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J. Allen Hynek and the Invention of the Poltergeist-UFO Connection

8/2/2018

43 Comments

 
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​As we learned from the many revelations about the Pentagon’s UFO research initiative, the company contracted to conduct much of the program’s research, Bigelow Advanced Aerospace Space Studies, adopted the position advocated by paranormal researcher Hal Puthoff that flying saucers are intimately connected to poltergeists and may actively create poltergeists as they pop in and out of reality. Puthoff is a former employee of BAASS owner Robert Bigelow’s previous paranormal research organization and current VP of To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, and he was a paid consultant on the Pentagon research program, where he helped to direct it toward bonkers investigations of poltergeists and super-secret paranormal propulsion systems. 

​I thought it was worth discussing a bit more the origins of this odd belief that alien spaceships and ghosts share a secret occult connection. This story reaches back to the 1970s, when Puthoff was just beginning his quest to convince the U.S. government to pay him to investigate psychics and ghosts. He was operating out of a small office when a young UFO enthusiast named Jacques Vallée moved in to the suite below, and the two became fast friends, bonding over their shared interest in the outré and the occult, and their shared conviction that UFOs had an ethereal aspect beyond the material.
 
Vallée was a member of the Los Angeles UFO scene, which at the time included J. Allen Hynek, the former scientific consultant for the Air Force’s Project Blue Book and a regular on the UFO party circuit in those years. On November 22, 1970, Vallée discussed poltergeists and UFOs with Hynek, whom he referred to as “Allen,” and he recorded the conversation in his diary:
Allen worries about the dual nature of UFO sightings: sometimes they are physical and the next moment they are as evanescent as spirit manifestations.
 
“Who says spirits have to be evanescent?” I asked. “The parapsychology literature is full of apports, table rappings, and poltergeist. Those are material phenomena, aren't they?”
 
“It’s not the same thing.”
 
“Why not? If you could explain the Poltergeist, you could explain many UFOs.” Allen was unconvinced. I continue to think that the universe must have a single set of laws, not one set for physical phenomena and another separate set for psychic effects.
​What is interesting about this anecdote is that it occurred two years before Vallée met Puthoff. The origins of the poltergeist claim seem to bubble up from J. Allen Hynek’s efforts to impose an explanation on the inexplicable. Because he assumed that the “UFO phenomenon” was, at heart, singular, he developed a sense of cognitive dissonance in regard to the fact that the stories witnesses told about UFOs more closely resembled fairy tales about supernatural entities than scientific accounts of physical craft. Consequently, Vallée likened the ethereal aspects of UFOs to paranormal phenomena—equally dubious, but reported just as widely.
 
If we were to trust Vallée’s own account, he invented the poltergeist-UFO connection as a hypothetical to attempt to impose a unified explanation on inconsistent UFO reports. Vallée further reported that within weeks of meeting Hal Puthoff in 1972, he had already begun discussing paranormal UFOs and Hynek with Puthoff, who was uniquely interested in such things because of his deep involvement both with the paranormal—he was testing Uri Geller with the blessing of the U.S. government—and his high-level Scientology training, which by most accounts was highly influential on his thinking.
 
While Hynek was at first dubious about paranormal UFOs, he gradually came to believe that this was an avenue worth exploring. The first crack in the façade occurred in his 1972 book The UFO Experience, which only referred obliquely to the idea since the work was intended to make ufology seem serious and respectable to a mainstream audience. In passing, Hynek noted that since UFOs have “physical” effects on the environment, they cannot be immaterial hallucinations or even psychic projections—“unless,” he said in an aside, “we deal here with a form of the poltergeist phenomenon.” He did not mean it as a joke.
 
It was only a passing reference in an otherwise nuts and bolts book, but over a remarkably short time, Hynek’s interest in poltergeist UFOs would grow tremendously.
 
At the June 1974 Canadian Conference on Psychokinesis, Hynek gave a speech on the UFO phenomenon in which he highlighted their supernatural and paranormal aspects. He basically endorsed the idea that UFOs are not nuts and bolts spacecraft but something more supernatural, and ghostly:
If now we look at the factors which constitute strangeness we find elements which strongly suggest a linkage, or at least a parallelism with poltergeist phenomena and with phenomena in general, rather than with actual solid items of nuts and bolts hardware. This is one of the reasons why I cannot accept the obvious explanation of UFOs as visitors from outer space, despite the fact that as an astronomer I can agree with most of my colleagues that the chances of extraterrestrial life existing are enormous. […] The phenomena I have described seem to have a visionary or hallucinatory quality, and so to have something in common with mental phenomena in parapsychology and with certain types of religious experience (c.f. Vallee, 1974). But there are also similarities with poltergeist happenings, particularly electrical phenomena. […] A feature of some UFO sightings which suggests a kinship to those poltergeist cases in which the principal person suffers from conversion hysteria (c.f. Owen, 1964, 1971a), is the occurrence of various ailments such as temporary blindness or paralysis or skin rashes.
​It's true that he didn’t outright endorse the idea wholesale, masking it under the name of “kinship,” but there is no mistaking what he meant. Subsequent to this passage, he went on to throw cold water on the common skeptical explanations of poltergeists because for these spiritualized UFOs to be real, ghosts must also exist. Therefore, the poltergeist had to be defended in order to rescue flying saucers from the failure of the physical evidence to prove their reality.
 
The next year, Hynek and Vallée teamed up to publish Edge of Reality, and it included a conversation the two had about the nature of UFOs. Hynek described his changing belief that UFOs were actually psychical in nature. He talked about whether flying saucers were really a “psychic projection” and if UFOs were “manifesting on the psychic plane,” though he confessed that he did not know for sure and only paranormal research into psychics like Uri Geller—by which he meant Hal Puthoff’s increasingly bizarre psychic research for the Stanford Research Institute and the U.S. government—could solve the problem by proving whether psychical powers were real and therefore available to UFO pilots.
​Should those psychic claims be true, it opens up another can of worms. Then the problem essentially is solved; that explains why UFOs can make right angle turns, that explains why they can be dematerialized, why sometimes they are picked up on radar and sometimes not and why they are not detected by our infrared equipment. All that. But that’s dangerous territory to tread. […] All right, why do poltergeists move something and yet don’t appear on radar? Do they, the poltergeists, have that physical reality? And yet they have physical effects. In other words, we have a phenomenon here that undoubtedly has physical effects but also has the attributes of the psychic world.
​He returned to the idea of poltergeists more than once as the two men discussed wild hypotheses about UFOs that both admitted were of very low probability.
 
As you can see, Hynek had come to believe in ghosts—and not just hypothetically—and had come to see the explanation of UFOs as psychic projections as perhaps the best answer to a conundrum he couldn’t quite solve, though he declined to speculate on who exactly projected them. But Hynek realized that publicly endorsing this idea would alienate him from the public, so his discussions of it tended to be in private conversations or in the back pages of books the mainstream media would never read, creating the impression, which lasted until the end of his life, that he hunted nuts and bolts metal discs and not silvery ghosts.
 
The most interesting thing about their conversation, though, was Vallée’s prediction for UFOs by the year 2000. He suggested that there were a number of scenarios—that aliens land and take over, that we contact aliens on another planet, that the aliens go away forever, or the most depressing one:
Things keep happening as they have for twenty-five years, and we keep publishing more books about it Blum & Blum publish more books about it, Von Däniken publishes more books, and nothing else happens. Every two or three years there’s a flap somewhere. There’s no visible effect on society, there is no direct threat, there is no mass landing; that’s one scenario. And we can talk about the consequences of that, what that could mean. Certainly, some theories about it would have to change. Right?
​And yet that scenario came to pass, and Vallée never did change his theories.
 
Anyway, Hal Puthoff picked up this idea of poltergeists and UFOs from Vallée and Hynek, and that is important because Puthoff worked with the U.S. government on psychical research projects, including remote viewing and the Geller farce. Puthoff, under government contract, had come to believe that Geller’s paranormal powers could interfere with scientific testing, a claim James Randi later exposed as a fantasy. More crucially, Puthoff suspected Geller was telling the truth that UFOs were either attracted to his psychic powers or were caused by them. He even instructed Vallée to monitor the skies over their offices for UFOs when Geller was present. Vallée claimed in his diary to have remained conflicted about Geller’s assertions, at times calling them absurd, even though his friendship with Puthoff prevented him from outright admitting that Puthoff had been deceived by a fraud.
 
It was in his government capacity that Puthoff began to insert himself into government UFO research, or what he claimed was government UFO research. He claimed in February 1973 that the military was covering up “true” flying saucers and that they had openly admitted this to him, though he refused to tell even his best friend, Vallée, who these “high-level contacts” were. In October of that year, Puthoff inflated the claim. Now he no longer heard secondhand about a program but was a consultant for a secret cabal in the government that worked secretly on UFO reports. “In fact they call me from time to time to find out what my psychics have to say on the subject, and to do remote viewing of certain places where they think there may be UFO bases.” He claimed that the military was so concerned that they contemplated going to Nixon to reveal the truth. He even took to making mysterious phone calls in front of Vallée that he claimed were to “David M.,” an official in charge of the UFO cover-up.
 
The gullible Vallée believed Puthoff when Puthoff told him that “David M.” would call him to read him in on the program. When David didn’t call, Puthoff told Vallée that the program had been suddenly disbanded (overnight!) “because of the current events.” And Vallée simply accepted the fantasy.
 
A month later, in November 1973, Puthoff had yet another new story—that he had identified the “number one man” in government in charge of UFO research, but, sadly, he was tasked with doing nothing but monitoring the alien presence and could be of no use. A few days later, Puthoff explained that a new man had replaced David M., now identified as a CIA agent, but the new guy refused to talk to Vallée because—he said—he didn’t want to have to lie to Vallée about the reality of UFOs.
 
And then he tried to sell Vallée the Brooklyn Bridge, which Vallée owns to this day.
 
I kid.
 
Eventually it turned out that Puthoff’s actual contact was Christopher “Kit” Green, a senior CIA analyst who did a bit of work overseeing remote viewing and UFO reports for the agency because he worked in the Life Sciences Division. He estimated, he said in a 2008 interview, that his paranormal work accounted for less than 10% of his work, and almost none of it was classified. (The CIA also ran classified remote viewing experiments, with bizarre results—they had some paranormal true believers on staff.) Green told Vallée that his work on UFOs was basically a private interest, saying that his Life Sciences job was an “excuse” for reading up on space aliens, among other weird topics. (The CIA collected reams of ancient astronaut and UFO material from the popular press and Soviet sources, though almost certainly not because it was “true.”) Puthoff met Green in June 1972, and not long after began boasting about “secret” government contacts.
 
But the point is that Puthoff has a long history of inflating his own importance and making fantastical claims about government UFO research. The impression from accounts written of him at the time is that he wants to be seen as someone with secret knowledge, be it the revelations of Scientology, the reality of space aliens, or the existence of a psychical world. He has consistently cultivated relationships that would allow him to play the role of scientific mystagogue. By the end of the 1970s he parlayed that into close relationships with government agencies and testimony before Congress about psychic powers (though that is as impressive as scientists giving testimony about the Ancient Aliens TV show, which also really happened). Now as the vice president of To the Stars, he is milking his past involvement with government psychic research and his more recent attempt to worm back into government UFO work as a subcontractor for Robert Bigelow in order to continue to push beliefs about paranormal flying saucers that he developed in the 1970s from Vallée and Hynek. His greatest accomplishment was in convincing billionaire Robert Bigelow that flying saucers are related to ghosts and that both are real, through which expedient Puthoff’s fantasies ended up guiding the Pentagon UFO program established by Bigelow’s friend, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), another UFO believer. Eric Davis, a Bigelow employee, testified on Coast to Coast AM recently to the ongoing belief in UFO poltergeist connections among the To the Stars and Bigelow axis, thanks in no small measure to Puthoff.
 
The irony of all of this is that Vallée, who went on to become an official scientific consultant for Bigelow and to partner with To the Stars in the hunt for alien “metamaterials,” predicted all of this in 1975: “So there may well be an occult organization that uses the UFO phenomenon for its own ends, and it could reach into higher levels of the military or Intelligence community. My concern is that a conversion to the belief in Aliens may become a convenient lever for any group with strong ambition.” He just didn’t realize that he and his friends would actually be that group.
43 Comments
Gunn
8/2/2018 10:05:54 am

Interesting and well thought out topic.

I see immediate comparisons to ouija boards, where psychic meets the physical. Compare "automatic writing" with a hook-up to a ouija board to an airport radar screen, and in both cases we see electrical devices under the controll of demon spirits, projecting out what they wish to project.

"There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance." -Goeth

It's about facades, and being fooled.

The Bible gives us ample warnings about all these things, plus God's Word tells us where we came from, why we are here, and where we are all going.

Happy trails, and best wishes to all.

Reply
A Buddhist
8/2/2018 11:27:14 am

The Bible also tells us when we should kill babies (whenever YHVH wants us to, basically), but you are not wanting to talk about that much.

But why do you believe that Bible's claims to be true?

And as for automatic writing, do you think that any spasms that I have while typing count as automatic writing? Because if you do, there are many demons, according to your worldview, who want me to write the word "as". But given that YHVH hates those who touch menstruating women, who knows - maybe the word "as" is demonic.

Reply
An Over-Educated Grunt
8/2/2018 11:53:45 am

More to the point, Gunn, what are you TRYING to say? Whatever it is, you missed the mark fairly widely, as, so far as I can tell, you think demons make radar and air traffic controllers use Ouija boards. This isn't mocking you, I honestly cannot tell what you are trying to say.

Also, A Buddhist - glass houses. Unless you want someone picking through your scriptures for examples of foolishness, you might consider scaling back your attacks on others'.

Reply
A Buddhist
8/2/2018 12:27:23 pm

An Over-Educated Grunt: I am glad that I am not the only one who finds Gunn's reference to Ouija boards, automatic writing, and radar screens puzzling. What I interpret it as meaning is that all three media are deceptions sent by demons. However, I think that Gunn is trying to say that just as radar detects planes, so automatic writing and Ouija boards detect demons, who possess the automatic writers and people using ouija boards.

Doc Rock
8/2/2018 12:10:22 pm

The next time that the snooty waitress at my favorite watering hole cuts me off during an extended Happy Hour I shall have my revenge by accusing her of witchcraft. Because we all know that the good book instructs us that "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Reply
americanegro i heart demons and welcome demonic possession
8/2/2018 01:17:55 pm

There is no God so stow that nonsense. What the Bible does have, if you know where to look, is both gay and straight incest porn.

Reply
AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION also spit on and trample the cross
8/2/2018 03:02:38 pm

"Compare "automatic writing" with a hook-up to a ouija board to an airport radar screen, and in both cases we see electrical devices under the controll of demon spirits, projecting out what they wish to project."

No, we don't see that at all. You're talking nonsense.

Reply
Gunn
8/2/2018 12:41:31 pm

Some conclusions drawn by my comments really veered-off into la-la-land:

"...so far as I can tell, you think demons make radar and air traffic controllers use Ouija boards."

Wow...what an extrapolation.

"I think that Gunn is trying to say that just as radar detects planes, so automatic writing and Ouija boards detect demons...."

Wow again.

This blatant dumbness--or else these lame attempts at twisting, show why it's basically not worth coming here any longer...not much intelligence to interact with...just a few people hanging around, waiting to make negative pot-shots.

Reply
An Over-Educated Grunt
8/2/2018 12:46:52 pm

Sue thing, Bob. That's what "what are you trying to say" means. It means we're attacking you, and it's not that you were unclear or said something that made no sense, it's that we're too stupid to follow you.

Reply
Kal
8/2/2018 02:42:19 pm

The whole schtick about Oija boards, which are a spooky children's game invented in the 50s, are that someone is moving the board pointer. It's a parlor trick. Also if it was really evil, unlike in the movies, there would be some evidence. It is never a spirit moving the board pointer. It is the the game master while nobody is watching.

Aliens and UFOs are our time's version of demons. That much was indicated in the earliest scifi books, shows and serials. It is the unknown other, the something else unexplained, that unprepared people, usually not real scientists, assume is aliens.



Reply
Americanegro
8/2/2018 02:56:01 pm

If by "in the 50s" you mean 1890, then yes. Please try to suck less.

Reply
A Buddhist
8/2/2018 03:51:44 pm

Americanegro: Please try to insult less.

AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/2/2018 04:26:30 pm

No.

"E.P. GRONDINE
7/25/2018 10:18:23 am
Hold it right there, asshole - "

AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/2/2018 05:56:31 pm

Also please talk less about killing babies. There are fetish sites for that.

A Buddhist
8/2/2018 07:49:05 pm

AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS: I will talk about killing babies in proportion to Gunn/At Risk's talk about demons and how YHVH is a saviour. For my part, I am so repulsed by the fact that YHVH in the Bible kills babies and orders babies to be killed that I feel driven to remind Gunn/At Risk that YHVH is a baby killer according to the Bible that Gunn/At Risk so values.

AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/2/2018 11:56:36 pm

No matter what you believe, that's the Jew God. Gunn worships the (equally imaginary) Christian God. The oft-told lie that Muslims, Christians, and Jews worship the same God is ludicrous.

I find it interesting that you pick and choose and aren't concerned about the slaughter of tens of thousands of adult Canaanites when the Hebrews invaded what is now Israel.

How exactly does YHVH which doesn't exist kill babies? You sound like one of those crazy teenage girls who murdered because the Slenderman told them to. Seek help.

A Buddhist
8/3/2018 08:33:20 am

AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS: Yet according to the Christians, YHVH the god of the Jews is their god, and this god is unchanging - James 1:17. By this logic, YHVH the Christian god still supports killing babies in certain circumstances - indeed, the Christian Good News Club has attracted controversy for emphasizing this very point [http://www.goodnewsclubs.info/david1lesson2.htm]. I focus on slaughtered babies (Canaanite and Egyptian and Amalekite) because while it is conceivable to understand why killing adults may be justified whether commanded by or done by YHVH or not (although I am opposed to all genocides of all age groups), killing babies is seen by all right-thinking people as an unjustified atrocity - yet YHVH does this to the Egyptians and orders that it be done to the Amelekites and Canaanites. If more Christians were aware that YHVH their god was a baby-killer, then they would, I hope, be less likely to be Christian. As a Buddhist, I acknowledge the possibility that YHVH may exist - yet alongside so many other gods, he would be insane, and like all other gods, he would die and be reborn in a hell-realm for a while. This is one way of explaining the inaccuracies in claims made by people who claim to be transmitting his messages.

David Bradbury
8/2/2018 03:03:04 pm

... and the 1890 version was itself a commercial development of the earlier "planchette" ...

Reply
AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/2/2018 06:04:13 pm

Oh, Triple D. The planchette is the thingamajig that people slide around on the board. You might as well say a newspaper is a commercial development of a magnifying glass. And yes, I'm aware of the Chinese version.

AmericanMulatto
8/2/2018 07:09:39 pm

The planchette was used to write messages on paper on a board below it. The Ouija board was a clear adaptation of this concept where the planchette was used to indicate letters marked on the board below instead of writing them out on paper.

The newspaper and magnifying glass analogy is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard.

Malcolm Nicholson link
8/2/2018 07:55:30 pm

John Keel drew a connection between UFOs and poltergeists in Operation Trojan Horse punlisked in 1970

Reply
Jason Colavito link
8/2/2018 08:29:14 pm

That's probably where Vallee got the idea from.

Reply
GodricGlas
8/2/2018 09:41:15 pm

Hi Jason,

Have you ever experienced what is commonly called “Sleep Paralysis”?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Reply
An Anonymous Nerd
8/2/2018 11:48:01 pm

It would appear that there's a multi-layered disconnect between the original article and the replies to it.

-An Anonymous Nerd

Reply
AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/2/2018 11:58:48 pm

Still waiting on the list of how people have insulted you.

Reply
GodricGlas
8/3/2018 12:22:54 am

O THOU Spirit N., because thou hast-diligently answered unto my, demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here license thee to depart unto thy proper place; without causing harm or danger unto man or beast. Depart, then, I say, and be thou very ready to come at my call, being duly exorcised and conjured by the sacred rites of magic. I charge thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and the peace of GOD be ever continued between thee and me I AMEN!

AFTER thou hast given the Spirit license to depart, thou art not to go out of the circle until he or they be gone, and until thou shalt have made prayers and rendered thanks unto God for the great blessings He hath bestowed upon thee in granting thy desires, and delivering thee from all the malice of the enemy the devil.

Also note! Thou mayest command these spirits into the Vessel of Brass in the same manner as thou dost into the triangle, by saying: "that thou dost forthwith appear before this Circle, in this Vessel of Brass, in a fair and comely shape," etc., as hath been shown in the foregoing conjurations.

G. G.
8/3/2018 12:13:28 am

Not really.

It’s a multi-layered problem.

And that’s the key to understanding it.

:)

Reply
G
8/3/2018 12:16:06 am

AN?

Call a Preist and get back to us.

:)

Kal
8/3/2018 01:52:48 pm

Who cares about when the Oija spirit board was published? It wasn't ancient. That was the point. Maybe I should have been more clear, like perhaps said, "The one I got was from the 1960s". Who cares? I haven't played one since the 1980s.

The 1960s one I was familiar with indeed came out then. The point was it was not so ancient. If it's 60 years before that, then still it's not ancient.

I did not need to comb wikipedia just to prove it was 1890 merely to randomly harass people.

And if you want to hang out with spirits, a parlor trick game board is probably not the way to do it.

The topic was UFOs and poltergeists.

But I see Jason has not decided to delete negative comments, as he promised.

There is no need to be uncivilized trolls and to fee your egos here, where it is merely a comment blog, and you could be suited to other more productive purposes.



Reply
RICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/3/2018 03:18:51 pm

A BUDDHIST, so you accept the possibility of the existence of YHVH? That means you accept the possibility of the existence of a creator god which is an interesting position for someone who bills himself as "a buddist". If you buy the premise you buy the bit, and the Jews say YHVH is a creator god.

You can't believe what Xtians say about which god they worship any more than you can believe the Religion of Peaceniks. That still leaves the puzzle of the Disappearing Shekinah and why a supposedly monotheistic religion requires a prohibition against other gods and in fact was started by a father agreeing to murder his son. You've woven yourself into a tangled web..

Presumably your concern about killing babies and so forth extends to the modern Palestinians, Harry Truman and the crew of the USS Liberty?

Reply
A Buddhist
8/3/2018 03:54:18 pm

RICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS: I, as a Buddhist, reject the existence of a creator god. But the Buddhist Tipitaka discusses gods who, led astray by their wrong conclusions, believe themselves to be creator gods. It is possible, I think, that YHVH may believe himself to be the Creator God, and the Jews and the Christians, having accepted this claim, believe it. As a Buddhist, I of course reject all claims by all entities claiming to be creator gods. If you think it strange that I, as a Buddhist, am choosing to accept certain portions of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures as true or possibly true while rejecting other portions, this is what all Christians and Jews do to varying degrees - if you want, I can provide evidence of this. I do not see myself as having woven myself into a web, although many theists would not like it.

As a Buddhist, I oppose all deliberate killing - all uses of the death penalty are wrong to me, I will not eat animals that have been killed so that I may eat them, and I think that only defensive wars are justified - and even those are a tragedy. So yes, I care about the modern Palestinians, Harry Truman, and the crew of the USS Liberty.

Reply
AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/3/2018 04:55:20 pm

I say again, if you buy the premise you buy the bit. YHVH is *by definition* a creator god although like all gods, non-existent. But you've accepted the possibility. And the copout about "No animals killed specifically for me, thanks!" Since no one kills babies for me, I'm okay with people killing babies.

A Buddhist
8/3/2018 05:14:36 pm

AMERICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS: Clearly, we disagree about the significance of accepting premises, and about whether it is possible to accept some portions of premises while rejecting other portions. But it suffices to say that if your view about premises were correct, we would either have to reject every claim made by accused liars or mentally ill persons or accept every claim made by them. The reality is that most such persons are often revealing mixtures of true and false claims.

Why do you claim that YHVH is by definition a creator god? YHVH is merely a name. This name has been linked, by me and others, with a being that is thought by some to be a god. Some sources (including words attributed to YHVH) claim that YHVH is the creator god.

For what it is worth, If all people were to stop killing animals, I would be happy. You may be all right with people killing babies so long as they are not doing so for you, but I am not.

ameRICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/3/2018 07:05:51 pm

There's a name for that sort of person: Cafeteria Catholic.

Since I've already pointed out that Judaism is based on child murder (and animal sacrifice) I would be remiss not to point out that Buddhuism is based on the abandonment of the family after fathering a child. But YHVH forbid you cook and eat a bunny for Easter!

A Buddhist
8/3/2018 08:14:21 pm

ameRICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS: Actually, it is not just Catholics (of the sort derided by some such as you as Cafeteria Catholics) who pick and choose what to believe from their own scriptures. Only the most insanely literalistic Christians today believe that the world is flat, yet the Bible describes a disc-shaped, flat Earth surmounted by a dome of visible Heaven above which YHVH and the angels live. It is only after this model became scientifically untenable, it seems, that there developed the idea that the Bible teaches a Spherical Earth.

Christian Source: http://drmsh.com/christians-who-believe-the-earth-is-really-flat-does-it-get-any-dumber-than-this/

Atheist Sources: http://contradictionsinthebible.com/the-creation-according-to-genesis-1/; http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/misc/misc/FlatEarth/FlatEarthAndBible.html

Similarly, I have never received a convincing explanation of how Christians can reconcile the certainty of prophecy with the story of Micaiah ben Imlah.

The precepts attributed to YHVH are of no relevance to me except insofar as they coincide with Buddhist precepts. The founder of Buddhism abandoned his family, it is true, but such can be justified if it was for a proper reason. Soldiers, after all, abandon their families when called up for war, and some wars are worthy causes (such as against the Nazis). Similarly, the Buddha left his family for a good cause, namely figuring out a way out of suffering.

ameRICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS
8/3/2018 08:56:55 pm

Yeah, he left his nag and his loser son; suffering ended! Nice to see you endorse the prewar French invasion of the Lowlands because Nazis are bad even though they were incredibly compassionate after the British incursion at Dunkirk. How's the view from Mount Meru?

A Buddhist
8/4/2018 08:22:56 am

ameRICANEGRO I HEART DEMONS AND WELCOME DEMONIC POSSESSION ALSO SPIT ON AND TRAMPLE THE CROSS: If there was a prewar French invasion of the Lowlands, that proves nothing about the goodness of the invasion - even though it would have been to prevent the Dutch from remaining neutral and therefore being easily conquered by the Nazis, it still would be a tragedy, albeit one better by far than the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. And are you seriously calling the Nazis "incredibly compassionate"? Or am I misunderstanding you?

It is not necessary for Mount Meru to have the role that it does in traditional Buddhist cosmology for Buddhism to be true insofar as it teaches about the origin and way out of suffering. The Dalai Lama has said as much, if that affect your opinion.

Americanegro
8/4/2018 02:55:34 pm

Yet you assert that the biblical Hebrews believed in a flat earth with a dome above it. This gets back to what one earlier poster said about glass houses: Buddhuism get a pass for all sorts of nonsense but the Bible must be taken literally except when it suits you not to.

A Buddhist
8/4/2018 04:06:43 pm

Americanegro: I hold beings who claim to be Creator gods to higher standards in the scientific accuracy of their claims then I hold beings who merely claim to understand the origins and ways to cessation of suffering.

Americanegro
8/4/2018 04:57:42 pm

Now you're claiming that the Bible was written by a god. The nonsense just doesn't stop. The flat earth and dome of stars is a fair description of *how things look* but I'm sure you'll come back with another excuse.Then you'll quote something you believe as if your belief were probative.

A Buddhist
8/4/2018 09:47:52 pm

Americanegro: I am not claiming, nor am I believing, that the Bible was written by a god. Rather, my claim was that that if the Bible had been written by a Supreme Creator God of any form of honesty and goodness as Christians claim, one would expect it to have more accuracy in many areas than it does. I believe that the Bible was written by people - the people may have been lying about many things and they were certainly ignorant of many things. Furthermore, unlike the Buddhist Sutras/Suttas, the Bible's authors have no excuse within their text along the lines of "we only present spiritual/psychological truths with essential accuracy; the other matters are unponderable/best not thought about/lead to sorrow/distractions." As a Buddhist, however, I am open to the idea that the human writers of the Bible may have been motivated, in whole or in part, by contact with a god named YHVH. YHVH, if a god, is insane, as the Bible and revelations from people claiming to be in connection with him today (assuming that they are not themselves lying or insane, as Buddhism admits is possible), and will, according to Buddhist scriptures, die (or is already dead). This set of beliefs may seem strange to you, but it is compatible with Buddhist scriptures, so I as a Buddhist accept it as a possibility.

Americanegro
8/4/2018 11:12:26 pm

Since there are no gods, let's go with flying spaghetti monster named YHVH, equally non-existent, so no one communicated with him.

"Then you'll quote something you believe as if your belief were probative." Prediction fulfilled.

MiaSofia link
8/7/2018 03:44:21 am

I applaud the publication of your article on invention-of-the-poltergeist. I referred your post for my thesis and completed successfully, Thank you for the help.

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    • Collection: Skeptic Magazine >
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    • Collection: Ancient History >
      • Prehistoric Nuclear War
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    • Collection: The Lovecraft Legacy >
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  • The Library
    • Ancient Mysteries >
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        • Egyptian Texts >
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      • Medieval Texts >
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        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
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      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
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        • Fragments on Giants
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      • Science and History >
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      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
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        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
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        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
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        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
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      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
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        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
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      • Orville Wright on UFOs
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    • The Supernatural >
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      • Defining a Zombie
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      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
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      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
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      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
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      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
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        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
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      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
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      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
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