Folklore Decryption

The Role of Aliens in Our Culture

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Intellectual property of the researcher Ruben Morales.

How many ufologists wore their commitment to verify or disprove the few "physical evidence" of the UFO phenomenon!. Meanwhile, the reality of flying saucers as psychosocial and cultural phenomenon was so obvious that they did not see to have it next to my face.
Only in recent decades, the overwhelming reality began to be studied by the supporters of the so-called "psycho-sociological hypothesis", but almost always with some disparaging attitude. We refer to those who, after offering a psychosocial explanation for UFO sightings, pontificate: "Well, now we can forget all this then just regret the time lost in the futile task of investigating flying saucers time."
We will open an alternative path, addressing the issue of UFOs from the perspective of social psychology existential foundations. We leave the folklorológicos and anthropological planteos outlined by Vallée, Meheust and Cabria. From there, we move towards finding a better proximity to the object of study, or what is the same, a greater commitment to our current reality. Far from stopping at the "psychological explanation" of UFOs, we delve into the psychological importance in the technological civilization.

The Mind Structure

Human beings always exist in relationship with others and with the environment. In this context it happens psychological, social and cultural phenomena. Psychological phenomena pertaining to the individual and can last for years; social phenomena involving human groups and it is common to measure in decades; cultural phenomena encompass masses of people and last generations. We could take the century as temporary unit of measure.
When the disciples of Jung predicted that the visionary rumor of UFOs would die soon (it said earlier in the decade of the '60') were demonstrating their efforts to frame the flying saucers in the psychosocial field. Instead, the oft phrase 'UFOs are the greatest enigma of the century "has sought to transform it into a cultural phenomenon.
Cultural phenomena are particularly difficult to study, because they involve systems of values ??and body of beliefs that define the fabric of our everyday reality bra.


CONVENTIONS OF CULTURE
Always we live in a crisscross space over time, in a nature that man initially presented as chaotic and thrown into our uncertain historical. Copper for some sense of reality, human culture was invented, over the centuries, a colossal construct convention that we all accept, share and perfect.
Following these conventions behave socially corresponds to "common sense", "normal" and even got to say behaviors "naturally". So when we see a door in the drawing of a human silhouette we deduce that is a bathroom, and according to the outline, if any men or women. All this without much thought.
Of course, culture has established that thing "is natural" do in a bathroom and the same is done elsewhere "shameful" unacceptable ", etc. The schizophrenic, for example, violates these rules because it has confused the conventions of reality. He defends a own codes that others do not share and therefore we label as the "delirium".

Castles in the Air

THE EMERGENCE OF THE ANOMALY
Far from being locked in an idle wandering, all this has much to do with the focus of this article. Merely talking to refer to the UFO means unidentified, the abnormal, the unusual, the abnormal.
It has been said time and again that UFOs are a challenge to science, logic, are unconventional phenomena ...
It is essential to retain the concept that never perceive objectively, but in the passing of reality, it's going preset mentally organizing cultural categories. Every so often breaks into our experience the perception of something not categorized. It is a critical moment where what is perceived is not set, we have before our eyes as something permanent, not categorized, never seen before, and detonated within us a feeling of anxiety, emptiness and paralysis.

We will present two very basic examples that will assist the reader, through their own experience to understand better what we are trying to communicate:

a) We see down the street to a different car models that we know. Immediately try to categorize: "It seems like a Fiat, Peugeot has something could be a Daihatsu". Finally we will agree that "looks like a Fiat front and rear resembles the Daihatsu", which will calm our spirits after having drawn in a category resulting from mixing two others.

b) For a great city pedestrian passes a girl with a kitten in her arms. As we approach we see that the animal is actually a tiger cub. There was an intermediate moment between vision "cat" and the image "tiger." The perception is blurred, quenched, he desconfiguró and suddenly came to our consciousness the image "tiger." That brief moment, however small, always It has a component of anxiety.

The Technological Era

FUTURE OF REMEMBRANCE
We have said that these cultural conventions with which we organize our understanding of space are permanently intertwined by the time factor. Man is able to foresee, to anticipate future events based on their previous experience. Again, it is not an infallible prediction but a collection of assumptions held in the experience. Alfredo Moffat develops very well the concept of "futurar memories," the process by which we imagine our future throwing forward remnants of our past, we believe that things are going to happen will have some resemblance to those that occurred before, this allows us to develop and follow a project, a goal in which we channel our energies.

In this projective mechanism to anticipate what will come based on what happened to us, sometimes it appears a break in this illusory sense of temporal continuity of life. In space, the break corresponds to not categorized (or, better known terms, to unidentified) and in the temporal, corresponds to the non-planned, unplanned, in-expected. If we take not categorized and unexpected expressions and synonyms seek them, we shall list all the adjectives that commonly UFOs (disconcerting, surprising, strange, unusual, abnormal, etc.) apply.

Nature Elemental Beings

BREAKDOWNS AND CRISIS
The breaks that occur in this fictional construct called "everyday reality" serve to take stock of where we stand, are an invitation to a deep self-analysis. Fernando Flores explains Well we're used to wander through life in a way, say, transparent, and only take real awareness of things when a break occurs. We note the complexity of the computer the damn day they assume !, branded the decision to stop smoking just when it appeared that unbearable chest pain. If we were asked us to tell the story of our life, hilaríamos the story based on the various crises (breaks) are going through.

The "witness" of a UFO event (after clarify why the inverted commas) lives his experience as a profound break that can not categorize what happened long after. So when we go to interview it is likely to present a picture of anguish and anxiety contained. The interviewer will want to proceed with a therapeutic approach can facilitate the discharge of that anguish letting the "witness" is explaye about all interpretations or associations to suggest the experience.
It is no coincidence that people who had one of these unusual experiences then consider them as an important milestone in its history, and thanks to them operated changes in their thinking and behavior. That's just the breaks under the crisis. In Chinese writing, adding crisis write two characters: "danger" more "opportunity".

The Unknown Object

UFO STORIES AND EXPERIENCE
It is understood that our approach is quite the psychology of perception away, since we we refer to the whole individual, with its history and immersed in the specific circumstances of existence project. We inverted commas the word "witness" because it lacks validity terminology when referring to individuals who, in a moment, failed to categorize your perception. We talk about people in body and soul involved in a critical experience and not "objective observers, impartial and honest" who witnessed coldly an alien phenomenon to their lives. This materialistic conception is a very professional deformation of ufologists, however who had a UFO experience often have very clear the intimate significance was that event in its existence as individuals.
Following this line of thought, we resume the suggestion Vallée worrying about the meaning, the meaning implicit in the stories of flying saucers. Avoid value judgments regarding each individual case and adopt the convention generalize UFO-like stories, instead of using expressions like UFO phenomena, UFO reports, UFO experiences, etc. It is also a good compromise solution: both believers and skeptics will agree in saying that, about UFOs, we have a collection of stories.

Alien Rapture

RADIOGRAPH OF A RAPTURE
Meheust Bertrand is a professor of philosophy passionate about UFOs and science fiction. Through two different books and articles, Meheust researcher presented a coherent development which brought clarity to the understanding of UFOs as a cultural phenomenon. He preferred to focus only in cases of rape, ie-UFO stories that contain the most complex and incredible details. However, there are several hundred people in the world who claim to have been abducted for several hours by the crew of a flying saucer.

These stories often dreamlike overflow of ingredients but also a certain sequence is perceived in the adventure kidnapped. We read of Meheust:

"The hostage is sucked by force, perhaps Levite to the enigmatic or enters it climbing an archaic ladder machine. It is then in an ovoid space spread on a clean table and warns disturbing creatures pounce on him to make incisions . in the body Psychoanalytic interpretation of these representations it is quite obvious but can penetrate deeper into these inner pictures The ovoid space is not only the female body, is the total universe ascension and refer not only vertical ladder intercourse, are also the link connecting the worlds, in terms of surgery, certainly evokes a sense of guilt that is manifested by a ghost of self-punishment: but it is also a test transfiguring".

The Grays

Indeed; Meheust related medical examination that usually appears in the stories of abduction with the ancient shamanic rituals of initiation. In archaic cultures, the aspiring wizard should undergo a series of tests risky for the gifts of sorcery. Part of the ritual was to penetrate a cave self-luminous or bright precious stones in its walls.
There the demons drew some guts and replace them to transfigure the aspirant shaman.
Importantly, the contradiction between the psychoanalytic interpretation and cultural correlate of these experiences. The same continuity that Jung had studied in certain dreams that in addition to the psychological content of the dreamer, alluded to the cultural archetypes of humanity is observed. We return to this issue in defining the notion of spokesperson.
It is indisputable that confronting the UFO stories-fiction novels and folk tales are common elements shared metaphors and even whole scenes interpertenecen them.
Some ufologists underestimated the proposals of Meheust believing they were a simple endorsement of the psycho-sociological explanation of Monnerie and that its greatest virtue was the investigating folk and literary myth UFO nutrients. At the opposite end stood Eddie Bullard, for whom the invariable sequence of misfortunes suffered by abducted confirm that there is an intelligent manipulation behind these appearances.

The Fairies

TWILIGHT STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
One idea that seduced him deeply Meheust is that certain experiences of abduction have been effectively lived by their claimants. These people, psychologically normal, would have been affected by sudden "spontaneous trance states," similar to what the early twentieth century was called de¡ sleepwalking pathology. Sleepwalkers had the distinction of performing in a trance, hiking and other activities usually only be made during wakefulness.
It is worth noting here that not only the pathologies therapies but also respond to the central currents of thought in print culture of the time.
Within the climate of sexual repression imposed by the Church during the Middle Ages, accounts of diabolical apparitions had a starting scene own hysteria. Instead, the current aseptic aliens abducted to treat their cold sadism corresponds well with the paranoid-schizoid traits of our technological civilization.

The Secret Commonwealth

It is that cultural conventions determine what is normal and what is abnormal. Today, for example, if someone locks the door with four locks will not be considered "paranoid" but rather "a cautious man."
As the supporting frame of reality is changed, the conditions must be adapted to a slow mutation and those stories of sleepwalkers that inspired comedians of the early twentieth century and have become a rarity clinic. It is quite possible that somnambulism and hysterical possessions are reappearing in the forms (among others) of kidnapped and contacted. As generally fall within the symptoms accepted by our culture, they are not granted pathological character.

By "spontaneous trance states" as grounds for a certain fraction UFO stories, Meheust not place sufficient emphasis on the fact that most of the "kidnappings" that analyzes; They came to light after his hypnotic regressions complainants. Ie trance states, but perfectly directed! So it is not surprising that in the archaic contents UFO stories-so like our dreams appear.
From a purely psychoanalytic approach, and Alvin Lawson stated that no differences between the "actual" abductions and kidnappings fantasized by volunteers undergoing hypnotic induction appreciated.

The Gnomes

DIRECTED THE DREAM
With hypnosis, the dream run or any other technique that is aimed at causing twilight states of consciousness, you can access the mythical places Meheust described in detail in "soucoupes flyers et folklore". During a dream run in Buenos Aires with a purely demonstrative purpose, a group of students from the National School of Psychology underwent a slight trance. In essence, the slogan given from the coordination invited reach fantasy to a cave and see that they found inside. At the end of the dream, several members of the group agreed that the cave "was fully illuminated inside" and "had multicolored lights on the walls of the cave." A young man explained. "He walked into the cave and was fully illuminated In the middle was a rectangular table and on it an old book I took the book and keep it in your wallet ...." Yes, it is inevitable to remember the image of Betty Hill trying to take this extraordinary book. But look at this brief example how to merge without conflict mythical vision of self-luminous grotto scenes reminiscent platillistas.

The Oz Wizard

TECHNICAL SOFROLOGICAS
There are a variety of techniques to achieve these unconventional states of consciousness (ENOC). Basically they all begin to relax the individual, and once produced muscle strain, seeks monotonizar perception. For this purpose a fixed point where you have to nail the view, repeated musical sounds, rhythmic percussion or even the intonation of the words of the coordinator can be used. You will also get to these states by chemical methods, either by administering drugs or blood poisoning by hyperventilation.
Once the body is relaxed and has monotonizado perception, the subject is in an intermediate state between wakefulness and sleep, during which you can listen coordinator directives but can also connect with their unconscious scenes and to experience, in the same way that we live our dreams as real when we sleep. These unconscious fantasies are experienced in a therapeutic frame are a valuable source of information for the knowledge of our intrapsychic reality. They can serve to reveal our ghosts, our fears and desires and, ultimately, to promote their resolution. Consider that this "ghost package" is the invisible engine of our conscious activity in everyday life.

The Saucerians

THE PROBLEM OF SECTS
We have extended in the description of the sofrológicas because the same techniques are also used in most sects, although other names, of course. They are called meditations, invocations, harmonization, cosmic telepathy, contact experience, reciting mantras, etc. So, sometimes, honest and without major psychological complications people participate in some of these sectarian experiences of curiosity and, at some point, they see the image of Christ the Teacher, or Alien. If the person then do not go to a therapist to volcarle their trouble, if your household mocks his "vision" is likely to finish refuge in the sect as a single group of containment. There will be heard but be invited to integrate other "meditations" that realimentarán their fears and the sect have gained a new follower. These techniques put into the hands of psychopaths, are used to control groups of people. It is imposed concepts by way of suggestion and motivates them to see visions ratify. As always, all human energies that can be used for the well can also serve to otherwise.

Alien Contact

WHO CAN HAVE A TRANCE?
An inevitable question is to raise these issues can we all access the twilight states of consciousness? ^ 0 is a thing of individuals with mental disorders?
Actually, if a subject is hipnotizable usually a good indication of health. These experiences are good for those who can never relax and repress at any cost the blossoming of his unconscious contents are trapped by pathologies of action (p. Ex. Psychopathies) or organize your life with obsessive rituals unbreakable.
If we have the ability to remember what we dream at night, it is very possible that we are enabled to access these unconventional states of consciousness, and surely we have traveled many times spontaneously without realizing it.


A THREAD
Surprised to see in a historical perspective as these experiences trance accompanied humanity from the Stone Age to the present. They started with shamanic rituals and tribal initiation ceremonies of atonement for hunting. In those days the rituals involving all members of the small communities and had a great importance. The tribes clung to their beliefs to try to survive in a hostile nature.
With the emergence of historical societies religious rituals became rigid to be more easily controlled by the dominant power. Ecstatic trances became heritage of small groups, mostly protesters. It is quite possible that the first Christians undertake these experiences in the Roman catacombs.

The Fairy Ring

The Middle Ages confined trances and the diabolical coven called "secret societies" that had such an influence well into the nineteenth century. Along with the positivist thought came spiritualism with "scientific" pretensions. By the early twentieth century some trance experiences were considered pathological in hysterical somnambulism and possessions. In more recent years, resurface as attributed to alien abductions and "contact groups". Valga this brief and hasty review to exemplify the secondary but steady trance role in human history. Freud, by introducing the notion of unconscious, opened the can so that the supernatural patina accumulated for so long, obscure stop their study.


THE NEED FOR BELIEF
It is very interesting to note how the UFO stories- appropriated existing scenes in fantasy literature. This is not a cause / effect relationship between science fiction and UFOs, in fact there are thousands of aberrant monsters imagined by writers who, luckily, not resurfaced in-UFO stories. Meheust indicating tried to explain that science fiction and folklore would have provided the nutrients from what he called UFO imagery. That jumble of fabulous stories our current accounts-UFO took some fragments by a cultural selection process.

Ignacio Cabria takes another step in the search for the motivations of such choice. It emphasizes that every civilization must have a notion and an experience of the sacred, in a guiding myth that allows overcome the natural chaos of reality.
Is a historical constant that every culture has its set of beliefs, to Marxism. the last difference between Christianity and Marxism is that the Bible put paradise at the beginning of the times and Marx placed at the end. Each community lives as real to their gods and demons. They are entities that appear in some more or less supernatural way. It worships, is the plot, they are exorcised in the certainty of his superhuman existence.

The Nordics

CRISIS WERE BEFORE
How search of a sacred experience originates ?. All human behavior responds to a need. Necessity is linked to grace and loss concept. Feel we need something to know that something is missing, that we have lost. It is a sad situation, from a clinical point of view is a depressive position.
There was a crisis can plunge into this table all mankind. It happened in the late Neolithic when man became aware that kept integrate nature to begin to dominate, and when found hunting weapons also served to enslave other humans. The man lost his indifferentiation with the environment and beginning to change it by force production. I was suddenly thrown into the uncertain course of history.
Each individual is perceived as different, separate from the other, and had a precarious language to communicate their differences. This realize that I'm different and distinct from the other half is what Sartre calls "separateness". It was such a deep crisis that ancient religions included it in their sacred texts, so that posterity had no memory of that "fall" (The story of Adam and Eve in the Judeo-Christian tradition).

The Elves

THE CIRCULAR TIME
Neolithic peoples settled the existential angst creating a creation myth circular, with great rituals that were repeated in every beginning of the year. At that precise date the gods descended to earth and reliving the creation community. Everything happened as it had been in illo tempore and that time in that sacred ceremony marked a break in the daily random evolution. It was an effective annual palliative to control the terror of history.
Mircea Eliade described those old rituals that began with a dramatization of the pre-creation, then chaos two groups of extras dressed as warriors personified the struggle between good and evil. A goat was loaded with all the sins of the people and cast into the wilderness (the famous scapegoat). Finally, the new creation of the world was celebrated with a waste of joy, libations and orgies.
At the end of the ritual, each returning to his home free of sins (and guilt) having calmed his existential angst.
This extreme concern over the annual cycle is the first cause of historic towns will do their utmost to build both calendars with astronomical precision, like so many others reason that they never saw Von Daniken and supporters that "we are children of the stars."
Such was the importance of the cosmogonic ritual already in the beginning of the Age Antigua was monopolized by power groups: The king was considered a demigod, the dominant caste belonged to God and family together presided over the annual rites.
From then on religion it was "official" and, in return, "magic" clandestine developed.

Planet Paradise

THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE
The Judeo-Christian cosmogony abolished the annual recreation of the universe and determined as the beginning of human life that terrible scene of the Neolithic crisis. Adam and Eve lived naïve, undifferentiated in that wonderful paradise. Fell into sin and transgression were expelled separate from it. His original sin of sins charged to the following generations, thrown to move the story could not go back. Hence the notion of temporality arises, not round, but as a line that started with a "year zero" and extends into the uncertain future. The eternity of time to feel the terror of history, a history that includes in its pages a few idealized characters while the bulk of the productive population never appear in it, a story in which we are unlikely to anticipate what's coming We are forced to travel the time without even being able to foresee our own death. So the Bible included the omnipresence of God the Father who rewards good works and the existence of a post mortem Paradise padeceres justifying our land. Religion has the noble task of not forsake his faithful in weathering of historicity.


A "DANGEROUS SECT"
In the last days of the Roman Empire, the politicians and the official religion had lost credibility among citizens. They abounded in the streets of cities all sorts of preachers orientalists. The Romans were abiding people freedom of religion, but some sects considered dangerous. One of these marginal groups were called Christians who quickly gained followers in the big cities but failed to impose their ideas to the rural population of "payments" pagans. Despite successive persecutions, his influence grew to the point that Constantine took the political decision to deploy skilled Christianity as the official creed and unsustainable empire. Again, religion appeared at the right hand of political power, preparing to play the strong hegemonic role that fit against the spread in feuds that marked the beginning of the Middle Ages.
How could it be otherwise, the remains of archaic rituals were soon thrown into hiding with the label of magic or witchcraft.
These marginal stories that spoke of gnomes, fairies, devils etc., are what Vallee and Meheust considered as antecedents of the current stories of aliens.

Visitors from Outer Space

THE TECHNOLATRY
First came the Industrial Revolution and after that came a real technological revolution. The truth is that the last human generations have been involved in a dizzying materialistic development progresses every day regardless of all spirituality. The error of the twentieth century was the belief that science could supplant faith and, paradoxically, ended sanctifying technology. But there is not an artifact will be able to relieve our existential crisis.
The church rituals knew not actively adapt to circumstances, they are stereotyped convener losing strength, losing numinosity say in Jungian terms.


A REBELLIOUS FAITH
The land was paid for the shoot of clandestine beliefs. Among them, the aliens came down with the double virtue of showing the highest attributes of technology and have spiritual qualities of sublime, true angels cosmic beings.
It all began in the years of World War II, when the heroic age of the lone inventors died, Edison, Marconi, the Wright. The great scientific discoveries became monstrous heritage laboratories that meet political and business interests. We all agree that the achievements of the past 50 years are true wonders. Unable to understand the technological explosion such understanding, we are forced to believe and ended sanctifying science.
It is no coincidence that Ignacio Cabria equated with the current aliens let us (corporeal beings) of the Middle Ages. Because in addition to the anthropological considerations worthy of consideration he exposes both like aliens hell are manifestation of a rebellious popular culture. The "witness of a UFO case" is someone able to shout: "I saw it, and was a ship that you, brainy scientists can not make I already know what these flying saucers and you do not!"

The Gray Aliens

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SPOKESMAN
Méheust said that people who had a UFO experience-our developers are collective, ie, our spokesmen. Pichon Riviere (*) spokesman of a group called the individual who, at some point, something manifests itself, related to his personal history but in the latent, making a second reading of what it says, shows a revealing content group situation. The spokesman often not aware of his role, but through what it says reveals a situation that concerns the group they belong. For example, when working on the admission of psychiatric hospitals, Pichon found that psychotic acts as a spokesman for their families in crisis. The various members of the house lay their psychotic tendencies in the "crazy" and it loads with all the family pathology. It is an exponent, a spokesman of what happens in that group.


SEPARATENESS IN OUR ERA
The transformation of the patriarchal family in nuclear family, urban isolation, the rape of the environment, work in series, are some of the modern products that emphasize even more the feeling of separateness.
Following the discovery of atomic energy, man has for the first time the power to annihilate your own planet. We shudder at the thought, and we can do little about, it is impossible to turn back. Although the powers decided to neutralize all the arsenals of the world, the warheads could be reconstructed at any time. That discovery and belongs, and forever, to the memory of humanity.
It is the military application of nuclear energy meant another "fall" and it is impossible to go back in time to avoid it. Even as simple anonymous citizens, as humans, we feel sadness and guilt for what was done. Something very similar happened to Adam and Eve a few years ago ...

Fantasy and Reality

LOVE, LOVE AT LAST
In the background, all that makes up human separateness is love. In its ground looking love leads to sex, an experience that plays the primary melt of the species. During orgasm, for a moment the strange notion of "non-separateness" undifferentiation with the couple that "two of us but we are one" is reached.
In his sublime side, love is manifested in religion, love of neighbor, to life, to the forces of creation. The search for the sacred tends to re-unite (religare) man with the Universe.


GENESIS OF A BELIEF
It is time to integrate the concepts analyzed using an operating diagram that will allow us to follow more clearly the current beliefs forming process. We insist on defining them as beliefs and myths not because, apart from its respectable academic meaning, the word myth has popular connotations that pigeonholed in "the past" and "what is not believed."
Summarizing, the profound changes of all kinds that accompanied the twentieth century generated a number of shortcomings. These shortcomings identified so many spiritual, cultural, social and psychological needs that are struggling to find some satisfaction. Certain individuals are elected as spokespersons for this claim, through a process of support and feedback culture built. Through this dynamic emerging explicit content (they are those published in newspapers) but which in turn have an implicit corollary, a substrate rooted in the foundations of this gigantic construct we call culture and which we use to perceive reality.

Vision of the Infinite

REVIEWS
We have focused our focus on contemporary beliefs, but it is understood that this type of reasoning from social psychology can be applied to many global or localized phenomena. Even the above table allows us to outline some forecasts. For example, the need to retribalization can anticipate strong growth in the coming years, sects linked to the new beliefs. From this point of view, the "new age" has a good future. You may also marginal visions and rituals are closest to the archaic shamanic experiences become increasingly regressive. Reviewing the diagram, we see that the aliens do not stand out in a superlative role, rather appear immersed in a true cluster of beliefs. Another conclusion is, then, that there are no cultural reason to study them in isolation. Conventional wisdom sensed this lack of differentiation, so every discussion on UFOs circulate comments about Marian apparitions or evil, whales, etc. This integrative approach opens the way to redefine the methods and subject matter of a discipline that no longer deserve to be called, simply, ufology.


Copyright Ruben Morales (1994)