John E Mack The Psychiatrist Who Dared to Lift the Veil

There are rare individuals in history who walk so close to the edge of mystery that their very life becomes a bridge between worlds. Dr. John E. Mack was one of them. To many, he was a Pulitzer Prize–winning Harvard psychiatrist, a scholar who probed the inner architecture of the human mind. To others, he was a modern mystic in the language of science—a man who opened the clinical door to the cosmic. But to me, Mack represents something deeper: the archetype of the scientist-seer, the one who risked reputation to affirm that consciousness is not confined to the skull but stretches into the stars.

Born in 1929 in New York City, Mack came of age during a time when psychiatry was enthralled with Freudian reductionism. The psyche was viewed as pathology to be cured, not mystery to be explored. Yet even in his early years, Mack sensed that the human mind was more than a machine of neuroses and defenses—it was a portal. His education at Oberlin and then Harvard Medical School gave him the scientific rigor he would later wield like a scalpel to dissect reality itself. When he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for A Prince of Our Disorder, his biography of T. E. Lawrence, he had already learned to navigate the delicate frontier between myth and history, between the external hero’s journey and the inner one.

That theme—the mythic interior of human experience—would guide him into even stranger waters. By the late 1980s, Mack began encountering people who claimed to have had contact with non-human intelligences. These weren’t attention seekers or delusional minds in his assessment; they were intelligent, often traumatized individuals describing something that seemed simultaneously psychological, spiritual, and physical. Where most psychiatrists might have written “hallucination” in their notes, Mack paused. He listened. He suspended judgment long enough for the phenomenon to speak for itself.

In that simple act of radical empathy, Mack violated the unwritten law of modern science—the law that says only measurable things are real. To him, these stories of “alien abduction” were not fringe fantasies; they were spiritual events wearing extraterrestrial costumes, a collective initiation into a larger reality. When I first read Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (1994) and later Passport to the Cosmos (1999), I recognized a man wrestling with the same paradox that occupies my own thought: how consciousness, in its infinite creativity, manifests phenomena that break our tidy categories of real and unreal.

Mack didn’t treat his patients as research subjects but as pilgrims. He saw in their stories a reflection of humanity’s forgotten connection to the cosmos. The “aliens,” as they were described, were often concerned with Earth’s ecological destruction, with human violence, with our spiritual amnesia. To Mack, these messages echoed ancient Gnostic and Hermetic insights—the notion that humanity has fallen into forgetfulness and must awaken to its divine nature. He did not claim to know whether these beings existed in a material sense; rather, he proposed that they might exist in an ontological middle realm, one that participates in both matter and mind.

That concept resonates profoundly with my own conviction that consciousness is the foundation of reality, not a by-product of neurons. Mack’s work anticipated the very ideas now championed by quantum idealists and panpsychists—that the universe itself is alive with awareness, and that human beings are localized expressions of a cosmic mind. The experiences of the abductees, in this light, were not aberrations but communications from the deeper fabric of being—perhaps from what ancient mystics called the pleroma or the logos itself.

Mack’s openness to this possibility placed him squarely in the crosshairs of Harvard’s guardians of orthodoxy. In 1994, he was summoned before an academic inquisition unprecedented in modern times. The university questioned not his ethics but his right to take seriously phenomena that defied material explanation. The committee’s subtle message was clear: stay within the safe walls of accepted reality, or risk professional exile. Mack chose truth over safety. He refused to recant. In doing so, he embodied the courage of a true seeker, much like Galileo insisting that the Earth moves or Jung daring to map the collective unconscious.

To me, this episode reveals the psychological dimension of institutional fear—the “demon of religion,” as I’ve often called it, manifesting not only in churches but in academia. Orthodoxy, whether theological or scientific, thrives on boundaries. Mack’s work threatened those boundaries by implying that human consciousness is multidimensional and that science must evolve to study experience rather than dismiss it. He once wrote that “we are participating in a universe of multiple realities,” and that these realities intersect through consciousness itself. That statement could have come straight from quantum physics, depth psychology, or the Gospel of Thomas.

Mack’s hypothesis—that abduction experiences might represent an evolutionary alarm clock for the human race—mirrors what I see happening globally today. We are being forced to confront the limits of materialism, to rediscover that we are not machines in a meaningless universe but divine participants in an unfolding cosmos. Mack believed that these encounters were calling humanity to remembrance, to the same awakening that mystics throughout the ages have described: that we and the divine are one, and that our stewardship of creation flows from that union.

His later years were filled with dialogues that fused science, spirituality, and ecology. He met with the Dalai Lama, explored indigenous cosmologies, and spoke about the spiritual emergency of our time—the loss of a sacred worldview. In that, he was prophetic. He saw that our technological power, untempered by spiritual wisdom, would lead us to ecological and existential crisis. The “aliens,” in his framing, were messengers from the larger intelligence of the universe, urging us to remember our interconnectedness before it was too late.

Mack’s untimely death in 2004—struck by a drunk driver in London—felt almost symbolic. The world lost a voice capable of reconciling reason and revelation. Yet in another sense, he simply crossed a threshold he had long contemplated. His ideas continue through the John E. Mack Institute and through the growing recognition that consciousness research, near-death studies, and quantum metaphysics are converging on the same frontier he glimpsed.

In my own understanding of reality, Mack’s work validates what both mystics and modern theorists like Donald Hoffman and Bernardo Kastrup are now affirming: that the cosmos is consciousness expressing itself through form. What Mack called “the beings” may be archetypal intelligences—manifestations of consciousness communicating across dimensions. Their apparent concern for our planet mirrors the awakening of our collective mind to its own self-destructive patterns. In Hermetic language, these experiences are as above, so below—reflections of a cosmic polarity striving toward integration.

Mack’s courage lies not merely in believing the experiencers but in recognizing that their encounters were mirrors of the human soul. He invited psychiatry to become not a science of control but a science of communion. He called us to expand the definition of the real until it includes the miraculous. And in doing so, he lived the very transformation he described: the shift from egoic isolation to participation in a living cosmos.

When I think of Mack, I see him standing at the threshold between empirical science and mystical knowing, holding a lantern for those of us who believe that truth is found not in data alone but in direct encounter. He reminds me that revelation is not the opposite of reason but its fulfillment. His life affirms what I have long felt—that spiritual awakening and scientific discovery are two movements of the same divine curiosity, the cosmos knowing itself through human minds willing to wonder.

John E. Mack’s story is more than biography; it is an allegory of our collective awakening. Like the experiencers he studied, humanity is being lifted out of the narrow orbit of materialism into a vaster field of consciousness. Whether the messengers come as light beings, archetypes, or quantum patterns is secondary. What matters is the message: we are not alone, because we are all part of the One. Mack’s brilliance was in hearing that message without fear, and daring to tell the world that psychiatry must one day meet mysticism on equal terms.

So, I honor John E. Mack not just as a psychiatrist or philosopher, but as a harbinger of the next paradigm—the union of science and spirit, mind and matter, heaven and earth. His life whispers the same truth that animates my own journey: that consciousness is infinite, love is its essence, and the universe is our mirror, forever calling us home.

 

UFO of God a Book Review

This marks the final installment in my four-part book review series, which includes Passport to Magonia, American Cosmic, The Super Natural, and now UFO of God. I chose to explore these works together because they are deeply interwoven, each shedding light on a phenomenon that has persisted across millennia. The consistent testimony of countless experiencers makes it increasingly difficult to dismiss these accounts as mere invention or fantasy. Instead, they collectively suggest an alternative cosmology, ontology, and cosmogony—one that challenges the narrow framework of the past century. At its core, this body of work invites us to reconsider the nature of consciousness itself and to rethink what we call “reality.”

“Foreword, Introduction, Chapters 1–29, Acknowledgments”

From the very Foreword by Jim Semivan, we get an invocation: this is territory we don’t quite understand, a “one-way conversation with the phenomenon,” as he puts it. That tone — of humility before strangeness — is precisely what this book must live up to, and in large measure it does. Semivan’s presence also signals that the author is staking a claim not just in personal testimony, but in the often cold, bureaucratic precincts of government and intelligence studies of UFOs.

In the Introduction Bledsoe frames his story as one not merely of spectacular sightings or encounters but of spiritual crucible: loss, physical illness, financial collapse, and then, out of desperation and prayer, an event on the banks of the Cape Fear River that upends everything. We learn early that this is more than a thrill ride — it is a lived testimony, flawed, raw, occasionally frustrating, but courageous.

The successive chapters map the arc of that transformation: the initial encounter, hours of missing time, pursuit by orbs, household incursions, red-eyed beings, healing moments, and the shockwave effects on family, community, church, and psyche. The structure may at first glance read like a catalog of anomalies, but what it slowly reveals is a man trying to integrate the extraordinary into the ordinary, to find meaning amid bewilderment.

Chapters 1–5 ground us in the “before”: Bledsoe’s life, his faith, the collapse, and the crisis that primes him for something “other.” Chapters 6–15 delve into the early events — the orbs, the missing time, the apparitions, the more dramatic intrusions. From 16–22 we see how Bledsoe’s life unravels socially and spiritually: church conflict, community suspicion, psychological pressure. In chapters 23–29 we arrive at the attempt to map the phenomenon: seeking experts, documenting evidence, negotiating the paradoxes of belief, disclosure, and doubt. The Acknowledgments are fitting — full of named individuals who tried to help, and quietly admitting what this story still leaves unresolved.

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Strengths & Tensions

What shines in UFO of God is Bledsoe’s sincerity. You feel, in many passages, that he is struggling to say what he saw, nearly resisting it even as he feels compelled to share. There is a visceral texture to moments: how orbs shift color, how beings appear in peripheral vision, how emotional or spiritual states seem to modulate the phenomena. These are the “data” of the book — not scientific graphs, but lived qualia.

Yet sincerity alone does not suffice. Here is where the book strains: sometimes the narrative leaps without connective tissue. A detail appears and is never revisited (some readers on forums have flagged a bizarre “Chiwauwa creature” episode that vanishes). Reddit The leaps can make one suspect the limits of memory, or narrative expedience. At times the pursuit of meaning tries to outrun the scraps of evidence Bledsoe is able to marshal.

I also sensed tension in the way Bledsoe negotiates faith and the phenomenon. Unlike many contactee accounts that lean heavily on New Age or syncretic cosmologies, he remains anchored in Christian language and theology. Yet the phenomenon seems to insist on a more expansive metaphysic — or a metaphysic that undermines fixed theology. This liminal ground is fertile but precarious, and Bledsoe sometimes stumbles when forced to name or define what lies between angel, alien, entity, spirit, or projection.

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Connecting Bledsoe to American Cosmic

Diana Pasulka in American Cosmic argues that UFOs are not just physical objects to be catalogued; they are technologies of belief, weaving into religion, art, science, and the shaping of knowledge itself. The phenomenon is as much about faith as it is about hardware. Bledsoe’s narrative lives that premise: his encounters are not side-bars to his life — they become his theology, his moral test, his vocational project. In American Cosmic Pasulka shows how artifacts, images, even “evidence,” can be sacred emblems; Bledsoe treats his orbs, his red-eyed visitations, his healings as touchstones of revelation.

Where Bledsoe and Pasulka converge is this: the phenomenon demands interpretation, offers a kind of revelation, and provokes the believer to wrestle with humility. Where they diverge is methodological: Pasulka retains more stance as observer, mapping how communities adopt the UFO as a new faith; Bledsoe is deep inside that adoption. (One might even see UFO of God as a case study of American Cosmic in action.)

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Conversing with Passport to Magonia

Jacques Vallée’s Passport to Magonia is a touchstone for anyone wanting to collapse the boundary between folkloric visions, fairies, angels, and modern UFOs. Vallée doesn’t treat UFOs as “spaceships from Mars” so much as expressions of a deeper, recurring phenomenon that consistently presents in whatever symbolic vocabulary humans have at hand. A Sky of Books and Movies+1

Reading Bledsoe’s story, I found echoes of that insight: his “Lady” reminds one of Marian or angelic visions in religious lore; his orbs trigger folkloric resonance. Bledsoe’s attempt to couch the phenomenon within Christian language is exactly the kind of cultural adaptation Vallée predicts. One might argue that Bledsoe’s narrative is Vallée’s “Magonia” reanimated — where the modern mythic symbols (orbs, ET beings) are grafted onto Christian cosmology.

However, Vallée is more cautious about ontological claims; he generally leans toward hypothesis of a “control system” or intelligence that modulates manifest phenomena. Bledsoe is bolder: he attributes intention, love, spiritual message. That leap from ambiguity to purpose is where Bledsoe’s faith meets Vallée’s probabilistic models.

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A Glancing Toward The Super Natural

When you bring The Super Natural (assuming you mean Whitley Strieber or related works) into the conversation, you’re talking about a broader taxonomy of the “weird” — entities, boundary states, belled reality, intrusion. Bledsoe’s story resides in that intersection: sometimes the phenomena feel alien, sometimes spiritual, sometimes demonic, sometimes angelic. In The Super Natural tradition, the takeaway is that reality is porous, liminal, haunted, multiply intelligible — not irreducible to “not yet understood physics.” Bledsoe’s narrative, with its fluid borderlands, is very much in that thematic lineage.

Bledsoe contributes to the “super natural” argument by insisting that skeptical materialist reductionism cannot contain these anomalies. And yet he seeks transparency, disclosure, accountability. He desires not only to transcend but to testify.

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Final Assessment & Recommendation

UFO of God is neither a perfect account nor a final proof, but it is among the more compelling recent contactee narratives. Its greatest strength is the courage to stay in contradiction: to live with doubt, to press for evidence, but also to lean into meaning. Bledsoe’s story is striking precisely because he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers — he offers fragments, hopes, questions.

If I were to assign a star rating (with hesitation), I’d give it 4 out of 5. It loses points for sometimes thin narrative bridging, occasional abrupt transitions, and moments where I desired deeper critical self-reflection. But it earns strong praise for being heartfelt, for pushing forward in darkness, for offering a case that other researchers and experiencers must wrestle with.

For readers of American Cosmic, Passport to Magonia, or The Super Natural, UFO of God will feel resonant. It is a lived crucible of the very claims those books theorize. It puts flesh on the bones of hypotheses about belief, disclosure, and the anomalous. It invites us to place our own intellect and faith, our skepticism and wonder, in dialog with something that may not bend to either.

So yes: read it. Carry it with you. And after finishing, walk outside at night, look at the sky, and wonder whether just maybe the conversation has already begun.

Super Natural Book Review; Authors Jeffery Kripal and Whitley Streiber

 “I believe that this book fits into the former book reviews that I have done.” ~ Joe Machuta It is book 3 of four.

Reading The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained Is Real is not like reading a conventional book about UFOs or paranormal encounters. It is more like standing before a mirror that reflects both sky and soul. Written by Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey Kripal, this text does not attempt to explain the supernatural away. Instead, it insists that what we call “the unexplained” may be the most honest expression of reality we have. It asks us to set aside our mechanistic worldview and reimagine existence itself as participatory, conscious, and mysteriously alive.

I approached this book already believing that spirit and matter are not divided realms but two expressions of the same divine field. I believe the cosmos itself is conscious, that we are fragments of divine awareness awakening through experience. Strieber’s life of encounters and Kripal’s disciplined mysticism meet precisely in that space — where consciousness becomes the bridge between heaven and earth. The result is not mere speculation; it is theology in motion.

The Already World

The opening chapter, “The Already World,” establishes the ground of revelation. Strieber and Kripal remind us that the “super natural” is not something outside of nature but the fuller expression of it. The world already contains its mysteries; we are simply trained not to see them. That notion echoes something deep within me — the Gnostic sense that the veil is not imposed by God but by forgetfulness. The divine world already exists here; apocalypse means not destruction but unveiling.

As I read, I thought of Paul’s line that creation “groans in travail” awaiting revelation. This “already world” is the womb of the divine, carrying hidden potential. Kripal and Strieber together make the bold claim that the miraculous is our natural state — if only we awaken to it.

Into the Woods

This chapter evokes the ancient motif of descent — into darkness, into the unknown. The forest becomes the archetype of transformation, echoing the mythic journeys of prophets and shamans. Strieber recounts his otherworldly experiences not as tidy reports but as moments of psychic dismemberment. He enters the woods of consciousness, where categories dissolve.

I resonated deeply with this. My own spiritual path has included similar descents — moments where the old self fractures to make room for the infinite Self. The authors suggest that these encounters are not aberrations but initiations. “Into the Woods” is the modern Dark Night of the Soul, where the supernatural intrudes not to terrify but to reconfigure perception.

Making the Cut

Here, the language becomes visceral. The “cut” is the point of rupture between worlds — the incision through which the transcendent bleeds into the material. The authors describe it as a wound, but also as an opening. I read it as the cruciform pattern woven into existence itself: death and resurrection, rupture and renewal. Every mystical experience bears this duality — pain and illumination interwoven.

From my own theological lens, “making the cut” is the process of transformation Paul described as “putting off the old man.” The ego must be opened for the divine to enter. Kripal and Strieber interpret their experiences through psychoanalytic, mythic, and mystical frames, yet the core truth remains: revelation always costs something.

The Blue Man Group — the Other One

This strange, poetic title conceals a profound insight. The “Blue Man” refers to the numinous Other — the presence that both frightens and enlightens. The authors explore the paradox of contact: how the alien or angelic often arrives wrapped in fear, only to later unveil wisdom.

To me, the “Blue Man” is an image of the Christos — the luminous being of light that meets humanity in every age under different guises. The divine encounter must adapt to the consciousness of the experiencer. Where one sees an alien, another sees an angel; where one sees terror, another sees transfiguration. The experience itself transcends category.

A Context in the Sky

Here, Kripal stretches our cosmology beyond the empirical, suggesting that consciousness itself may be the medium through which the universe expresses meaning. Strieber’s encounters in the sky are not evidence of extraterrestrial visitation alone but signs of the symbolic structure of the cosmos — a grand conversation between matter and mind.

In my understanding, this “context in the sky” is the Logos — the organizing intelligence of creation. Whether appearing as lights, beings, or visions, these phenomena call humanity to remember its cosmic citizenship. The sky has always been Scripture written in photons.

Lying in the Lap of the Goddess

This chapter introduces the feminine dimension of the divine. Paschal suffering gives way here to sacred intimacy. Strieber experiences the numinous as maternal — enveloping, sensual, and deeply compassionate. For Kripal, this reawakens ancient goddess symbolism repressed by patriarchal religion.

For me, this chapter resonated with the mystical union of Spirit and Soul — the eternal dance of the masculine Logos and feminine Sophia. In Christian esoteric thought, this is the divine marriage that gives birth to awakening. “Lying in the Lap of the Goddess” reminds us that the cosmos is not merely mechanical but maternal. The universe loves us into consciousness.

Pain and Super Sexualities

These two chapters must be read together. “Pain” explores suffering as initiation; “Super Sexualities” interprets eros as a force of transcendence. Strieber describes how contact experiences often evoke intense physical and emotional responses — sometimes erotic, sometimes excruciating. Kripal contextualizes this within mystical tradition: saints and shamans alike have encountered God through passion, suffering, and ecstasy.

To the unenlightened mind, pain and pleasure seem opposites. To the awakened consciousness, they are polarities of the same divine current. I have long held that incarnation itself is erotic — Spirit desiring to know itself through flesh. These chapters echo that truth beautifully.

Physical Traces, the Feral Boy, and The Magical Object

Midway through the book, the authors anchor their metaphysics in matter. They discuss physical traces of encounters, anomalous artifacts, and cases of feral children. The intention is not to prove the supernatural but to show that it leaves fingerprints in the physical world.

What I see here is incarnation again: the divine leaves traces because it is always entering form. The “magical object,” like a sacrament, becomes a point of contact between dimensions. Whether it is a communion wafer, a meteorite, or a mysterious implant, the meaning is the same — matter remembers Spirit.

Cracking the Cosmic Egg

The title recalls Joseph Chilton Pearce, but Strieber and Kripal push it further: the “egg” is the shell of ordinary perception. To crack it is to awaken. For me, this is pure mysticism — the veil rent, the mind transfigured. The apocalypse, rightly understood, is not the end of the world but the end of illusion.

This chapter might be the heart of the book. Once the cosmic egg breaks, the self realizes it was never confined. The supernatural ceases to be “out there” and becomes the natural expression of awakened being.

Trauma, Trance, and Transcendence

The authors wisely link trauma and revelation. Both rupture the ego’s stability. Both open portals. Trauma can destroy, but it can also transmute. When met with consciousness and grace, it becomes initiation.

I have often said that pain is the doorway to remembrance. The cross is both trauma and transcendence. Here, Strieber and Kripal show that the same pattern recurs in modern encounters. The divine often breaks us before it blesses us.

Haunted, The Soul Is a UFO, and Mythmaking

In these chapters, the book’s theme crystallizes: the supernatural is not foreign — it is the mirror of the soul. “The Soul Is a UFO” is a striking metaphor: just as UFOs appear and vanish at the edge of perception, so the soul hovers between worlds. We are the unexplained phenomenon we chase.

“Mythmaking” follows naturally. The authors show that our experiences demand narrative; mythology is how consciousness metabolizes the infinite. The myths we create are not lies but living symbols, gateways through which the numinous enters human language.

Shifting the Conversation and The Mythical Object

By the final chapters, the dialogue between Strieber and Kripal has matured into synthesis. The “mythical object” is the interface of consciousness and creation — the point where symbol becomes substance. To “shift the conversation” means to stop debating whether these things are real and begin asking what they reveal.

That is where this book triumphs. It moves us from argument to awareness, from proof to participation. It invites us to become co-authors of the mythic universe.

The Appendix: Making the Supernatural Super Natural

The appendix offers practical reflections on how to “naturalize” the supernatural — not by reducing it, but by expanding our definition of the real. This aligns perfectly with my own conviction that we live within a holographic cosmos of divine consciousness. To make the supernatural natural is to remember our true nature as eternal awareness playing in form.

Final Reflection

The Super Natural is one of those rare books that bridges science, spirituality, and mythology without losing reverence. Strieber’s visionary experiences and Kripal’s theological rigor create a tapestry that speaks to both heart and intellect.

For me, this book reaffirms that the apocalypse — the unveiling — is already underway. Humanity stands on the threshold of remembering that we are multidimensional beings, children of the Infinite exploring itself through time and flesh. The supernatural is not an anomaly; it is our forgotten inheritance.

Strieber and Kripal have given language to what mystics have known for millennia: the universe is alive, and it longs to be known through us. To read this book is to feel the veil thinning — to sense that every rustle of wind, every flicker of light, every dream and encounter whispers the same truth:

The divine is nearer than breath, and the supernatural is simply the super-conscious remembering itself through the human soul.

 

American Cosmic Book Review: A Journey into the Sacred Machinery of Belief

This is a companion to my last blog post on Vallee’s “Passport to Magonia” I believe they are related, and I will be doing two more reviews of books that I think fit into this concept over the next week or so,

When I first opened American Cosmic by D.W. Pasulka, I expected a sociological exploration of UFO culture. What I found instead was a spiritual odyssey — one that peeled back the veil between the material and immaterial, the technological and the transcendent. Pasulka’s work is far more than a study of modern belief; it is a revelation of how the human soul still reaches for the heavens, even when cloaked in silicon, data, and coded light.

The book begins not in the skies, but on the ground — in the twisting roads of Silicon Valley, where Pasulka rides with Jacques Vallée, a man both scientist and mystic. Vallée’s quiet assertion that “there are many secrets in this valley” feels less like a warning and more like a prophecy. Silicon Valley is not just a hub of innovation; it has become a modern shrine. The servers, the algorithms, the satellites — all are new temples of an old yearning: to touch the infinite.

I could not help but read this through my own spiritual lens. I have long believed that the divine hides itself in the material, that consciousness and creation are intertwined expressions of one cosmic intelligence. To me, Vallée and Pasulka were not driving through a valley of code and commerce; they were gliding through a sacred topography — one where humanity’s technological ambition mirrors our forgotten divinity.

The Invisible Tyler D. — Prophet or Projection?

In the first chapter, Pasulka introduces us to Tyler D., a mysterious aerospace engineer whose life reads like a modern gospel of revelation. Tyler claims to receive inspiration — even technological blueprints — from non-human intelligences. Pasulka treats him not as a crank, but as a case study in how belief manifests. To her, he represents a new priesthood of the postmodern world: engineers and scientists as mystics of the machine.

I found Tyler fascinating — not because of his supposed contact experiences, but because of what he represents spiritually. He is the archetype of humanity awakening to its role as co-creator. Just as ancient prophets received visions in dreams or from angelic messengers, Tyler’s revelations emerge through the circuitry of the modern mind. Pasulka, wisely, does not ask us to believe or disbelieve him. She asks us to see how the sacred continues to speak, even when the medium is technological rather than theological.

James and the Multiverse — Science as Scripture

The second chapter introduces James, another experiencer who blends quantum physics, consciousness theory, and mystical insight. To some readers, James may seem unhinged by his own brilliance, but to me, he embodies a truth long ignored by orthodoxy: that the universe is mental, that thought is the substrate of all that exists.

Pasulka follows James into discussions of parallel realities and consciousness as a cosmic field. Though she writes as a scholar, she cannot hide her awe — and neither could I. Reading this chapter felt like watching Paul on Mars Hill, speaking to philosophers about an “unknown God,” except this time the God was woven into quantum code.

I was reminded that the boundaries between science and spirituality are artificial. Whether we call it “information,” “energy,” or “Spirit,” the substance of reality is one. Pasulka’s gift is her ability to let that unity shimmer without forcing the reader to kneel before it.

In the Field — Where the Virtual and the Real Collide

Pasulka’s fieldwork reveals the cost of encountering the unknown. She meets people whose lives have been broken — marriages fractured, reputations destroyed — all because they witnessed something that shattered their sense of reality. Her description of the “virtual war” is haunting: how belief itself can become a battlefield where human minds are both combatants and casualties.

In my spiritual reading, this chapter exposes the shadow side of revelation. To awaken is to risk madness; to glimpse the unseen is to carry the burden of knowledge others cannot bear. The blood, as she says, is real. Yet even in that pain, there is sanctity. It reminded me of the prophets who saw the divine and trembled, or of Paul who said he “heard unspeakable words.” Mystical revelation has always demanded a price — the loss of certainty.

When Star Wars Became Real — The Mythic Mechanism of Belief

Pasulka then turns to the media, to how films like Star Wars have reshaped our cosmology. Here she becomes almost prophetic herself, showing that Hollywood has become the new cathedral of imagination. We are taught not to believe in angels, but in extraterrestrials; not in miracles, but in advanced technology. Yet the archetypes are the same. The longing for salvation, the encounter with higher intelligences, the battle between light and darkness — these are eternal myths wearing digital clothes.

From my vantage, this chapter captures the esoteric truth that myth and reality are reciprocal. As we imagine, so we manifest. Humanity has always created its gods in the image of its aspirations. The ancient pantheons emerged from agriculture and empire; our new deities emerge from circuitry and code. Belief, as Pasulka shows, is not dying — it is migrating.

The Material Code — Quantum Souls and the Physics of Spirit

Chapter five is where Pasulka wades into the most daring territory: the intersection of consciousness and quantum information. She suggests that the soul may have a material correlate — that information itself could be the bridge between spirit and matter.

This struck a deep chord within me. I have long believed that consciousness is not confined to the brain, that it pervades all of creation. Quantum information may be science’s fledgling attempt to describe what mystics have always known: that reality is a unified field of divine intelligence. The body is not a prison for the soul; it is the instrument through which the cosmic mind plays its symphony of experience.

Pasulka’s restraint here is admirable. She resists the temptation to reduce spirituality to science or science to faith. Instead, she lingers in the tension — a place I know well, where faith and reason orbit one another like twin stars.

The Human Receiver — Contact as Communion

By Chapter six, Pasulka introduces the concept of the “human receiver.” Some individuals, she suggests, are tuned to frequencies of information that most cannot perceive. Whether these experiences are neurological, spiritual, or both remains open.

This idea resonated deeply with me. Scripture, mysticism, and even Hermetic thought agree that humanity is not merely flesh and blood but antennae of divine consciousness. To receive higher frequencies is to participate in the cosmic dialogue — to become, in essence, a prophet of the new aeon.

Yet Pasulka’s brilliance lies in her compassion. She sees the pain and confusion in those who experience such contact. She does not exalt them as saints nor dismiss them as delusional. She recognizes the fragile beauty of the human vessel that receives signals from eternity.

Passport to Magonia: A Journey Between Worlds Book Review

"This book is a great read" ~ Joe Machuta

Jacques Vallee’s Passport to Magonia is not merely a study of UFOs or folklore—it is a revelation about consciousness itself. Beneath the surface of his meticulous documentation lies a sacred whisper: the human race has always lived in communion with intelligences beyond its comprehension. Whether they appear as angels, fairies, or space travelers, these beings are mirrors reflecting the evolving landscape of the human spirit.

Vallee begins by revisiting history’s luminous visitors—mysterious lights, sky ships, and radiant messengers that have appeared for millennia. He recognizes in these stories not random superstition but an enduring pattern. Each generation, he observes, describes its encounters using the language of its era. The medieval farmer saw heavenly ships sailing the clouds, while the twentieth-century pilot saw metallic disks darting across radar screens. The phenomenon adapts to human consciousness, speaking in symbols our minds can grasp.

This realization transforms the question from What are they? to What are we seeing within ourselves? Vallee dares to suggest that these visions arise from an interface between mind and matter, spirit and symbol. For me, this insight resonates deeply with the esoteric understanding of the Logos—the living Word that shapes all realities. The “visitors” are not alien intruders from a distant galaxy but manifestations of the same divine intelligence that animates creation. They are projections of cosmic consciousness, entering our world as teachers, tricksters, and mirrors.

Vallee’s use of Walter Wentz’s The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries sets the tone for this exploration. Wentz described the unseen world as a deep sea beneath life’s bright surface, teeming with both beauty and terror. Vallee dives into that same sea, uncovering stories that echo across centuries: luminous objects hovering near trees, small beings in radiant garments, portals of light opening and closing in silence. These are not modern anomalies but ancient visitations retold through new eyes. The “fair folk” of Celtic lore have become the “occupants” of flying saucers. The myth persists because its essence is true—the cosmos is alive with mind.

In The Secret Commonwealth, Wentz warned that one must wear armor to descend into the deep, for both the angelic and the dreadful dwell there. Vallee’s stories confirm this polarity. The luminous visitors can inspire awe, but they can also unsettle, deceive, and confound. He calls them “messengers of deception,” yet even their deceit serves a higher lesson. In every authentic encounter with the transcendent, discernment is required. Just as Paul warned that “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light,” Vallee’s research reminds us that spiritual growth demands clarity of perception. The phenomenon provokes us to separate appearance from essence, symbol from reality.

When Vallee introduces his concept of a “control system,” he does not imply malevolent manipulation but a cosmic pedagogy. The phenomenon, he suggests, behaves as though it were guiding human consciousness, subtly shaping our myths and expectations. To me, this aligns perfectly with the Christic understanding of divine providence. The Logos—the Mind of God—continuously interacts with creation, adapting revelation to the maturity of the soul. What Vallee calls “control” I see as cooperation: consciousness teaching itself through its own reflections.

The deeper message of Passport to Magonia is that reality is participatory. The universe evolves as we evolve. When humanity’s collective awareness expands, the symbols of the sacred evolve with it. The shepherd saw angels; the alchemist saw elementals; the astronaut sees extraterrestrials. Each is gazing into the same eternal mirror. The beings who cross the veil are not foreigners from the stars but emissaries of consciousness reminding us that we, too, are multidimensional beings.

Vallee’s notion of the “Invisible College” further develops this theme. He describes a quiet network of scientists, scholars, and mystics who study the phenomenon without public recognition. To me, they represent the hidden Church—the communion of awakened souls scattered across disciplines, bound not by doctrine but by insight. They know that matter is not solid and that mind is not confined to the brain. Their pursuit of truth is itself a sacrament, bridging science and mysticism into a new synthesis.

Throughout the book, Vallee dismantles the arrogance of reductionist science. The UFO, he argues, is not a machine but a symbol of transcendence—part technology, part vision, wholly mystery. Witnesses describe luminous craft that move as if thought were their propulsion, and beings whose presence bends time and space. These accounts suggest not engineering but imagination made visible. To the mystic, this is the natural order: all form arises from consciousness. The heavenly vehicle is thought clothed in light, the same creative Word that spoke the worlds into being.

Vallee’s return to Magonia at the book’s end is a call to humility. He does not offer a definitive answer but invites us to embrace mystery. The Magonians—the aerial people of legend—may be real in ways that transcend physical proof. They may inhabit the subtle realms where thought becomes matter, where souls dwell between incarnations, where the divine experiments with possibility. They may even be us—our future, our higher selves, our unfallen archetypes whispering from beyond the veil.

For me, Passport to Magonia is a modern Gospel of the unseen. It teaches that creation is layered, consciousness eternal, and that humanity stands at the threshold of remembrance. The same forces that ancient prophets called angels and Celtic seers named fairies still move among us, clothed now in the garments of modernity. Their purpose is not invasion but invitation: to awaken us to the fact that we have never been alone.

Reimagining Christianity: Many Mansions, Beyond Heaven as a Place!

When I reflect on the idea of heaven, I cannot help but question whether it was ever intended to be described as a place at all. The dominant vision that shaped much of Christian preaching and imagination — heaven as a city in the sky, streets of gold, angels in choirs — may be more of a theological construction than a faithful reading of the earliest traditions. When I look back at the Ebionites, the Gnostics, and even the Gospel writers themselves, I see not one singular vision of destiny but many, each pointing toward a reality much broader than a static location above the clouds. The Ebionites, clinging to their Jewish roots, longed for a messianic kingdom planted firmly on this earth. The Gnostics, by contrast, dismissed the heavens themselves as a trap, something to be transcended rather than entered. Mark, the earliest evangelist, had little to say about heaven at all, emphasizing instead resurrection and vindication through suffering. Luke, who gives us the word of Jesus to the thief on the cross, spoke of paradise as an interim state, but even his hope remained grounded in resurrection and kingdom. Paul’s “citizenship in heaven” was never meant to cancel out embodied life but to anchor believers in God’s authority while waiting for transformation. And John’s Revelation, for all its imagery of a celestial city, is clear that the New Jerusalem descends — heaven comes to earth.

It is fascinating to see how the language of Paul and Revelation became literalized. Paul’s phrase “Jerusalem above” was symbolic, pointing to the community of the Spirit already existing in God’s presence. Revelation’s vision of a descending city was an apocalyptic metaphor for God’s reign joining heaven and earth. Yet, over centuries, these were reinterpreted as descriptions of an actual otherworldly place waiting for us after death. Combined with Greek philosophical ideas of the immortal soul — Plato’s insistence that the true self lives on in separation from the body — Christianity increasingly emphasized heaven as a celestial homeland. This became the dominant imagery, reinforced by Augustine’s beatific vision and by medieval art that painted heaven as a walled city glowing above the earth. But I can’t help but see this as a narrowing of the biblical vision. Eternal life was never only about a destination; it was about participation in the life of God, here and now, with the promise that this reality extends beyond death into realms we can barely imagine.

The Gnostics were closer to something I sense to be true. They understood that what we call heaven could not be reduced to a place within the cosmic order, for to them the heavens themselves were ruled by archons. Their hope was to move through those layers and return to the pleroma, the fullness beyond. While I do not embrace their disdain for creation, I recognize the wisdom in their refusal to equate salvation with entering one more realm inside the cosmos. What if eternal life is not about reaching one final destination but about journeying through infinite dimensions of being? What if Jesus’ promise of “many mansions” in his Father’s house is not a poetic description of real estate in the sky but a metaphor for the soul’s eternal exploration? Each “mansion” could be a dimension, a mode of existence, a room in the infinite dwelling of God.

This harmonizes with how I view reincarnation. Not in the karmic sense of punishment and escape, but as an eternal and divine exploration of the infinite. Each lifetime, each embodiment, each existence in a given plane is another “mansion” we occupy for a season. We are not trapped in a cycle to be escaped, but rather invited to walk hallways of endless possibility. The Christ within us is not leading us to a static heaven but awakening us to the reality that we are eternal consciousnesses, sparks of the divine Logos, meant to experience the whole. This vision makes sense of why Jesus told the disciples in John’s gospel, “In my Father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you.” The “place” is not a fixed city but another dimension of being, one prepared for our continued growth.

When I consider the Ebionites’ hope of an earthly kingdom, I do not see them as wrong but as partial. They wanted restoration, justice on earth, the Messiah enthroned. In truth, each dimension has its own form of justice and its own mode of restoration. To the Ebionites, that meant a messianic reign in Jerusalem. To the Gnostics, it meant freedom from the material and a return to the divine fullness. Both were touching on aspects of reality. For Mark, vindication after suffering was enough, and for Luke, paradise as a temporary state gave comfort. But none of them, not even John in Revelation, seemed to mean what later Christians assumed: a static heaven where we remain forever. They were groping toward mystery, using language available to them, while later theology too quickly systematized it into doctrine.

Even Paul’s “citizenship in heaven” is richer when seen this way. He was not saying our souls will one day depart to a homeland above but that our identity is anchored in a realm that transcends earthly empires. Citizenship in heaven means we belong to the eternal dimensions of God, even as we live in this world. It is a metaphor of allegiance and destiny, not geography. And Revelation’s New Jerusalem, descending and radiant, is not a blueprint of a heavenly city but a symbol of heaven and earth united, of dimensions overlapping, of God’s presence breaking into every layer of existence. When read in this way, Paul and Revelation no longer point us to a singular “heaven above” but to the infinite, ever-expanding presence of God.

I find myself questioning whether heaven as “a place” was a theological convenience that obscured this larger truth. The soul’s eternal existence in various dimensions makes far more sense of Jesus’ teaching, of John’s gospel, and of my own experience of the divine. Heaven is not where we go; it is what we awaken to. Each time we pass through the veil of death, we awaken to another mansion, another dimension of being, and our eternal journey continues. God’s love, unconditional and inexhaustible, ensures that we explore it all. Just as reincarnation provides continuity within this earthly life, so too does it point to continuity across dimensions. The journey never ends because God is infinite, and to know Him is to endlessly experience Him.

When orthodoxy fixed heaven as a final place, it may have closed the doors too soon. It replaced exploration with arrival, growth with stasis. But what if eternal life is not about reaching the gates of pearl but about living forever in the unfolding mystery of God’s mansions? What if the fear of death was conquered by Jesus not to deliver us into a walled city but to remind us that we are already citizens of the infinite? The many mansions are not distant rooms but dimensions of consciousness that reveal themselves as we awaken. The eschaton is not an end but an eternal beginning.

And so I come back to the central question: is heaven a place, or is it a metaphor pointing to the eternal expanses of divine being? For me, the answer is clear. The heavens as places may exist, but they are not the final goal. They are stages along the way, dimensions within the many mansions. Our true destiny is eternal participation in God’s being, experienced through countless embodiments, lifetimes, and dimensions. Heaven is not a city in the clouds but the infinite dwelling of God where every room is a new adventure, every hallway a new discovery, every door a new incarnation of the soul’s eternal journey.

 

John Vs Luke and the Holy Spirit

When I step back and look at the earliest Jesus movement, I see not one single stream but a collection of conflicting visions, each grappling with who Jesus was and what his message truly meant. The Ebionites, rooted firmly in Jewish identity, believed Jesus was the Messiah for Israel. They saw him as a human prophet chosen by God, not divine, and insisted that his followers should remain Torah-observant. Their movement reflected a Judaism unwilling to let go of the covenantal boundary markers that had always defined God’s people. On the other hand, Paul, while often treated as the great liberator from Jewish Law, was still very much Jewish in his thinking. He framed his gospel in covenantal terms but stretched the covenant to include Gentiles. For Paul, the great dividing wall had come down, yet he still thought in terms of covenant fidelity, justification, and a new Israel formed around faith in Christ rather than the works of Torah. His vision was less about abolishing Jewishness and more about finding a way for Gentiles to enter God’s promises without becoming fully Jewish. In that sense, he was not abandoning Judaism but trying to reimagine it in a way that could accommodate the nations.

Peter stood caught in between these visions. In Galatians, Paul recalls Peter eating with Gentiles until pressure from the circumcision party made him withdraw. That hesitation is telling. Peter embodied the deep tension in the early movement: was this way of Jesus a reform within Judaism, a sect like the Pharisees or Essenes, or was it destined to break free as a message for the entire world? Peter’s waffling shows how unsettled the question really was. Luke, a loyal follower of Paul, wrote his gospel and Acts of the Apostles in part to smooth over these cracks. He parallels Peter and Paul, showing them both healing the lame, both enduring visions, both suffering for the gospel, as if to say there was never really a split between them. Luke’s careful narration works to make Paul’s mission seem like the natural and Spirit-led continuation of what the apostles began.

But Luke’s harmonization is strained when compared with John. In Luke 24:49, Jesus instructs the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they are “clothed with power from on high.” This anticipates Acts 2, where the Spirit comes at Pentecost with rushing wind, tongues of fire, and the miraculous breaking of language barriers. For Luke, this is the moment the church is born, with authority vested in the apostles who waited in obedience. Luke’s theology pushes the Spirit into the future, tying it to an institutional launch and grounding authority in Jerusalem’s leadership.

John, however, tells a very different story. In John 20:22, the risen Jesus breathes on the disciples and gives them the Spirit immediately after the resurrection. There is no waiting, no centralized Jerusalem event, no public spectacle. The Spirit is not postponed but imparted as an intimate, mystical gift tied to resurrection life itself. These two accounts contradict one another—not in minor detail, but in the very heart of what the Spirit means. Was the Spirit a future empowerment for public mission and institutional order (Acts 2)? Or was the Spirit already present as an inward awakening given directly by Jesus (John 20:22)?

This contradiction reveals competing theological trajectories. Luke presents the Spirit as the foundation of a visible church, rooted in history and authority, with Pentecost as the cornerstone. John collapses the timetable and makes the Spirit universal and immediate—less about institutional birth and more about personal transformation. In Luke, the apostles are gatekeepers of the Spirit’s work. In John, every believer who encounters the risen Christ receives the Spirit without mediation. These visions could not be more different, and they shaped how early communities understood themselves: as an ordered body born at Pentecost, or as awakened souls already infused with divine breath.

But John doesn’t stop there. In John 20:21, right before breathing on his disciples, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Traditionally this has been read as a call to missionary activity or evangelism, but in John’s mystical register it takes on a deeper meaning. Jesus had come to awaken humanity to the indwelling Logos, to liberate people from forgetfulness of their divine origin. To be “sent” in the same way is not to march out with institutional authority, but to embody that same work of awakening. His disciples were to do as he did—breathing life into others, calling forth the divine spark already within them. The Spirit was not a tool of conquest, but the breath of recognition.

John 17:20 reinforces this vision. In his prayer, Jesus says, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Again, the language is not of institutional expansion but of the ripple effect of awakening. Those who experience the indwelling Logos share that experience, and others awaken in turn. The chain of belief in John is not about coercion, creed, or centralized church growth. It is about the light of the Logos passing from one awakened heart to another until “all may be one” in divine consciousness.

This is why John’s gospel feels so different. It is not about waiting for a distant Pentecost event, nor about establishing institutional authority, nor even about traditional missionary outreach. It is about immediate encounter and universal awakening. The Spirit is breathed forth in resurrection; the disciples are sent as awakeners in the same manner as Jesus; and the prayer of Christ looks forward to a community of people who recognize their shared indwelling in the divine.

When viewed this way, the trajectory becomes clearer. The Ebionites tethered Jesus firmly to Jewish identity. Paul cracked open the door, making covenant promises available to Gentiles while still framing everything within a Jewish story. Peter oscillated, revealing the tension of the times. Luke stitched the pieces together to present a seamless narrative of unity, grounding the Spirit in Pentecost and institutional order. But John broke the frame. His Jesus was not merely a Jewish Messiah or even the founder of a new covenant community, but the living Logos who reveals the divine spark within all humanity. In John’s vision, the Spirit does not wait for Pentecost—it is breathed forth in the resurrection, present wherever the Logos is recognized. And when Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he is not commissioning evangelists in the traditional sense, but awakening liberators—disciples who, like him, would breathe forth the Spirit to call people into remembrance of their divine origin.

And so, the contradiction between Luke and John becomes more than a quirk of memory or tradition. It symbolizes two competing visions of Christianity itself: one of structure, order, and historical institution; the other of immediacy, mysticism, and personal awakening. Across the centuries, the church has swung back and forth between these poles—between Luke’s Pentecost and John’s breath—trying to reconcile authority with freedom, history with mystery, order with Spirit.

Today, that same tension remains. Denominations built on hierarchy, sacraments, and creeds echo Luke’s Pentecost model, grounding their legitimacy in apostolic succession and centralized authority. Meanwhile, charismatic movements, mystical seekers, and esoteric Christians lean into John’s vision, hearing in Jesus’ words a call not to conquest but to awakening: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” In this light, Christianity is not about enforcing belief but about recognizing the Logos already dwelling within, breathing life into others until all realize their oneness in God.