I have had those kinds of weird experiences, too, and though traumatic, I also recognize that the boundaries between future and past, inside and outside is permeable. I can’t wait to read this new book by Pagels. I admire her a great deal. I am glad the weird podcasts bring forward these anomalous experiences. As we are moving rapidly into uncharted territories it may be that we are entering a liminal zone on a grand scale.
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Hey @jfmartel ~ if you’re still tuning into this thread, I’ve been meaning to send my appreciation for the episodes you and @phord did with Stuart Davis and Jeffrey Kripal, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I really like the way you guys are framing these tricky, and often fraught, discursive waters. It seems there may even be something of a non-ordinary experiences ‘#metoo’ movement on the rise, as more people find receptive venues for sharing their suppressed stories.
I don’t personally have any very weird paranormal experiences to report, but I tend to regard the very fact of my existence as exceedingly non-normal. Moreover, I have enough to deal with in my daily life without adding in these components. However, I believe in an open ontology of multiple worlds, dimensions, forms of experience, and radically diverse intelligences—all of which are subtly, causally, and physically (in the quantum) interconnected within the whole of manifestation (birthing from the unmanifest, mystery, or void) which historically we call “Cosmos”—and when I am writing poetry at my best (at least a certain kind of poetry), these are the realities I tap into.
Something like that also defines my general notion of the limits of experience; so I am really enthused by hearing your recent talks, which bring so much sensitivity, as well as an aesthetic sensibility (which for me, as well, is primary) to the topic of the “exo,” or what is outside our current conceptions of the real.
Anyway, I wanted to reconnect because I just heard a podcast, featuring someone I’ve known and respected from the Integral Meta-Theory world for a long time, who has recently popped out of the closet as a TOTALLY WEIRD FUCKING DUDE. Just kidding: He is an incredible scholar who is bringing the full force of his prodigious intellect, with great sympathy, to bear on the topic of alien contact:
The Prince of Metatheory, Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, has been an alternate-realities geek all along! I love it—and I just want to suggest him as a guest for your show.
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Thanks for this. Sent the talk to my grown son who reads everything he can on this topic!
Asked him for feedback on it. He’s not really had any experience with Integral Theory, but he’s kind of a natural in that direction, so we’ll see what he has to say.
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I’ve never had anything like a classical UFO experience, but I did spend more than ten years writing a novel centered around a multiple otherworld being experience via Dreams. Interestingly the otherworldly being “herself” appeared to me in a dream. I’d work on the novel, run out of steam, so to speak, then eventually have another dream that gave me fresh ideas. It also helped me enormously through my Season in Hell when my partner died, I was evicted AND diagnosed with a life-threatening illness all withing a short period. Working on that book and also writing poems for my partner, keep me sane. Or at least, partially sane!
I just lilstened to the talk on Salzman’s show and agree with Jeff that: I am agnostic but open on the topic.
My son and I have some long interesting talks around all this. One thing I like to say is that we have many “alien intelligences” right here on Planet Earth and, in my view, don’t pay enough attention to THAT reality. I also am a big critic of the Colonies on Mars frenzy. Etc. So maybe the aliens don’t want to talk to me, anyway…or …at least, maybe only in my dreams?? 
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Hey @madrush – Yes, still tuning in! Glad you enjoyed the eps with Stuart and Jeff Kripal, which were super fun to record. We’re going to do another one with Kripal soon, after the publication of his excellent new book, The Flip.
Yeah, it does seem like talking about anomalous events is more acceptable now than it may once have been. If nothing else, openly discussing the more spectacular instances of the paranormal some of us have been (un)lucky enough to experience might make us realize exactly what you are expressing here, namely that things like poetry, art, and love also belong to the order of the paranormal – they do not conform to any purely mechanistic conception of reality. There are philosophical reasons for this, I believe. The world is a lot more enchanted than some would have us believe!
I look forward to listening to Sean Esbjorn-Hargens talk about aliens! Will report back afterwards. Thanks for the link!
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Hi J.F. - I’m afraid I’ve gotten behind on listening to the Weird Studies episodes. I have every intention of catching up, and will have some comments when I do, just to let you know that I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, or dropped you guys off it either! Soon, I promise!
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Ahh, I remember loving this poem the first time I read it <3 It is wonderful to reencounter it again and in this context! I just signed up for this forum and I can already tell I am going to enjoy it immensely
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@jfmartel I just listened to a few of the Weird Studies podcast episodes, and wanted to thank you personally for bringing Sun Ra to my attention and also Mountains Walking. I also re-watched Silence of the Lambs (I hadn’t seen that film for well over a decade) and it was a great pleasure watching it with your interpretation in the background of my head. Also, wonderful theme music! Reminds me of the theme of Stranger Things with that eighties electronic vibe. One of the few CD sets that my dad owned back in the 90s which I remember listening to in the car a lot because he never swapped out his CDs were these electronic ballads which always made me feel like a UFO was about to land or hover above our car, and both themes remind me of that CD set. No idea where it is now.
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Hello Jud…if I may call you by this name.
Yes…
Come on in and sit for a spell. Welcome!
We are a friendly bunch
and a bit obscure at times.
I would say we are currently in a sort of hibernation mode, letting the busy year seep in… maybe more of a composting. But don’t let me speak for the others; that may just be me! Glad to have you around. Hope you continue to find some gems hidden in this forum and reach out if you ever need anything.
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Thank you Douglas for your kind welcome. Hope we’ll see some other activity in a bit.
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