Resstlessness, Exploration and a nice spring day

It's one of those first nice days in spring, a Friday afternoon in mid March when it feels like the weight of winter is finally lifted from off our backs. The world feels like a freer place. It is a familiar feeling - call it spring fever. I needed to get out of the four walls, some place where I could sit back and relax, while at the same time concentrate on the studying, writing or other creative work I need to do. 

I would sit down at one place, and then I would feel like no, I needed to move to someplace else. At the moment I'm at a Caribou looking for that ideal seat, someplace I can sit down and focus on the writing I need to get done.

What has this got to do with topics like UFOs and close encounters, exploration, science, anything beyond the horizon? Well, it turns out, probably plenty. Restlessness and creativity are what drives us. On days like today, I look up into the deep blue of the sky - cloudless, clear and infinite. I feel the feeling that got me going into this stuff in the first place - what's beyond that blue? And in my own mind, I try to imagine, to reach out to whatever that might be. What is beyond that horizon? What awaits us far beyond the edge of the known?

In this month's CE4 Corner, I ask a lot of questions about where the close encounter phenomenon is headed. In it, I describe reading a lot of material on the possibility of star travel. This includes a new book by Mark Millis and Eric Davis, "The Frontiers of Propulsion Science". It is a compilation of articles edited by two of the foremost thinkers in the quest for star travel. If you begin to read it, I hope you like math, because it has a lot of it. However, it dramatizes to me how we are probably pretty close to star travel now. The engineer in me reawakens at the thought of possibly building something this advanced. It is just beyond the edge of the possible and so, just maybe if we push the envelope a little more, we might just find ourselves on the path out to the cosmos.

At the same time, I just signed up for a class in something I've been interested in for a long time. Totally opposite of the mathematics and computer programming that have occupied much of my time and awareness, it is a workshop on shamanism. Specifically, the class is "Introduction to Shamanism". It seems totally opposite of the engineering I have been pursuing, yet it is motivated by the same thing - curiosity and restlessness. 

I have read a lot of Graham Hancock's work, heard lectures by Scott Wolter and others who are working the edge of the known. Scott Wolter, the producer of the TV series "America Unearthed," has been exploring many aspects of the hidden history North America. Hancock has explored some of our possible shamanic prehistory. I have followed both with wonder.

Each one of them answers the same drive - to reach beyond the horizon, to explore the edge of the known, to see what is beyond the blue of the sky on a nice spring day.

Where is this all going? - draft of this month's article in the CE4 Corner

Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever.
 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky 


I just got done reading the book, Interstellar, a novel based on the screen play for the move by the same name (Note: as I write this, I have not yet seen the movie). The ideas are interesting. Although, I was not overly impressed with some aspects of the story, I was struck by one aspect - the need to expand beyond Earth in the relatively near future. I also recently read an article on space.com, in which Steven Hawking talks about his view that humanity must expand into space or face extinction. While that journey will likely take us to the planets first, ultimately, I believe that our destiny lies among the stars.

Another classic bit of literature I recently re-read was the story of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The story is a cautionary tale in which an alien named Klattu lands his flying saucer on the White house lawn and warns us.

"...if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration...."

While I doubt that a universe of Gort-robots is lurking out there, threatening to incinerate us, the concern is a valid one in real life. With humanity being in its currently warlike state, would the Cosmic Community, whoever is out there beyond our known world, allow us to travel to the stars? And if we did try to travel beyond the confines of our solar system, what would happen? Would we be greeted by a hostile welcoming committee? Perhaps, in the words of Klattu, "The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk."

And yet, I suspect we are probably within a few hundred years (at most) from developing a working means of star travel. I recently received a copy of the book Frontiers of Propulsion Science, by Mark Millis and Eric Davis, two scientists at the forefront of advanced space travel concepts. The book offers detailed (very mathematical) treatments of possible ideas for star travel. The bottom line, travel to the stars could be feasible in the foreseeable future.

FTL (Faster Than Light) travel is not strictly prohibited by the theory of relativity, as has always been assumed in the physics world. There are ways around the Einstein barrier. The Alcubierre warp drive is one such concept. While a practical implementation of this is nowhere near feasible at the present time, it shows that at least in principle, the mathematics allows it. We can picture a hundred or so years of work by brilliant minds would produce solutions to the "impossibilities" of star travel.

So, if you were the Cosmic Civilization, observing an upstart, warlike race of beings on the verge of developing star travel, what would you do? Would you incinerate this threatening world? What if that upstart species offered something important to the universe? What if destroying them would be an incalculable loss? Perhaps, instead of destruction, you would do something else - somehow intervene to improve that race, force its evolution to the point where it would become acceptable - at least from your (the Cosmic Community's) point of view.

How would that intervention appear to those living on that developing world? Would they see a landing on the White House lawn? What impact would that have on this upstart world? According to the most experts, the effect of open high-level contact would likely be severe. So to avoid disrupting this developing species/civilization, you would probably keep your influence covert. You might allow yourself to be observed only in fleeting moments. To me, this is exactly how the UFO and CE4 phenomenon presents itself. It describes the human-visitor interaction in great detail.

I firmly believe that our human destiny is among the stars. And now, as physics advances, it seems increasingly likely star travel could become feasible far sooner than anyone had thought. World War 2 accelerated our technology in some areas - perhaps by several generations. Rocketry, nuclear technology and other areas of physics are just a few. Progress in all of these areas accelerated during that time period. In some areas, in only about five years we advanced by nearly a century. As a result, we are much closer to routine space flight and the scientific/technological breakthroughs needed for interstellar travel.

In The Cosmic Bridge, I discuss just such a possibility. And from the point of view of the Cosmic Community, this human-improvement project would suddenly take on new urgency. We would expect to see a tremendous acceleration of the UFO/CE4 phenomenon. The timetable is tight - to effect a fundamental change in the state of human civilization within a few hundred years. As a result, the interaction, while still covert, would have to be on a truly massive scale. Indeed, since World War 2, we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of reported UFO encounters. Perhaps this reflects that urgency.

If this picture is a valid model for the close encounter phenomenon, then what should we see in the next generation or so? Should we see some sort of change to the aggregate consciousness of humanity? Should we see a shift away from war? Should we see an advancement of human thought toward more harmonious living - peace within humanity and with the Earth, itself? And if so, what would the initial signs be?

So far, in the last few decades, I have not yet seen signs of a large-scale, fundamental movement away from war and toward harmony. At the time of this writing, several new wars have broken out, filling our evening news with a steady stream of violence and suffering. Political tensions are rising and environmental issues appear to be getting worse, not better. Yet perhaps the "improvement" influence is still below the surface, taking a greater period of time and manifesting in a more subtle way. If so, then perhaps we will not see any overt changes in the near future. Yet, as psychic/spiritual the changes reach a critical mass, I wonder if we will see a rapid shift in the aggregate human behavior, the aggregate world body-politic. Still, I'm not holding my breath.

As I see the effects (both positive and negative) the close encounter phenomenon has on the individual, its propagation down the family line, and the children of experiencer families, I can only conclude that "They" are up to something roughly akin to this "human-improvement" project. (Note: we again need to remember that this is an improvement from their point of view, not necessarily ours.) As I observe this, and at the same time I observe current world events, I can only wonder, will this "improvement" be completed in time? And what will "They" do if we develop interstellar travel and start spilling out into the galaxy before we are fully "improved"?

So, as we reach this critical crossroads, I have to ask the question - what should we expect to see next? And even more fundamentally - where is this all going?

Doing, being and finding your own path

Some time ago I presented a two-hour lecture on hypnosis and hypnotherapy to the Psychology 101 class at a local community college. It was a great class, and I really like the instructor. It was a delightful experience, and it reminded me of how much I love teaching. In another life, I would be a professor. It prompted me to think about all of the people walking around asking themselves, "What do I want to do when I grow up? Who /what do I want to be?"

There are so many possibilities, and so many paths. Some might lead to fulfilling lives. Other paths might work for a while and then it might be necessary to move on. Other paths are much less of a fit, and forcing one's self to stay on that path would lead to increasing degrees of unhappiness in life.

For some, perhaps the solution is to not grow up - simply staying on a default path, avoiding (procrastinating) life decisions altogether. Yet the road leads somewhere. Even if you don't choose to decide, the decision will happen. You will end up somewhere, whether you like it or not. So wouldn't it be better to end up somewhere desirable? What do I want do do? Where do I want the road to go?

Many of my clients over the years have asked this same question - and within them, there was a very good reason why they couldn't answer it at that moment. Each of us has our own crossroads, our own questions. And each of us has to figure out the answers at our own pace. The challenge comes when something within one's self makes then unable or unwilling to seek out the answer. And as a result, some people follow the path of least resistance - or even no path at all.

As a late high school kid, I loved rocketry and electronics - especially amateur radio. It was automatically assumed that I would become an engineer. Yet my interests were more in science than in engineering. I would rather have been studying astronomy, rocketry and physics. Still, I took the path of least resistance - eventually graduating in engineering. Then, upon graduation, I took a job in corporate America - in the defense industry. I quickly realized this path wasn't for me, but it took over twenty years for me to actually do something about it.

This experience makes me very empathetic with clients who describe feeling stuck in that same way. Somehow, the path they are on doesn't feel right. Maybe it's the stress level, or for any other reason, corporate America doesn't fit. Most often, it is simply the realization that the path doesn't fulfill an earlier dream. As time goes on, the dissonance between the job (and perhaps other areas of life) and the dream seems to widen. Eventually, it even becomes hard to get out of bed in the morning to face another day. Something has to change.

For me, it was the deeply ingrained interest in astronomy, space travel, extraterrestrial life and alien contact, as well as consciousness studies and the deep mind. It wasn't until I became involved in MUFON as a field investigator, and then becoming a hypnotherapist, that I began to see that there was a way, a path that would help fulfill my dream of exploring, understanding and advancing human knowledge of science.At least for now, I seem to be on that path.

For many clients, I suggest something along the lines of the New Horizon methodology - descended from the NASA Horizon Mission Methodology developed during the 1990s. It focuses on finding ways to accomplish the "impossible". How do we go beyond the next step, and take the next leap? How do we reach a whole new world beyond our present horizon.

And how do I as a hypnotherapist use this process to help someone break out of their present world?
Picture life a couple of years from now. If you could do anything you wanted, without constraints, what would you do? What would your passion be? What would feel fulfilling to you? And above all, in all honesty, who do you see yourself being? Picture that, and imagine a day in that world. What does it feel like to be that person? Allow it to settle into your consciousness as if it were a solid reality.

Then imagine you are looking back from that future reality, noticing what it took to arrive from the present day. What obstacles were there? What did you have to learn, change or become? What skills did you have to develop? What challenges did you have to overcome?

Perhaps the most important step in traveling down a road is to begin. Returning back form the future, picture the road from the present to that future reality. What was the first step you took down that road? How did you begin? Where did you start? What was that experience like?

After that, additional steps follow, and the important thing is to take the steps one at a time. Planning and road-mapping is vital but each step has to be taken one by one. And before you know it, you have arrived at your first destination - and there is never a single destination. Each destination is really just another step on the road. So picture your later destinations - shorter term goals and longer term goals - miles, yards and inches. At some point, imagine yourself at each of those, and figure out how the road led you to (and through) them.

But the first step is finding that future - what is your passion, your dream? Who do you want to be? And is the present and future worlds congruent with that "Me"?
There may be many answers to these questions - maybe only one - or maybe a path of least resistance. But you will most likely end up doing something. For better or for worse, your path will lead you somewhere. It can be take you where you want to go and who you want to be, or it can lead some place else.

Who do you want do be? Which path would you rather travel?

Letter to Astronomy Magazine in response to their March, 2015 editorial on UFOs

New year notes - What have we accomplished?

Yeeoow - is it 2015 already?

And furthermore, have I really been involved in MUFON for nearly 20 years?

As I look at the history of my involvement with MUFON - mostly with the local UFO scene - I find myself asking two important questions: What has changed in those twenty years? and What have we accomplished in that time? 

What is different now, outside of each of us being about twenty years older? To me, the answer is that a lot of details have changed and yet, fundamentally we have accomplished very little. 

The biggest change seems to be that we now realize just how little we really understand the UFO/CE4 phenomenon. When I became increasingly involved in UFO studies - in about the 1994-1996 time frame - I imagined that simply by acquiring enough data, we could solve the problem. All we had to do was to observe and/or reconstruct flight dynamics of UFO sightings, make physical measurements of ground traces, analyze radar/visual reports, etc. And at the core has been the field investigation of sighting and encounter reports. Twenty years later MUFON is deeply involved in this - and while it has yielded a lot of data, it does not appear to have gotten us much closer to a definitive answer.

Yet while we may be little closer to a solution, I believe we have accomplished a lot in twenty years. Now, we appear to have a better idea of the scope of the problem. I believe we have established without a doubt, the reality of UFOs. Purely by the volume of reports in our database, we have developed a statistical picture of the events that make up sightings and close encounters, a pixel by pixel portrait of the phenomenon. And in all of this, we see that there are no easy answers to the fundamental question - what is going on?

In twenty years, the close encounter phenomenon has moved from being a fringe element within UFO studies to being in some ways at the core of the mystery. What is the nature of the visitor presence and why are they here? I suspect we are still no closer to truly understanding this. But we have begun to see that the answers we thought we would find were merely first steps. The problem is far more complicated than we ever imagined. 

What will a solution to the UFO/CE4 mystery require? Will we be able to understand this phenomenon within the framework of our present-day picture of how the world/universe works? Or will it require a fundamental change to at least some aspect of our world-view? I suspect it will be the latter. Once we understand the problem of UFOs and close encounters, I believe we will have learned much about the very fabric of reality, itself. And what we learn will probably be very different from what we think we know, today.

Understanding the UFO/CE4 mystery will require us to understand parapsychology. How do the visitors communicate by thought alone. Encounter reports also contain myriad ways in which they seem to be able to manipulate our reality. How is it that they can affect our minds and our perception in such strange ways?

In addition, we have come no closer to understanding their location of origin. Do they come from among the stars or are they, in some way, from right here? Is there even a distinct location of origin? Is there really a location they call home? Or is there an over-arching civilization that spans the cosmos, a universe of many homes?

To understand the visitors, we will need to understand their technology. How can they simply walk through walls, float through the air and ascend/descend over beams of light. How can their vehicles stop on a dime, hover, and then zip to a new location, all without experiencing the forces encountered in the Newtonian world? I suspect that the answer to this will shake the foundations of our present-day physics to its core - and to some extent perhaps it already has.

In twenty years, we have acquired a lot more data. We have begun to piece together a picture of our interactions with the UFO/CE4 phenomenon. But have we come any closer to a full understanding of what is really going on? In some ways, perhaps we have made some progress. But fundamentally, I believe we still have a very long way to go.

CE4 Corner Draft - Spirit, Hardware and Mystery - the many realities of the visitor phenomenon

A week ago (as of the writing of this article) I had the truly unique experience of attending the first MUFON field investigator boot camp. It was one of those unforgettable experiences - the first of its kind, probably anywhere in the world. And for me, it was very different from the world I normally move in. It was a week of learning how to do forensic evidence gathering of past UFO encounters. It was a week of no-nonsense, nuts-and-bolts field work straight out of the set of CSI.

Working with close encounter experiencers, especially in the Twin Cities, which tends to be more of a new-age/metaphysical orientation, I mostly hear about the spiritual aspects of the close encounter phenomenon. I see the way it melds into the spectrum of the clients' spiritual, paranormal and metaphysical experiences. And as a result, I mostly see a spiritual/metaphysical side of the phenomenon.

In contrast, my week in the Arizona desert at MUFON FI boot camp was focused on hard-boiled, evidence-based, forensic investigation. It began with a discussion of various tools and procedures to be used in the field. Then we covered different possible scenarios of UFO physical evidence - a historical UFO crash, a UFO landing, a UFO-car interaction leaving magnetic traces on the car, and a present-day crashed UFO. In each case, we learned procedures and techniques for carefully gathering evidence, taking careful readings and measurements, documenting the scenario, etc.

Most of the people attending this workshop were seasoned field investigators. Many of them were had backgrounds in law-enforcement, engineering and the military, including several who were retired special forces. Many had been involved in some way with the hidden side of the government-UFO scenario and knew more about past UFO events than they were able to say. Yet at the same time, all were intent on understanding the phenomenon in depth. Many of the attendees had had their own sightings or experiences and I'm sure a few were life-long abductees. In short, this was a hard-boiled no-nonsense group of investigators, pragmatic, analytical - deeply curious and dedicated.

A few weeks before, I had attended the Paradigm symposium in Minneapolis - another group of researchers with a different bent, to seek out the hidden history of humanity. One of the featured speakers there was Graham Hancock, who spoke extensively on the influence of shamanism in human history. In his book, Supernatural, Hancock offers a very different approach to anomaly and close encounter experiences from the nuts-and-bolts understanding I sensed at FI boot camp.

In Supernatural, and in his talk at the Paradigm Conference, Hancock offered the idea that close encounters may be at least in part, a type of shamanic journey. He described events of the shamanic experience - star beings, trials and tortures, sexual encounters, and other elements that have a similar ring to those described by abductees. This suggests that the experiences have something in common, yet at the same time, it does not even begin to explain the physical aspects of the phenomenon.

A significant portion of the UFO abduction cases in the MUFON data base, including many in our own case files, have both physical evidence and shamanic or metaphysical aspects to them. The implications of this are profound. It suggests that there is an overlay of realities between this world and the world(s) beyond our everyday reality. And in many cases, these overlapping worlds can interact with each other, leaving marks on our physical world.

Does this mean the UFO/Close-encounter phenomenon is primarily metaphysical in nature? I don't believe we can conclude that. However resemblance between shamanism and UFO abduction suggests that the visitor interaction with us is far beyond our every day experience. The UFO phenomenon is physical, leaving traces in the dirt and marks on the experiencer. Our visitors might just be biological beings in nuts-and-bolts craft, visiting from nearby stars. Yet the UFO encounter is often also spiritual, a shamanic, metaphysical experience that often resembles dreams more than alien space ships.

This suggests that the nature of the phenomenon and who/whatever is behind it is still far beyond our understanding. It is far from being either a simple nuts and bolts visitation, or purely a dream-like metaphysical experience. Rather, it is at once a phenomenon of many worlds, of spirit, hardware and mystery.

"Something wrong with the world" - Dealing with runway anxiety

How many readers of this blog have had the feeling of runaway anxiety at some time or another. It feels as if "something is wrong with the world," but you just can't put your finger on it? You couldn't point to a particular thing and say, "that's the problem." But deep within your mind, alarm bells are going off. It feels like the sword of Damocles is hanging over you by a thread, ready to fall at any instant.

Last night, I saw a great discussion of this on the Channel 4 (WCCO TV) news. They described what it feels like, and what it's like to live with feelings of anxiety. They gave some good ways to deal with that oppressing feeling of alarm and fear that never seems to go away.

In this case, they portrayed the wife of a major sports figure. She described how she had had a sudden increase in stress, fear and panic in the last few years. For her, it began shortly after their children were born and got progressively worse. In the broadcast, she described how at one point, she couldn't be alone and needed a relative to stay with her to help keep the fear at bay. In her blog, she describes what it feels like. In part two of her article, she discusses how to come to terms with the ever-present anxiety.

What is going on? What is at the core of anxiety and how can a person come to terms with it? Runaway fear seems to be a reaction to a sudden increase in life stress. Frequently, it seems to occur when something in life changes, responsibilities increase or some other factor generates long-term stress in life. The result is that the alarm bells are triggered frequently - so frequently that the mind gets used to feeling alarmed, as if this were the normal state of life.

The mind under potential stress could be likened to a battleship at sea. Under normal circumstances, with no enemy in sight, there is no reason to be immediately alarmed. Normal common-sense precautions and a regular watch should suffice to keep the ship safe. When the radar detects the enemy, suddenly the alarm sounds "ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS." Cannons and missiles are readied to fight the enemy until the threat passes. Damage control is prepared in case the ship takes a hit. Then, once the threat passes, routine life is able to resume.

But often the mind can become overly sensitive. In the battleship analogy, perhaps the sea seems to be  full of enemy ships and planes. Perhaps the radar is overly sensitive or misidentifies non-hostile craft as enemies. There are many possible ways for the alarm to sound prematurely, but the result is similar. The crew goes to battle stations frequently - too frequently.

In the same way, if a person's mind becomes overly sensitive to potential threats the same feeling battle-readiness can result. As if threats were everywhere, a person can feel fearful, ready for fight-or-flight far more frequently than their world requires. The fear is not real, the danger is not real, but the response is very real.

How can one deal with this oppressive, overhanging cloud of fear? How can one improve their quality of life, realistically dealing with life in a safe, loving, secure way. How can we get rid of that sword of Damocles and live normal lives free of the runaway fear?

The WCCO broadcast did a good job of treating the topic compassionately, usefully and informatively. They looked at ways to keep the fear at bay. In this case, she dealt with it by regular exercise such as running, by using medications, and by going to therapy. All of these work together, and all can be very effective. If you have a condition like this, please know you are not alone, and that it is OK to get help.

Several clients I have worked with have had issues similar to the one described on the WCCO broadcast. In each case, I found that the cause was relatively easy to find using hypnotherapy, and we were able to achieve excellent results. Today, these same people are able to live normal lives largely clear of the excessive fear they felt every day.

I will use the example of a typical fear-management client, whom I will refer to as "Jim". Jim was referred to me by his counselor for help using hypnotherapy. He had the same issue as described in the WCCO broadcast, ever-present fear that something was wrong - non-specific but with him constantly. Using hypnosis, we were able to take Jim into a relaxed state, bring up feelings of safety and then give him post-hypnotic suggestions that he could feel this safety at other times of normal life.

In addition, through hypnotherapy, we were able to find the thought patterns based upon memories from his early childhood that contributed to his fears. At that early time in life, something scary had apparently happened. Now, events in his recent life had reawakened this part of his mind, bringing these fears back into play. Although they were based on old-childhood events, the emotions from his subconscious were now incorrectly focused on the present day resulting in excessive fear and anxiety.

In hypnosis, we were able to return to the source of the childhood fears within his subconscious mind - as if a little child lived at the core of his consciousness. We were then able to bring adult awareness and present life feelings of safety and security back to that childhood element, reminding it of how it was - and is today - safe and loved.

The result was life-changing. Jim now lives a normal life, free of the disproportionate fear he felt before. Now he can go about his day with the quality of life each person deserves. Like a heavy weight off his shoulders, he is now free of the burden of fear.

My heart goes out to the woman featured in the WCCO documentary. And if there is any way for a person with her condition to find help through hypnosis, I would encourage him/her to check it out. In conjunction with her other physical and mental health providers, hypnotherapy can provide an excellent  way to find and resolve the core issue - feeling like there is "something wrong with the world."

#hypnosis, #hypnotherapy, #anxiety