Mike Clelland, Owls and Extended Consciousness |387|

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.

This is so on the money. We have a vocab and conceptual framework for tech but not for 'spiritual explanations'. What I call the metaphysical, to distinguish from the physical, is too complex and messy, and is rarely collectively and consensually experienced. So then only rules we have are 'spiritual' - as in religious or psychic. We are only beginning to grapple with the 'spiritual' in a scientific way, and even so we are a long long way from developing the means to comfortably discuss the 'spiritual' side of ET in a wider cultural frame.

This is our materialistic conditioning speaking loudly to us. We must struggle to develop the means to think and talk in 'spiritual' or metaphysical terms, and that means ignoring the doubters and deniers who will ridicule and jeer.
 
This is so on the money. We have a vocab and conceptual framework for tech but not for 'spiritual explanations'. What I call the metaphysical, to distinguish from the physical, is too complex and messy, and is rarely collectively and consensually experienced. So then only rules we have are 'spiritual' - as in religious or psychic. We are only beginning to grapple with the 'spiritual' in a scientific way, and even so we are a long long way from developing the means to comfortably discuss the 'spiritual' side of ET in a wider cultural frame.

This is our materialistic conditioning speaking loudly to us. We must struggle to develop the means to think and talk in 'spiritual' or metaphysical terms, and that means ignoring the doubters and deniers who will ridicule and jeer.

Right... we have human society with its complex hierarchies and networks of organization, then we have something "other" that interferes with us from time to time. That something "other" also appears to operate partially upon laws of order (or mechanistically) and upon whims of individual entities. That something "other" could be originating within our known physical universe - individuals from other distant planets and civilizations that have mastered faster than light travel and communication or it could be from a system that is outside of our own universe - to appeal to simulation theory: a system of entities outside this game that have the ability to manipulate the rules of the game. Either way: if entities can manipulate physics in such a way as to travel/communicate faster-than-light or forwards and backwards in time that starts to look like what we have traditionally considered to be spiritual entities. But those entities must themselves be subject to mechanistic laws because that seems to be a fundamental duality of existence: will/mechanism or intention/law. You cannot have free-will without something to restrain it - a blank canvas of mechanism or randomness upon which to paint with the will. So I think the more we peer into the mysteries - like owls into the darkness - we will find both: more mechanisms and more entities with wills and complex social organizations of hierarchy and network.
 
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.
It is good to see you posting here again, Hurmanetar - welcome!

Maybe the point is that a lot of these phenomena seem to have a whimsical quality - I also find them very hard to understand in the 'why' sense of that word.

David
 
Right... we have human society with its complex hierarchies and networks of organization, then we have something "other" that interferes with us from time to time. That something "other" also appears to operate partially upon laws of order (or mechanistically) and upon whims of individual entities. That something "other" could be originating within our known physical universe - individuals from other distant planets and civilizations that have mastered faster than light travel and communication or it could be from a system that is outside of our own universe - to appeal to simulation theory: a system of entities outside this game that have the ability to manipulate the rules of the game. Either way: if entities can manipulate physics in such a way as to travel/communicate faster-than-light or forwards and backwards in time that starts to look like what we have traditionally considered to be spiritual entities. But those entities must themselves be subject to mechanistic laws because that seems to be a fundamental duality of existence: will/mechanism or intention/law. You cannot have free-will without something to restrain it - a blank canvas of mechanism or randomness upon which to paint with the will. So I think the more we peer into the mysteries - like owls into the darkness - we will find both: more mechanisms and more entities with wills and complex social organizations of hierarchy and network.

I love the idea of "the other", but I think we can expand "interferes with" to embrace 'stimulates'. Our evolution as humans seems to be triggered periodically by external agents of many kinds. Our 'normal' is invaded and we must adapt, respond. It can be that such intrusions are predatory as well as developmental.

I agree that such agents must be subject to 'mechanical laws' in the sense that their ground of reality must have its own 'mechanics'. A knife is obedient to the mechanics of stainless steel but not soft butter - and although both finally obey an essential reality that does not mean that soft butter can comprehend the mechanics of stainless steel.

And as we "peer into the mysteries" we need to surrender our habits fo defining the rules. Our idea of reality and sanity is fragile and narrow. Sensible magicians warn against pushing too hard to commune with what is actually alien to us in every way. Mystics counsel detachment as essential for attaining deeper levels of awareness.

I have a sense that portions of humanity are being stretched, invited to go beyond our habituated and consensual reality. We can "peer into the mysteries" with a tight grip on our normal and known, or we can dare a loose grip. ET can also be explorers.

It strikes me that among the anglophone peoples the Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders have different tales of aliens arriving on distant foreign shores and encountering indigenous peoples in different ways. The stories of those encounters and engagements are not so different from our interaction with ET.

Sometimes I suspect that the rationale for concealing ET's presence here is that it includes the reality of predation upon humanity - and that is not something any government wants to confess to. We have long dwelt in the happy deluded conceit that we are at the top of the food chain. But that is no more than materialistic hubris - and a whole illusory house of existential cards collapses in a messy heap. The mysteries embrace predation as an option. To some we can be prey. The defence has always been virtue and awareness - and luck.

I think we must look into the mysterious. It is looking at us. It is how we look that matters.
 
I love the idea of "the other", but I think we can expand "interferes with" to embrace 'stimulates'. Our evolution as humans seems to be triggered periodically by external agents of many kinds. Our 'normal' is invaded and we must adapt, respond. It can be that such intrusions are predatory as well as developmental.

There are certainly stories of that going all the way back to Genesis 6:6 and I'm sure in other religions too... then there are modern day people who receive "downloads" of information... then there are people who have a brain injury and suddenly become a maestro at the piano or understand astrophysics or acquire a foreign accent.

I agree that such agents must be subject to 'mechanical laws' in the sense that their ground of reality must have its own 'mechanics'. A knife is obedient to the mechanics of stainless steel but not soft butter - and although both finally obey an essential reality that does not mean that soft butter can comprehend the mechanics of stainless steel.

Right... to have Will without Mechanism is meaningless. The two form a necessary dualism. I believe Will and Mechanism meet where there is ambiguity. IOW, we can trace a mechanistic explanation for anything back until we lose the trail in the ambiguity of measurement, ambiguity of language, or in the quantum soup. Will operates out of the abyss on the edges of mechanism. It could be that our brains have an insane number of mechanisms that are subject to quantum ambiguity (e.g. microtubules) thus forming the interface between Will and Mechanism.

And as we "peer into the mysteries" we need to surrender our habits fo defining the rules. Our idea of reality and sanity is fragile and narrow. Sensible magicians warn against pushing too hard to commune with what is actually alien to us in every way. Mystics counsel detachment as essential for attaining deeper levels of awareness.

To follow curiosity and expand knowledge means leaving the safety of the known structures and balance on the edge of the known and the abyss... always a dangerous game and always worthwhile as long as you don't fall in.

I have a sense that portions of humanity are being stretched, invited to go beyond our habituated and consensual reality. We can "peer into the mysteries" with a tight grip on our normal and known, or we can dare a loose grip. ET can also be explorers.

I agree.

It strikes me that among the anglophone peoples the Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders have different tales of aliens arriving on distant foreign shores and encountering indigenous peoples in different ways. The stories of those encounters and engagements are not so different from our interaction with ET.

Sometimes I suspect that the rationale for concealing ET's presence here is that it includes the reality of predation upon humanity - and that is not something any government wants to confess to. We have long dwelt in the happy deluded conceit that we are at the top of the food chain. But that is no more than materialistic hubris - and a whole illusory house of existential cards collapses in a messy heap. The mysteries embrace predation as an option. To some we can be prey. The defence has always been virtue and awareness - and luck.

Well, I'm not too worried... if we are prey, then at least we have decent farmer/ranchers taking care of us... I mean they don't seem to be factory farming us. Could a civilization that factory farms or relies on hunting/gathering spread throughout the galaxy? I doubt it... on the other hand there could be a rogue alien that enjoys a good sporting hunt every now and then... but if they can cross the galaxy, how sporting is it really? So maybe we are occasionally prey, but I doubt we are systematically being farmed or hunted by an alien civilization. I think the anthropologist explanation is more likely... they have a rule to not interfere too much and spoil the natural progression of things or give us too much too quickly.
 
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So maybe we are occasionally prey, but I doubt we are systematically being farmed or hunted by an alien civilization. I think the anthropologist explanation is more likely... they have a rule to not interfere too much and spoil the natural progression of things or give us too much too quickly.

I am not so sure, but I do hope you are right. While I think the Star Trek Prime Directive is a noble ideal it is also a bit naive in that the notion of 'natural progression' can be taken to mean something quite bizarre - that is the idea that evolution is always internally driven. There is, I think, no evidence for this. Rather, history seems to propose that we evolve via response to external factors, often threats that can lead to trauma.

I am not even sure I would accept that a benevolent influence would not support change that is traumatic in nature and extent. That would rule out most acts of 'colonisation' perpetrated by Europeans upon the rest of the planet - and pretty much most of history as we know it.

It is true that there is evidence of persistent trauma experienced by indigenous peoples who were/are subject to a fairly callous and arrogant overlordship by invaders/colonists. The indigenous peoples of North America, Australia and New Zealand tell us something important about traumatically disrupting deeply grounded life ways.

It could be argued that the aggressive spirit of the English is a persistence of trauma initiated by the Romans and Vikings, and people of Anglophone countries are heirs to that trauma - expressed in our economics, government, culture and even religion.

The post Enlightenment growth of science and technology is characterised by a lack of empathy, and an abandonment of the animistic principle that once permeated human consciousness. A trauma legacy?

There are clear indications that beings from other dimensions, and maybe ET as well, are inherently animistic. I think that science and technology must inevitably lead back in that direction. So maybe the alleged contacts between ET and the Deep State are driving through a morally repugnant level to some deeper set of values?

But then I see that ET (whatever they are) are also multilayered and I think back to the explorers/colonialists of the 16th to 19th centuries, who had a spectrum of motives. I think we are being roughly handled, but not necessarily cruelly so. But I do not pretend to know any details. But what I do see is about 250 years of radical change that has nothing natural about it. Compared to the preceding 7 millennia this has been supercharged. And in it all the influence of non-terrestrial agents has been implicit.

It has really only been since the 1950s that ET has become a player in our consciousness. Is this just an alignment with tech and communication systems? Seventy years on and we have passed through a period of transformative technological development that is clearly rooted in military research (and others in back engineering of UFOs). If you are not old enough you will not get just how radical this development is.

This period of change we are in is neither 'natural' nor gentle. I think it is induced, hard, harsh and I hope one day it will back off. I can't say ET is driving it, but they are certainly a factor. Is there a governing wisdom behind it all? I know there are compassionate spirits of wisdom who see it all as something from which good will come - but that does not mean what is happening is necessary, good or desirable. It is what it is.

I do not know if ET is benevolent, so much as simply not cruel. I had what I think now was an abduction experience that was utterly terrifying. And when I tried to follow it up I was subjected to quite explicit threats. That could have been to protect me psychologically, or it could have been to deny me knowledge.

For me there is a field of what I might best call inter-dimensional politics that we have not explored or consolidated an understanding about. Are we being aided, managed, manipulated, exploited, preyed upon? Maybe all of the above. I don't know. I don't have any firm opinions. I know a lot of folk have strong opinions, but I don't trust people with strong opinions to have thought through what they believe sufficiently. if they did they would not be so passionate about what they believe.

I'd like to think there are benign anthropologists zapping around the cosmos. But then I recall the human materialistic and politicised anthropologists, and hope that ET has progressed to a less toxic perception, rather than just doing the same crap with better tech.
 
Well, I'm not too worried... if we are prey, then at least we have decent farmer/ranchers taking care of us... I mean they don't seem to be factory farming us. Could a civilization that factory farms or relies on hunting/gathering spread throughout the galaxy? I doubt it... on the other hand there could be a rogue alien that enjoys a good sporting hunt every now and then... but if they can cross the galaxy, how sporting is it really? So maybe we are occasionally prey, but I doubt we are systematically being farmed or hunted by an alien civilization. I think the anthropologist explanation is more likely... they have a rule to not interfere too much and spoil the natural progression of things or give us too much too quickly.
I think any sensible explanation of the UFO phenomenon has to provide an explanation of its whimsical nature.

David
 
I think any sensible explanation of the UFO phenomenon has to provide an explanation of its whimsical nature.

David

Maybe the rest of the inhabitants of this universe just have more of a sense of humor than we do... maybe a really good sense of humor is what gets a civilization through the Great Filter. Maybe we are a bunch of dolts stuck in class and only the Ferris Bueller types succeed.

Or maybe the backstory on these aliens is still being fabricated by our collective subconscious... so as long as it remains a liminal phenomenon at the edge of our understanding it will remain whimsical... it is being collectively constructed by our subconscious thoughts and intentions like a dream and so it is dreamlike in quality. Eventually when we collectively perform the final edits on the backstory it will all make perfect sense and no longer be dream-like or whimsical.
 
Or maybe the backstory on these aliens is still being fabricated by our collective subconscious... so as long as it remains a liminal phenomenon at the edge of our understanding it will remain whimsical... it is being collectively constructed by our subconscious thoughts and intentions like a dream and so it is dreamlike in quality. Eventually when we collectively perform the final edits on the backstory it will all make perfect sense and no longer be dream-like or whimsical.

I love this. Reality is being created and we are all part of creating it - more or less. Its not like it fixed and externally real and we are just experiencing it. Lovely thinking/imagining.
 
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.
Michael Newton describes how souls can manipulate energy and create all sorts of things in their existence between incarnations...so this explanation is consistent with his observations.
 
I love this. Reality is being created and we are all part of creating it - more or less. Its not like it fixed and externally real and we are just experiencing it. Lovely thinking/imagining.

Some people have the idea of the "block universe" which is really just saying that we can imagine all past/present/future as an immutable fixed externally real 3D object - a story with a history and future set in stone. And I can see the usefulness of that idea, but I think this "block" is but one slice of a still higher dimensional "block". So every observer cuts a unique slice through the 4D object or "block" that is their life story and this unique slice of the 4D object we call "now". But you can also say that the entirety of the observer's story or the 4D object that is the observer's life is but one slice of a higher dimensional object which is the set of all possible stories that can seamlessly intersect with the observer's story. So while every observer's past and future may in fact be "concrete", the angle of the slice as it intersects with the universal story can change if still ambiguous or unknown (once known, the slice is made and cannot be unmade - at least as long as there is memory of the slice somewhere). The multiverse theory says that everything that can happen, does happen, but my variation on that presented here is like saying everything that can happen exists as an informational object and it only becomes real when an observer experiences it by projecting through it at a unique and dynamic angle/location to create a lower dimensional slice of this informational object.
*all of this might actually be non-sense... I don't know...*

Edit: to relate all this back to the subject at hand... aliens, owls, and the apparent whimsical nature of it all...

The same principle that operates in the double-slit experiment operates on the macro level: if you don't know what happened then when a decision is made about what happened, the observer cuts a slice through the informational object and the observer might see that his slice intersects with multiple possible pasts and this is reflected in the present by the wave-like interference pattern.

Similarly... when we look at aliens and other weird shit... Since we don't know what happened, we see superimposed many possible explanations... we see a "wave interference pattern" of stories that all could overlap with what is seen and experienced and this appears to us to be whimsical and nonsensical, but only when we can make a solid observation of one particular story about aliens will we finally settle which slit the alien story went through and get a consistent narrative.
 
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Similarly... when we look at aliens and other weird shit... Since we don't know what happened, we see superimposed many possible explanations... we see a "wave interference pattern" of stories that all could overlap with what is seen and experienced and this appears to us to be whimsical and nonsensical, but only when we can make a solid observation of one particular story about aliens will we finally settle which slit the alien story went through and get a consistent narrative.

Yes! We really have no bloody idea what is going on. We dwell in a bubble of our own collective making. All we can know is what we think is real is real to us. Simple really. This is why mystics and shamans make more sense to us than tech heads. I admit it is nice to have my iPhone (admittedly only a 7 Plus) in my bit of our consensual illusion of what is real, and so long as this is where I am I might as well aspire to an 8 Plus (I am modest in my ambitions). But so long as I am not attached to, and identified with, this neither shamans nor ET will laugh at me. And I am not.

Fact is that we have no idea what reality is. I forgot who said it is stranger than we can imagine but please do believe him. Our notion of reality as a kind of closed system is persistently violated by folk who have no such idea. We have been taught that to be sane we must accept 'reality' as it is served up to us by folk whose motives we are better of suspecting, and whose actual knowledge is way less than they claim. Real 'reality', the mystics have been telling us for ages, ain't this. For me that's a huge relief.
 
A few observations:
- I think there is an interesting conversation here about UFOs but not really one about Mike and the owls. This is really common on Skeptiko I think because people listen to the podcasts but rarely are their participants who have read the books. I have read Mike's first book twice and his second book once and listened to the audio book of the second as well. I have also followed Mike's blog for years.
- I don't believe myself affected by the UFOs directly - I have seen a light but it hardly counts as anything but I did see it at a very special time.
- A friend, who I feel has a role with an "upcoming project", had a very interesting encounter with a baby owl standing in the middle of the road (maybe late at night). This was a real owl. He posted the video on Facebook.
- I am also aware of somebody who I believe is an "alien abductee" and has owl screen memories. This is then an interesting moral quandary. Should I tell this person about this stuff?
- I do feel myself affected by "1111" like this guy who has recently had an owl element -
- I feel Mike's contribution is very important. All of this stuff is connected - God, UFOs, the Spirit World, synchronicities, 1111, 444, NDEs - all of it. So, I suggesting spending time with Mike's books. This stuff is ineffable so really you just have to "breath it in" and Mike's books are a great place to do that.
 
A few observations:
- I think there is an interesting conversation here about UFOs but not really one about Mike and the owls. This is really common on Skeptiko I think because people listen to the podcasts but rarely are their participants who have read the books. I have read Mike's first book twice and his second book once and listened to the audio book of the second as well. I have also followed Mike's blog for years.

Welcome back Alan!

I have bought a number of excellent books after hearing the author speak on a Skeptiko podcast. However, I must admit I found Mike's podcast difficult. I wanted to hear at least one bit of decent evidence that owls have some spiritual connection. I must admit I gave up about half way through, but I would be interested to hear your take on this question.

David
 
Welcome back Alan!

I have bought a number of excellent books after hearing the author speak on a Skeptiko podcast. However, I must admit I found Mike's podcast difficult. I wanted to hear at least one bit of decent evidence that owls have some spiritual connection. I must admit I gave up about half way through, but I would be interested to hear your take on this question.

David
I think it just comes in the form of all the Aenctodal reports he has collected. But yea he didn’t go into any of it during the podcast. I assume he outlines a lot of it in his book. I wonder if it’s worth checking out. I have enjoyed a few shows from his personal podcast. Check out “Hidden Experience Audio” podcast. There’s only a handful but there’s at least a few really good interviews with Richard Dolan.
 
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Welcome back Alan!

I have bought a number of excellent books after hearing the author speak on a Skeptiko podcast. However, I must admit I found Mike's podcast difficult. I wanted to hear at least one bit of decent evidence that owls have some spiritual connection. I must admit I gave up about half way through, but I would be interested to hear your take on this question.

David

Mike is difficult - everything about "abduction" is difficult - and really all the "other" stuff is difficult in its own way too. I am just saying that I think this is an important piece of the whole bizarre puzzle.
 
I think it just comes in the form of all the Aenctodal reports he has collected. But yea he didn’t go into any of it during the podcast. I assume he outlines a lot of it in his book. I wonder if it’s worth checking out. I have enjoyed a few shows from his personal podcast. Check out “Hidden Experience Audio” podcast. There’s only a handful but there’s at least a few really good interviews with Richard Dolan.

Yes. Lots of good stuff.

My key point is that all this stuff needs "breathing in" and Clelland is a good place to start with his good humour and brutal honesty.
 
Mike is difficult - everything about "abduction" is difficult - and really all the "other" stuff is difficult in its own way too. I am just saying that I think this is an important piece of the whole bizarre puzzle.

It is really hard to 'get' this owl stuff if you have not have experiences that trigger. But the fact that some people do is an important element in our wider understanding.

I grew up with a thing abut owls as items in a cultural landscape, but nothing has been personal. My 'abduction' experience has no owls. And yet, even as I write this there is a strong sense of connection beyond anything I have thought. For a moment I was getting owl flashbacks. Very weird. Suddenly my very early childhood is indicated.

I know I have been 'abducted'. I had the trauma of reading an article describing an abduction experience that flipped me out because I immediately knew the detail being described. An instant of reading threw me back into the recall of a drama.

What we call abduction (I am mindful I am being guided in my language) is real and routine. Its as much a part of being who we are as getting the flu. We elect to craft cultural discourses that cause us to think otherwise. Or rather we are induced to believe otherwise. ET has no interest in our politics. That's for us to manage.
 
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