July 11 2010 - Co-host roundtable

[Christopher O'Brien]

Well in fairness to Gene and the Paracast, 2 hours is a rather long sound bite but if it wasn't long enough to get across the gist then maybe you can understand my confusion?

Our objective for this important introductory show was to introduce a sampling of the Paracast host's thinking and get the listeners to think creatively—outside the C2C box. Paul, Nick and Greg did a really good job presenting their unique, insightful brand of thinking about the "paranormal" to our new, larger audience. In the limited amount of time each of us had, I also provided some thought-provoking ideas as well. Gene was the master: weaving the threads of reparte where they needed to go, he caught the strict time breaks and the show flowed very, very well. What else do you want? Uhh, Wait a minute! … Here's a thought:

Why don't we have YOU on the show? Why don't you share you own unique brand of insight to the growing Paracast audience? I'm sure many of our listeners would be fascinated by your work researching Otis Carr! Bring it on—inquiring minds want to know… btw: did you know Hutchinson's lab is for sale? Got a spare $50K?

 

[The Pair of Cats]

Originally posted by Christopher O'Brien. Glad you asked: George Hansen's The Trickster and the Paranormal, Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes This World, Paul Radin's The Trickster, Carl Jung's The Red Book (I managed to acquire a first edition/first printing),Vallee's Passport to Magonia, Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger: Volume Two, W.Y. Evans-Wentz's The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries…I could add dozens of books that I used for my research, but that's a good sampling, since you asked. Then, consider Stalking the Tricksters...

Chris. Thanks for posting the above book titles. I am currently looking for info on this phenomena. Phil Imbrogno's up coming book (the title escapes me) on his research into the Djinn will also be on my hit list.

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

Chris. Thanks for posting the above book titles. I am currently looking for info on this phenomena. Phil Imbrogno's up coming book (the title escapes me) on his research into the Djinn will also be on my hit list.

Thanks for mentioning Imbrogno's work. I highly recommend his classic Night Siege, and Interdimentional Universe. I can't wait to read his new book on the Jinn when it is published. I also urge Paracasters to listen to his recent appearance on Dark Matters w/ Don Ecker. We need more researchers willing go out into the field with the ability and grace needed to effectively share their experiences and research like Phil Imbrogno.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Thanks for mentioning Imbrogno's work. I highly recommend his classic Night Siege, and Interdimentional Universe. I can't wait to read his new book on the Jinn when it is published. I also urge Paracasters to listen to his recent appearance on Dark Matters w/ Don Ecker. We need more researchers willing go out into the field with the ability and grace needed to effectively share their experiences and research like Phil Imbrogno.

Yes Mr Phil Imbrogno new book sounds interesting and hope its released on Kindle and all the others ! Enjoyed Mr Christopher O'Brien debating with Mr Nick Redfern (Maybe Nick could pop onto the forum once in while and answer some questions when not tied up writing books?) Gene and Paul sound like to Professors arguing a theory Great round table Paul and Mr Greg Bishop excellent thoughts on 'Roswell' the "Casper" of Ufology

Suggestion: Don, Richard, Walter, Nick Redfern and Gene remote viewing experiment on Roswell?

 

[Michael Allen]

First off: I do not have the self-important arrogance to compare myself, personally, to Galileo, I was talking about people, like Galileo, who exercise creative thinking in any emerging, proto-scientific field.

Glad you asked: George Hansen's The Trickster and the Paranormal, Lewis Hyde's Trickster Makes This World, Paul Radin's The Trickster, Carl Jung's The Red Book (I managed to acquire a first edition/first printing),Vallee's Passport to Magonia, Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger: Volume Two, W.Y. Evans-Wentz's The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries…I could add dozens of books that I used for my research, but that's a good sampling, since you asked. Then, consider Stalking the Tricksters...

As to your comment, "…everything Christopher O'Brien has to say, his methods, and his conclusions," [are] "rather undisciplined and lazy," well, maybe you are right: perhaps I need to go back to sound-bite school and re-learn how to pander to the lowest common denominator while making pithy sense to those of us who are already up2speed…
Naw…

I have three really good Jung resources to add:

Mysterium Coniunctionis
Psychology and Alchemy
Psychology of the Unconscious

 

[Kieran]

Fascinating show this week. Let me chime in with some thoughts about the "Trickster" and it's relationship to the paranormal. Halloween is a holiday that is celebrated across the world, but must people do not know that Halloween was the ancient-pre Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celts believed at the time of Samháin (Halloween) Supernatural entities would leave the otherworld, and play cruel tricks on unsuspecting people. In Celtic lore, for example the Goddess "Morrigan" would transform (shapeshift) to a crow or raven to fool the human inhabitants. Hence she played a trick. History say's, the Celt Tribes peoples gathered at this time of the year with gift offerings to these otherworldly beings. Animals and fruit was laid out for these entities, and bonfires were lit in their honour, so to keep them away from the living. So with this in mind. Chris's theory might not be all that unusual. The Celtic Peoples of Europe certainly believed in the Trickster.

 

[Will Penguin]

My original point (that I thought you were responding to) was that Mr. O'Brien attributes so many things (virtually any topic that comes up,. it seems to me) to the Trickster that I find it impossible to see how the "theory" could have any value, being so broad and indistinct a concept that it can mean anything you want it to.

I think you said there was some distinction between what I claimed and what Mr. O'Brein is actually doing (and left it at that).

I fail to see the distinction .

Here's the distinction I'm making:

You say Mr O'Brien "attributes" a large number of things to the Trickster. What I take away from what he says is that he's not just saying "oh, its all the Trickster", but rather saying that when you look closely at many phenomena, one of the elements that comes into play often is this so-called "Trickster" force. That it is something to pay attention to, not some sort of sweeping catch-all to use as an explanation for the as-yet-unexplained.

I hope that makes more sense, and I also hope Mr O'Brien will correct me if I'm missing the point.

 

[NTS]

It's often been pointed out that if something paranormal really wanted to manifest, it could do so much more blatantly than it ever actually does. "Super Bowl delayed by UFO! Global economic summit interrupted by poltergeist!" Since this never seems to happen (Fatima is a possible exception) it suggests that: a) paranormal denizens are deliberately keeping a low profile; and/or b) there is some psychological aspect to the paranormal that limits it to relatively small-scale situations or isolated individuals.

 

[kipspritely]

Paul,
You wouldn't happen to have that ORB video you mentioned from the show posted anywhere would you? Or rather, when will it be on the history channel?

Sincerely
Rudolph Pokorny

 

[Paul Kimball]

Paul,
You wouldn't happen to have that ORB video you mentioned from the show posted anywhere would you? Or rather, when will it be on the history channel?

Sincerely
Rudolph Pokorny

It can be seen this Saturday, actually, on a series called My Ghost Story on A & E Biography, along with Holly Stevens.

Paul

 

[Michael Allen]

Can anyone estimate, even anecdotally, what ratio of close or medium distance bona fide UFO sightings have "high strangeness" of some sort associated with them? Is this a frequent, or infrequent, occurrence?

On a separate note, here is a view on UFOs from Tom Campbell, one of the founders of the Monroe Institute and a qualified physicist who currently works for NASA. Campbell has developed a theory of what we perceive as "reality" based upon his numerous out-of-body experiences, as well as mainstream science (principally quantum mechanics). Obviously, UFOs need to exist within the context of this larger system, so this is another perspective that approximates the inter-dimensional theory:

I am not sure if this will answer your first question (as much as I dislike the term "strangeness" in science discourse)

Hynek's S-P (Strangeness - Probability) chart shows a high percentage of CEIIs/IIIs in the upper right corner (axes reference: higher strangeness and higher reliability/credibility of witness)
His chart appears to be a collection of a few hundred "unknowns" extracted from PBB data. The data indicates clearly that the closer (in proximity) a true anomalous phenomenon, the more likely a credible witness will correctly remain stumped by the event. There are probably better ways of stating this without ontologically promoting terms like "anomalous" or "strangeness." Events further away (daylight disks and nocturnal lights)--defined appropriately as anomalous objects that are (relatively speaking) less apparent to our stereoscopic vision--are more likely to be dismissed. In addition (at first glance, though I may be wrong) Hynek's chart (located on page 27 of The UFO Experience) seems to indicate low strangeness for nocturnal lights outnumbering daylight disks in the same strangeness index categories.

If we define "identification" as meaning "witness identifies something that is in their cognitive domain--i.e. they see an object that is familiar" then we can formulate the postulate:

Reliable identification of any given phenomenon X is inversely proportional to the strangeness of X and directly proportional to the credibility of the witness.

With this (very crude) model, you can say that very unreliable witness of normal events (i.e. a drunkard) is more likely to relay a more accurate description of an event with "high strangeness" than a normal event. In other words, one proportionality shouldn't affect the other.

 

[NTS]

I can say from personal experience that seeing a UFO is very unsettling, even when you ultimately figure out what it is.

About 35 years ago I was riding in a car when I saw something strange in the night sky. It looked like a rippling bar of light, and moved slowly around, first in one direction, then another. It was below cloud cover so it seemed to be some sort of aircraft, yet the light didn't resemble any sort of aircraft lighting I'd ever seen. After a few minutes I mentioned it to the other people in the car, and they gasped and said they'd been watching it too. I kept on looking at it, getting more and more unsettled because I was running out of ideas of what it might be. Then a final thought occurred -- maybe it's the Goodyear blimp. And it turned out that was the right answer. When we reached the house of one of our passengers and got out of the car, I could hear the engine noise and see the outline of the gasbag. The rippling bar of light was an advertising sign.

If I hadn't finally been able to identify it, I'm sure it would remain in my mind as a UFO, and a very strange experience.

 

[Walter Bosley]

Yeah, whenever I see something like the recent Chinese UFO I think of a blimp with a display and it very very often turns out to be one. It is rather heart-gripping when you see some blimp light display under the right conditions, like when there is just enough mist in the sky to obscure the blimp itself and all you see are those rack of lights. For an instant, you say 'Yes! Cool! Finally!' and then suddenly 'FUJI' pops into view and you realize that it ain't ET looking for film and feel sort of disappointed. Blimps do that to us because we don't live in an airship era (which is a bummer because they are so cool) so we're not used to seeing something just hanging around, poking along through the sky.

Imagine what anyone plopped from 1850 into our world would assume. TV and radio would be paranormal. Microwave ovens, too. Cellphones. Breast implants...hmmm, what would the 1850 person think of those?

I'm waiting for the UFO abductee to return with breast implants...

 

[trainedobserver]

Imagine what anyone plopped from 1850 into our world would assume. TV and radio would be paranormal. Microwave ovens, too. Cellphones.

That is exactly what I mean when I say there is no paranormal or supernatural. There is only the normal and natural that has yet to be properly understood.

---------- Post added at 11:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 AM ----------

On a separate note, here is a view on UFOs from Tom Campbell, one of the founders of the Monroe Institute and a qualified physicist who currently works for NASA. Campbell has developed a theory of what we perceive as "reality" based upon his numerous out-of-body experiences, as well as mainstream science (principally quantum mechanics). Obviously, UFOs need to exist within the context of this larger system, so this is another perspective that approximates the inter-dimensional theory:

I think Tom Campbell would be a great guest on the paracast and one I'd think the hosts would be interested in since he is talking about consciousness and alternate realities that some of them have expressed an interest in above UFOs and whatnot.

 

[jpw.in.wi]

I only listened to the first few minutes, when he was talking about people receiving some other "data streams" or whatever, perceiving these as paranormal experiences I suppose.

It would be interesting to hear him talk exactly about HOW a brain that is hooked up to certain limited sensory organs, and that is wired to process "data" coming only from those organs, could possibly pick up "data" that is beyond the limits of those organs to detect. I thought technology was our answer to those sorts of limitations ...

 

[trainedobserver]

It would be interesting to hear him talk exactly about HOW a brain that is hooked up to certain limited sensory organs, and that is wired to process "data" coming only from those organs, could possibly pick up "data" that is beyond the limits of those organs to detect. I thought technology was our answer to those sorts of limitations ...

That would be an excellent question to put to him. Also, if this is all real and so dang important than why isn't there a practical demonstration of its reality? If someone could actually have an OBE they could demonstrate it easily enough. There wouldn't be any faith, fear, or belief involved or necessary.