A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

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the cosmos is restored, and Israel is redeemed.” 190 The Apocalypse was the end of time in the sense that it signified a shift from profane time to a divine space that both transcended and embodied all time. It represented both the alpha and omega of the human species in that it represented a return to our divine point of origin, a return that was encoded as the sole and final goal of human existence and clearly embodied the Lacanian desire for a return to the Real. From a Judeo-Christian perspective, the apocalypse was the historical money-shot, the release and seeding of the final phase of humanity. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the apocalyptic underwent a transformation in which the divinely ordained and human aspiration were conflated. The central concern of the lineage discussed in this dissertation was and is to bring about the next phase in human evolution. This next big step is both preordained and contingent upon the efforts of “enlightened” groups and individuals. I will again note, however, that said effort is not expended along lines of traditional political action but rather in reconfiguring the relation between self and cosmos. It is not the power or activity of the believers themselves that will bring about the hoped for ascension but rather the power of the cosmos that their practice taps into. The evolutionary referent in such thinking has been variously construed as the development of such supposedly latent human powers as telekinesis, telepathy, astral projection and other magical faculties; as a mass embarkation to our new home in the stars; or some more ineffable shift, such as contact and union with the overmind. The Great I AM and groups that followed in its lineage promised their followers a position in the avant-garde. You can bootstrap yourself to the next level now! The promised benefits functioned as asymptotic objects of desire—always promised, never arriving. The 190 D.S. Russell, “Apocalyptic Literature” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger & Michael D. Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press) 34. 113
promises of evolutionary progress held out to I Am devotees in exchange for tithing and various other sacrifices (no meat, onions, garlic, alcohol, television, or sex) included inviolable youth and health and limitless wealth. One website run by former members (the I AM Activity is ongoing) responds to such promises by proposing a wager: Win $10,000 Cash!!! Seriously!!! (n.b. real cash, not invisible Ascended Master cash) We really would love to find the Ballards never lied so we encourage you to take a trip down to your local I AM sanctuary, and play ‘spot the wealthy, self made 90 year old youth.’ We are putting our money where our mouths are (something the Ballards never did) by offering $10,000 cash for the first person to find a youthful 90 year old I AMer. As proof of youthful countenance, the student will need to complete tests at a medical facility of choice. We also need a legitimate birth certificate. For detailed conditions of entry, please e-mail us. This is a serious offer. 191 The sarcasm evident in the offer combined with a certain hopefulness (“We would really love to find...”) evinces the desire that draws seekers to such organizations as the Great I AM, the disappointment that follows from finding that the promises held out are merely more pie-in-thesky and the residual belief that maybe the promise could yet be fulfilled. CONCLUSION The cases examined in this chapter carry through many of the attributes established by Spiritualism. A tendency toward the feminine in modes of communication and being (trance and harmonialism); a rough alignment with the politics of the day; a tendency toward suspended opposition (masculine and feminine, earthly and divine, sincerity and flummery, centripetal and centrifugal) all recur throughout Christian Economics and the Great I AM Religious Activity. Like Spiritualism and Theosophy before them, Pelley and the Ballards offered access to privileged information. Those who delved into the nexus of communication between human and 191 “Win Ten Thousand Dollars Cash” in The I AM Activity Exposed. www.home.gil.com.au/~perovich/Ballards. (accessed July 1, 2005). 114
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The Extraterrestrial in US Culture
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The Extraterrestrial in US Culture
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III. Chapter 2: Contact…………
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oth in their rich and bizarre detai
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Fukuyama also describes the histori
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and belonging that are native to th
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modernity, Weber stressed over and
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While positivism would emerge as th
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figure that serves as a medium betw
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sources of Spiritualism, Swedenborg
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The series of moments and discourse
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estful comprehension. It straddles
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The second chapter examines the eme
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Ch.1 The Dead INTRODUCTION Since th
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sense this dream of perfected commu
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political registers as well. This c
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In the late eighteenth century, Mes
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inverted form) along which the unde
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consciousness that is highly mobile
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up the process of thinking”. 38 S
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umor - and irony - would have it, w
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sense that Swedenborg’s researche
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Spiritualist movement, whose medium
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minded, loves to roam in the woods
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etween humans and God as unthinkabl
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esearches was a tailor by the name
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concerns and from the fact that the
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simultaneously in the world of the
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which God has revealed to them and
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assessed the Fox sisters as the “
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each in turn Lockwood elaborated hi
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as miraculous or supernatural? 85 T
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hearts of men to help their brother
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Page 87 and 88: Ch.2 Contact INTRODUCTION Contact w
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Page 91 and 92: magazine, the latter edited by icon
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Page 99 and 100: world were still struggling to asce
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Page 123 and 124: Ch. 3 The Saucer INTRODUCTION The t
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Page 145 and 146: DOROTHY MARTIN While ufology began
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Adamski—the UFO was effortlessly
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communism. The connection between t
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The shift from contact to abduction
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science. 256 The Hill case was the
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abduction scenario in a variety of
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In September of 1963, some two year
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car and gone into a field with bino
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The cadences of Barney’s recollec
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And he said it was a pregnancy test
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motif also speaks to a relationship
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on a human is smooth and rounded. S
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seems to have suggested that humans
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The mesmerist and hypnotherapist bo
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communiqués emerge not from the la
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David E. Mack, a Harvard trained an
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dystopian, or in the language of No
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In the space brother scenario, the
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Everything is now. The past is now;
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effectively cut off from that possi
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eaching our innate potential. The h
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It is in this desire for dissolutio
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abductees feeling like guinea pigs.
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attack. Nietzsche writes of the blo
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Hill. Barney recalled his first gli
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The Gaze as philosophical and psych
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constituted modes of visuality. To
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traum or dream further indicates th
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educed not in the relatively benign
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will of the abductee—all speak to
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esultant exposure to the Real. The
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understood moorings, left to drift
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desired utopian state. The Others c
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were, more or less, ascended master
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Reports back from the spirit realm
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generally silent, but when they do
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to narrative structural positionali
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sensibilities, though one that woul
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of full transparency between interl
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aber, W.W. “A Guide
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_____. “Adamski, George (1891-196
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_____. Discipline and Punish: the B
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_____. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan
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_____. Something about Soulcraft. N
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Streiber, Whitley and Anne, ed. The
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