Way back in 2016 I wrote a blog post about the book The Super Natural and how I was amazed that a professor of religious studies had taken up the study of UFOs. In 2019, another religious studies professor released a UFO book! It's called American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology written by D.W. Pasulka, who teaches at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
I actually read this book right after it was published, while Wendy and I were on a cruise. I distinctly remember reading a passage in the book where the author quoted someone who had a UFO sighting in Guatemala; at that moment our cruise ship was heading to Guatemala for our next stop! (Also, this morning when I got the book down from the shelf to write this post, I discovered it was holding a Holland America business card that reads: "Your stateroom is serviced by: Wayan". Thank you, Wayan!)
At any rate, I read the book two years ago and I've been meaning to write a post about it ever since. Several things really stuck with me.
Pasulka got interested in UFOs by way of purgatory. She had just finished writing a book about Catholic purgatory (a place where souls not perfect enough for heaven go for purification) based on obscure texts dating from 1300 to 1880. They included descriptions of orbs, luminous beings, shining aerial discs, and other phenomenon that were purported to be souls from purgatory. A friend of hers commented that they sounded like UFOs, and invited her to a local UFO conference the next weekend. Thus began her trip down the rabbit hole.
The thing that stuck with me most from the book are her comments about absurdity. For example, she talked about taking some students to meet a man who'd had a UFO encounter. He was a businessman, a pilot, and a credible, well-regarded community member. He described his UFO sighting while on a fishing trip, and her students were completely absorbed in his account, right up until he said he had an out of body experience, flew to Mars, and saw Bigfoot. Stunned, the students turned to look at her, as if to ask "Are we supposed to believe this?"
She explained that religions have relied on absurdity in different ways:
- In the early days of Christianity, she says, the Roman ruling class dismissed the new religion because they viewed Christians as cannibals, who eat their god during the act of communion. That absurdity gave Christianity time to grow on the fringes of society, until it "erupted into a new state religion... with billions of practitioners"
- In Zen Buddhism, absurdity is used in a different way, through koans such as "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" These koans are designed to "fatigue the rational mind" (I love that phrase!) to make way for something new. In this case, enlightenment.
Pasulka suggests both elements of the absurd are at play with UFOs. The idea of Bigfoot and astral travel to Mars is so absurd many people, especially in the upper layers of society, will dismiss it entirely, relegating the subject to the fringes. And she quotes the UFO researcher Jacques Vallee, who wonders if a UFO sighting acts just like a koan, opening up the viewer to some new state of consciousness beyond what we consider normal.
As she got deeper into the field of UFOs, Pasulka encountered more and more scientists (some of whom run research labs at major universities) who not only believe that an extraterrestrial intelligence has visited earth, but that they have worked with its technology, leading to various breakthroughs, such as better capacitors for pacemakers, new treatment for bone cancer, and even technology used in smart phones. That might sound crazy, but she also points out that it's nothing new. Founders of both the Russian and American space program believed they were in contact with and being guided by extraterrestrials! Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, "the founding father of rocketry and aeronautics", and Jack Parsons, a rocket engineer who co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both believed these things. I find this fascinating. Pasulka notes that most people at NASA she's talked to either aren't aware of this bit of history, or they know about it but are too embarrassed by it to discuss it. I find that fascinating, too!
This was a very thought-provoking book. Even after two years, I felt compelled to write a blog post about it. It's a much gentler introduction to the world of UFOs and religion than The Super Natural, so if you're interested in these topics, I recommend reading American Cosmic first.