ET's -- or Angels?

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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

Post by lpetrich »

I've found something very weird. Someone who claims to be an extraterrestrial visitor. She is Omnec Onec, originally Sheila Gibson. She claims that she was born and raised in Venus's etheric plane and that George Adamski's Venusian BFF Orthon is one of her uncles. But one day, the leaders of her community decided to send her to enlighten us Earthlings. They found that a 7-year-old girl named Sheila Gibson had recently gotten killed in a horrible vehicle accident, and OO decided to take her physical form and use her name. Her family then raised her as if she was the original.

When she grew up, she became a barmaid and a cashier, and she got involved with Eckankar. Then she started telling everybody about her alleged Venusian origin, and she is now teaching a variant of Eckankar that she claims that she learned back on Venus. Omnec Onec with three of her children in the Jerry Springer Show, USA, 1993 - YouTube -- "My mom is from Venus"
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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Besides physical contact, another form of contact is telepathic. This also has an old history. People have been claiming to receive messages from supernatural entities for centuries, and likely for as long as humanity has existed. Messages from gods and angels and ghosts and saints and the like. The recipients of these messages have received them in several ways. Voices in the head. Speaking in a trance. Writing in a similar fashion (automatic writing). Pointing out letters (Ouija boards and the like). This activity has gone under various names, like necromancy and spiritualism and channeling.

But let's back up a bit.

Supernatural entities are at least partially independent of the physical Universe, while extraterrestrial sentient entities (ET's) are entities like us, which inhabit the physical Universe, and whose ultimate nature is mostly or completely physical. I saw "mostly" to include mind-body dualism.

Speculations about ET's are almost as old as speculations about the existence of other Earthlike objects in the Universe, if this quote from Democritus (460 - 370 BCE) is any guide:
In some worlds there is no Sun and Moon, in others they are larger than in our world, and in others more numerous. In some parts there are more worlds, in others fewer (...); in some parts they are arising, in others failing. There are some worlds devoid of living creatures or plants or any moisture.
A "world" here is a Ptolemaic cosmology, with an Earthlike object in the center and suns, moons, planets, and stars orbiting it. The Epicureans also believed in this cosmology, though most of their fellow philosophers believed that there is only one world, by this definition of a world.

The next step forward was over a millennium later, when Galileo started looking at celestial objects with his telescope. The Moon already seemed vaguely like some other world, with its round shape and its blotches, but Galileo saw lots and lots of mountains on it. It was evident that the Moon is much more Earthlike that anyone had ever thought. He could not resolve the other planets very well, but he saw spots on the Sun, phases of Venus, the four biggest moons of Jupiter, and something or other around Saturn.

It was evident that the other planets were worlds like the Earth, and by the 18th cy., it was very commonly believed that ET's were living on most or all of them. But nobody claimed to have visited them until Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). He was a scientist who started getting religious visions, and he became a theologian. In 1758, he published The Earths in Our Solar System Which are called Planets and the Earths in the Starry Heaven, and Their Inhabitants; Also the Spirits and Angels There From Things Heard and Seen, describing what he encountered as he he psychically traveled to the other planets.

In 1848, Margaret and Chase Fox of Hydesville NY near Newark NJ claimed that they could communicate with spirits -- spirits that communicated back by making cracking noises. This was the beginning of Spiritualism, and the Fox sisters were joined by numerous other spiritualist mediums. The movement continued despite the Fox sisters confessing in 1888 that they'd faked their spirit communications by cracking various joints, like toe joints.

Most spiritualists contacted ghosts of the dead, supernatural entities, but some of them contacted ET's, usually Martians. Hélène Smith was one of them, and she even got some samples of a Martian language. Psychologist Théodore Flournoy examined those samples, and he found them to be a relex of French, her native language. A relexification, relex for short, is replacing the words in a language with other words, without changing its structure. Some people like to create and use constructed natural languages or conlangs, and such people often consider relexes of existing languages very amateurish and unimaginative.

In 1930, a psychic named Willard Magoon went on a psychic trip to Mars, where he discovered that that planet has lots of forests, parks, and gardens, and that its inhabitants had long used radios and electric cars.

I must note an early physical contact. Occultist Guy Ballard of the Theosophy-inspired I AM activity claimed in 1935 that he had a remarkable experience some years earlier in the Royal Teton mountains. In a cavern there, along with some other people, he watched as 12 Venusians, 7 male and 5 female, teleported in from their homeworld in a blaze of light. They then proceeded to play a concert with violins and harps, and they showed off on a reflecting screen a movie about technological achievements on their homeworld.
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DCHindley
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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lpetrich wrote:Speculations about ET's are almost as old as speculations about the existence of other Earthlike objects in the Universe, if this quote from Democritus (460 - 370 BCE) is any guide:
In some worlds there is no Sun and Moon, in others they are larger than in our world, and in others more numerous. In some parts there are more worlds, in others fewer (...); in some parts they are arising, in others failing. There are some worlds devoid of living creatures or plants or any moisture.
A "world" here is a Ptolemaic cosmology, with an Earthlike object in the center and suns, moons, planets, and stars orbiting it. The Epicureans also believed in this cosmology, though most of their fellow philosophers believed that there is only one world, by this definition of a world.
What Greek word, exactly, did Democritus use? The usual word, "kosmos" simply means "adornment", or the way things appear, and can mean they way things appear here on earth (which they did not think of as a planet in outer-space orbiting the sun) or in the material heavens (sun, moon, planets, stars, as they appear by observation).

Plato suggested that the same way that sediment mixed with water settles in layers, the courser being at the bottom and the finer up top, was why we saw things one way here, but things were probably perceived differently the higher up we went into the heavens. As one rose up, the matter there would be progressively finer, more colorful, sharper. They still had stones, trees, etc., just nicer, prettier ones. We humans were bottom feeders, living in the dregs of the material world.

The other word commonly translated "world" is "aeon" and referred to an "age", that is, a period of time, or more widely "system of things/dispensation".

DCH
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lpetrich
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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From Democritus I find a complete version of the above fragment:
There is an infinite number of worlds of different sizes: some are larger than ours, some have no sun or moon, others have suns or moons that are bigger than ours. Some have many suns and moons. Worlds are spaced at differing distances from each other; in some parts of the universe there are more worlds, in other parts fewer. In some areas they are growing, in other parts, decreasing. They are destroyed by collision with one another. There are some worlds with no living creatures, plants, or moisture.
I have not been able to find an original Greek version. From the looks of this fragment, it is evident that "world" is an Earthlike object in the center of a Ptolemaic cosmology.

Back to contactees, many of them have done telepathic contact with either limited physical contact (George van Tassel, Daniel Fry) or no physical contact (George Hunt Williamson, George King, Gloria Lee Byrd, Barbara Marciniak, ...)

Interestingly, George van Tassel tells us in The Council of Seven Lights that "I know now that angels are people that come out of space." following by discussing that connection in detail. He also explains a lot of Biblical stuff as being from ET visits.
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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lpetrich wrote:From Democritus I find a complete version of the above fragment:
There is an infinite number of worlds of different sizes: some are larger than ours, some have no sun or moon, others have suns or moons that are bigger than ours. Some have many suns and moons. Worlds are spaced at differing distances from each other; in some parts of the universe there are more worlds, in other parts fewer. In some areas they are growing, in other parts, decreasing. They are destroyed by collision with one another. There are some worlds with no living creatures, plants, or moisture.
I have not been able to find an original Greek version. From the looks of this fragment, it is evident that "world" is an Earthlike object in the center of a Ptolemaic cosmology.
"The extracts below have been assembled out of surviving fragments, and do not correspond to any extant work. It represents what he might have said if asked to give a few off-the-cuff remarks."

I guess he didn't really "say" any of it ...
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DCHindley
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol 1 Greece & Rome (1946)
[124]DEMOCRITUS OF ABDERA

This would seem to be the right place to say something of the epistemological and ethical theories of Democritus of Abdera. Democritus was a disciple of Leucippus and, together with his Master, belongs to the Atomist School; but his peculiar interest for us lies in the fact that he gave attention to the problem of knowledge raised by Protagoras and to the problem of conduct which relativistic doctrines of the Sophists had rendered acute. Nowhere named by Plato, Democritus is frequently mentioned by Aristotle. He was head of a School at Abdera, and was still alive when Plato founded the Academy. The reports of his journeys to Egypt and Athens cannot be accepted with certainty.1 He wrote copiously, but his writings have not been preserved.

I. The account of sensation given by Democritus was a mechanical one. Empedocles had spoken of “effluences” from objects which reach the eye, for example. The Atomists make these effluences to be atoms, images (δείκελα, είδωλα), which objects are constantly shedding. These images enter through the organs of sense, which are just passages (πὸροι) and impinge on the soul, which is itself composed of atoms. The images, passing through the air, are subject to distortion by the air; and this is the reason why objects very far off may not be seen at all. Differences of colour were explained by differences of smoothness or roughness in the images, and hearing was given a like explanation, the stream of atoms flowing from the sounding body causing motion in the air between the body and the ear. Taste, smell and touch were all explained in the same way. (Secondary qualities would, therefore, not be objective.) We also obtain knowledge of the gods through such είδωλα; but gods denote for Democritus higher beings who are not immortal, though they live longer than men. They are δύσφθαρτα but not άφθαρτα. Strictly speaking, of course, the Atomist system would not admit of God, but only of atoms and the void.2

Now, Protagoras the Sophist, a fellow-citizen of Democritus, declared all sensation to be equally true for the sentient subject: [125] thus an object might be truly sweet for X, truly bitter for Y. Democritus, however, declared that all the sensations of the special senses are false, for there is nothing real corresponding to them outside the subject. “Νόμῳ there is sweet, νόμῳ there is bitter; νόμῳ there is warm and νόμφ there is cold; νόμῳ there is colour. But έτεη there are atoms and the void.”1 In other words, our sensations are purely subjective, though they are caused by something external and objective — the atoms, namely — which, however, cannot be apprehended by the special senses. “By the senses we in truth know nothing sure, but only something that changes according to the disposition of the body and of the things that enter into it or resist it.”2 The special senses, then, give us no information about reality. Secondary qualities, at least, are not objective. “There are two forms of knowledge (γνώμη), the trueborn (γνησίη) and the bastard (σκοτίη). To the bastard belong all these: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The trueborn is quite apart from these.”3 However, as the soul is composed of atoms, and as all knowledge is caused by the immediate contact with the subject of atoms coming from the outside, it is evident that the “trueborn” knowledge is on the same footing as the “bastard,” in the sense that there is no absolute separation between sense and thought. Democritus saw this, and he comments: “Poor Mind, it is from us” (i.e. from the senses), “thou hast got the proofs to throw us with. Thy throw is a fall.”4

124n1 Diog. Laert., 9, 34 f. Cf. Burnet, G.P., I, p. 195.
124n2 According to Diog. Laert. (9, 35), quoting Favorinus, Democritus ridiculed the assertions of Anaxagoras concerning Mind.
125n1 Frag. 9.
125n2 Frag. 9.
125n3 Frag. 11.
125n4 Frag.125.
I am still suffering from my tooth extraction, so forgive me if I have not always correctly rendered Greek accents & breathings. Abby software only captures modern Greek accents and breathings, and my head hurts too much to be hunting the correct forms down. :facepalm:
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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DCHindley wrote:
lpetrich wrote:Speculations about ET's are almost as old as speculations about the existence of other Earthlike objects in the Universe, if this quote from Democritus (460 - 370 BCE) is any guide:
In some worlds there is no Sun and Moon, in others they are larger than in our world, and in others more numerous. In some parts there are more worlds, in others fewer (...); in some parts they are arising, in others failing. There are some worlds devoid of living creatures or plants or any moisture.
A "world" here is a Ptolemaic cosmology, with an Earthlike object in the center and suns, moons, planets, and stars orbiting it. The Epicureans also believed in this cosmology, though most of their fellow philosophers believed that there is only one world, by this definition of a world.
What Greek word, exactly, did Democritus use? The usual word, "kosmos" simply means "adornment", or the way things appear, and can mean they way things appear here on earth (which they did not think of as a planet in outer-space orbiting the sun) or in the material heavens (sun, moon, planets, stars, as they appear by observation).

Plato suggested that the same way that sediment mixed with water settles in layers, the courser being at the bottom and the finer up top, was why we saw things one way here, but things were probably perceived differently the higher up we went into the heavens. As one rose up, the matter there would be progressively finer, more colorful, sharper. They still had stones, trees, etc., just nicer, prettier ones. We humans were bottom feeders, living in the dregs of the material world.

The other word commonly translated "world" is "aeon" and referred to an "age", that is, a period of time, or more widely "system of things/dispensation".

DCH
Democritus (according to Hippolytus) uses kosmos for world in this passage,

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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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I still have no success in finding Democritus fragments in the original Greek. I once found them for Xenophanes, but I forget where I found them. Fragments of Xenophanes - Wikisource, the free online library has some translations, but no originals. Xenophanes was the one who noted that people tend to make deities in their likeness.
Fragment 11
Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals, stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another.

Fragment 12
Since they have uttered many lawless deeds of the gods, stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another.

Fragment 14
But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form.

Fragment 15
Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds.

Fragment 16
The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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ET's as latter-day angels brings to mind certain trends in Speculative fiction over the last few centuries.
The term speculative fiction refers to any fiction story that includes elements, settings and characters whose features are created out of human imagination and speculation rather than based on attested reality and everyday life.
Its opposite may be called mundane fiction. Isaac Asimov once called mundane fiction (by this definition) true-background fiction and speculative fiction false-background fiction.

There are several recognized genres of speculative fiction, like alternate history, utopian literature, dystopian literature, horror, fantasy, and science fiction, but I'll focus on the last two. Roughly speaking, fantasy uses supernatural elements like sorcery, while science fiction uses technological elements like advanced artificial intelligence.

By our standards, at least, mythological stories are obviously fantasy, even though they were likely nonfiction to their tellers. So by our standards, fantasy has been around for centuries, and likely for the entire history of our species. However, some of them featured advanced technology, like the story of Daedalus and Icarus, so those ones could qualify as science fiction. Over the centuries, various other works of speculative fiction had SF elements in them, but SF only emerged as a well-defined genre over the late 19th century and early 20th century. This was also a time of much faster technological advance than what previous generations had done, and that made advanced technology a very plausible subject for speculative fiction.

Thus, what made ET's plausible also made science fiction a big genre.
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Re: ET's -- or Angels?

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SF in pseudoscience
The term "science fiction" was invented to describe a certain genre of literature popularized in the 1920s, when pulp magazines specializing in this type of fiction first appeared. But as a category of popular literature, under no particular name, science fiction is to be found in general fiction magazines throughout the 19th Century. Many of the themes invented by writers 100 to 180 years ago have penetrated the public consciousness so thoroughly that pseudoscience writers need only mention one or two key words to suggest a whole pseudoscience scenario in the mind of the reader! What is really frightening, however, is that the average reader probably thinks these familiar concepts borrowed from nearly two centuries of fantasy fiction are actual, well-established scientific fact--- real phenomena of the real world! In fact, the vast majority of these science fiction themes are fictional cliches without any fixed meaning, much less any correspondence to anything in the real world.
These are all from the 19th century:
  • Lost civilizations
  • New animals, both found and made
  • Mechanical life -- robots and androids
  • Visitors from other planets
  • Visits to other planets
  • Time travel to the past
  • Suspended animation or time travel into the future
  • Invisibility
  • The fourth dimension
  • Coexistent worlds
  • Vibrations
  • Energy
  • Parallel worlds
  • Detachable "mind"
  • Reality as mental image
  • Civilization as periodic
  • We're property
Early 20th cy. SF writers did not add much. Their four biggest additions:
  • The atom as a little solar system -- or, our solar system as a gigantic atom
  • Matter transmitters
  • Space warp, hyperspace, star drive, hyperdrive, wormholes
  • ESP, psychic powers, psionics
The page's author then discusses SF elements in recent religions.
  • Mormonism (ca. 1830) has a little bit. Its Book of Mormon reads like some extra books of the Bible, but if one is a very good male Mormon, then one can then create one's own planet and be its god.
  • Theosophy (1875) has some more. It is Helena Blavatsky's massive woo-woo synthesis, composed by her plagiarizing numerous sources, like Eastern religious texts, contemporary science, and contemporary pseudoscience, like Ignatius Donnelly's Atlantis.
  • Scientology (1950) was created by SF writer L. Ron Hubbard. Not surprisingly, it has a lot of SF in it.
Note how they get more and more science-fictiony, more about technology and related things than about supernatural things.
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