16

Whitley Strieber and The Visitors

227-246

p. 227

"Whitley Strieber ... in 1987 published a book called Communion, which still stands as one of the most ... powerful accounts of alien abduction ... . Now a host of the online radio program Dreamland, which covers the latest news in paranormal phenomena, ... Strieber came up with the term "visitor" to replace "alien" ... because he

considers the word "alien" to have a negative connotation."

{Various Gnostic theologians, however, praeferred to characterize their God as "alien" in the sense of "not of this world", viz., supramundane.}

p. 228

"When Communion was first published, it quickly shot to number one on the New York Times, non-fiction bestseller list. It then went on to become an international betseller."

"Following the publication of Communion, Strieber went on to write four additional books about his intimate contact experiences ... . First came Transformation, then Breakthrough, then The Secret School and, lastly, Confirmation."

"Referring to ... in an interview, Communion and Transformation in particular, Strieber described them as ... "... the way ... to thinking about questions about the nature of perceptions and what exactly the physical world is.""

"Strieber remarked that he was brought up a Catholic and has always considered himself one." {"Catholic" especially in the broad sense of 'universalist'.}

{The term \transformation\ could be a synonym for \transsubstantiation\, during mass, so as to befit the eucharist for "[holy] communion".}

p. 228

"the most ambiguous of Strieber's books about the visitor is The Secret School. ... . ... Strieber says he lived a kind of double life in which he ... belonged to a "secret school" run by the visitors. ...

p. 229

The Secret School is primarily concerned with the subject of time-travel and how this relates to prophecy."

p. 229

"In an interview ..., Strieber made a comment ... :

"... It's like I live with my two feet in two different worlds." ...

{"And he had in his hand a little book {describing various worlds?} open : and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth." (Apokalupsis of Ioannes 10:2)}

In the introduction to his book The Key, Strieber makes a similar statement : "I have had the ... privilege of living between the worlds, in the sense that I have spent a substantial amount of time in my life with people who

p. 230

were not physical in the way that we know the physical." ...

{Although they have bodily physiques, these physiques are not composed of substantial matter.}

The Key, which Strieber self-published in 2001, is a transcript of this".

"Having discovered "that ... when I am in the trance-like state that writing ... involves," in an attempt to get "my inner self to ... know about the grays, and keep hidden," Strieber wrote ... about these beings and the U.S. Government's clandestine involvement in the UFO phenomenon. Entitled The Grays (2006), sections of the book are written from the perspective of these entities".

p. 230

"Strieber had his first conscious meeting with the visitors on

December 26, 1985,

{This was a-year-and-a-day after Christmas of 1984, "the centenary of the Fabian Society, founded in 1884." ("MKGO")}

while staying ... in upstate New York. ...

p. 231

Later that night, Strieber was suddenly awoken by a "peculiar whooshing, swirling noise ... . ... He then obsrved a figure, about three-and-a-half feet tall, standing beside the bedroom doors. ... Without warning, the figure rushed into the room, and Strieber somehow lost consciousness. A moment later, he found himself naked and paralyzed, being carried through the woods. ... Following another brief period of unconsciousness, Strieber found himself in "a ... room," encircled by alien beings. ... He tried to move, but found his body still paralyzed. ... Strieber saw small beings rushing around him at great speed ... . Strieber recalls seeing many different species of alien being, some of them typical-looking grays, others with wide faces and short, stocky physiques ... . ...

p. 232

Next, they performed an operation ... . The procedure happened very quickly ... . ... Then next thing he knew, it was morning. ... Strieber felt that something had happened to him but was unable to remember exactly what it was."

"Gradually ..., he began to remember ... fragments of ... inexplicable experiences. He recalled, for instance, an odd incident that occured on the night of October 4, 1985 ... . During that Strieber was awoken "by

a distinct blue light{'s} being cast on the living-room ceiling." ...

{In the only experience which I have had of sleep-paralysis (decades ago, in Ch., IL) included my seeing the ceiling covered with a green Maya hieroglyphic text : this green would refer to jade as the stone sacred to the Maya; whereas turquoise (cf. the blue seen by Strieber) is sacred to the Az-tec, specificly to god Xiuh-tecuhtli.}

He thought the house was on fire.

{The only common sort of blue flame is from petroleum-gas; but the meaning of \Xiuh-tecuhtli\ is 'fire-lord'.}

But before he was able to act, he inexplicably fell into a deep sleep. Later that night, he woke up again, "this time by a loud report, as if

a firecracker had popped ... ."

{Firecrackers are much-exploded in Chinese religious rites; whereas the Az-tec muchly employ popped popcorn in their religious rites.}

He heard his wife and son cry out. The house was surrounded by a glow, and Strieber thought the "fire" had spread to the roof. Within seconds the glow disappeared, and everyone went back to sleep. ...

About a week later, however, a "very clear and dramatic" memory popposed into Strieber's mind of "a huge crystal standing on end above the house, a glorious thing hundreds of feet tall, glowing with unearthly blue light.""

p. 233

"Strieber heard of the respected UFO abduction reseacher Budd Hopkins, author of Missing Time (1981), and decided to contact him. ... Through Hopkins, Strieber was out in touch with a ... hypnotist ... of ... New York State ... . ... The first hypnosis session concerned the events of October 4, 1985 ... . ... Strieber was woken up in the middle of the night by a light flying past the window. He then saw ... the being, a typical-looking gray, ... female, approach him suddenly, holding a silver, wand-like object. ... Being struck by the wand presumably had the effect of causing the

p. 234

loud noise ... . As revealed under hypnosis, it also had the effect of producing images in Strieber's mind".

p. 235

"According to Strieber, one night in April 1985, while contemplating whether or not he should call the book Body Terror, Anne, in a mediumistic fashion, said the following words in her sleep : "... You should call it Communion, because that's what it's about." Strieber notes that she in a "strange basso profundo" voice, which he recognized straight way as belonging to the visitors."

p. 236

"In his book, The Haunted Planet ..., John A. Keel relates ... that ... in January 1954, people throughout the Midwestern U.S. heard a strange voice, which spoke in a dull monotone, issuing from turned-off radios. "... I speak from space. ... stop preparations for war ... ." This same message, according to Keel, was ... also picked up by equipment at the London airport, also in Janurary of 1954."

"Strieber and his wife were living in an apartment in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. On night Anne woke up screaming, claiming that something had poke her in the stomach {belly}. She managed to catch a glimpse of the culprit, which she described to Strieber as "translucent white and about three feet tall." ...

The following evening, while lying in bed, Strieber was struck on the arm by the very same entity ... . He chased the entity -- a "small, pale shape" -- into the hall, but it disappeared."

"The 1989 Communion film was directed by Philipe Mora, a friend of Strieber's ... . ...

Mora describes ... :

"... I had the experience of lights blasting through the bedroom window, lights blasting under the crack under the door --

{Particularly intricate dream of false awakening : "A bright light ... is shining through our bedroom windows and making the room bright enough to see well in." ("RFAN")}

I tried to turn the light on in my room, and I couldn't turn it on

{Entirely characteristic of a dream of false awakening : "When you're in a dream, the light switch usually doesn't do anything when you move it" (DWA, p. 123).} {"If you cannot turn the lights on or off, this should be a clue to you that you are in a dream." ("FAD")}

and I was pushed back into the bed. ... Then I remember being outside the guest room door, in the kitchen area, and the whole cabin lit up -- every opening, every exterior opening, the whole thing was lit up with moving lights.""

p. 237

"on December 23, 1986, Strieber and his family had arrived at the cabin ... . That night, Strieber ... went to bed,

waking up

{"One of the fascinating features of a false awakening is just how ... often the experience takes the form of waking up to ... go to the bathroom" ("FDAWU").}

p. 238

... to go to the bathroom.

When he returned to bed,

{in the same dream, of course}

Strieber began to feel "a tingling, pulsing energy running up and down my body." ...

{"when I lucid dream. Every time I become aware, my body (especially my neck and back) become tingly for a few seconds" ("TSWhBA").} [dream-paraisthesia]

After a brief period of unconscious,

{This is the usual disconnection between to successive episodes in a single continuous series of multiple episodes of false awakenings.}

Strieber awoke to the sensation of someone{'s} slapping him on the shoulder. There, standing beside the bed, was a female visitor ... . Strieber notes that she

moved in a sudden, jerky fashion, much like an insect.

{There is, additionally, a tactile variation on this theme of visual sensation of insect-motion. The tactile variant is known as \formication\.}

(Interestingly, many abductees compare the visitors to insects.}

{Such particular entities may well be spirit-guardians devoted to conserving particular insect-species.}

Wanting to take a picture of the entity, Strieber tried reaching for his camera, which he's left beside his bed, fully loaded with film ... . But, as he was about to grab it, his hand moved away of its own accord. The entity, he felt, was controlling his mind.

The entity, he felt, was controlling his mind. {'his mind"? Why not "his body"?}

{It would have been more reasonable for him to have deduced that the praeternatural dream-entity was controlling his dream-body : which is facile for dream-entities to accomplish, inasmuch as one's dream-body is merely lent (by dream-entities themselves, of course) for one's temporary occupation and use, on the condition of one's being adequately submissive to the will of the dream-entities lending it.}

Strieber found himself standing up, and with the entity positioned behind him, he began walking towards the bedroom door. Whenever he stopped and tried to resist, he would start floating along the ground, the entity pushing him from behind. "I could feel myself moving," explains Strieber, "I was passing through

a normal and completely real version

{a verisimiltude, i.e., accurately faked copy}

of my house." ... The visitor, Strieber, and his cat, all moved out the front door, at which point ... before him was

a "glittering blackness." {""glittering" blackness ... is ... experienced in ... ACE sessions." (PLTVM:"TVM")} ...

{"To the mystics, this ‘holy dark’ was truly perceived as ... something scintillating ... . The mystics witnessed this glittering darkness in their contemplations" (SM:"DD").}

A moment later, he was standing in a room ... . Before him was a desk and ... Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again ... . ...

p. 239

Strieber sat down, and the man behind the desk began to speak. In normal English, he asked Strieber why he brough the cat along. ... Strieber was then told that the cat needed to be put to sleep temporarily. ... It instantly went to sleep." [Very seldom, during a dream, is there any witnessing of anyone else sleeping in the dream; still less often, of anyone's being put to sleep temporarily within any dream.] ... During the next phase of this ... encounter, Strieber was "pushed" back to the cabin. ... As soon as they reached his own bedroom, ... Strieber collapsed on his bed, falling asleep instantly."

" alien abduction episodes occur on a ... quasi-physical level. These beings are able to ... grab someone out of bed in the dead of night, transport them {him or her} to their own realm, and then later return them to the physical {read, again, "quasi-physical"} realm."

{This is a particularly elaborate "dream of false awakening". A less elaborate dream of false awakening may entail, after the dreamer's seemingly having awoken, walking out of the house before abruptly waking (not falsely this time).}

"In Strieber's online journal entry for March 12, 2004, ... after midnight, ... at a hotel in

Marathon, Texas. ... He also recalls being touched by the entity, ... "... the placing of thin ... hands ... . ..." ... .

{"The original Greek name for fennel was marathron, from maraino, which meant ~to grow thin.~" ("M&LF--Fennel")}

The following morning, says Strieber, "... I could hear people thinking. ... In this state, you ... gain the most intimate knowledge of them." Strieber attributes this heightened state of awareness ... to the visitor encounter he had the night before. ... He describes .. : "... Souls have an odor, which is why people report scents in the presence of ghosts. Most of them ... smell ... like ... flowers."

Strieber's heightened sense of awareness soon faded."

"On July 18, 1986, says Strieber, ... he actually levitated. ... after lying down to go to sleep, he heard a rustling sound around him ... . The next thing he knew, he was floating against the ceiling, looking down on the bed ..., but the space ... where he slept, was empty."

{I myself, likewise, have, on various occasions, experienced a dream of false awakening, wherein, after a dreaming of waking in a similitude of where I had gone to sleep, I levitated (sometimes as far as the ceiling) in the dream beside where I had woken in the dream.}

"First he saw an image in his mind ... of ia visitor -- its hand ... -- pointing at a box ... . For some reason {was the "box" actually an animate female entity radiating erotic vibrations?} ..., it "had the effect of causing an explosive sexual reaction in me." ... Due to this "blast of sexual energy," Strieber's astral body became loose, and he was able to roll out of his physical body with ease. He floated up into the air, hovering above his physical body ... . He also spotted a visitor staring through the window. ... he decided to exit the cabin through a different window and found that he could pass straight through the glass and screen. Hovering outside the building, Strieber noticed ... the [electricity-]power lines ... "appeared fat because of a sort of gray, hairy substance that was adhering to them." ... "... I may have been seeing the electromagnetic field around the wires," he concludes. ... Monroe, while in the OBE state, observed a similar effect ... . Shortly afterwards, Strieber entered his body through what appeared to be "an invisible opening," but instead of "waking up," ... He then found himself in his old family home in San Antonio, Texas. ... A split second later, Strieber "shot back into" his body and sat up in bed".

"Strieber received some training at the Monroe Institute and ... became highly proficient at astral projection. ... . ... March 15, 1988, Strieber ... to visit a friend, ... Barbara Clayman, ... Upon arriving at her house in a non-physical state, ... "projected" his voice into her ear. ... The next evening, received a call from Barbara, who told him ... that she had wseen him during the night, and that he had spoken to her. She had apparently seen his face "hanging down before her"".