Mind Viruses and UFOs

BY: GΔRRΞTT @libertybirb on X.

In the episode of Patterns Tell Stories titled, 'Bugs', Klaus and I discussed the qualities of parasites and what they can do to a creature’s mind. [1] We compared the various aspects of parasites to the UFO phenomenon and the behavior of figures in religious literature. Insects are especially susceptible to parasites, and one of the examples we covered was the "Hair Worm”, or Nematomorpha. The hair worm infects a mantis, grows inside it, manipulates its behavior, driving it to water where the worm emerges, often killing the host. Some small parasites have evolved to climb as high as they can onto a blade of grass. In doing this, it increases the likelihood that a larger host consumes them, providing a new home, and the opportunity to continue passing along their genes. Applying this thought exercise to the UFO phenomenon can quickly become quite disturbing.

The idea of microscopic threats to humanity permeates through our fiction and entertainment. In H.G. Wells’ 1898 book War of the Worlds, the pathogens of Earth famously end up saving the day. In the story, the alien invaders had no immunity to Earth’s microscopic life, and they all eventually die. Conversely, in Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism threatens humanity after a satellite crash, prompting scientists to race against time in a secret lab to stop it.

James Forrestal, the Secretary of the Navy during World War II, was named the United States’ first Secretary of Defense by President Truman in 1947. Forrestal is rumored by many UFO researchers to have been an original member of a secret group formed by Truman in 1947 to manage UFO evidence and extraterrestrial contact. James Forrestal died in May 1949, falling from a 16th-floor window at Bethesda Naval Hospital, officially ruled a suicide amid mental health struggles after his controversial resignation as Defense Secretary. In Forrestal’s room, a book was found. The book was open to a passage from Sophocles' "Ajax," with a partial transcription of the poem on a piece of paper, likely written by Forrestal. For those unfamiliar with the story of Ajax — it is worth repeating for this discussion. In the story, after a long dispute over who would receive the fallen warrior Achilles’ armor, it was decided that Odysseus would be the new owner. Ajax, a great military commander, soon plotted his revenge against his rivals. As the Greek gods observed, Athena decided to drive Ajax mad, tricking him into slaughtering livestock instead of Odysseus and the others. Once he regained his sanity and realized what he’d done, Ajax became depressed. The story ends with Ajax falling on his sword, killing himself. What drew James Forrestal towards this Ancient Greek tragedy?

In Colin Wilson’s 1967 science fiction horror book, The Mind Parasites, the story follows an archaeologist who tries to find out why his psychologist friend killed himself. While digging in Turkey, they find old, huge buildings and feel something alien in their minds. Papers later reveal there are "mind parasites" — invisible things that have been eating human thoughts for over 200 years. These parasites stop creativity and push humans toward dying out. The humans in the story have the means to conquer inner space but they are not being used. Despite impressive technological advances the planet is still in the stone age psychologically. [2]

Who would profit from turning the clock all the way back to the stone age and keeping man out of space? A parasitic entity that lives in the human body and could not survive in space. Only in the last two hundred years have technological advances made space exploration a possibility. By maintaining control of inner space the parasites can block any discovery or destroy anyone who suspects their existence. It is in fact unexplained suicides among scientists investigating inner space that leads to discovery of the parasites by the narrator Professor Gilbert Austin. [3]

To combat the virus, the scientists decide to somehow push the limits of what the human brain itself can do. They end up venturing to outer space to beat the parasites and save humanity’s future. In Wilson’s story, the space trip kills the parasites because they can’t live there. As the spaceship gets farther from Earth, the parasites hiding in the crew get scared. Their link to Earth weakens, and they panic. This explains "space fever," which stopped humans from going far into space before. When watched, the parasites show they’re not smart, flopping around like a squid on land. [4]

This story makes one wonder if humanity is indeed infected with some sort of mind parasite that we haven’t discovered yet, limiting our capabilities and keeping us from progressing as fast as we could. Perhaps the mystery of what we label ‘paranormal’ lies at the microscopic level, and can explain some of the anomalous events people describe. After all, the subjects being examined here intersect in glaring ways.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has compared religion with computer viruses. Because computers are machines programmed to obey commands given to them in the correct language, they therefore become susceptible to being corrupted by viruses. He even wrote an essay titled ‘Viruses of the Mind’ in 1991 explaining his idea in-depth. [5] Dawkins argues that a child’s mind is similarly vulnerable to corruption through bad advice like religion. In a 2014 discussion at the University of Oxford, Dawkins pointed out that evolutionary biologists are not always necessarily looking for evolutionary "advantages" in biological traits they observe. In many instances, it could be that what we are looking at is a byproduct of something else that is an evolutionary advantage. Dawkins said that his favorite examples of this are insects that approach candle flames at night and fry themselves. Professor Dawkins remarked that we might ask ourselves:

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“What is the evolutionary advantage of self-immolation behavior in moths? And clearly there isn’t one. What there is, is an evolutionary advantage to a sensory neural mechanism, which unfortunately has the consequence of making them approach candles, because there weren’t any candles in the ancestral environment in which they were naturally selected. If there had been — if candles had been a major feature of the environment of moths for many thousands of years, then they no longer would fry themselves in candles. It’s because candles are rare in their world, whereas the moon is common. I’m just guessing, there’s a good deal of evidence that insects use celestial objects as a compass. So, night flying moths would very probably use the moon as a compass. Not that they fly towards the moon, but that they keep the moon at a fixed angle. The moon is up there, and the moth manages to fly in a straight line, by keeping the moon at 30 degrees, say. Well if you do that and it’s the moon, because the rays are coming from optical infinity, it works very well. If you do it to a candle, you perform a neat logarithmic spiral into the candle and fry yourself. So, the right way to answer the question is not what is the evolutionary advantage of flying into candle flames, it’s what’s the evolutionary advantage of maintaining a fixed angle to bright objects at night? Maybe there’s something similar about religion. The right question is not, "what is the evolutionary advantage of religion?" But, "what is the evolutionary advantage of possessing certain psychological predispositions which have, as an inadvertent, and possibly unfortunate consequence, religion?" And the kind of thing I’m thinking of is a tendency to obey authority. A tendency to obey authority, especially in a child, is a very very valuable psychological property. If a child doesn’t believe what its parents tell it when the child is told, don’t jump in the fire or don’t jump off a cliff, a child that practiced an experimental test of that instruction would not leave many genes behind. Any genetic tendency that builds child brains with a rule of thumb that says, "Believe whatever your parents tell you. Don’t ask questions. Just do it." That would have survival value. Well, such a brain mechanism works very well for good advice like "don’t jump off a cliff", but it is vulnerable to parasitization in the same kind of way as computers are vulnerable to computer viruses. A computer is a versatile machine which obeys implicitly whatever instructions you program into it. And most people, most computer programmers program good things into computers like word processors and spreadsheets and things. But, you can program a virus into a computer, which is just a program that says, "Copy me and pass me on to another computer, over the internet, say."

Dawkins continues, "Such viruses have been written, and they do spread. A computer is automatically vulnerable to viruses, precisely because it is a machine that obeys whatever instructions are given it in the correct language. A child brain is a machine which obeys whatever instructions it’s given by its parents for the very good reason that I’ve already told you. Therefore, the child brain is also vulnerable to parasitization by viral code, which is things like, "It is essential that you pray 5 times a day… It is essential that you sacrifice a goat at the time of the full moon." How is the child brain to know which bits of advice are good, like "don’t jump over the cliff," and which bits are silly like, "sacrifice a goat." If the child brain could tell which was good advice and which was bad advice, it wouldn’t need the advice in the first place. That’s the whole point. It needs the advice. And therefore, it is automatically vulnerable to the equivalent of computer viruses, which is what I think religions are.""

RICHARD DAWKINS, 2014 [6]

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John Keel has described the worldwide spread of belief in UFOs as a “disease”. According to Keel, “The UFO phenomenon is dependent on belief, and as more and more people believe in flying saucers from other planets, the “lower force” (see my previous article, The Battle for Our Marble) can manipulate more people through false illumination. “I have been watching, with great consternation, the worldwide spread of the UFO belief and its accompanying disease. If it continues unchecked we may face a time when universal acceptance of the fictitious space people will lead us to a modern faith in extraterrestrials that will enable them to interfere overtly in our affairs, just as the ancient gods dwelling on mountaintops directly ruled large segments of the population in the Orient, Greece, Rome, Africa, and South America.” [7] Because of the profound nature of these “illumination” events, many UFO contactees describe their experience with a religious frame of reference. In The Eighth Tower, Keel remarks, “Flying saucers have given the pragmatists among us a substitute for the old-time religion.” He continues, “While UFOs do terrify many witnesses, there are others who find confrontation with a glowing aerial mass to be an ecstatic, almost sexual experience. One woman recently told me about something that had happened to her when she was a child. She and her parents had come across a great luminous sphere in a farm field and had watched in awe as it rose swiftly into the sky. For days afterwards her mother sat contentedly in a rocking chair on the from porch reliving the brief sighting and mumbling over and over, "God loves me. God loves me." [8]

Lovely.

Readers should also consider what we’ve gathered from the researchers that have studied at the Skinwalker Ranch. A new phrase is being used to describe the strange phenomena surrounding these people — the “hitchhiker” effect. As Dr. Colm Kelleher described it, “A number of other people who became "infected" at Skinwalker Ranch also began to experience autoimmune disease in one or more family or household members. These autoimmune diseases included Graves' Disease (thyroid), Sjogren's syndrome (salivary and tear glands), Hashimoto Thyroiditis (thyroid), Rheumatoid Arthritis (joints), and Lupus (heart, lung, muscle). Blood dyscrasias, connective tissue and dermatological abnormalities, including those of Systemic Sclerosis, were also diagnosed in this group of experiencers. It is important to note that all of the medical diagnoses were made by at least three MDs and all brain scans and other clinical findings were reviewed independently by more than one board-certified specialist physician. George Knapp and I have separately interviewed more than 10 security officers who had spent two-week tours of duty on the ranch as a part of the AAWSAP/BAASS program, and each security officer confirmed that they had brought a paranormal infection from Skinwalker Ranch with them. The officers confirmed that they or their partners had experienced poltergeist and other paranormal activity in their homes following their tours on the ranch.” [9]

UFO buffs spend hours picking through “breadcrumbs” left by personalities like Luis Elizondo and Garry Nolan in their podcast appearances. According to Elizondo’s website, “Luis attended the University of Miami, with double majors in Microbiology and Immunology and minors in Chemistry and Mathematics. He also gained advanced research experience in Parasitology and specific tropical diseases such as Malaria, Leishmaniasis, and Trypanosomiasis.” [10] Dr. Nolan’s specialization is in Immunology and Pathology. What significance do these areas of study hold towards the UFO subject? Especially when asking truthfully — What are UFOs?

If a complex hallucinatory process is occurring during close UFO encounters, it is possible that a mind parasite, if it exists, is somehow contributing to the process the human experiences. Parasites that are able to cleverly and elusively get the nourishment they need without alerting their host are the most evolutionarily successful. In short, if you’re a parasite, and you’re detected, there’s a larger chance you are pinched or flicked away, therefore not being selected and not passing your genetic code onto future offspring. The most successful parasites are the ones that come up with clever ways to exist without being disturbed or removed from their host. Keel was fascinated with the biographies of great men like Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Thomas Edison — all individuals who, according to Keel, have reportedly had “illumination” experiences. Caesar was epileptic, and during his time people referred to his condition as the “sacred disease” or “falling sickness”, where he would collapse to the ground in seizures that seemed to onlookers like divine or even demonic possession. [11] According to biographer Philip Freeman, Caesar’s epilepsy did not strike him until adulthood, and then it seemed to have been particularly frequent during military campaigns. John Keel has stated that “illumination” often accompanies UFO sightings. If Keel’s theory is correct, the ultraterrestrials use world leaders as proxies to rule over humanity. This would help explain the fanaticism and polarization that has surrounded humanity for ages.

In his 1974 CPAC speech, Ronald Reagan told a story of an angel appearing during the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The future 40th President of the United States believed that there was a “Divine Plan” that placed North America between two oceans, to be sought out by those who “were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage”. [12]

In the CPAC speech, Reagan explains, “Some years ago a writer, who happened to be an avid student of history, told me a story about that day in the little hall in Philadelphia where honorable men, hard-pressed by a king who was flouting the very law they were willing to obey, debated whether they should take the fateful step of declaring their independence from that king. I was told by this man that the story could be found in the writings of Jefferson. I confess I never researched or made an effort to verify it. Perhaps it is only legend. But story or legend, he described the atmosphere, the strain, the debate, and that as men for the first time faced the consequences of such an irretrievable act, the walls resounded with the dread word of treason and its price — the gallows and the headman's axe. As the day wore on, the issue hung in the balance, and then, according to the story, a man rose in the small gallery. He was not a young man and was obviously calling on all the energy he could muster. Citing the grievances that had brought them to this moment, he said, "Sign that parchment. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. For the mechanic in his workshop, they will be words of hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom." And he added, "If my hands were freezing in death, I would sign that parchment with my last ounce of strength. Sign, sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, sign even if the hall is ringing with the sound of headman's axe, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the bible of the rights of man forever." And then, it is said, he fell back, exhausted. But fifty-six delegates, swept by his eloquence, signed the Declaration of Independence, a document destined to be as immortal as any work of man can be. And according to the story, when they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he could not be found, nor were there any who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.” [13]

The “writer who happened to be an avid story of history” Reagan referenced appears to be the scholar of occult philosophy, Manly P. Hall. In Hall’s book The Secret Destiny of America, he outlined America as the result of a “Great Plan” for religious freedom and self-rule, initiated by covert groups and secret societies. In a chapter, he described the profound address by the mysterious “unknown speaker” prior to the Declaration of Independence being signed. Reagan might as well have been reading straight from Hall’s book, as the two men’s stories are described almost identically. Strangely enough, one of the books confiscated by American forces in the raid of Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was Manly P, Hall’s 1928 book, ‘The Secret Teachings of All Ages’. [14] Readers should also note that physician Andrija Puharich has authored books detailing his experiments on a tall, Dutch clairvoyant named Peter Hurkos. According to Puharich, Hurkos eventually became the trusted personal psychic to President Reagan.

Reagan was raised in the little-known ‘Disciples of Christ’ denomination and remained tied to it into adulthood, though less actively as his career grew. He married his wife Nancy in a Disciples ceremony. As president, he attended Presbyterian and Episcopalian services, reflecting a Protestant identity, but never formally joined another denomination. Other famous members of the Disciples include President Lyndon B. Johnson and cult leader Jim Jones. There is a long history of politicians and madmen with wackadoo beliefs. They are scattered across history, with no shortage of spectacular claims and predictions.

President George W. Bush reportedly justified the invasion of Iraq to former President of France Jacques Chirac using biblical prophecies. The confused Chirac sought expert clarification, per a credible 2007 account that was published in the Lausanne University magazine from Professor Thomas Römer, an Old Testament expert at the University of Lausanne. Journalist Andrew Brown explains in a 2009 Guardian article, “George W Bush attempted to sell the invasion of Iraq to Jacques Chirac using biblical prophecy.” Brown continues, “Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw "Gog and Magog at work" and the biblical prophecies unfolding.” President Chirac wanted to know what President Bush was talking about in their conversation. Neither Chirac nor his office had any idea what Gog or Magog were. Brown explains, “they knew Bush was an evangelical Christian, so they asked the French Federation of Protestants, who in turn asked Professor Thomas Römer.”

Römer explained to them that “Gog and Magog” appear twice in the Old Testament, once as a name, and another as a prophecy found in Chapter 38 of the Book of Ezekiel. As the Guardian article describes, “The prophecy concludes in a way that should make even George W. Bush flinch: having set his hooks in Gog, Magog, Meschech, Tubal, old Gomer, Togarmah and all, and dragged them to attack Israel.” Brown notes, “in the 70s and 80s, Gog was meant to be Russia. Ronald Reagan seems to have believed that.” [15]

Should it concern the average citizen that their elected representatives may secretly be harboring a desire to fulfill their eschatological beliefs? Yes it should. Not only are these beliefs unsubstantiated, but their proponents usually have a desperate desire to convince everyone else to subscribe to their version of “end times”. In the cries of those yearning for “raptures” and “armageddon”, the doctrine is clear: To hell with everyone else. “THEY have it wrong and WE have it right!” When this type of religious rhetoric is embraced by politicians, it creates cults of personality and can shatter a nation’s trust in one another. What started as a political discussion shifts from disagreements about policy — especially for the most fervent followers — into an existential matter of good vs. evil. In many cases it creates systems so deranged, the political leader is elevated to a god-like status. In these cultures, if you disagree with the king, you are essentially disagreeing with god. In these sorts of totalitarian regimes, if you spill your coffee on a portrait of the Dear Leader, it is likely the biggest mistake of your life.

In modern politics, the eschatology is smuggled through customs. It isn’t the direct basis of any serious campaigns, but it is clearly there, and it exists at the highest levels. President Trump hired a spiritual advisor named Paula White-Cain, who claims to speak in tongues during religious services. White-Cain has claimed “demonic confederacies” opposed Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, and Trump’s team even created a task force to address “anti-christian bias”. Many people assume Trump is not particularly serious about his religious convictions, and they may be correct. What they may not realize: Paula White-Cain isn’t the only zealot in President Trump’s ear.

Controversial Billionaire and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel bankrolled J.D. Vance’s 2022 Senate run with 15 million dollars and introduced Vance to President Trump. Theil’s network includes figures like David Sacks and Elon Musk, who heavily funded Trump’s 2024 campaign. In a 2022 Persuasion article titled ‘What Does Peter Thiel Want?’ Journalist Damon Linker explains, “In Thiel’s view, recapturing civilizational greatness through scientific and technological achievement requires fostering a revival of a kind of Christian Prometheanism (a monotheistic variation on the rebellious creativity and innovation pursued by the demigod Prometheus in ancient Greek mythology). This is the subject of a remarkable short essay Thiel published in First Things magazine in 2015. Against those who portray modern scientific and technological progress as a rebellion against medieval Christianity, Thiel insists it is Christianity that encourages a metaphysical optimism about transforming and perfecting the world, with the ultimate goal of turning it into “a place where no accidents can happen” and the achievement of “personal immortality” becomes possible. All that’s required to reach this transhuman end is that we “remain open to an eschatological frame in which God works through us in building the kingdom of heaven today, here on Earth — in which the kingdom of heaven is both a future reality and something partially achievable in the present.” Linker continues, “JD Vance is quoted on the subject of what this political disruption might look like during a Trump presidential restoration in 2025. Vance suggests that Trump should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts stop [him], stand before the country, and say, ‘the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’” Linker also notes that Thiel friend and confidante Curtis Yarvin suggested we take things a step further, “suggesting various ways a future right-wing president (Trump or someone else) could shake things up, shredding the smothering blanket of liberal moralism, conformity, rules, and regulations, thereby encouraging the creation of something approaching a scientific-technological wild west, where innovation and experimentation rule the day. Yarvin’s preferred path to tearing down what he calls the liberal “Cathedral,” laid out in detail on a two-hour Claremont Institute podcast from May 2021, involves a Trump-like figure seizing dictatorial power in part by using a specially designed phone app to direct throngs of staunch supporters (Jan. 6-style) to overpower law enforcement at key locations around the nation’s capital.” [16]

Thiel has given long-forum interviews where he waxes poetically about the role of the antichrist, and attempts to sound philosophical discussing the end of life on Earth and the biblical book of Revelation. “Maybe Napoleon was a type of the antichrist,” Thiel excitedly speculated in a 2024 interview. “On its own, they both seem not that desirable. Why would we have a crazy surveillance state? Why would we, you know, why would we do this? But if you’re scared enough — if you’re scared enough of these things — that’s the weapon. And this is, this is sort of where, um, my speculative thesis is that, if the antichrist were to come to power, it would be by talking about Armageddon all the time.” [17] Thiel co-founded Palantir Technologies, a data analytics firm with significant government contracts, including defense-related work (Readers should note Palantir CEO Alex Karp is on-record stating, “I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us.”). One startling fact is that as of 2025, Thiel has shown more interest in the UFO subject than any other billionaire alive, perhaps excluding aerospace mogul Robert Bigelow. Given his theological and eschatological views, this should come as no surprise. Thiel joins a long line of self-assured, narcissistic religious zealots that preceded him historically. And like them, he will probably attempt to drag all of us into his fever dreams.

Horrible plagues decimated Europe in the 1300s (commonly called the Black Death) and killed roughly three quarters of the continent’s population. The people that existed in this period were living in a constant state of fear, paranoia, helplessness, confusion, and depression. One could argue that these same powerful feelings threaten civilizations even today. What can happen to a population that is constantly in these states of mind? Fortean researchers like John Keel have pointed out that “strange atmospheric phenomena” were frequently reported in the literature on the 14th century. In his classic 1975 book The Eighth Tower, Keel explains that soon after the plagues of the 1300s, human beings began to act in strange ways. According to Keel, in the 1400s the weird “dancing disease” spread to thousands of people dancing in the streets of the Mediterranean cities until they fell dead from exhaustion. Keel saw UFOs as being part of a broader re-programming process. He considered the dancing plague to be evidence of a bizarre change taking place in our nervous systems. He adopted the concept of “ultraterrestrials”, beings and forces which coexist with us but are on another time frame. In Keel’s view, the ultraterrestrials operate as a state of energy outside the limits of our space-time continuum, yet have the ability to cross over into our reality.

In the 'Bugs' episode mentioned earlier, one of the stories I pointed out in the Bible is the area where Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy. This event occurs at the base of Mt. Hermon, a mountain which, at its most elevated peak, happens to also be the highest point in Syria. This event occurs in a town called Caesarea Philippi, which has been called "the gates of Hades" in some contexts. In the story, the boy convulsed, foamed at the mouth, and fell into fire or water. Ironically, John Keel has also said the last known outbreak of the “dancing disease” occurred in the mid 1800s… in Syria…

In his book The Mothman Prophecies, Keel remarks, “The UFO phenomenon itself is only one trivial fragment of a much larger phenomenon. It can be divided into two main parts. The first and most important part consists of the mysterious aerial lights which appear to have an intelligence of their own. They have been observed throughout history. Often they project powerful searchlight-like beams toward the ground. Persons caught in these beams undergo remarkable changes of personality. Their IQ skyrockets, they change their jobs, divorce their wives, and in any number of well-documented instances they suddenly rise above their previously mediocre lives and become outstanding statesmen, scientists, poets and writers, even soldiers. In religious lore, being belted by one of these light beams causes "mystical illumination." When Saul, a Jewish tentmaker, was zapped by one of these beams on the road to Damascus it blinded him for three days and he was converted to Christianity on the spot and became St. Paul. The second part of the phenomenon consists of the cover or camouflage for the first part, the "meandering nocturnal lights" as the air force has labeled them. If these lights appeared in cycles, year after year, century after century without any accompanying explanatory manifestations they would cause much greater fear and concern. But explanatory manifestations have accompanied them always, and these manifestations have always been adjusted to the psychology and beliefs of each particular period in time. The flying saucer/extraterrestrial visitants are not real in the sense that a 747 airliner is real. They are transmogrifications of energy under the control of some unknown extradimensional intelligence. This intelligence controls important events by manipulating specific human beings through the phenomenon of mystical illumination. Our religions are based upon our longtime awareness of this intelligence and our struggle to reduce it to humanly acceptable terms." [18]

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“All religions promise that the end of mankind will come suddenly, like the thief in the night. Some refer to this event as the Second Coming, the reappearance of Christ, the Harvest. The Hopis call it the Purification. To take the sting out of this threat — and the destruction of humanity must be regarded as a threat — religious interpreters have presented it as a step upwards towards the immortality of the individual soul. But if science is on the right track, if the soul is merely an extension of some giant energy field in the sky, then the process is more in line with the Moon Food concept of the Oriental philosophers. Withdrawal of these extensions or controls of the supermind of the cosmos would mean that the individual would be absorbed into it and cease to exist as a separate physical unit. Ego, personality, and memory, being properties of the physical body, would be left behind. There are two fundamental forms of religion: (1) the worship of elementals and supernatural manifestations, already discussed; and (2) the awareness of and submission to the supermind of the cosmos. The Cosmic Consciousness. Buddhism is the best example of the latter. The former concentrates on worshipping manifestations, while the latter is devoted to understanding the whole.

We are witnessing a worldwide phenomenon today: mass illumination of millions of people, particularly young (under thirty) men and women in all walks of life. This process is quite well understood but never openly discussed in the mass media. In 1900 a Canadian psychiatrist, Dr. Maurice Bucke, published the first important study of the subject, Cosmic Consciousness. Illumination is basically a sudden, overwhelming insight into the whole structure of the cosmos and man's relationship to it. Suddenly, for a few brief seconds the percipient understands everything with incredible clarity. In some cases the process occurs over a long period in the form of short flashes of insight which gradually add up. In others it takes place instantaneously with the percipient seemingly bathed in a reddish glow or caught in a beam of brilliant white light cast down from the skies (thus we have the ancient phrase, 'He has seen the light'). No one is ever exactly the same after an illuminating experience.

Mediocre men become great leaders, preachers, statesmen, scientists, poets, and writers overnight! Others divorce their wives, quit their jobs, and embark on new careers which catapult them into unexpected prominence. Some fear for their sanity at first because the experience is so overwhelming. Some are unable to cope with it and disintegrate into various kinds of fanatics.

Illumination often accompanies UFO sightings, particularly when the witnesses are caught in a beam of light from the objects. Their IQ later skyrockets, and their lives change appreciably. But as in all aspects of the general phenomenon, there seem to be other forces imitating this process and producing false illuminism. Young people experimenting with LSD and other hallucinogens sometimes have experiences which they believe are contacts with the Cosmic Consciousness but which ultimately prove to be destructive. Charles Manson is a good example of this. Some LSD users do, however, appear to undergo a pure form of illuminism, but it is likely that they were already illumination prone and would have had the experience eventually anyway.

Psychic abilities appear to be hereditary, and this includes illumination. Many people attracted to metaphysics spend years of their lives following the secret teachings, meditating, and disciplining their minds in an effort to gain godhead (another term for mystical illumination). More often than not they only succeed in opening themselves up to possession and hallucinations similar to those incurred by the use of psychedelic drugs or the practice of Black Magic and witchcraft. Today's young people are rapidly gaining firsthand knowledge of the phantom world of demons and ultraterrestrials as a result of such efforts. The Hippie underground newspapers and comic books are now filled with a new lore of demons and demigods as well as much inside information on the cosmology of the supermind. Dr. Timothy Leary started the stampede to illumination and the Cosmic Consciousness in the late 1950s with his LSD experiments. Today the drug scene is a very important part of the youth subculture, much to the alarm and confusion of the over-forty crowd. The notorious music festival at Woodstock in the closing days of the last decade was actually a mass illumination experience. The seemingly schizophrenic and destructive philosophy being touted by today's young people is in fact identical to the programme of the Illuminati three centuries ago. A revolution of the mind is taking place almost unnoticed and certainly undeciphered by the older population and their Establishment. There is a worldwide movement against violence and war (the cornerstone of civilization over these past several thousand years).

Another offshoot of the process is the rapid decline of organized religion. People who have attained direct personal contact with the Cosmic Consciousness (or who at least believe they have attained such contact) have no need for the rites and trappings of the oldtime religions. There is no need to go to church when your own head is your church. The fear of death and the promise of immortality have always been one of the main appeals of all religions. But as Dr Bucke noted in his study, one of the effects of illumination is the complete elimination of the death fear. The percipient suddenly understands with convincing clarity that he is merely part of the larger whole and that he is assured of immortality because his consciousness, the actuating mechanism of his physical body, survives as a part of the supermind. The Bible thumper's concept of heaven and hell is quite different from the illuminated's insight into the cosmic structure.

This is not a movement towards atheism, as many horrified adults believe. According to the young people, it is instead a movement away from elementalism and the many misinterpretations the ultra-terrestrial manifestations have inspired.” [19]

JOHN KEEL, The Eighth Tower (1975)

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To John Keel, an obsession is a form of programming that has gotten completely out of hand. We have all met people that are obsessed with something. Stamp collecting, bird-watching, photography, sports teams, politics, physics, religion, etc. For these obsessive individuals, nothing else matters. To grandmaster Bobby Fischer, only chess mattered. The Wright Brothers desperately spent all of their time improving their flying machines. Many become consumed with a political concept. Oftentimes, the types of individuals described here build egos so large their only concern becomes their place in history. Keel notes, “While some recipients of the light, like Saul, do go on to make their mark in history, there are many others who don't accomplish a thing. The Illumination experience changes their individual lives, but it has no effect on their world. In many instances people are changed for the worse instead of the better, just as the majority of all supernatural manifestations are harmful or at least senseless.” [20]

Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, earned his PhD with his thesis, ‘The Spiritual and Political Undercurrents of the Early Romantics’. In 1925 he wrote, “I want to be an apostle and a preacher.” A main focus of much of his propaganda was to press on highly emotional areas. Hitler suggested that hierarchical structures and symbolic rituals, like those in cults, manipulate imagination rather than intellect. He saw this as a powerful, dangerous tool for control, which he admits to adopting for his own purposes. [21] "Weltanschauungskrieg," the German word for psychological warfare, translates as "worldview warfare": a battle of perceptions, of consensus realities. [22]

Author Christopher Hitchens offered a powerful opposition to totalitarian dictators and the corruption they embody. He was one of the only writers to have visited Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. These three countries composed the new “axis of evil” according to President George W. Bush. Hitchens often pointed readers towards the book ’Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq,’ written by Kanan Makiya under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil in 1989, which exposes the brutal authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein. [23] The book details the mechanisms of oppression, fear, and violence employed by the Ba'athist government to maintain power in Iraq. Makiya analyzes how propaganda, torture, and surveillance permeated Iraqi society, creating a culture of paranoia and submission. It offers a chilling portrait of totalitarianism. Hitchens wrote a book called ‘Why Orwell Matters’, where he warns about the ways a world like Orwell’s 1984 could become a reality. In these regimes, free expression is censored and stopped. Thoughts are crimes. Life becomes meaningless. The world of Orwell’s 1984 has no religion. Only worship of Big Brother and the Party. In North Korea, there is no religion. Only worship of the Dear Leader. All they need now are some piss drones.

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"It’s become a major preoccupation of my life though, in the last 8 or 9 years, especially since September 11, 2001 to try and help generate an opposition to theocracy and its depredations internationally. That is now probably my main political preoccupation. To help people in Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Israel — resist those who sincerely want to encompass the destruction of civilization, and sincerely believe they have god on their side in wanting to do so. I think, maybe I will take a few minutes just to say something that I find repulsive about especially monotheistic, messianic religion. With a large part of itself, it quite clearly wants us all to die. It wants this world to come to an end. You can tell the yearning for things to be over, whenever you read any of its real texts or listen to any of its real, authentic spokesmen. Not the pathetic apologists who sometimes masquerade for it. Those who talk — there was a famous spokesman for this in Virginia, until recently — about the "rapture", say that those of us who have chosen rightly, will be gathered to the arms of Jesus, leaving all of the rest of you behind. If we’re in a car, it’s your lookout. That car won’t have a driver anymore. If we’re a pilot, it’s your lookout, that plane will crash. WE will be with Jesus and the rest of you can go straight to hell. The eschatological element that is inseparable from Christianity — if you don’t believe that there is to be an apocalypse, that there is going to be an end, a separation of the sheep and the goats, a condemnation, a final one — then you’re not really a believer. And the contempt for the things of this world shows through all of them. It’s well put in an old rhyme from an English exclusive brethren sect, it says that "We are the pure and chosen few. And all the rest are damned. There’s room enough in hell for you. We don’t want heaven crammed." You can tell it when you see the extreme Muslims talk. They cannot wait. They cannot wait for death and destruction to overtake and overwhelm the world. They can’t wait for, for what I would call without ambiguity, a final solution. When you look at the Israeli settlers, paid for often by American tax dollars, deciding that if they can steal enough land from other people, and get all the Jews into the promised land and all the non-Jews out of it, then finally the Jewish people will be worthy of the return of the Messiah. And there are Christians in this country who consider it their job to help this happen so that Armageddon can occur. So that the painful business of living as humans, and studying civilization, and trying to acquire learning and knowledge, and health, and medicine — can all be scrapped and the cult of death can take over. That to me, is a hideous thing in eschatological terms, in end-times terms. On its own, a hateful idea, a hateful practice, and a hateful theory. But very much to be opposed in our daily lives. Where there are people, who sincerely mean it, who want to ruin the good relations that could exist between different peoples nations, races, countries, tribes, ethnicities, who say, who openly say, they love death more than we love life, and who are betting that with god on their side, they’re right about that. So when I say, as the subtitle of my book, that I think religion poisons everything, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity. It says we can’t be moral without big brother, without a totalitarian permission. It means we can’t be good to one another without this. We must be afraid. We must also be forced to love someone who we fear. The essence of sadomasochism. The essence of abjection. The essence of the master-slave relationship, and that knows that death is coming and can’t wait to bring it on. I say this is evil. And, though I do, some nights, stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and ultimate stupidity."

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, 2010 [24]

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References:

[1] Patterns Tell Stories 'Bugs' Episode Link:

[2] The Mind Parasites, by Colin Wilson

[3] Mind Parasites Burroughs Review Link: https://realitystudio.org/texts/reviews/mind-parasites/

[4] Ibid.

[5] Viruses of the Mind, by Richard Dawkins PDF Link: https://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Dawkins-MindViruses.pdf

[6] Richard Dawkins Link:

[7] The Mothman Prophecies, by John Keel

[8] The Eighth Tower, by John Keel

[9] Colm Kelleher Skinwalker PDF Link: https://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/colmkelleher-edgescience.pdf

[10] Luis Elizondo Official Site Bio Link: https://luiselizondo-official.com/bio/

[11] Julius Caesar, by Philip Freeman

[12] Reagan Speeches Archive Link: https://archive.org/details/greatestspeeches0000reag_n6w5

[13] Ibid.

[14] DNI Abbottabad Book List Link: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/features/bin-laden-s-bookshelf?start=5

[15] Andrew Brown Guardian Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush

[16] ‘What Does Peter Thiel Want?' Link:

What Does Peter Thiel Want?

[17] Thiel Interview Link:

[18] The Mothman Prophecies, by John Keel

[19] The Eighth Tower, by John Keel

[20] Ibid.

[21] Unholy Alliance, by Peter Levenda

[22] Sinister Forces Book Three: The Manson Secret, by Peter Levenda

[23] The Republic of Fear, by Kanan Makiya

[24] Christopher Hitchens Link:

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