where Barney Hill was standing when the saucer was over their car and he’s looking through binoculars at the crew on board. For no good reason, they jumped back in the car, very frightened, and they get off the main road, Route 3, and they go onto a secondary road. Then they go onto a dirt road --which Barney would never have done. And he winds up alongside the only place in the area where you could land a, let’s say 80-foot in diameter, flying saucer. It was a sandy area, there were trees all over the place, but this area was big enough to get a saucer like the one they described down. It was clear proof to me that these guys were directing his actions. It seems to me eminently clear that these guys have capabilities—as the only simple term I know—to do things that we don’t look upon as being respectable. Such as mind-reading, mind control, and getting people to forget. Stanton Friedman's Website Play It: Download MP3 (50:00 min.) Read It: Alex Tsakiris: Today’s guest was a nuclear physicist before becoming one of the best known and most well informed UFO researchers. I’m talking about Stanton Friedman and Stan, it’s a great pleasure and an honor to welcome you here today on Skeptiko. Stanton Friedman: I appreciate that. I always like doing it. I grew up with radio. I’m one of the old guys, you know. Put the pictures in my head instead of on a tube.

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141. Steve Volk Investigates UFOs, Ghosts, Telepathy and Near-Death Experience in, Fringe-ology

Alex Tsakiris
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Investigative journalist and author Steve Volk seeks a middle-ground between mainstream science skepticism and researchers on the paranormal fringe. Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Steve Volk, author of Fringe-ology.  During the interview Mr. Volk discusses his personal experience with poltergeist phenomena: Alex Tsakiris: In your book you do a very nice job of exploring the mystery of the paranormal. But at the same time, I look at the mystery associated with your experience with a ghost in your house. That is, what happened to you when you were a kid growing up and you experienced this poltergeist phenomena. At the end of the day, in the book you come away and say, “Well, it’s a mystery.” Steve Volk: It is. Alex Tsakiris: But that’s a tricky word because it could mean two things. It could appeal to that certain group of people who say, “Okay, we don’t know if it really happened. It’s a mystery.” Or another group of people could process it and say, “Oh, it’s a mystery. We don’t know the precise confluence of paranormal things that happened to cause it.” Are we using a word that doesn’t get us to the underlying question about this mystery? Steve Volk: I think in the totality of that chapter with the fact that I explore the idea of it having been a traditional sort of ghost, along with a range of skeptical explanations from the fantasy-prone personality which is really purely a psychological one to what I consider the more exotic materialist theories like Vic Tandy’s theory of infrasound that there are these sound waves below the level of human hearing that can cause us to even have visual hallucinations, on through Persinger and the electromagnetic energy temporal lobe interaction that he’s been pursuing for a while now, there’s this range of potential explanations right? I wanted to just put them all out on the table because I think that they all have some sort of validity. I think we need to be willing to consider all these possibilities. I suppose, in that respect Alex, I might appear a little bit of a gadfly at times because I’m challenging everyone to look at all the possibilities all the way on through. Steve Volk's Website Play it: Download MP3 (44:00 min.) Read it: Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by someone you’ve gotten to know over the last few episodes of Skeptiko as Steve Volk has been a guest host here and brought us three very informative, insightful interviews about the history of parapsychology, neuro-theology, and ghosts. Today Steve is here to talk about his new book, Fringe-ology, a book that covers all these topics and a lot more. Steve, welcome to Skeptiko. Steve Volk: Alex, thank you so much for having me.

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