Tuesday, February 24, 2015

John Dee and Ufology

John Dee & Ufology by MDA

It had begun like any other night in Belize. A dreary eight hours of sweat and Ayahuaska. I had been dodging the locals due to their dislike for wine-soaked Americans shrieking night after night for Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan. And there had been an incident with a tour guide on the stairs of the great Altun-Ha pyramid. But that’s neither here nor there. I was finally getting my head in the game. My idiot editor thought it might be a good idea to cover Mayan astrology in Belize. I went along with the hopes of contacting the Mayan spirit guides in the rain forest. It was a sound plan that was as always meticulously thought out.
When I left the hotel, I knew I had a walk ahead of me. I didn’t rent a car and cabs are always a mixture of strange jabbering and foul smells. So I gathered my guide Philipe and we headed into the dense canopy of Belize. The first hour of hiking was uneventful. It was after midnight when we came across a dozen or so indigenous Mayans holding captive what appeared to be a Russian thief. Philipe instantly flew into a panic and screamed “Oh God!” But it was too late to run. I knew these parts. If the Rusky still had his hands by the end of the night it would be either dumb luck or due to fervent praying to Putin.




I sat down to enjoy the proceedings but Philipe couldn’t be calmed. He was in the midst of stammering an apology to the native chief when one of the women lashed out so quickly that to me it was only a blur. Philipe shrieked as he went down and clutched his chest as if suffering some bodily fit. I knew it was over for him. He’d never return to a calm state of mind. He’d forever be looking over his shoulder for Mayan warriors and would never ever go out at night again. As he crawled away weeping, I gave him a 50/50 odds of surviving and turned my attention back to the pleading Russian.
Suddenly, a blinding flash erupted overhead. The natives all stared up transfixed but I knew it wasn’t a helicopter or drone. It was too quiet and too still. As it hovered above and bathed us all in a pearl white glow, I knew something had just gone awry.
The natives plunged into the rain forest like terrified deer leaving the Russian hog-tied and shackled. I heard him scream, “Mother Russia!” But I had the feeling that what was above was a “Mother-Ship.” Nobody would be saving him today. As he unbound his legs, I crouched behind a rock enclosure and tried to steady my knees and regulate my breathing.





A few minutes passed s the thief hummed the Russian national anthem and got free from the knots the Mayans had tied to his hands and neck. It was then that something invisible blasted out from the object paralyzing the Russian in mid-verse. I witnessed the realization as it occurred to him that what was silently above us wasn’t a Russian envoy or search party. As fast as it came, the object shot off and took the thief with it. I can only imagine the horrors that poor soul is enduring at the hands of what can only be demons or extraterrestrials. As I headed back to camp, I knew there would be no stargazing tonight. The stars had come to us. That was my first foray into discovering what it was that erupted above us that night. So I scrapped the astrology piece and began to research aliens and the occult.
Ufology and the occult have had a strange trajectory. Modern lore of the saucer tends to focus on ‘modern’ incidents. However, ET’s and their contact with Man has been apparent forever. This is not an article espousing Ancient Aliens theory but something in my mind, much more believable. As any occultist will tell you, our daimons or Holy Guardian Angels have extraterrestrial motifs. The characteristics of these entities are identical in tone and the narratives more than just similar.
One such case study involves the famous John Dee. This famous 16th century magician meandered with alien entities as part of his occult operations. A scholar, Dee was a devout Christian who, like his contemporaries, wanted to build a Jacob’s Ladder that would effectively network the Heavens and earth. He was a man who adhered to a Universal Science by utilizing mathematics, alchemy, kabbalah, astronomy and other hermetic arts to communicate with the Other. But he also wanted these communications to meet with God’s approval. This is why the aliens he came into contact with were deemed ‘Angels’.
Like today, the time in which Dee lived was awfully preoccupied with the sky above. Portents were made of unusual sights and happenings and used as fodder for astrological and other occult interpretation. For example, in November 1577, a comet raced through the sky and made the population go all to pieces. When it appeared, Elizabeth I herself called  on Dee to soothe her anxious courtiers and to interpret the comet’s potentially eschatological message.[1] And this wasn’t the first time. Astrologers of the period were always flailing about when something came from Heaven. One such event was the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that was such a rarity that it was discussed in print for years before it actually took place in 1583.[2] Even Tycho Brahe gnashed his teeth and went wild with fear about the upcoming apocalyptic conjunction. He railed at anybody who would listen that this event would only be magnified by a star he discovered in 1572. Local folklore suggests he went underground and only surfaced at the prodding of loved ones and jeers by the local community.



In 1581, Dee began working with a skryer named Edward Kelley. The methods used by this pair involved a showstone that when stared at by Kelley, would yield contact with heavenly personages. The reason they employed a showstone was to assuage the anxieties attached to attempting open communication with the Other. The showstone acted as an artifact to instill faith in the operators. Dee himself stated that he was prompted to use a “shewstone, which the High Priests did use…wherein they had lights and judgements in their great dowtes.” [sic] In addition, Dee thought his extraterrestrial angels were liminal beings. They wee part substance and part potential and held an intermediary space in the cosmos. He wasn’t alone in this regard. Because of the intermingling of various currents in the 16th century, it wasn’t strange for Pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Occult figures to assert that angels were planetary intelligences that moved the celestial spheres. Dee often remarked that “planetary angels or intelligences move the Heavenly Bodies.”[3] The universe was always a part of the process and interpretation of these strange occurrences. The entities involved were the ‘extraterrestrials’ we contact or ‘witness’ in modern times.
In occult circles, a rift in when contact occurred exists that even now inspires righteous animosity and shrieking across the aisle. I’ve personally witnessed rage and blind hatred at some of these gatherings. One man was bloodied for simply suggesting that Crowley’s Aiwass was an earthly elemental. Another wept openly at the thought of a flying saucer corresponding to the disks or pentacles of tarot lore. But never mind that. Those that espouse a more modern interpretation claim 1947 as an important year in Ufology. According to Kenneth Grant, “When Parsons[4] received Liber 49, which he proclaimed to be the fourth chapter of AL, it was in musical concert with L.R. Hubbard that extraterrestrial contact was established. The working began in 1945-46, a few months before Crowley’s death in 1947, and just prior to the wave of unexpected, aerial phenomena, now recalled as the ‘Great Flying Saucer Flap.”[5]
Like Dee and Grant, modern Ufologists appreciate the network that connects daimonic and extraterrestrial realities. They have barked more than once that the entire UFO sequence is an analysis of dimensions. According to John Mack, abductees have spoken of aliens “breaking through from another dimension.” As he reported, “through a ‘slit’ or ‘crack’ in some sort of barrier, entering our world from ‘beyond the veil’”[6] in both concept and terminology, this statement oozes occult thought. It’s not a stretch to suggest that a showstone could very well be the liminal link between ‘us’ and the ‘E.T Other’. Also, Ufology interprets contact with aliens as an assemblage of intelligences. The acknowledgement of alien beings’ existence, after the initial ontological shock, Mack writes, “is sometimes the first step in the opening of consciousness to a universe that is no longer simply material. Abductees come to appreciate that the universe is filled with Intelligences and is itself Intelligent. They develop a sense of awe before a mysterious cosmos that becomes sacred and ensouled.”[7] Like John Dee and his contemporaries, the entities that populate the night sky are ‘Intelligences’ to be interacted with for mutual benefit. When a ceremonial magician encounters a livid Grey alien in the confines of a ritualistic circle, it’s clear that these networks are much closer than what is supposed.
Modern Ufology also attributes portents of the future to contact with aliens. It was the same with Dee’s angels. According to Harkness, “Dee believed that the information shared by the angels would include divine law, revelations of future events, prophesies, and doctrines.”[8] Modern abduction narratives are also characterized by usually dire warnings for the future of mankind. Apocalyptic visions of an ecologically deplete earth as well as nuclear disaster are common in accounts of visitation.
Whether it be dirty little Grey probes, cold and mean reptilians or narcissistic Nordics, the modern alien is a re-embodiment of what John Dee communicated with through his showstone. These creatures stay relevant and are renewed as they take on recent forms and structure. in fact, the modern Ufologist performs occult-like ritual every time they venture out into a rain forest or build a mountain of mashed potatoes. The visions are real and so is the contact. It doesn’t matter whether the entities are interpreted as angels or extraterrestrials. In the end, the experiential nature of the event gives credence to the accounts given.
  



[1] Deborah Harkness. John Dee’s Conversations with Angels. 1999. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. pp. 69.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] See Jack Parsons. An occultist, rocket scientist, and one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (JPL)
[5] Kenneth Grant. Outside the Circle of Time.1980. Frederick Muller Limited. London. pp. 50.
[6] C.D.B. Bryan. Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. 1995. Alfred. A. Knopf publishing. New York. pp. 420.
[7] Ibid. pp. 444.
[8] Deborah Harkness reference. pp. 115.

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