"Contacee religions"

Dear readers

Its a glorious time in Adelaide at the moment. On Saturday I went to Semaphore beach to watch the Adelaide kite flying festival. There were hundreds of people on the beach flying all kinds of kites (there was even a UFO kite!) It was great to see families out together, enjoying the occasion. On Sunday I went to the Adelaide botanical gardens and spent several hours walking around this fantastic outdoor venue, taking photographs and looking at some of the exotic flowers.

Contactees:

Now for today's post. You will have seen that my co-blogger, Keith Basterfield, has developed an interest in the subject of "contactees." Contactees were individuals, starting in the 1950's, who said that they were in contact with people from outer space. You may know the names of George Adamski; Truman Bethurum; and Orfeo Angelucci. However, there were hundreds of others, including women such as Dana Howard (click here); and Mollie Thompson (click here.)

Contactees predated abductees by at least ten years and the main group of abductees came twenty years after most of the contactees. Today there is still a mix of both abductees and contactees out there in the community.

Fortean Times:

The English magazine Fortean Times number 271, dated March 2011, has an interesting article on pages 51-53. It is titled "Contactee religions", being number 37 in a series called "The Fortean Times Random Dictionary of the Dammed" compiled by the Hierophant's Apprentice.

The article opens by noting that both the "Space Brothers" who interacted with contactees in the 1950's and the grey aliens of the 1990's predicted problems for humanity.

Aspects of Adamski's (click here )accounts, and the Aetherius Society ( click here) are explored in terms of "the religious potential in UFOs." (p.57.)

"One of the Aetherius Society's major projects was charging prayer batteries; which were placed on the tops of 19 very high mountains, mostly in remote parts of the world..." (p.52.)

Another example given is that of "the Unarius Academy of Science (click here) founded by Ruth Marian and Ernest L Norman in 1954..." (p.52.)

Another is the Cosmos Research Foundation founded by Gloria Lee-Byrd (click here,) which at its height had 2000 followers.

Interestingly, the article's author notes "Ufological religions are associated with the 1`950's, but the phenomenon is by no means dead. There is certainly a cult if not a religion, surrounding the claims of Billy Meier (click here) and his contacts with 'Pleiadeians' and his connection to the Talmud Jmmanuel (click here) , a gospel that supposedly predates the canonical synophic ones..." (p.53.)

Comments:

You might ask why should we study this material which comes from an era before I was born? For one, there are similarities between contactees and abductees. Both say they are in touch with aliens, who give them messages about the future of the earth.

The contents of these messages are usually set in the context of the era of the message.. In the 1950's humanity was concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons, and the "Space brothers" as the aliens were named, were also concerned about the same thing. For abductees many of the messages speak of the ecological danger to earth; reflecting our current concerns. Human nature is just that, and you can usefully draw conclusions from this older material.

If you have never read much on this topic, then the links I have placed in this post should provide you with a good overview.