A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture
A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture
A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture
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projected consciousness—his “astral” body. The denial <strong>of</strong> bodily needs used by Swedenborg—<br />
<strong>the</strong> dramatic slow<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> respiration-- has traditionally been a key method <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>duction <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
trance state. A broad range <strong>of</strong> traditions have long utilized fast<strong>in</strong>g, sleep deprivation and<br />
exhaustion <strong>in</strong>duced via ecstatic danc<strong>in</strong>g or o<strong>the</strong>r means to achieve a visionary state. There is an<br />
implicit tension present <strong>in</strong> this set <strong>of</strong> methods, a tension between body and spirit. In order to<br />
access <strong>the</strong> spirit realm, one must deny or abjure <strong>the</strong> body <strong>in</strong> some fashion. This sense <strong>of</strong> body<br />
and spirit as irreconcilable would run throughout <strong>the</strong> n<strong>in</strong>eteenth and twentieth century iterations<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> displaced utopian imag<strong>in</strong>ary. The general sense operative <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> moments preced<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong><br />
arrival <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> saucer after World War Two, and ultimately <strong>the</strong> advent <strong>of</strong> alien abduction, was that<br />
<strong>the</strong> body <strong>in</strong> utopia would be somehow more e<strong>the</strong>real and less visceral than on Earth.<br />
Trance was also central to <strong>the</strong> communication between human and O<strong>the</strong>r <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
spiritualist tradition. In <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> spiritualist medium, trance was generally ei<strong>the</strong>r<br />
spontaneous—<strong>of</strong>ten as a function <strong>of</strong> age and gender—young girls be<strong>in</strong>g especially prone—or<br />
<strong>in</strong>duced by a third party, <strong>the</strong> mesmeric controller. The encounter between medium and spirit was<br />
<strong>in</strong> a fundamental way embodied. Media were more or less possessed. They became embodied<br />
representatives <strong>of</strong> spiritual entities—a conduit for those entities’ expression. In ano<strong>the</strong>r sense,<br />
<strong>the</strong> encounter was fundamentally disembodied—<strong>the</strong> medium was necessarily absent while <strong>the</strong><br />
spirit was present. The self had to be erased to allow <strong>the</strong> O<strong>the</strong>r to present itself. Much <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
trapp<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>of</strong> Spiritualism were primarily focused on establish<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> physicality <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> spirit<br />
presence. The float<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>struments, sounded by o<strong>the</strong>rwise <strong>in</strong>visible presences, <strong>the</strong> percussion <strong>of</strong><br />
coded raps, <strong>the</strong> modulation <strong>of</strong> gravity both <strong>in</strong> its abeyance and amplification and <strong>the</strong> visible<br />
energetic fields <strong>of</strong> ectoplasm all spoke to <strong>the</strong> difficulty <strong>of</strong> clos<strong>in</strong>g on <strong>the</strong> basic sell<strong>in</strong>g po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>of</strong><br />
Spiritualism—<strong>the</strong> physical reality <strong>of</strong> spiritual phenomena.<br />
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