Extra Terrestrial, Extra Dimensional: UFOs, Aliens, and Mystic Experience

Staring to the stars, the uncanny swells. What is that glooming orb? What are those grainy pictures? What is this funny feeling?  Is it the empty eye of space staring upon the looker, or is it “the enigmatic presence of the human mind”?  Many folk describe encountering “visitors” who seem more angel than alien, but why do these descriptions resemble perennial religious narratives?

Recently the US military and intelligence groups shared evidence of unexplained aerial phenomena recorded by the Air Force.  Cattle mutilations and crop circles still occur, some of which are hoaxes, some are not.  Throughout the 1980s UFOs were reported throughout the Hudson river valley in New York state.  They were a hoax according to a group of unsanctioned text pilots claiming responsibility, but most of the reports were not reported during the periods the hoaxsters were flying.  Nearby, one of the most important and influential “alien abductions” occurred on December 26, 1985, when horror novelist Whitley Strieber described his abduction by visitors, published in the best-selling book Communion, adapted into an odd film with the same title starring Cristopher Walken.  Strieber’s work has inspired and chilled readers since its publication, and he remains an enigmatic and ambiguous figure.

Join Vikram and Aaron discussing aliens and alien abductions.  This wide-ranging conversation ranges topics including the reality of aerial unknowns, whether those aerial unknowns are visitors from another world, strange cases of alien abductions, alien types, overlap in alien encounters with religious experiences, the visitors and their connection to super-human Indic entities such as yoginis and yakshinis, and pyramids.  In an odd turn, Aaron wonders about contemporary esoteric practitioners using a visionary painting by none other than Aleister Crowley to contact the grey aliens, even postulating the Crowley opened the path (lam, marga) that the Greys might enter our world.  Take a trip to the stars and to the heart, but beware the caveat of Strieber, “The unknown changes.  The enigmatic presence of the human mind winks back from the dark, and a little progress toward real understanding is made.”

Aaron Michael Ullrey is an expert in magic rituals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.  He is a visiting professor at Youngstown State University and an affiliate researcher at University of Denver.  While he spends his day translating Indic and Tibetan grimoires and teaching, he spends his nights wondering about the more odd and ambiguous, including UFO encounters, Bigfoot, the world of the dead, Tarot, and ceremonial magic.