Mike Clelland, Owls and Extended Consciousness |387|

Alex

Administrator
Mike Clelland, Owls and Extended Consciousness |387|
Share
Tweet


Mike Clelland has forever changed how we think about owls, ET and extended consciousness.
387-mike-clelland-skeptiko-300x300.jpg


photo by: Skeptiko
I have an interview coming up with Mike Clelland. If you don’t recognize the name, but you’ve heard about this thing with UFOs and owls – that’s Mike. He’s written a couple of great books on this topic (The Messengers, Stories from the Messengers) and it’s a fascinating little area to pull apart, in terms of understanding how this extended consciousness stuff merges with this UFO alien abduction stuff.

So, we talk all about that and we also talk about the connection between that experience and the near-death experience and other extended consciousness experiences and it was great. I really enjoyed having Mike on the show and I hope you enjoy this interview.

Alex Tsakiris: Why do you suppose you were the one chosen to tap into it, or do you believe that you were the one chosen to tap into it? What are your thoughts around that? I mean, Google, ‘owls – UFO’, bam, there’s one guy, you’re the guy.

Mike Clelland: Yes. I have pondered, I have no proof of this. So, I have a missing time event in 1974. I don’t have any memories of being onboard a UFO, but, all the stuff around it sure seems like that. Did they like zap me, did they like sit me down in some sort of altered state and say, “In 45 years you will be the guy who answers five emails a day about owls.”

So, I’ve wondered that, and it feels like that. I have no proof of it but it kind of feels like that. My life was going one way, boom, it just shot off in a different direction and now I am stuck with this, and I have to say, it is so wildly rewarding. It is so fun to have this small little niche. I keep on thinking, like the high school history teacher, if the student came up and said, “I’m going to write a report on World War II,” the history teacher would say, “Oh, let’s rein that in a little bit.” So, you would kind of go from being in the Pacific, to an island, to one guy, to one boat, to one [unclear 00:03:03], to one afternoon and then you write your report. That’s what it feels like to me. It’s like, “Well, golly, I can write a book about UFOs,” and it’s like, “Don’t go down that road.” But, this tiny little freckle has been so rewarding, and it was out there, and I looked, and I found a lot of them. In a lot of books there’s a paragraph or two about owls.

Alex Tsakiris: Well, that’s kind of the point. It was out there, but it wasn’t out there.

Mike Clelland: It was whispered, and it had a small… and it was mostly, what would be referred to as the screen memory aspect of the owls, which is a part of the UFO abduction research. It is a small part of it but the more interesting thing to me is people are seeing real owls in these moments. That, to me, is remarkable.
 
I'm replying just to get on the reply notification chain. Haven't listened yet, but I'm well aware of Mike and his owl book. I think it's next on my Kindle to-do list.
 
I really liked this episode, and it reminded me of an owl experience I had in my 20's on the night my then girlfriend's father had died. A white owl flew directly over us out of nowhere while we were walking to the car on our way to leave to drive to be with her family and prepare for the funeral. It felt like the Truman Show; like the director chose the moment we were walking to the car to cue the white owl to give us a direct flyby on the same night her father died, and make sure we saw it happen. It was too coincidental; I had never seen an owl there before or after that time, and don't think I've ever seen a white owl in nature any other time, period. It was so surreal, but also hyper specific; I couldn't think of a more ideal time for a direct symbol of death and transformation to appear in nature and not any of the other times that it would have just been an owl in nature. It felt so obvious that someone was giving us a cosmic wink and nod. That moment kept returning to me through out this episode.

My experience that night is one of a handful of things that helped pull me from the camp of an angry, disenfranchised Baptist turned atheist, into... something greater. I keep it in my bag of reasons that life is NOT meaningless and without purpose, and that our conscious experience is tied to whatever that meaning and purpose may be.
 
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

[The question was expressed in a rather circuitous way and I tried to extract the essence of it while keeping as many of the words Alex actually used as I could: I hope I got it right.]

On the one hand there's the apparently nuts-and-bolts aspect of the UFO/alien/abduction experience where these beings/phenomena seem to have mastered technology in a way where we want to say (pretending we understand what it means): "We get that, they're just a little bit or even a lot ahead of us". On the other hand, from a spiritual standpoint, all this relates to NDEs, spiritual components of the abduction experience, etc.

Of the two aspects, why are we less comfortable with diving into the spiritual zone?
 
Of the two aspects, why are we less comfortable with diving into the spiritual zone?

Who's we?

I was a materialist atheist when I bought a book on UFO's to read because I thought it would be entertaining. But I found the evidence was compelling so I read more on the subject. After reading many books and finding clues scattered throughout the literature that there seemed to be some project going on involving aliens and souls of the dead, I decided to start reading about the evidence for the afterlife. I started with a book about the medium George Anderson and read many more and realized the evidence for the afterlife is convincing. Eventually I took classes in spirit communication at a Spiritualist church.

I am not uncomfortable with the spiritual zone. However some people try to use the spiritual aspects to deny the nuts and bolts aspects. I think you have to accept both. You can't say an abduction, passing through closed windows, floating up to a UFO, is just a spiritual phenomena because there is physical evidence associated with abductions.

Spiritual phenomena are also natural phenomena. The only reason we distinguish between nuts and bolts and the spiritual is because we don't understand how they are related through natural law.
 
I really liked this episode, and it reminded me of an owl experience I had in my 20's on the night my then girlfriend's father had died. A white owl flew directly over us out of nowhere while we were walking to the car on our way to leave to drive to be with her family and prepare for the funeral. It felt like the Truman Show; like the director chose the moment we were walking to the car to cue the white owl to give us a direct flyby on the same night her father died, and make sure we saw it happen. It was too coincidental; I had never seen an owl there before or after that time, and don't think I've ever seen a white owl in nature any other time, period. It was so surreal, but also hyper specific; I couldn't think of a more ideal time for a direct symbol of death and transformation to appear in nature and not any of the other times that it would have just been an owl in nature. It felt so obvious that someone was giving us a cosmic wink and nod. That moment kept returning to me through out this episode.

My experience that night is one of a handful of things that helped pull me from the camp of an angry, disenfranchised Baptist turned atheist, into... something greater. I keep it in my bag of reasons that life is NOT meaningless and without purpose, and that our conscious experience is tied to whatever that meaning and purpose may be.
amazing. I think you'd love Mike's books... not so much a plug, but if you've had these kinds of experiences...
 
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

[The question was expressed in a rather circuitous way and I tried to extract the essence of it while keeping as many of the words Alex actually used as I could: I hope I got it right.]

On the one hand there's the apparently nuts-and-bolts aspect of the UFO/alien/abduction experience where these beings/phenomena seem to have mastered technology in a way where we want to say (pretending we understand what it means): "We get that, they're just a little bit or even a lot ahead of us". On the other hand, from a spiritual standpoint, all this relates to NDEs, spiritual components of the abduction experience, etc.

Of the two aspects, why are we less comfortable with diving into the spiritual zone?

I heard Mike ages ago on THC, and it was good to hear him again in a different setting. I have a lot of time for his ideas. but I have not read his books, not out of a lack of interest, just time and opportunity.

I think we fundamentally misunderstand our technology in the wider scheme of things.

There are a couple clues from the “other side”.

First reality it is essentially animistic. This is consistently and persistently reported. However, it is fair to say that perhaps ‘animistic’ is an inadequate term. Our technology is not predicated on this insight about the nature of reality

The second is that “ET” operates across dimensions with ease. It seems they operate from a ‘concrete’ reality in one dimension that is either physical like ours, but is so far away it requires interdimensional travel to get here, or non-physical. Either way ET seems to move with great facility from one place/dimension to another.

No matter how things appear to us there is no way what we see or experience is material technology. It is as far from us as we are from the flint knapping of our stone age ancestors, at least.

At best what we experience are analogue expressions that are conjured in our conscious experience as ‘real’. Whether these are manipulations of energy to create an illusion of a material thing or the manipulation of our consciousness to influence our perception - or both - isn’t clear to me.

We are habituated to think our technology is marvellous, but an alternative, more modest assessment is that it is very crude and clunky. I loved Kevin Kelly’s Out of Controlin which he wrote about ‘slide rule’ technology compared with computer aided tech, which could give very measures of tolerance. The crudity of the internal combustion engine compared to the electric motor is a case in point.

Our efforts at robotics and AI are very crude, at the beginning of trying to make ‘intelligence’ devices. In an animistic sense our mechanical devices are the crudest efforts at making living agents. That is our instinct – to make a thing/being that mimics ourselves, or better.

Our tech seeks to overcome the limitations of time and space and gravity. The ‘efficiency’ we aim for is metaphysical or magical – where none of those constraints apply. It is, or should be, unsurprising that ET’s tech is both metaphysical and magical – though we really have no way of knowing whether it is crude or highly refined.

Our definition of technology is inadequate to the task. It is ‘science’ applied to practical ends, especially in industry. Let’s remember that ‘science’ is essentially knowledge. ‘Knowledge applied to practical ends’ is a way more useful definition. That embraces flint knapping and magic.

One of our challenges in getting our heads around what Mike puts to us is language. At the moment we don't have clear language for our increasing exposure to the metaphysical. Case in point, what do we really mean by 'spiritual'? Thirty years ago we didn't have the language for the tech boom that was about to engulf us. We invented new terms for for ideas that had no precedence. This is where we are at now.
 
It’s a bizarre, bizarre existence we have.

Yeah! The problem with either reality or illusion is that we really have nothing to compare it to, so bizarre seems okay. But alternatively, we could argue that it is also perfectly normal and what is bizarre are all the lies and bullshit that try to convince us otherwise.

We have become dull, compared to our ancestors. We have become dull because materialism and its priests have tried to induce us into a hypnotic delusion that reality is stable and predictable and bounded by clear and definite truths.

On then other hand mystics and shamans hint that what is real is more fluid and less certain or predictable. We are persuaded that such is madness, but only because we see those who crash, and not those who succeed in riding the crazy tide. The fails are exemplars whose message is "Do not go there!' This is my experience. Reality is dangerous to illusion and delusion. Which is bizarre?
 
Right. I’m still in the “transition” phase. The process of not thinking of ghosts and weird owl stuff etc not as spooky, but rather as normal part of realty, just as real and normal as the exercise bike I’m riding right now. But, even everyday “normal” existence I find to be bizarre and fascinating. If youre mind isn’t blown by existence, even “normal existence” then I can’t relate to you.
 
Right. I’m still in the “transition” phase. The process of not thinking of ghosts and weird owl stuff etc not as spooky, but rather as normal part of realty, just as real and normal as the exercise bike I’m riding right now. But, even everyday “normal” existence I find to be bizarre and fascinating. If youre mind isn’t blown by existence, even “normal existence” then I can’t relate to you.

I think you have hit the nail on the head.What is 'normal' is extraordinary - we have nothing to compare it to. The fact that we are accustomed to it is a different matter. I frequently wake up and look around my room, and think what a weird place I am in. I can't help but think that what we call reality is no more than what we project onto what we experience - and then we get all disconcerted when something we haven't made intrudes.

But i also think you have to be incredibly vulnerable and tenuous to live with that sense. That can be a strength as much as a danger (if you are persuaded it is an invalid mode of thought). For me that's a 'shamanic' way of being. Its not for everybody.

You seem to be comfortable with your perception, and that's an important thing
 
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

[The question was expressed in a rather circuitous way and I tried to extract the essence of it while keeping as many of the words Alex actually used as I could: I hope I got it right.]

On the one hand there's the apparently nuts-and-bolts aspect of the UFO/alien/abduction experience where these beings/phenomena seem to have mastered technology in a way where we want to say (pretending we understand what it means): "We get that, they're just a little bit or even a lot ahead of us". On the other hand, from a spiritual standpoint, all this relates to NDEs, spiritual components of the abduction experience, etc.

Of the two aspects, why are we less comfortable with diving into the spiritual zone?
I'm not less comfortable with it. It's headfirst for me. I think for others, it's too big of a leap to accept. It's difficult enough to believe that aliens are visiting us for most people. It becomes even harder if you throw another curve ball at them which states that, "oh, and these aliens might be ghosts or something of the sort." That is WAY too much for people to swallow. You really have to be exposed to a bunch of the data on consciousness, NDE, abduction/close encounters, OBEs, shamanism etc and you have to weigh it all and modify your default worldview some before you can even begin to take a theory like that seriously. People like those that you find here on the forum have put the time in and, therefore, can easily see the connection. If you don't put the time in and listen to account after account in all these areas and converse with people about it....you'll never make it to that step which states that "there is a strong spiritual/consciousness angle to this UFO/abduction thing.”

I think "spiritual" and "consciousness" (depending upon the context of the sentence) mean the exact same thing to me.
 
Last edited:
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

[The question was expressed in a rather circuitous way and I tried to extract the essence of it while keeping as many of the words Alex actually used as I could: I hope I got it right.]

On the one hand there's the apparently nuts-and-bolts aspect of the UFO/alien/abduction experience where these beings/phenomena seem to have mastered technology in a way where we want to say (pretending we understand what it means): "We get that, they're just a little bit or even a lot ahead of us". On the other hand, from a spiritual standpoint, all this relates to NDEs, spiritual components of the abduction experience, etc.

Of the two aspects, why are we less comfortable with diving into the spiritual zone?
I am actually more comfortable with the spiritual explanation of UFO's than the super-technological explanation. The problem is that the latter explanation implies that these 'folk' travel across the galaxy to play pranks, or perform crude biological experiments - it doesn't really make sense.

@Alex I have noticed that when someone is quoted, "the "go to post" button only works if the post in question is on the same page. I am fairly sure this is a new problem, has there been a software upgrade?

David
 
I am actually more comfortable with the spiritual explanation of UFO's than the super-technological explanation. The problem is that the latter explanation implies that these 'folk' travel across the galaxy to play pranks, or perform crude biological experiments - it doesn't really make sense.

@Alex I have noticed that when someone is quoted, "the "go to post" button only works if the post in question is on the same page. I am fairly sure this is a new problem, has there been a software upgrade?

David
I think the 'spiritual' merges with the 'super tech'. There are implications arising from Quantum Physics that push any supposedly material tech into less and less material dimensions as it advances. Even in the past near 2 centuries we have gone from entirely physical to semi-physical (electricity and radio for eg) to now incorporating QP.

When I was a kid growing up in western Victoria it took more than 6 weeks to get a letter from my grandparents in Northern Ireland, actually a birthday card with money in it. We didn't have a phone until the early 60s. There was a time when communication was entirely physical at every stage of transmission. Then we got telegraph and then radio - and now email. Now I can get an emailed animated card, money deposited in my account and a face to face birthday chat in no time at all. Compared to what I had as a kid this is mind boggling super tech. I am still blown away by what we can do - because I remember how it used to be.

Now only the start and end points are physical. In between things happen on the threshold of physicality. I can imagine it all going quantum in not too distant a future. So point to point, from physical departure to physical arrival facilitated by entirely metaphysical means.

But I agree about your point about on the "crude biological experiments". This has always puzzled me. Is this a 'screen memory'? Maybe the point of what we think of as 'crude biological experiments' is actually deeply subtle. It can't be what it appears to be, at least I don't think so. So it is...what?

I read Strieber very carefully, and he seemed to hint at something that fused metaphysically and complex tech. The evidence from astral travellers suggests that point to point in time or space in pretty much unimpeded in the other dimensions. There is evidence that our brains organise data into comprehensible and familiar forms - in essence analogising it. That suggests we configure experiences to conform with what we think is knowable and real. I have had experiences that substantiate this proposition.

If we adopt the materialist proposition that our reality is an actuality rather than an appearance, then appearances, analogies or otherwise must be taken to be 'real'. ET becomes an owl because, in the absence of accepting ET as real the next analogous image that know is real is an owl.

Remember that we are routinely fooled and misled about the nature of our reality. We can struggle to accept that what seems to be an owl is actually ET at the same time as being convince that some lying manipulative asshole is a benefactor. If you accept even a fraction of the less silly conspiracy theories there is no doubt that a whole bunch of truths are concealed behind 'screen knowledge' (that's my new term for lies - feel free to use it).

What we call 'spiritual' (concerning spirit rather than flesh) is the foundation of every enduring system of thought. It is only the Western development of that humanistic/atheistic/materialistic mentality that disrupts an otherwise substantially consistent fact. For eg the global manifestation of very similar stonework, said to go back at least 25k years, is not likely to have been done by clunky mechanical tech. It is more likely on the spiritual/magical scale than the physical/mechanical.

i think if we understand tech as the application of knowledge to practical ends then it can be located anywhere in the spectrum of dimensions. How do you transfer tech from the metaphysical to the physical? You embody principles in form. There are compelling arguments that physical tech arose from a metaphysical imperative. Our ancestors were 'inspired' to snap flint (consider how global that 'invention' was at a time when there was supposed to be no communication over great distances).

I can't confirm the 100th monkey thing is real, but I think it seems to have legs. If valid it suggests that tech development can be transmitted 'spiritually'. In fact 'the gods' are credited with the delivery of technological knowledge by many cultures. I don't think we can separate tech as applied knowledge from the human history of magic. It may be better to mark a divide between metaphysical and physical tech, however.

For me super tech (post mechanical and physical) fuses with the spiritual/metaphysical/magical very readily. I don't have a problem with ET coming from a non material dimension and their tech seeming to us as a range of analogues. We know we 'make sense' of the unprecedented by comparing it to what is known. So if the unprecedented is utterly beyond anything we know how we 'know it' must be bizarre or absurd renditions of normal. A 4 foot high talking owl will do the job of representing the seriously weird.

In a rather pleasant previous life I use to write what was probably pretty bad poetry. But I did learn that poetry was (or rather used to be) a way of offering novel insight by creating absurd images. You could not apply literal meaning. At its best metaphor was a powerful tool. At its worst it was painful. Metaphor and myth were more potent conveyors of truth than any other mode of expression. Science ignored both, which is probably why we have the BS we have now.

Our tech isn't amazing. Its BS clunky crap. It is wasteful and toxic and very limited. It is mostly dangerous (to users and the environment), and weakens us.Virtually the only tech that makes us physically stronger are the amazing six pack makers on day time telly. Mostly it diminishes us as physical beings with no plan for where to next.

I do not see any fundamental distinction between what you might call spiritual technology and magic. If you look up the definition of technology in a decent dictionary you have to come down to the fact that all it is is the application of knowledge to practical ends. There is endless evidence that our ancestors were at least equally adept as technologists. We cannot replicate their feats. They did stuff that leaves us in awe with a abacus and a piece of string (or so we think).

There's a wonderful little book called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott. My edition has a preface to the revised and second edition of 1884. I don't do hardcopy these days because of my disability, so I bought a Kindle copy for under $2. I am prompted to reread it.
 
Yeah! The problem with either reality or illusion is that we really have nothing to compare it to, so bizarre seems okay. But alternatively, we could argue that it is also perfectly normal and what is bizarre are all the lies and bullshit that try to convince us otherwise.

We have become dull, compared to our ancestors. We have become dull because materialism and its priests have tried to induce us into a hypnotic delusion that reality is stable and predictable and bounded by clear and definite truths.

On then other hand mystics and shamans hint that what is real is more fluid and less certain or predictable. We are persuaded that such is madness, but only because we see those who crash, and not those who succeed in riding the crazy tide. The fails are exemplars whose message is "Do not go there!' This is my experience. Reality is dangerous to illusion and delusion. Which is bizarre?

Well, a number of people have pointed out that 'paranormal' phenomena do seem to increase greatly in states of disequilibrium, like after the death of a loved one, during societal strife, the teenage years, wars, etc. Fluid systems are also apparently easier to manipulate via PSI.

Although I personally suspect that intentionally seeking to induce and maintain a sate of disequilibrium is probably unhealthy for most people.
a hypnotic delusion that reality is stable and predictable and bounded by clear and definite truths.

I like to believe there is objective Truth out there somewhere. But, at the same time, I also deeply appreciate David Bohm's ideas on 'knowledge as process'. So I recognise that even the most powerful theory is merely an insight into reality (as opposed to being an ultimate truth) and insights are inevitably transcended..... although not necessarily invalidated.

Anyway, I'm currently obsessed with the idea of process. As Paul Simon once sang: Once upon a time there was an ocean / But now it's a mountain range / Something unstoppable set into motion / Nothing is different, but everything's changed.
a whole bunch of truths are concealed behind 'screen knowledge' (that's my new term for lies - feel free to use it).

I like it!
I am actually more comfortable with the spiritual explanation of UFO's than the super-technological explanation. The problem is that the latter explanation implies that these 'folk' travel across the galaxy to play pranks, or perform crude biological experiments - it doesn't really make sense.

They also seem to crash a fair bit. :) Still, how psychic phenomena could leave physical trace evidence used to puzzle me (burns/metal/etc.). Here's something I wrote about it on another forum:

... I suppose there are other phenomena that do the same, apports being one example. Apports are material objects that drop from the sky/ceiling around mystics or during seances and poltergeist activity.... Now, I should mention that until recently I wrote the entire concept off as the result of fraud, but this video with Dr. Stanley Krippner changed my mind:


And finally, if anyone's interested: Here's a talk by the late Dr. John Mack on why we need to get away from dualistic thinking when it comes to UFOs / abductions.


Peace.
 
Last edited:
They also seem to crash a fair bit. :) Still, how psychic phenomena could leave physical trace evidence used to puzzle me (burns/metal/etc.). Here's something I wrote about it on another forum:

I think that they are manipulating space and energy. I mean, obviously right? But what I mean is that Einstein proved that mass and energy are the same thing. And there is energy everywhere in the air in all the atoms and molecules. I think PART of the explanation is that they are able to manipulate this energy (drawing energy from the environment) and are able to constitute physical structures using this energy. In doing so they are able to manifest any number of physical effects and/or creatures, ships etc. Also, Astral travelers tell us that the environment is way more thought responsive in other realms that they claim to visit. Jurgen Ziewe, as a single example, said that he manifested a bunch of flowers to give to his mother as she approached him during one of his astral trips.

Then again, that could be WAY wrong. Sadly, in my lifetime, I don't think we will ever know. I'm going to read your post now that you linked to.
 
You'll find out a lot if people stop wasting time talking about pseudo skeptics like novella and such
 
I like to believe there is objective Truth out there somewhere. But, at the same time, I also deeply appreciate David Bohm's ideas on 'knowledge as process'. So I recognise that even the most powerful theory is merely an insight into reality (as opposed to being an ultimate truth) and insights are inevitably transcended..... although not necessarily invalidated.

But I don't think 'objective truth' is nothing we can encounter, at least not as we are. We can only ever know what is true for us - and if 'objectivity' is the sum of all subjectivities (as opposed to their absence) it is really only 'God' who can be 'objective' and know objective truth.

I prefer the notion that reality is contingent and contextual - and it can be shared and consensual or singular and imposed. We can experience it as rigid and consensual most of the time, but now and then it can go all weird.

For me a UFO can become 'nuts and bolts' to function in our rigid consensual reality - and then fail. I have absolutely no idea how that can happen - I just allow it can and does. As the link to the YouTube vid on rapports shows - something can arrive in our rigid consensual reality from elsewhere (physical or metaphysical) but it must have valid material integrity to be here.

My gut feeling is that Quantum science as we know it is scarcely kindergarten stuff compared to the finesse that 'ET' can employ. We imagine we are intelligent because of what we can do with stuff - and imagine ET is just a few steps ahead. I think the gap is far wider, and to imagine we are in the same league is risible hubris. Ergo I think we struggle to make sense of, and theorise about, what we experience.

We need to learn a whole new intellectual vocabulary - and that strikes me to be what so much anomalous stuff is about - maybe we are trying to qualify to enter kindergarten with a bit of coaching?
 
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

[The question was expressed in a rather circuitous way and I tried to extract the essence of it while keeping as many of the words Alex actually used as I could: I hope I got it right.]

On the one hand there's the apparently nuts-and-bolts aspect of the UFO/alien/abduction experience where these beings/phenomena seem to have mastered technology in a way where we want to say (pretending we understand what it means): "We get that, they're just a little bit or even a lot ahead of us". On the other hand, from a spiritual standpoint, all this relates to NDEs, spiritual components of the abduction experience, etc.

Of the two aspects, why are we less comfortable with diving into the spiritual zone?

Maybe because the “spiritual explanation” isn’t so much of an explanation as a categorization of the phenomena as “beyond explanation” or explained by the actions of an entity or entities which operate... whimsically or inexplicably. The nuts and bolts technology angle on the other hand offers hope of some kind of explanation we can eventually understand.

I’m looking forward to listening to this episode. Loved Mike on the THC interview.
 
Very interesting interview, thank you Alex. I don't have much to contribute other than I was reminded of the art of Hieronymus Bosch, who hid an owl in most of his paintings. I'd always heard it referred to the Devil, as Bosch's paintings are all about evil, however I just came across an article claiming they represented wisdom – the ability to see in the darkness.

So much like the UFOs, owls have been interpreted as both good and evil through the ages.

David Bowie's character in the film Labyrinth, Jareth the Goblin King, shape shifts into an owl. It's completely ambiguous whether he's good or evil.

Then of course the owl features in conspiratorial literature too. It's supposed to be a symbol for the Bavarian Illuminati and what Alex Jones found them all worshipping at Bohemian Grove.

http://www.esotericbosch.com/owls/boschsowls.htm
 
Back
Top