[sunbug]

Ok will try to wrap this up.
So those 50 years since 1969 have passed and the human/story/myth/journey of space travel has kind of been on a 50 year hiatus. But thank God not the wonderful Observational part of Astronomy that my Mother loved so much!!
Could this possibly lead to a kind of partial Mythic drought? Even though there is hope and talk of humans returning to space journeys while measuring the risk, possibilities and funding  needed…could that other drought have given the UFO/ET myth/phenomena a greater hold on our imagination?
If WE are not at the CENTER of SPACE JOURNEY then does something inside of US “live” vicariously through the Mythology of the UFO?
Or even Hope for it? If one has a more concrete perception?
Does the “In Between,” become vital for not only our imagination but our Spirit as well?
Is it possible that if Humans again become the Center of the Space Journey that there will be a balanced return to the Experience and Transcendence?

If the Artemis mission is a go…it might draw us back to the human universal journey.

And I saw images on a Time magazine which suggest the future is back on the horizon. Drawings of a “triangular plane,” so yes one of those “mythological ufo shapes?”

drawings of flying cars were also depicted  or some equivalent or some type of drone vehicles.

The whole cover was tinted in Gold, which gave it almost an Egyptian kind of symbology…or perhaps a reference to a technological renaissance. I just glanced at it, but perhaps inside it referenced space as well. Certainly caught my eye!

In the past it was the Journey and finding the technology to make it work

And now everything is the technology first (with all its own mixed perceptions)

Then maybe the possibility of a journey.
The Horizon seems to be returning one way or another!

Though I hope as always that we keep our heart aligned with our own home planet and do not take her for granted (ever) when the Horizon calls us once more!

At risk of contradicting myself have to say this: for me even if we do not have an immediate human mission the beauties of Observational Astronomy that my Mother shared with me and others will Never Be Forgotten! I can feel the vastness, the mystery, the stories which have brought us this far…the inspiration, imagination and in-between. The transcendent is already there for me! It just Is…look at a clear night sky…or a luminous close up of a messier object and “something” numinous unfolds!

[mythistorian]

Welcome Dennis,

I’m so glad you could be part of this amazing COHO. I certainly know how busy you are responding to your own mythblast’s COHOs. Thank you so much for sharing your work on the mythology of belief for it brings us back to Jung’s own realization of the “moral of this story”: that belief in UFOs was in perfect agreement with the status quo. He realized that the way in which a belief functions is just as important as the content of belief itself.

This is the more critical component of my piece as well: to call our attention to the way belief in UFOs functions within our dominant ideological framework. So I wrote in my mythblast:

As Jung elaborates further, the need to believe in UFOs, quite apart from the question of their objective presence, indicates a certain degree of collective psychic suffering. It is the “heavenly sign” of a “psychic dissociation” which points to the general “split between the conscious attitude and the unconscious contents opposed to it.”  (CW10: ¶591) Campbell himself called this psychic split a mythic dissociation, as we read with emphasis in Creative Mythology:

The Christian is taught that divinity is transcendent: not within himself and his world, but “out there.” I call this mythic dissociation. (528) […]

This split in the collective psyche is the effect of a certain ideological fantasy imposing itself, cutting and dividing the paradoxical totality of the logos of the psyche.

I love the way you focus the mythology of belief on the sad cases of MIA, on that strong conviction that they might still be alive, that they must be “out there,” despite evidence to the contrary. And as you point out, there is a certain counter-factual element that attaches to both belief and faith. This conter-factualism, however, appears very different in belief than it does in faith.
I know, Dennis, that you are not unfamiliar with Kierkegaard on this subject and I would be taking my point of departure from his use of dialectical negativity, which he learned from Hegel, in his characterization of faith. We also remember to what extent Søren began his philosophical journey through an examination of Socratic negativity as manifested in socratic irony.

The thing with belief, on the other hand, as you pointed out with respect to the desire— or wish to fulfill a dream— is its positivistic character, or what Hillman would have called its “literalism.” Whereas faith is fundamentally “negative” in terms of basing itself on “an objective uncertainty,” thus remaining open to the infinite, belief is “positive” in the sense that it attaches itself on the certainty of a finite object, making itself act “as if” it had an objective guarantee. That is why at a certain point of examining the nature of belief, it becomes indistinguishable from examining a structure of make-belief. Let this structure of make-belief be the watchword for this brief, as it is based on the well-worn Pascalian insight that when you lack the real thing to start with, as will be the case with most, you have but one option: you fake it until you make it.

I don’t mean to disparage this Pascalian wager, which could be corroborated even by the good work of AA, and which may lead people into finding authentic faith.

And we also have another word for this entire sphere of believe/make-believe, including all its pseudo-philosophical and mythic cores: ideology. Let us not forget that ideology is not always a type of rationalistic creed but always contains an “irrational” or sublime mythic core. A transcendent-archetypal object lies embedded in the matrix of ideology which indeed constitutes its fundamental appeal to the “hearts and mind of the people.”

In addition to the complex nature of ideology, we should note that there are essentially two modes of manifestation: one conscious and the other not. For there is often a vast difference between what someone may say they believe in, what they pay lip-service to, and they actually believe in terms of their existential behavior. One is a set of avowed beliefs the other a vast shadow of disavowed beliefs. The latter take the form of material and institutional forms and are very much part of an “objective psyche.” Even though disavowed beliefs are happening under the light of day, they are nevertheless “unconscious” to the individual in question as to large swabs of the population who denies the actual ideological framework in which their actions do “make sense.”
Of course, politicians are prime examples of the kind of discrepancy and yawning chasm that separates what someone says they believe in and what their actions betray to be their actual belief. The latter is a material-existential fact, the former a respectable flatus vocis.

Needless to say, it is this unconscious nature of the mythology of belief, the psychic-material aspect, that cuts the deepest. Although we are used to thinking only of the former as ideology, that ideology only means the realm of avowed beliefs, it is really the latter, the realm of disavowed beliefs, that constitutes the object of a fundamental critique of ideology.

[Shaahayda Rizvi]

Stephen

You wrote, “ Whether these sightings are of physical objects, mental projections, or a combination thereof, the ambiguity and uncertainty speak to the mystery, which strikes me as an essential quality of the experience. This has been happening for at least three-quarters of a century, yet, despite the plethora of sightings, it’s not anything we are able to nail down. There seems to be something there, but nothing we can know for sure, including whether or not the something is a something. ”

Exactly, mystery is the essential quality of this experience, and the second one, is “why me?”  That was the trajectory of my thoughts on the first day of the event.  What played often in my head was, “There were so many others on the highway, why did the light just follow me, and for so long, why not others?”

Also, the  light-creators, wish this to remain a mystery, perchance a message between the sender and the recipient? The sender or the light-bearers do have much expertise on their side, while the recipient is observing, interpreting, real or unreal, a message from the gods or something else?

Shaheda 

[mythistorian]

Thank you Sunbug,

You really have inspired me with your enthusiasm for my next mythblast to look into the direction of space exploration, which is the other side of the alien equation. We have been thinking of the alien visitor as an “invader,” the “illegal” cosmic immigrant, which comes into our world in order to “change everything.” But of course, the inverse mythic fantasy is in the opposite direction, where the human being itself becomes an “alien” invader or “explorer” of another world.

And as part of this drive to explore space even now is the hope or belief that we might find signs of life, even if it’s non-intelligent. Hence the alien encounter is relegated to the encounter with an alien world. And it is obvious to see how a certain imperialistic agenda attaches to such a mythic possibility.

As the first Avatar movie has developed, we get caught in working through the myth of imperialistic expansion. In the upcoming sequel, the story will dive deeper into the subaquatic eco-system of Pandora. This one will perhaps carry the notion of “space exploration” to include the depths of the sea, the alien inner world that is not out there but deep within…

[sunbug]

Avatar, yes! I have been waiting for the 2nd one to come to fruition. Hopefully not too long.

Imperial…um hmm.  My Mother was concerned about that “double edged sword of Space Exploration” too. She preferred emphasis on discovery and was worried about the rumors of the “sharper blade.”

Norland, you and Stephen hit a home run both with this subject and your conversation interchange in reflection upon it!!
I am reminded of one other potivistic myth, which possibly connects into that UFO  evolution Yet strays away from ET/Alien invasion: The rise and fall of civilizations on a mythic scale.  It seems to be in sync with the Vedic texts or other cyclical myths around the world or borrow from them.
Sometimes the ages are represented by metals (Iron/Silver/Bronze and Gold) but it feels much larger (than our metal ages.)
If the imaginative approach is preferred: then the “in-between” phenomena fits perfectly! And looking to What If and beyond…perhaps these “numinous,” appearances/experiences then were symbolic of some sort of renaissance or change about to occur?
(even a small change that made ripples.)
One could  wonder IF the propensity of these “in-between” happenings now are also a “calling,” of the psyche from the “in between?” I guess that’s up to each experiencer.

Thank you so much for this fascinating topic, Norland!!

Will look forward to your next Myth Blast!

 

[R³]

Hello,

“Seeking out new life and new civilizations“, does ring a bell from my youth ! Cue the theremin !

Love the alien , ET , genre in art music & literature. Everything from the Drake equation to conspiracy theory. Project Blue Book, SETI, Stranger in a Strange Land , Carl Sagan’s Contact, Asimov , Jules Vernes , H.G Wells , etc., etc., and of course Star Wars segue Joseph Campbell. The forms and types are well ensconced in our collective modern psyche. Lots of fun to contemplate their multidimensional multimedia presence. The cosmos is becoming a much smaller place once quantified. They are here ! In our minds and thoughts.

The human mind is a wonderful place not always rational. Which I think is a good thing. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

– Albert Einstein

My take on the phenomenon I get from Richards Feynman’s lesson on the scientific method. “I think from knowledge from the world around me that it’s more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the result of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than the unknown rational efforts of extraterrestrial   intelligence.” That being said ufo’s are a wonderful trope and metaphor. So turn on your heart light , reach out and touch somebody’s hand. For it is in the metaphoric reach that iconic contact is made … with ET … with God …

May our Journeys always be extraterrestrial 👽 supraterrestrial in what ever way we wish to project them !!!!

 

R³

 

After The Gold Rush

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come Sail Away

 

 

[sunbug]

sorry these are slightly off thread…but certainly invites the imagination to the in between (imagination filling the in between) journeys of exploration from here to Out there and back.
The wait has been worth it and perseverance has persevered!

This is more related to that transition to space exploration from (rather than UFO to earth)

Missed this Mars article on the discovery of a lakebed on Mars…thanks to the Perseverance Rover.

https://www.space.com/amp/mars-rover-perseverance-confirms-lake-delta-jezero-crater

this NASA one below is more detailed…

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9054/nasas-perseverance-sheds-more-light-on-jezero-craters-watery-past/

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