I wouldn’t normally comment on the furor over the recent school boy antics of Ross and Brand (But did I laugh – like a good schoolboy myself I laughed AT Ross and Brand as they merrily got themselves into trouble. So carried away were they by their mischief making that they never saw the visit to headmaster’s office coming!). However, the incident has brought to my mind an interview some years ago on one of Jonathan Ross’ shows when his guest was a UFO abductee. Heck! I thought, Mr. Ross is going to have a field day here with some very cruel humor. Well, I didn’t turn out like that at all.
I was already familiar with abduction case in question and I could probably find it in my “Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters”: Two young men are travelling in car at night on a country road. They briefly see a strange illuminated object in the sky which disappears behind a shoulder of land. They round a corner and there it is right in front of them dropping a curtain of light onto the road. Too late to stop they pass into the curtain. They seem to come straight out the other side, except that whilst passing through the curtain, the interior of the car appeared to momentarily drop away into a silent blackness. Later they find they have ‘lost time’ and hypnotic regression reveals an abduction experience..blah.. blah..blah. The two men are deeply disturbed, sometimes returning to the site, taking measurements as they attempt to unravel the mystery of their experience and try to come to terms with what has happened.
So, Mr. Jonathan Ross now steps onto the stage of this mysterious drama. True to form Ross started with some rather jocular comment. However, from the demeanor of the abductee Ross was very quick to pick up that this was a man whose experience had left a very deep impression and was in state of extreme disquiet. Ross changed tack quickly and questioned his guest thoughtfully and sensitively. Ross' own demeanor suggested that he was now taking the man seriously, a man who perhaps needed help. Gone was Ross’ sly and knowing looks into the camera. In this instance Ross showed great sensitivity to the man’s plight. Whatever the nature of the experience it was clear that it was real in the sense that it was very real to Ross’ guest. It may not have been ‘real’ real, but the man didn’t look as though he was lying and Ross understood that. Ross as a presenter has, no doubt, very good person to person skills when he wants to, and his quick change of tack is a sign of Ross' ability to quickly size up a person . In this case his assessment is evidence of the genuineness of his interviewee. Perhaps Ross himself was taken aback by the gravitas of his guest.
This story does suggest that at heart Ross isn’t a cruel man; and does he need someone to put a good word in for him at the moment! However, more disturbing is the import of the story brought to us by Jonathan Ross’ guest. It is an apt Halloween story containing a dark warning that the demonic still marches on the edge of human consciousness and dreams, if in an altered garb matching the culture of our day. What is the nature of this mysterious world, this archetypical reality? If I could answer that one I’d know the difference between noumnena, cognita and dreams.
As Authur C Clarke once said in one of his books. “There are forces in the universe of which we know nothing ....such knowledge is not meant for man”*. If an atheist can say that, then on this Halloween evening the take home lesson is: stay well clear of the occult in whatever guise it is found.
*This was said by Clarke in connection with spontaneous human combustion in his chronicles of the strange and the mysterious.
I was already familiar with abduction case in question and I could probably find it in my “Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters”: Two young men are travelling in car at night on a country road. They briefly see a strange illuminated object in the sky which disappears behind a shoulder of land. They round a corner and there it is right in front of them dropping a curtain of light onto the road. Too late to stop they pass into the curtain. They seem to come straight out the other side, except that whilst passing through the curtain, the interior of the car appeared to momentarily drop away into a silent blackness. Later they find they have ‘lost time’ and hypnotic regression reveals an abduction experience..blah.. blah..blah. The two men are deeply disturbed, sometimes returning to the site, taking measurements as they attempt to unravel the mystery of their experience and try to come to terms with what has happened.
So, Mr. Jonathan Ross now steps onto the stage of this mysterious drama. True to form Ross started with some rather jocular comment. However, from the demeanor of the abductee Ross was very quick to pick up that this was a man whose experience had left a very deep impression and was in state of extreme disquiet. Ross changed tack quickly and questioned his guest thoughtfully and sensitively. Ross' own demeanor suggested that he was now taking the man seriously, a man who perhaps needed help. Gone was Ross’ sly and knowing looks into the camera. In this instance Ross showed great sensitivity to the man’s plight. Whatever the nature of the experience it was clear that it was real in the sense that it was very real to Ross’ guest. It may not have been ‘real’ real, but the man didn’t look as though he was lying and Ross understood that. Ross as a presenter has, no doubt, very good person to person skills when he wants to, and his quick change of tack is a sign of Ross' ability to quickly size up a person . In this case his assessment is evidence of the genuineness of his interviewee. Perhaps Ross himself was taken aback by the gravitas of his guest.
This story does suggest that at heart Ross isn’t a cruel man; and does he need someone to put a good word in for him at the moment! However, more disturbing is the import of the story brought to us by Jonathan Ross’ guest. It is an apt Halloween story containing a dark warning that the demonic still marches on the edge of human consciousness and dreams, if in an altered garb matching the culture of our day. What is the nature of this mysterious world, this archetypical reality? If I could answer that one I’d know the difference between noumnena, cognita and dreams.
As Authur C Clarke once said in one of his books. “There are forces in the universe of which we know nothing ....such knowledge is not meant for man”*. If an atheist can say that, then on this Halloween evening the take home lesson is: stay well clear of the occult in whatever guise it is found.
*This was said by Clarke in connection with spontaneous human combustion in his chronicles of the strange and the mysterious.
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