Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD historical parallels: aliens, they say, have always been visiting us, poking at us, stealing our sperms and eggs, impregnating us. In earlier times we recognized them as gods, demons, fairies, or spirits; only now do we understand that it's aliens who've been diddling us all these millennia. Jacques Vallee has made such arguments. But then why are there virtually no reports of flying saucers prior to 1947? Why is it that none of the world's major religions uses saucers as icons of the divine? Why no warnings about the dangers of high technology then? Why isn't this genetic experiment, whatever its objective, completed by now, thousands of years or more after its initiation by beings supposedly of vastly superior technological attainments? Why are we in such trouble if the breeding programme is designed to improve our lot? Following this line of argument, we might anticipate present adherents of the old beliefs to understand 'aliens' to be fairies, gods, or demons. In fact, there are several contemporary sects - the 'Raelians', for example - that hold gods or God to come to earth in UFOs. Some abductees describe the aliens, however repulsive, as 'angels', or 'emissaries of God'. And there are those who still think it's demons. In Whitley Strieber's Communion, a first-hand account of 'alien abduction', the author relates Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy and dark and sinister. Of course they were demons. They had to be ... I still remember that thing crouching there, so terribly ugly, its arms and legs like the limbs of a great insect, its eyes glaring at me. Reportedly, Strieber is now open to the possibility that these night-time terrors were dreams or hallucinations. Articles on UFOs in The Christian News Encyclopedia, a fundamentalist compilation, include 'Unchristian Fanatic Obsession', and 'Scientist Believes UFOs Work of Devil'. The Spiritual Counterfeits Project of Berkeley, California, teaches that UFOs are of demonic origin; the Aquarian Church of Universal Service of McMinnville, Oregon, that all aliens are hostile. A 1993 newsletter of 'Cosmic Awareness Communications' informs us 122
The Demon-Haunted World that UFO occupants think of humans as laboratory animals, wish us to worship them, but tend to be deterred by the Lord's Prayer. Some abductees have been cast out of their evangelical religious congregations; their stories sound too close to satanism. A 1980 fundamentalist tract, The Cult Explosion, by Dave Hunt, reveals that UFOs . . . are clearly not physical and seem to be demonic manifestations from another dimension calculated to alter man's way of thinking . . . [T]he alleged UFO entities that have presumably communicated psychically with humans have always preached the same four lies that the serpent introduced to Eve . . . [T]hese beings are demons and they are preparing for the Antichrist. A number of sects hold UFOs and alien abductions to be premonitions of 'end-times'. If UFOs come from another planet or another dimension, were they sent by the same God who has been revealed to us in any of the major religions? Nothing in the UFO phenomena, the fundamentalist complaint goes, requires belief in the one, true God, while much in it contradicts the God portrayed in the Bible and Christian tradition. The New Age: A Christian Critique by Ralph Rath (1990) discusses UFOs, typically for such literature, with extreme credulity. It serves their purpose to accept UFOs as real and revile them as instruments of Satan and the Antichrist, rather than to use the blade of scientific scepticism. That tool, once honed, might accomplish more than just a limited heresiotomy. The Christian fundamentalist author Hal Lindsey, in his 1994 religious best-seller Planet Earth - 2000 AD, writes, I have become thoroughly convinced that UFOs are real . . . They are operated by alien beings of great intelligence and power ... I believe these beings are not only extraterrestrial but supernatural in origin. To be blunt, I think they are demons . . . part of a Satanic plot. And what is the evidence for this conclusion? Chiefly, it is the 123
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THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD<br />
historical parallels: aliens, they say, have always been visiting us,<br />
poking at us, stealing our sperms and eggs, impregnating us. In<br />
earlier times we recognized them as gods, demons, fairies, or<br />
spirits; only now do we understand that it's aliens who've been<br />
diddling us all these millennia. Jacques Vallee has made such<br />
arguments. But then why are there virtually no reports of flying<br />
saucers prior to 1947? Why is it that none of the world's major<br />
religions uses saucers as icons of the divine? Why no warnings<br />
about the dangers of high technology then? Why isn't this genetic<br />
experiment, whatever its objective, completed by now, thousands<br />
of years or more after its initiation by beings supposedly of vastly<br />
superior technological attainments? Why are we in such trouble if<br />
the breeding programme is designed to improve our lot?<br />
Following this line of argument, we might anticipate present<br />
adherents of the old beliefs to understand 'aliens' to be fairies,<br />
gods, or demons. In fact, there are several contemporary sects -<br />
the 'Raelians', for example - that hold gods or God to come to<br />
earth in UFOs. Some abductees describe the aliens, however<br />
repulsive, as 'angels', or 'emissaries of God'. And there are those<br />
who still think it's demons.<br />
In Whitley Strieber's Communion, a first-hand account of 'alien<br />
abduction', the author relates<br />
Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy<br />
and dark and sinister. Of course they were demons. They had<br />
to be ... I still remember that thing crouching there, so<br />
terribly ugly, its arms and legs like the limbs of a great insect,<br />
its eyes glaring at me.<br />
Reportedly, Strieber is now open to the possibility that these<br />
night-time terrors were dreams or hallucinations.<br />
Articles on UFOs in The Christian News Encyclopedia, a<br />
fundamentalist compilation, include 'Unchristian Fanatic Obsession',<br />
and 'Scientist Believes UFOs Work of Devil'. The Spiritual<br />
Counterfeits Project of Berkeley, California, teaches that UFOs<br />
are of demonic origin; the Aquarian Church of Universal Service<br />
of McMinnville, Oregon, that all aliens are hostile. A 1993<br />
newsletter of 'Cosmic Awareness Communications' informs us<br />
122
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