The Crop Circle Debate Continues

Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s recent article in FATE magazine (May 2002) generated a great deal of sharp criticism from its readers (just check out the letters in FATE’s August issue). When I reported on Guiley’s findings in my September eZine the responses seemed pretty much consistent with those published in FATE. “The woman from FATE magazine must be nuts!” stated one of our readers. “You can’t tell me that Circle Makers make all the crop circles!” Another reader expressed disappointment with the Mel Gibson movie Signs, calling it a “dismal, dismal failure,” and then directing my attention to a “REAL Crop Circle movie” that is being produced, with details available at: http://www.cropcirclesthemovie.com/ This reader then added: “Unfortunately with no Hollywood budget, it’s not got the publicity that Mel’s has and is not as widely distributed, but I do think it will get there.”

Then a message in my e-mail box from Guiley herself. “I appreciate your presentation of the crop circle material,” she wrote. “I’m sure you’ll get more than one objection! Circles seem to have a low flashpoint, and unfortunately this has often hindered discussions.”

Be watching for Guiley to soon go another round on the crop circle debate in her FATE column.

And so do the Archaeological Debates too!

While our own Greg and Lora Little have been reporting on the wave of new archaeological findings and discoveries that contradict the previously held sacred cows of our own establishment scientists (who used to firmly hold to the belief that there was no one here in North America prior to 9500 B.C.), the archaeological community has been rocked by its own internal, now exposed scandals and cover-ups. In a recent issue of Ancient American (#46, July/August 2002) there appeared a troubling article entitled Archaeological Cover-Ups: A Plot to Control History? The kinds of behaviors described by author Will Hart certainly do not typify what we would expect from “professional” archaeologists. Would “professionals” slander a fellow scientist as “ignorant” simply because he felt a site was older than previously thought; or, discard a series of dating tests because they were in conflict with the popular Bering Strait “crossing” theory; or, pressure the Federal Communications Commission to prevent NBC from airing a documentary that contained “evidence” that man’s antiquity exceeds that described by prior establishment chronologies?

Hart describes in his article the heated debate that arose over the age of the Sphinx, how a self-taught Egyptologist managed to convince a geologist to take a hard look at the matter, and he too became convinced that the Sphinx was twice as old as Establishment Egyptologists believe. A debate over the issue was held at a scientific conference, though the self-taught Egyptologist was not allowed to participate (even though it was his theory to begin with) because he lacked the (Hart states) “required credentials.” “This points to a questionable assumption that is part of the establishment’s arsenal: only degreed scientists can practice science,” Hart wrote. “Two filters keep the independent researcher out of the loop: (1) credentials, and (2) peer review. You do not get to number two unless you have number one.”

Greg Little presented an excellent example of the “degreed scientists” mentality of establishment archaeology when he described in Mound Builders: Edgar Cayce’s Forgotten Record of Ancient America (2001) how he had contacted Stephen Williams, the author of an archaeological textbook entitled Fantastic Archaeology, a book that supposedly takes to task individuals and movements that are false and pseudoscientific. Greg wanted to point out to Williams that some inaccurate statements had been made in his book concerning Edgar Cayce. In fact, Williams had confused, it turned out, Edgar Evans Cayce, (who had authored several books on Atlantis) with his father, Edgar Cayce, the renowned psychic. Greg wrote of Williams: “He explained repeatedly that a person without advanced archaeological training could not possibly understand his evaluation of Cayce. As ‘a 40-year teacher of archaeology at Harvard,’ (he) stated his evaluations of Cayce were completely factual. He refused to consider changing anything in his text and wasn’t open to the ‘idea’ that Edgar Evans Cayce and Edgar Cayce the psychic were different people. He ended the discussion by citing a suggested reading list.”

Greg added, “Based on the reaction by Williams, he meets his own definitions of a ‘crank’ and a ‘pseudoscientist.’” In the meantime, Greg and Lora edit a newsletter for the ARE (Association for Research and Enlightenment) that chronicles the latest emerging new archaeological developments and findings. The monthly publication is entitled Ancient Mysteries (www.edgarcayce.org) and it also objectively explores the accuracy of the readings of the famed Kentucky “Sleeping Prophet” Edgar Cayce, who mentioned ancient peoples and cultures in many of his psychic readings.

The Blue Light Special?

A popular New Age belief that originated from ancient Buddhist and Hindu concepts is that the energy centers of the human body (known as chakras) generate an internal awareness of different colors, based upon ones level of consciousness and the corresponding energy center (s) presumably stimulated or activated.

“My first encounter with the blue light, or rupam, as it is known in Sanskrit, happened in childhood,” wrote Dr. Donald Schnell in his book The Initiation (Element Books, 2000). “Many times I would sit to meditate and I would see a blue dot in the center of my forehead--the location of the third eye. ...It was from this blue dot that my beloved Swamy Nagananda would appear to me. I didn’t know who he was, and wouldn’t find him in India for almost a quarter of a century.” He described how “wonderful visions and insights would manifest in this light” and how it was “similar to the after-image of a camera flash.”

For many years, and even now, I still see a “blue dot” that appears briefly in my minds eye, often in an area one would associate with ones “third eye.” My physical eyes would be closed, usually I’d be in darkness, relaxed, perhaps drifting off to sleep, or else in a meditative state. Sometimes it would seem as though I would briefly glimpse an “eye” there. On quite a few occasions, I’d see a movement with this “blue dot,” as though it were a luminous liquid going down a drain or tunnel, with a rotation or spin to it. Back in the 1970s, a lady contactee in Ohio who practiced meditation a lot, told me the “blue dot” was something to do with the chakras and that I was possibly close to astral projection when it was manifesting.

In December 1999, I participated in a “Light Body Integration” meditation conducted by psychotherapist Bonita Luz of North Carolina. Bonita has lived and traveled for years in Peru and is one of the four original founders of the Brotherhood of the Solar Disc in Puno. The guided meditation process is one that Bonita says actually evolved from her own meditative experiences in Peru. The session begins with a prayer of protection. Then you’re instructed to relax and take some deep breathes. Next you are instructed to imagine a cleansing light energy going throughout your body.

During the nearly two hour long session I had noticed the “bluish” internal light, and I had a number of interesting impressions and mental images, but it was toward the end of the session that something happened that really caught my attention. I wrote in my journal: “As Bonita was bringing me out...I was viewing a darkened...scene. Snow on ground. Then a row of dark upright stones, resembling steam irons, seem to pop up out of the ground. Behind (them) there is another row of dark stones. Then it was like I was rising....into the air, looking down at a snow covered mountain top or hill, with rocks here and there, and it’s moving clockwise, so I figure that I must be spinning counterclockwise. Then I start seeing the familiar blue swirl that I’ve seen for years. It soon conceals the mysterious landscape I had been viewing.”

This experience seemed so “real” and “vivid.” No doubt, such meditative experiences generate the kinds of accounts we are familiar with in the spiritual and parapsychological literature and refer to as instances of such things as “remote viewing” and “soul travel.” Back nearly two years ago, I shared with friends and close contacts the details of my “blue dot,” curious to see if others would share similar experiences. “I’ve seen the blue light,” confided one, a respected writer who had contributed some articles to Alternate Perceptions in the past. “Next time try to imagine entering it, or exiting through it.” He seemed very familiar with such matters, and referred to his own “experiences with Kundalini Yoga and other forms and styles of meditation.”

“In Rosicrucian tradition a Light Body cleansing and integration is among the first things an initiate is taught,” he added. “One’s Light Body is used for many things, among them astral projection and other forms of mind travel and experience.” He stated that he had “managed astral projection a few times” and even had “visited people” he had known. “What I observed was confirmed by them later, at times in general terms, at other times quite specifically. One friend in England was particularly amazed at what my astral self had seen, as it represented some bad news she hadn’t told anyone about yet.”

“Each color represents another level of vibration, according to many, and this gives each nuance of color its own qualities and associations. It’s interesting how color aspects correspond across cultural traditions, from ritual magick to esoteric initiatory groups to Wiccas to Native American beliefs and on and on.’

In an interview with former Naval scientist Eldon Byrd (published in Alternate Perceptions, #50, Spring 2000), he described to me how he had done some telepathy experiments years ago with famed Israeli psychic Uri Geller. Byrd stated: “...when he was sending me a picture or a letter [of the alphabet] it always turned out to be green. When my wife and I were doing it the images in my mind were mostly green when I would receive. Now when I was sending I was sending in full color, but the reception seemed to be an outline of an object or a scene in green.”

I thought it was interesting when I read in Aliens: Encounters with the Unexplained, a comment made by its author, Marcus Day. He stated that one common UFO “abduction clue” was that of a very bright light that usually hits the forehead and is most often blue, but sometimes is green. Are the Ufonauts, who often seem to levitate humans and take them through solid walls and into their ships, concerned also with our light bodies?