<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Religions & Spirituality]]> https://www.scivillage.com/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 22:28:58 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Give AI a religion and it won't kill us + (UK) How rapist priest exploited charisma]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21483.html Sat, 03 Oct 2026 17:03:13 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21483.html Give AI a religion and it won't kill us, scientist argues
https://youtu.be/XjrQkohPxOQ

INTRO: AI is getting more capable and more dangerous by the day, and nobody knows how to keep it on our side. One computer scientist has an answer as creative as simple: give AI a religion. Specifically, tell it that we're all living inside a computer simulation run by an omniscient programmer-god. Ingenious or stupid? Let's take a look. ..... PAPER: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16987

Sabine Hossenfelder ... https://youtu.be/XjrQkohPxOQ

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XjrQkohPxOQ

(UK) How rapist priest exploited charisma to abuse his 'cult-like' congregation
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ck1wv7nlg7rwo

INTRO: In the detailed written instructions given to the young women who worked without pay in the then-Reverend Chris Brain's house, there was a revealing demand. The homebase team, as they were known, were to "do anything" the Church of England priest asked of them.

Routine tasks - assigned on a rota 24 hours a day, seven days a week - included cooking, cleaning, ironing, shopping, looking after Brain's young daughter, and walking his dog. This housework was intended to free Brain for his mission of leading the Nine O'Clock Service (NOS), a radical congregation of hundreds of young people drawn weekly to a Sheffield church in the 1980s and 1990s by a fusion of rave culture, live music, environmental activism and liturgy.

But the lengthy list of homebase team duties did not spell out other demands Brain made in the attic bedroom of his family's end-terrace house in the suburb of Crookes, heard jurors at his retrial on charges of rape and indecent assault. On Friday at Inner London Crown Court, the 69-year-old was found guilty of raping one woman in his congregation and four indecent assaults against three others.

He had already been convicted of 17 indecent assaults in August 2025 but faced a retrial as jurors could not reach verdicts on five further counts. Brain will be sentenced later this year and has been told he is facing a custodial term.

His sentencing will conclude a dramatic and protracted downfall for a preacher who at one point had been preparing to take NOS global with expansion to the US... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Your astral body]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21440.html Sun, 27 Sep 2026 20:39:29 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21440.html
The astral body coincides with the physical throughout. Both bodies being "substance", it is obvious that both will be identical in shape; and the phantom is, in appearance, an exact duplicate of the physical body. Surviving what is termed "death," the astral body is often seen by others present at death – the true likeness of the physical. After death, the phantom continues to hold this true form, but sooner or later changes to a much more finely composed spirit.

The range of vibration to which our earthly existence is limited does not extend over all creation; consequently we are unaware of the vast realities all around us. When the astral phantom (whose eyes you are using even now in reading this) becomes tuned up – which it can be – those eyes will be able to see other things besides the familiar surroundings, and the astral body will be able to get out of the physical. The fact that the eyes, after projection, are capable of seeing earthly and other astral beings too shows that the range of vibration has increased.

This may appear paradoxical to one who is accustomed to the idea that the conscious mind is a part of the physical mechanism. In fact, the material body has no mind at all, but clings over the astral, to speak symbolically, which is the real "Ego" – through which the conscious mind really functions. It is erroneous to believe that the astral being has a super-mentality. It has not. The conscious mind, as you know it, is the mind of the astral body. Your normal, conscious mind – everything it contains – is the YOU, you the individual, now and thoughout eternity, learning as it goes."--------
Sylvan J. Muldoon and Hereward Carrington, The Projection Of The Astral Body]]>
The astral body coincides with the physical throughout. Both bodies being "substance", it is obvious that both will be identical in shape; and the phantom is, in appearance, an exact duplicate of the physical body. Surviving what is termed "death," the astral body is often seen by others present at death – the true likeness of the physical. After death, the phantom continues to hold this true form, but sooner or later changes to a much more finely composed spirit.

The range of vibration to which our earthly existence is limited does not extend over all creation; consequently we are unaware of the vast realities all around us. When the astral phantom (whose eyes you are using even now in reading this) becomes tuned up – which it can be – those eyes will be able to see other things besides the familiar surroundings, and the astral body will be able to get out of the physical. The fact that the eyes, after projection, are capable of seeing earthly and other astral beings too shows that the range of vibration has increased.

This may appear paradoxical to one who is accustomed to the idea that the conscious mind is a part of the physical mechanism. In fact, the material body has no mind at all, but clings over the astral, to speak symbolically, which is the real "Ego" – through which the conscious mind really functions. It is erroneous to believe that the astral being has a super-mentality. It has not. The conscious mind, as you know it, is the mind of the astral body. Your normal, conscious mind – everything it contains – is the YOU, you the individual, now and thoughout eternity, learning as it goes."--------
Sylvan J. Muldoon and Hereward Carrington, The Projection Of The Astral Body]]> <![CDATA[Christians struggling with the enigma of Cain's wife]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21412.html Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:37:40 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21412.html 1st theory: Since the births of female offspring aren't recorded, Cain simply married a sister. Like House Targaryen, incest might explain why there is so much insanity among humans. A second possibility was ventured by the young lad in the film The Savage Is Loose: That Cain might have stolen his mother Eve from his father, in the course of fleeing to the "land of Nod". But that's anticipating a certain Greek play and a Freudian complex well before their time.

2nd theory: Other human-like beings existed before Adam, and Cain took one of them as wife.

3rd theory: In Hebrew, "Adam" also supposedly refers to mankind in general (plural). But in its "ledger" detours Genesis also states that Adam lived 930 years. So that negates the rival option that "Adam" only refers to humans in general rather than also a single individual.
- - - - - - -

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant. Seems like a pretty simple statement, right? Well, actually, no, because there's something off about this sentence. One word that triggers one of the most divisive debates in human history.

And these three doors lead to three different answers to our dilemma. At this point in the story, the Bible has named exactly four people: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, who is dead. So, we really now only have three named people, which poses the question, who did Cain marry?

The first time I actually stopped on that verse, I sat there for a good minute, because it gets even stranger. Look at this. When God confronts Cain over Abel's murder, Cain doesn't panic about punishment. He panics about people. "Whoever finds me will kill me," he said. Whoever? Who exactly is out there looking for you, Cain? And then a few verses later, Cain goes off and builds a city. A city for who? Here's what I find fascinating about all of this.

[...] Marcus is presented with three doors, three realities we will adventure through together. Three doors that answer the exact same question very differently...

[...] When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. Names, ages, sons, deaths. This is not the language of poetry. That's the language of a ledger, bookkeeping. And ledgers make a claim just by their format. This happened to these people in this order. The writer of Genesis 5 is not just giving you a fun character exposition. He's giving you a historical record. But, here's the part I love about the Bible's genealogies.

It's exactly what many people point to as the reason why they don't even bother reading the Bible. They think it's just a story stuffed with name after name. To that, we say, "Exactly." Made-up stories don't read like tax records. Nobody writing a fairy tale stops the action to march through Seth, then Enosh, then Cainan, then Mahalalel, then Jared, and so on, and so on. Other than maybe George R.R. Martin. You write like that when you're keeping real records of real people...

The Humans BEFORE Adam and Eve were SCARY ... https://youtu.be/L87ooPlt2cg

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/L87ooPlt2cg]]> 1st theory: Since the births of female offspring aren't recorded, Cain simply married a sister. Like House Targaryen, incest might explain why there is so much insanity among humans. A second possibility was ventured by the young lad in the film The Savage Is Loose: That Cain might have stolen his mother Eve from his father, in the course of fleeing to the "land of Nod". But that's anticipating a certain Greek play and a Freudian complex well before their time.

2nd theory: Other human-like beings existed before Adam, and Cain took one of them as wife.

3rd theory: In Hebrew, "Adam" also supposedly refers to mankind in general (plural). But in its "ledger" detours Genesis also states that Adam lived 930 years. So that negates the rival option that "Adam" only refers to humans in general rather than also a single individual.
- - - - - - -

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant. Seems like a pretty simple statement, right? Well, actually, no, because there's something off about this sentence. One word that triggers one of the most divisive debates in human history.

And these three doors lead to three different answers to our dilemma. At this point in the story, the Bible has named exactly four people: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, who is dead. So, we really now only have three named people, which poses the question, who did Cain marry?

The first time I actually stopped on that verse, I sat there for a good minute, because it gets even stranger. Look at this. When God confronts Cain over Abel's murder, Cain doesn't panic about punishment. He panics about people. "Whoever finds me will kill me," he said. Whoever? Who exactly is out there looking for you, Cain? And then a few verses later, Cain goes off and builds a city. A city for who? Here's what I find fascinating about all of this.

[...] Marcus is presented with three doors, three realities we will adventure through together. Three doors that answer the exact same question very differently...

[...] When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. Names, ages, sons, deaths. This is not the language of poetry. That's the language of a ledger, bookkeeping. And ledgers make a claim just by their format. This happened to these people in this order. The writer of Genesis 5 is not just giving you a fun character exposition. He's giving you a historical record. But, here's the part I love about the Bible's genealogies.

It's exactly what many people point to as the reason why they don't even bother reading the Bible. They think it's just a story stuffed with name after name. To that, we say, "Exactly." Made-up stories don't read like tax records. Nobody writing a fairy tale stops the action to march through Seth, then Enosh, then Cainan, then Mahalalel, then Jared, and so on, and so on. Other than maybe George R.R. Martin. You write like that when you're keeping real records of real people...

The Humans BEFORE Adam and Eve were SCARY ... https://youtu.be/L87ooPlt2cg

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/L87ooPlt2cg]]> <![CDATA[Confronting Anubis]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21401.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:51:05 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21401.html
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2446747092463137]]>
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2446747092463137]]> <![CDATA[A trillion different realities (Sunni Chapman)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21322.html Sat, 12 Sep 2026 22:56:57 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21322.html
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1517144050217082]]>
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1517144050217082]]> <![CDATA[A million different realities]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21321.html Sat, 12 Sep 2026 22:55:54 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21321.html
https://scontent-sea5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...e=6AABB594]]>
https://scontent-sea5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...e=6AABB594]]> <![CDATA[Do you want more than THIS?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21263.html Fri, 04 Sep 2026 18:10:26 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21263.html
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7uqa2TMzag4]]>
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7uqa2TMzag4]]> <![CDATA[Why does music ease pain? Drexel researchers map the evidence (spiritual sounds)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21251.html Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:00:01 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21251.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1142615

INTRO: Many studies have demonstrated that music-based interventions – such as listening to music – can help reduce pain from a variety of conditions like cancer or osteoarthritis, but researchers still do not understand how and why it helps. A new review study led by Joke Bradt, PhD, a professor in Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions, examined biological, psychological and social mechanisms that may explain the pain-reducing effects of music. The study, recently published in PAIN Reports, identified important gaps that future research on music-based interventions for pain relief should address.

“In clinical care, music-based interventions may range from music listening initiated by the patient — or recommended by a healthcare provider, like a doctor or a nurse — to music experiences facilitated by a trained music therapist,” said Bradt, who leads the Music4Pain Research Network, a National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health-funded, multi-disciplinary network that helps advance music and pain mechanistic research. “The findings from our study help explain why music can be an effective, low-risk approach for pain management and how we can maximize its potency.”

Bradt and the research team found converging evidence for three promising mechanisms that contribute to the effectiveness of music-based interventions:

positive emotional valence associated with music
sense of control or agency, such as choosing one's own music
synchronizing movement with music, such as tapping or drumming along with the music

positive emotional valence associated with music
sense of control or agency, such as choosing one's own music
synchronizing movement with music, such as tapping or drumming along with the music

This evidence, Bradt explained, suggests that it is important for people to select their own music that they enjoy – rather than music provided by the healthcare provider – and that they should actively engage by tapping, playing or moving along with it when using music for pain management... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[True spirituality]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21219.html Sun, 30 Aug 2026 18:17:32 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21219.html 2d
@damienechols
Substack

"Most forms of spirituality are built around accumulation. You memorize scriptures, collect initiations, learn new systems, read more books, or acquire more terminology. You can become someone who knows a great deal about Buddhism, magick, alchemy, Christianity, or whatever path you happen to follow. Because accumulation feels like progress, the ego loves it. Every new piece of information gives it something else to possess or another identity to build: “I know this. I’ve received that initiation. I understand what other people don’t.”

The Way moves in the opposite direction. It is not about how much you can acquire, it’s about how much you can put down. Beliefs, concepts, identities, explanations, and even the need to understand what is happening. The deeper you go, the less there is to carry. Eventually even the teachings themselves have to be released, because the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The purpose of the path is not to make you into someone who knows more. It is to strip away everything standing between you and direct experience of what is here."]]> 2d
@damienechols
Substack

"Most forms of spirituality are built around accumulation. You memorize scriptures, collect initiations, learn new systems, read more books, or acquire more terminology. You can become someone who knows a great deal about Buddhism, magick, alchemy, Christianity, or whatever path you happen to follow. Because accumulation feels like progress, the ego loves it. Every new piece of information gives it something else to possess or another identity to build: “I know this. I’ve received that initiation. I understand what other people don’t.”

The Way moves in the opposite direction. It is not about how much you can acquire, it’s about how much you can put down. Beliefs, concepts, identities, explanations, and even the need to understand what is happening. The deeper you go, the less there is to carry. Eventually even the teachings themselves have to be released, because the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The purpose of the path is not to make you into someone who knows more. It is to strip away everything standing between you and direct experience of what is here."]]> <![CDATA[The lone path of the Shaman]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21199.html Thu, 27 Aug 2026 19:01:44 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21199.html
“All spiritual schools worth their salt teach that there cannot be Light without Shadow. This means that any spiritual path is going to confront people with their own shadow and our collective shadow as much as their capacity to feel love and light. This surprises many who prefer to think that one can exist without the other. This is one of the many reasons why high quality spiritual teachings are of crucial importance right now. Spirituality is about living an authentic life, questioning every single choice we make, owning our own side of any difficult encounter, being awake to every single mirror the Universe holds up.”― Trevor Greenfield, Shaman Pathways - What is Shamanism?

“A shaman and a writer each serve as their communities’ seers by engaging in extraordinary acts of conscientious study of the past and the present and predicting the future. An inner voice calls to the shaman and an essayistic writer to answer the call that vexes the pernicious spirit of their times. Shamanistic writers induce a trance state of mind where they lose contact with physical reality through a rational disordering of the senses, in an effort to encounter for the umpteenth time the great unknown and the unutterable truths that structure existence. An afflicted person seeking clarification of existence cannot ignore the shamanistic calling of narrative exposition. Thus, I shall continue this longwinded howl – making a personal immortality vessel – into the darkness of night forevermore.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

"The numinous experience of the individuation process is, on the archaic level, the prerogative of shamans and medicine men; later, of the physician, prophet, and priest; and finally, at the civilized stage, of philosophy and religion …. The shaman’s experience of sickness, torture, death, and regeneration implies, at a higher level, the idea of being made whole through sacrifice, of being changed by transubstantiation and exalted into a pneumatic man in a word, of apotheosis." ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 448.

"I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness… Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman."-----Alan Moore

“The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue”― Carlos Castaneda, The Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Mexico Their Thoughts About Life Death & the Universe

[Image: https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama...7x516.jpeg]

]]>
“All spiritual schools worth their salt teach that there cannot be Light without Shadow. This means that any spiritual path is going to confront people with their own shadow and our collective shadow as much as their capacity to feel love and light. This surprises many who prefer to think that one can exist without the other. This is one of the many reasons why high quality spiritual teachings are of crucial importance right now. Spirituality is about living an authentic life, questioning every single choice we make, owning our own side of any difficult encounter, being awake to every single mirror the Universe holds up.”― Trevor Greenfield, Shaman Pathways - What is Shamanism?

“A shaman and a writer each serve as their communities’ seers by engaging in extraordinary acts of conscientious study of the past and the present and predicting the future. An inner voice calls to the shaman and an essayistic writer to answer the call that vexes the pernicious spirit of their times. Shamanistic writers induce a trance state of mind where they lose contact with physical reality through a rational disordering of the senses, in an effort to encounter for the umpteenth time the great unknown and the unutterable truths that structure existence. An afflicted person seeking clarification of existence cannot ignore the shamanistic calling of narrative exposition. Thus, I shall continue this longwinded howl – making a personal immortality vessel – into the darkness of night forevermore.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

"The numinous experience of the individuation process is, on the archaic level, the prerogative of shamans and medicine men; later, of the physician, prophet, and priest; and finally, at the civilized stage, of philosophy and religion …. The shaman’s experience of sickness, torture, death, and regeneration implies, at a higher level, the idea of being made whole through sacrifice, of being changed by transubstantiation and exalted into a pneumatic man in a word, of apotheosis." ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 448.

"I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness… Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman."-----Alan Moore

“The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue”― Carlos Castaneda, The Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Mexico Their Thoughts About Life Death & the Universe

]]> <![CDATA[On recognizing egregores...]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21175.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 22:38:27 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21175.html https://narapetrovic.com/society/we-are-...egregores/

"Long ago wise men realized that faith and attention—if only they are intense and focused on a specific set of ideas and/or an influential (real or fictional) personality—can create an independent entity that acquires personal traits, character and power and begins to exert control back on its creators, and if necessary also on other groups and even natural environment. Such an entity was called egregore (from the Greek root eger: to be aware of, to control). The larger the group and the more their awareness is directed towards a certain egregore, the greater and stronger its power the greater the control. If you give the egregore your awareness, the egregore will include you in its control and power, to put it bluntly.

The term egregore (spelled also egregor) was used almost exclusively in occult circles to denote a magical entity, purposely created by a group (an order, fraternity, cult) to represent their common aspirations and ideals in a condensed form. This may seem like some primitive voodoo magic but when you bring it into the modern context, you may well recognize how strong egregores actually are in your everyday life.

In 1976 in the book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins described something similar to egregore without metaphysical and magical connotations. Richard probably never heard about egregore, and his coinage meme (analogous to gene) spans biological and sociological frameworks. Meme denotes a cultural idea, social practice, concept or activity that becomes a norm and is (sub)consciously repeated in society. It could also be defined as a thought that acquires its own identity when spreading through society, as an idea that counts as a replicator, specifically in the sense of it acting as a parasite, forcing people to reproduce it (just like viruses do).

The term is sometimes used in the context of “meme complex” to denote a group of memes that support each other and form a general belief system, e.g. religion. This use suggests that cultural evolution, wherein selection is based on the adaptation of ideas, has surpassed biological evolution, in which selection is based on hereditary characteristics. When we marry egregore with meme, we arrive at a biological entity that may, in a sense, be considered alive, capable of spreading, reproducing, proliferating and parasitizing entire cultures..."

[Image: images-2026-08-24-T154101-073.jpg]

]]> https://narapetrovic.com/society/we-are-...egregores/

"Long ago wise men realized that faith and attention—if only they are intense and focused on a specific set of ideas and/or an influential (real or fictional) personality—can create an independent entity that acquires personal traits, character and power and begins to exert control back on its creators, and if necessary also on other groups and even natural environment. Such an entity was called egregore (from the Greek root eger: to be aware of, to control). The larger the group and the more their awareness is directed towards a certain egregore, the greater and stronger its power the greater the control. If you give the egregore your awareness, the egregore will include you in its control and power, to put it bluntly.

The term egregore (spelled also egregor) was used almost exclusively in occult circles to denote a magical entity, purposely created by a group (an order, fraternity, cult) to represent their common aspirations and ideals in a condensed form. This may seem like some primitive voodoo magic but when you bring it into the modern context, you may well recognize how strong egregores actually are in your everyday life.

In 1976 in the book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins described something similar to egregore without metaphysical and magical connotations. Richard probably never heard about egregore, and his coinage meme (analogous to gene) spans biological and sociological frameworks. Meme denotes a cultural idea, social practice, concept or activity that becomes a norm and is (sub)consciously repeated in society. It could also be defined as a thought that acquires its own identity when spreading through society, as an idea that counts as a replicator, specifically in the sense of it acting as a parasite, forcing people to reproduce it (just like viruses do).

The term is sometimes used in the context of “meme complex” to denote a group of memes that support each other and form a general belief system, e.g. religion. This use suggests that cultural evolution, wherein selection is based on the adaptation of ideas, has surpassed biological evolution, in which selection is based on hereditary characteristics. When we marry egregore with meme, we arrive at a biological entity that may, in a sense, be considered alive, capable of spreading, reproducing, proliferating and parasitizing entire cultures..."

]]> <![CDATA[Spiritual connotations of the CE-5 experiencer movement]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21152.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 22:07:03 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21152.html
A “Close Encounter of the First Kind” (CE-1) is a visual sighting from less than 150 metres away. A CE-2 involves physiological effects on the surrounding environment. A CE-3 involves observing non-human entities operating the UFO.

Five years after Hynek’s book appeared, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind established CE-3 in popular culture.

Communicating with UAP

Later researchers expanded Hynek’s classification. A “Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind” refers to abduction into a UAP. A “Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind” (CE-5) alleges human-initiated communication with the non-human intelligence operating UAP, whether extraterrestrials, time-travellers or so-called interdimensional beings.

Those who claim to have had such encounters are commonly called — as in Spielberg’s newly released film, Disclosure Day — “experiencers.”

CE-5 is not just a category of experience, though. During the past three decades, it has developed into a ritual protocol practised by a global community. Groups gather in wilderness settings around the world with the intention to initiate contact using various techniques. Some use laser pointers to send visual signals into the sky and geiger counters to measure fluctuations in radiation levels.

Stroboscopic light and musical entrainment have also been observed alongside mantra recitations, and transcendental meditation focused on “coherent thought sequencing” (where practitioners visualize their consciousness extending into deep space before sending a telepathic invitation to the operators of UAP to visit Earth).

Practioners of CE-5 ritual protocol also report telepathic communication, “photon dialogue” through flashing lights and bodily sensations from UAP that they interpret as interspecies communication.

Shamanism with a technological twist

Is CE-5 a new religious movement?

Although practitioners reject the label “religion,” their activities constitute a protocol enabling extraordinary experiences with superior, sky-dwelling entities. The fact that their efforts to connect with extraterrestrials draw upon telepathy and altered states of consciousness suggests a ritual form commonly associated with shamanism, yet with advanced technological mediation.

Calling CE-5 a “religion” may also reduce convictions about extraterrestrial presence from questions of reality to matters of belief or conspiracy, reflecting the long-standing cultural dismissal of UFOs and “little green men.”

Religious or not, CE-5 practitioners draw on 80 years of UFO lore to advance a cosmology in which consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that enables telepathic communication with superior, non-human intelligence visiting Earth.

CE-5 protocol also resembles a ritual séance. It combines transcendental meditation, cosmic visualization, telepathic communication and an experience of “internal communication” through which bodily sensations become direct signs of extraterrestrial contact.

This has interesting parallels with anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s research on Evangelical Christianity in America and how church-goers feel themselves to be in direct communication with God through bodily sensations and religious interpretations of their inner voice.

CE-5 practitioners regard extraterrestrials as benevolent, highly intelligent beings physically present in space and around Earth.

Are they, as religious studies scholar Diana Pasulka asked in her 2019 book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, the angels of the secular space age? Rather than genuine contact, do they instead represent an unconscious desire to re-enchant the de-spiritualized cosmos?

A salvation narrative

Many CE-5 practitioners believe that the U.S. government, in tandem with defence contractors, possesses recovered extraterrestrial craft and that scientists have secretly reverse-engineered alien technologies.

These claims have been advanced by figures with overlapping views such as former military and intelligence officers Col. Philip J. Corso, Luis Elizondo and David Grusch (who testified under oath before U.S. Congress that a secret arms race exists to recover and exploit non-human technology that has crashed or landed on Earth). The U.S. government has denied these claims.

Within CE-5 communities, the “disclosure” event in which the government admits to possessing alien technology also functions as a salvation narrative. That’s because official confirmation promises technological liberation from fossil fuels, leading to the dawn of a free energy civilization.

As in millenarian movements, the anticipated post-disclosure world is always imminent but perpetually deferred.

What if close encounters are real?

CE-5 bears many hallmarks of a new religious movement emerging from the intersection of science, technology and modern anxieties. It may indeed re-enchant a desanctified universe viewed through secular scientific frameworks.

Yet, UAP present an unusual challenge. The U.S. government has acknowledged that UAP are real, even as it maintains there’s no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial origin. And so it’s possible that CE-5 may not be based solely on faith and imagination but on experiencers’ interpretations of authentic encounters with an advanced, non-human intelligence.

Regardless of whether the anomalous experiences reported during CE-5s involve genuine contact with non-human intelligence, the practice has certainly emerged as a ritual of cosmological transition."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...30542.html]]>
A “Close Encounter of the First Kind” (CE-1) is a visual sighting from less than 150 metres away. A CE-2 involves physiological effects on the surrounding environment. A CE-3 involves observing non-human entities operating the UFO.

Five years after Hynek’s book appeared, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind established CE-3 in popular culture.

Communicating with UAP

Later researchers expanded Hynek’s classification. A “Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind” refers to abduction into a UAP. A “Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind” (CE-5) alleges human-initiated communication with the non-human intelligence operating UAP, whether extraterrestrials, time-travellers or so-called interdimensional beings.

Those who claim to have had such encounters are commonly called — as in Spielberg’s newly released film, Disclosure Day — “experiencers.”

CE-5 is not just a category of experience, though. During the past three decades, it has developed into a ritual protocol practised by a global community. Groups gather in wilderness settings around the world with the intention to initiate contact using various techniques. Some use laser pointers to send visual signals into the sky and geiger counters to measure fluctuations in radiation levels.

Stroboscopic light and musical entrainment have also been observed alongside mantra recitations, and transcendental meditation focused on “coherent thought sequencing” (where practitioners visualize their consciousness extending into deep space before sending a telepathic invitation to the operators of UAP to visit Earth).

Practioners of CE-5 ritual protocol also report telepathic communication, “photon dialogue” through flashing lights and bodily sensations from UAP that they interpret as interspecies communication.

Shamanism with a technological twist

Is CE-5 a new religious movement?

Although practitioners reject the label “religion,” their activities constitute a protocol enabling extraordinary experiences with superior, sky-dwelling entities. The fact that their efforts to connect with extraterrestrials draw upon telepathy and altered states of consciousness suggests a ritual form commonly associated with shamanism, yet with advanced technological mediation.

Calling CE-5 a “religion” may also reduce convictions about extraterrestrial presence from questions of reality to matters of belief or conspiracy, reflecting the long-standing cultural dismissal of UFOs and “little green men.”

Religious or not, CE-5 practitioners draw on 80 years of UFO lore to advance a cosmology in which consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that enables telepathic communication with superior, non-human intelligence visiting Earth.

CE-5 protocol also resembles a ritual séance. It combines transcendental meditation, cosmic visualization, telepathic communication and an experience of “internal communication” through which bodily sensations become direct signs of extraterrestrial contact.

This has interesting parallels with anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s research on Evangelical Christianity in America and how church-goers feel themselves to be in direct communication with God through bodily sensations and religious interpretations of their inner voice.

CE-5 practitioners regard extraterrestrials as benevolent, highly intelligent beings physically present in space and around Earth.

Are they, as religious studies scholar Diana Pasulka asked in her 2019 book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, the angels of the secular space age? Rather than genuine contact, do they instead represent an unconscious desire to re-enchant the de-spiritualized cosmos?

A salvation narrative

Many CE-5 practitioners believe that the U.S. government, in tandem with defence contractors, possesses recovered extraterrestrial craft and that scientists have secretly reverse-engineered alien technologies.

These claims have been advanced by figures with overlapping views such as former military and intelligence officers Col. Philip J. Corso, Luis Elizondo and David Grusch (who testified under oath before U.S. Congress that a secret arms race exists to recover and exploit non-human technology that has crashed or landed on Earth). The U.S. government has denied these claims.

Within CE-5 communities, the “disclosure” event in which the government admits to possessing alien technology also functions as a salvation narrative. That’s because official confirmation promises technological liberation from fossil fuels, leading to the dawn of a free energy civilization.

As in millenarian movements, the anticipated post-disclosure world is always imminent but perpetually deferred.

What if close encounters are real?

CE-5 bears many hallmarks of a new religious movement emerging from the intersection of science, technology and modern anxieties. It may indeed re-enchant a desanctified universe viewed through secular scientific frameworks.

Yet, UAP present an unusual challenge. The U.S. government has acknowledged that UAP are real, even as it maintains there’s no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial origin. And so it’s possible that CE-5 may not be based solely on faith and imagination but on experiencers’ interpretations of authentic encounters with an advanced, non-human intelligence.

Regardless of whether the anomalous experiences reported during CE-5s involve genuine contact with non-human intelligence, the practice has certainly emerged as a ritual of cosmological transition."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...30542.html]]> <![CDATA[Spiritual connotations of the CE-5 experiencer movement]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21151.html Fri, 21 Aug 2026 22:05:58 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21151.html
A “Close Encounter of the First Kind” (CE-1) is a visual sighting from less than 150 metres away. A CE-2 involves physiological effects on the surrounding environment. A CE-3 involves observing non-human entities operating the UFO.

Five years after Hynek’s book appeared, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind established CE-3 in popular culture.

Communicating with UAP

Later researchers expanded Hynek’s classification. A “Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind” refers to abduction into a UAP. A “Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind” (CE-5) alleges human-initiated communication with the non-human intelligence operating UAP, whether extraterrestrials, time-travellers or so-called interdimensional beings.

Those who claim to have had such encounters are commonly called — as in Spielberg’s newly released film, Disclosure Day — “experiencers.”

CE-5 is not just a category of experience, though. During the past three decades, it has developed into a ritual protocol practised by a global community. Groups gather in wilderness settings around the world with the intention to initiate contact using various techniques. Some use laser pointers to send visual signals into the sky and geiger counters to measure fluctuations in radiation levels.

Stroboscopic light and musical entrainment have also been observed alongside mantra recitations, and transcendental meditation focused on “coherent thought sequencing” (where practitioners visualize their consciousness extending into deep space before sending a telepathic invitation to the operators of UAP to visit Earth).

Practioners of CE-5 ritual protocol also report telepathic communication, “photon dialogue” through flashing lights and bodily sensations from UAP that they interpret as interspecies communication.

Shamanism with a technological twist

Is CE-5 a new religious movement?

Although practitioners reject the label “religion,” their activities constitute a protocol enabling extraordinary experiences with superior, sky-dwelling entities. The fact that their efforts to connect with extraterrestrials draw upon telepathy and altered states of consciousness suggests a ritual form commonly associated with shamanism, yet with advanced technological mediation.

Calling CE-5 a “religion” may also reduce convictions about extraterrestrial presence from questions of reality to matters of belief or conspiracy, reflecting the long-standing cultural dismissal of UFOs and “little green men.”

Religious or not, CE-5 practitioners draw on 80 years of UFO lore to advance a cosmology in which consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that enables telepathic communication with superior, non-human intelligence visiting Earth.

CE-5 protocol also resembles a ritual séance. It combines transcendental meditation, cosmic visualization, telepathic communication and an experience of “internal communication” through which bodily sensations become direct signs of extraterrestrial contact.

This has interesting parallels with anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s research on Evangelical Christianity in America and how church-goers feel themselves to be in direct communication with God through bodily sensations and religious interpretations of their inner voice.

CE-5 practitioners regard extraterrestrials as benevolent, highly intelligent beings physically present in space and around Earth.

Are they, as religious studies scholar Diana Pasulka asked in her 2019 book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, the angels of the secular space age? Rather than genuine contact, do they instead represent an unconscious desire to re-enchant the de-spiritualized cosmos?

A salvation narrative

Many CE-5 practitioners believe that the U.S. government, in tandem with defence contractors, possesses recovered extraterrestrial craft and that scientists have secretly reverse-engineered alien technologies.

These claims have been advanced by figures with overlapping views such as former military and intelligence officers Col. Philip J. Corso, Luis Elizondo and David Grusch (who testified under oath before U.S. Congress that a secret arms race exists to recover and exploit non-human technology that has crashed or landed on Earth). The U.S. government has denied these claims.

Within CE-5 communities, the “disclosure” event in which the government admits to possessing alien technology also functions as a salvation narrative. That’s because official confirmation promises technological liberation from fossil fuels, leading to the dawn of a free energy civilization.

As in millenarian movements, the anticipated post-disclosure world is always imminent but perpetually deferred.

What if close encounters are real?

CE-5 bears many hallmarks of a new religious movement emerging from the intersection of science, technology and modern anxieties. It may indeed re-enchant a desanctified universe viewed through secular scientific frameworks.

Yet, UAP present an unusual challenge. The U.S. government has acknowledged that UAP are real, even as it maintains there’s no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial origin. And so it’s possible that CE-5 may not be based solely on faith and imagination but on experiencers’ interpretations of authentic encounters with an advanced, non-human intelligence.

Regardless of whether the anomalous experiences reported during CE-5s involve genuine contact with non-human intelligence, the practice has certainly emerged as a ritual of cosmological transition"---]]>
A “Close Encounter of the First Kind” (CE-1) is a visual sighting from less than 150 metres away. A CE-2 involves physiological effects on the surrounding environment. A CE-3 involves observing non-human entities operating the UFO.

Five years after Hynek’s book appeared, Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind established CE-3 in popular culture.

Communicating with UAP

Later researchers expanded Hynek’s classification. A “Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind” refers to abduction into a UAP. A “Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind” (CE-5) alleges human-initiated communication with the non-human intelligence operating UAP, whether extraterrestrials, time-travellers or so-called interdimensional beings.

Those who claim to have had such encounters are commonly called — as in Spielberg’s newly released film, Disclosure Day — “experiencers.”

CE-5 is not just a category of experience, though. During the past three decades, it has developed into a ritual protocol practised by a global community. Groups gather in wilderness settings around the world with the intention to initiate contact using various techniques. Some use laser pointers to send visual signals into the sky and geiger counters to measure fluctuations in radiation levels.

Stroboscopic light and musical entrainment have also been observed alongside mantra recitations, and transcendental meditation focused on “coherent thought sequencing” (where practitioners visualize their consciousness extending into deep space before sending a telepathic invitation to the operators of UAP to visit Earth).

Practioners of CE-5 ritual protocol also report telepathic communication, “photon dialogue” through flashing lights and bodily sensations from UAP that they interpret as interspecies communication.

Shamanism with a technological twist

Is CE-5 a new religious movement?

Although practitioners reject the label “religion,” their activities constitute a protocol enabling extraordinary experiences with superior, sky-dwelling entities. The fact that their efforts to connect with extraterrestrials draw upon telepathy and altered states of consciousness suggests a ritual form commonly associated with shamanism, yet with advanced technological mediation.

Calling CE-5 a “religion” may also reduce convictions about extraterrestrial presence from questions of reality to matters of belief or conspiracy, reflecting the long-standing cultural dismissal of UFOs and “little green men.”

Religious or not, CE-5 practitioners draw on 80 years of UFO lore to advance a cosmology in which consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe that enables telepathic communication with superior, non-human intelligence visiting Earth.

CE-5 protocol also resembles a ritual séance. It combines transcendental meditation, cosmic visualization, telepathic communication and an experience of “internal communication” through which bodily sensations become direct signs of extraterrestrial contact.

This has interesting parallels with anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann’s research on Evangelical Christianity in America and how church-goers feel themselves to be in direct communication with God through bodily sensations and religious interpretations of their inner voice.

CE-5 practitioners regard extraterrestrials as benevolent, highly intelligent beings physically present in space and around Earth.

Are they, as religious studies scholar Diana Pasulka asked in her 2019 book American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology, the angels of the secular space age? Rather than genuine contact, do they instead represent an unconscious desire to re-enchant the de-spiritualized cosmos?

A salvation narrative

Many CE-5 practitioners believe that the U.S. government, in tandem with defence contractors, possesses recovered extraterrestrial craft and that scientists have secretly reverse-engineered alien technologies.

These claims have been advanced by figures with overlapping views such as former military and intelligence officers Col. Philip J. Corso, Luis Elizondo and David Grusch (who testified under oath before U.S. Congress that a secret arms race exists to recover and exploit non-human technology that has crashed or landed on Earth). The U.S. government has denied these claims.

Within CE-5 communities, the “disclosure” event in which the government admits to possessing alien technology also functions as a salvation narrative. That’s because official confirmation promises technological liberation from fossil fuels, leading to the dawn of a free energy civilization.

As in millenarian movements, the anticipated post-disclosure world is always imminent but perpetually deferred.

What if close encounters are real?

CE-5 bears many hallmarks of a new religious movement emerging from the intersection of science, technology and modern anxieties. It may indeed re-enchant a desanctified universe viewed through secular scientific frameworks.

Yet, UAP present an unusual challenge. The U.S. government has acknowledged that UAP are real, even as it maintains there’s no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial origin. And so it’s possible that CE-5 may not be based solely on faith and imagination but on experiencers’ interpretations of authentic encounters with an advanced, non-human intelligence.

Regardless of whether the anomalous experiences reported during CE-5s involve genuine contact with non-human intelligence, the practice has certainly emerged as a ritual of cosmological transition"---]]> <![CDATA[Alien spacecraft are on the Moon (spiritual astronomy)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21125.html Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:33:08 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21125.html https://youtu.be/4WUril5ij5g

VIDEO EXCERPTS: A group of astronomers says they've spotted more than twenty giant unidentified objects racing around the Moon, some of them forty kilometres across, and that the Moon serves as a base for them. The Daily Mail loved it. My bullshit meter did not survive it. But underneath all this nonsense there's a serious question that almost nobody is looking into. Let's take a look.

[...] The paper is not peer-reviewed and comes from three researchers in Ukraine. Two of them already made headlines four years ago when they claimed they had observed extremely fast UFOs over Ukraine. Their own institution subsequently published a report saying that the authors had an error in their data analysis. The distance to the objects was much less than they thought. So the objects were much smaller and much slower. The new paper basically has the same problem.

[...] No, I don't think any of these were alien spacecraft, but I do think it's very possible that sometime in the past billion years or so, extra terrestrials came by our solar system and had a look at our planet. And they'd most likely have done that from the moon. Maybe their technology is indeed still there.

And this isn't just something I made up. In 2013, two physicists argued in a peer-reviewed paper that we should search for alien artifacts on the moon. Their reasoning was that the lunar surface changes incredibly slowly, which is both great for observations and great for preservation of whatever was doing the observation. They estimate that an object a few tens of meters across could take hundreds of millions of years to disappear through impacts. Concretely, they say we might find instrumentation deliberately installed to monitor Earth or a dominant probe awaiting contact.

This search still hasn't been done. You also don't have a database dedicated to moon anomalies. Anomalous moon observations are usually lumped together with general UAP sightings. I think it would be a good idea to keep these separate because if you're looking to explain them, these explanations would have to be very different.

I mean, look, the European Union has a database for potato types. I feel like moon UFOs could get at least a spreadsheet. In other news, a physicist just wrote a paper claiming that some of the observed unidentified anomalous phenomena are dark matter. Chances are, if we ever find actual aliens, physicists will explain they're a previously unknown type of dark matter....

https://youtu.be/4WUril5ij5g

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/4WUril5ij5g]]> https://youtu.be/4WUril5ij5g

VIDEO EXCERPTS: A group of astronomers says they've spotted more than twenty giant unidentified objects racing around the Moon, some of them forty kilometres across, and that the Moon serves as a base for them. The Daily Mail loved it. My bullshit meter did not survive it. But underneath all this nonsense there's a serious question that almost nobody is looking into. Let's take a look.

[...] The paper is not peer-reviewed and comes from three researchers in Ukraine. Two of them already made headlines four years ago when they claimed they had observed extremely fast UFOs over Ukraine. Their own institution subsequently published a report saying that the authors had an error in their data analysis. The distance to the objects was much less than they thought. So the objects were much smaller and much slower. The new paper basically has the same problem.

[...] No, I don't think any of these were alien spacecraft, but I do think it's very possible that sometime in the past billion years or so, extra terrestrials came by our solar system and had a look at our planet. And they'd most likely have done that from the moon. Maybe their technology is indeed still there.

And this isn't just something I made up. In 2013, two physicists argued in a peer-reviewed paper that we should search for alien artifacts on the moon. Their reasoning was that the lunar surface changes incredibly slowly, which is both great for observations and great for preservation of whatever was doing the observation. They estimate that an object a few tens of meters across could take hundreds of millions of years to disappear through impacts. Concretely, they say we might find instrumentation deliberately installed to monitor Earth or a dominant probe awaiting contact.

This search still hasn't been done. You also don't have a database dedicated to moon anomalies. Anomalous moon observations are usually lumped together with general UAP sightings. I think it would be a good idea to keep these separate because if you're looking to explain them, these explanations would have to be very different.

I mean, look, the European Union has a database for potato types. I feel like moon UFOs could get at least a spreadsheet. In other news, a physicist just wrote a paper claiming that some of the observed unidentified anomalous phenomena are dark matter. Chances are, if we ever find actual aliens, physicists will explain they're a previously unknown type of dark matter....

https://youtu.be/4WUril5ij5g

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/4WUril5ij5g]]> <![CDATA[Dawkins' neo-Darwinism is itself a religious theory?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21079.html Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:29:55 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21079.html https://iai.tv/articles/dawkins-neo-darw..._auid=2020

INTRO: We often see evolutionary theory as the enemy of religion. But in Darwin’s day, many scientists thought otherwise. Neo-Darwinism, today championed by atheists like Richard Dawkins, was founded by a devout Christian, who explicitly tied its mechanistic vision of life to a world ordered by God’s laws. In contrast, argues Stanford historian of science Jessica Riskin, the anti-mechanistic theory of Lamarck—which grants living beings genuine creativity—was attacked as dangerously atheistic. Riskin argues that today’s supporters of neo-Darwinism have forgotten its theological roots, and that Lamarck’s theory, with its radical, anti-theological motivations, should be taken more seriously... (MORE - details)]]> https://iai.tv/articles/dawkins-neo-darw..._auid=2020

INTRO: We often see evolutionary theory as the enemy of religion. But in Darwin’s day, many scientists thought otherwise. Neo-Darwinism, today championed by atheists like Richard Dawkins, was founded by a devout Christian, who explicitly tied its mechanistic vision of life to a world ordered by God’s laws. In contrast, argues Stanford historian of science Jessica Riskin, the anti-mechanistic theory of Lamarck—which grants living beings genuine creativity—was attacked as dangerously atheistic. Riskin argues that today’s supporters of neo-Darwinism have forgotten its theological roots, and that Lamarck’s theory, with its radical, anti-theological motivations, should be taken more seriously... (MORE - details)]]>