Showing posts with label Brookesmith_Peter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brookesmith_Peter. Show all posts

The History Man: Wittgenstein's Lion and the Stories of Roswell

Peter Brookesmith
Magonia 83, December 2003
 
Somewhere in Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein remarks that if a lion could speak, we would not understand him. As I understand the text, Wittgenstein meant that a lion's view of the world is so utterly different from our own that, even given a mutually accessible medium of communication, such as what human beings would call a language, we would not understand what lions were trying to say in it.

Communion Cups and Crashed Saucers; Part 3, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

Peter Brookesmith
Magonia 63, May 1998
 
If, so far, the profile I have offered of the hidden aspects of the Semitic religions and of ufological belief is accurate, then the mythic imagery and mode of belief of ufology, and particularly of the abduction scenario, should belong to a particular religious type: I am suggesting that the American Religion, as defined by Prof. Harold Bloom, [1] has formed the template of ufology-as-religion. But plainly ufology thrives in a wider context than religious, or theological, thought and feeling.

Plague of Aliens: Visionary Rumour As Contemporary And Costume Drama

Peter Brookesmith
Magonia 60, Summer 1997
 
The current expression of conspiracy beliefs in ufology operates at two levels. The overarching theme is an essential conviction that those in power are in some way colluding with alien visitors – whether through secret treaties or simply by exploiting recovered alien technology – to the detriment of humanity.

Communion Cups and Crashed Saucers; Part 2, The Godlings Descend

Peter Brookesmith
Magonia 56, June 1996

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God may represent the overwhelming power of loving kindness, but he is also the primordial creative force, the primum mobile, and the controller of all things. And so – as the canonical texts make plain – God is also the source and ultimate embodiment of all evil. In UFO-related reports there is a cluster of symbols and images that directly parallel religious symbolism and imagery.

Communion Cups and Crashed Saucers; part 1, Holy Violence

Peter Brookesmith
Magonia 54, November 1995.

No doubt to the amazement of many, this series does not exercise great sarcasms – well, not very great ones – against the claims of any UFO percipient, abductee, expert, crank, skeptic, or anyone else involved in the UFO syndrome. For the sake of my argument I have to treat all of them as if they’re telling the truth. Because, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join these two in matrimony: the mystery of ufology, pregnant as that is with the strange bounty of the crashed saucers, and the mystery of God.

Dark and Lonely Work

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Screen Memories

Peter Brookesmith
Magonia 50, September 1994

The alleged sighting of a 'mystery missile' over Kent coast in April 1991 seems to be acquiring minor mythic status. It was given a fairly detailed treatment in Timothy Good's UFO Report 1992 [1]; Good's account was based on reports in the Sunday Times (5 May 1991), the Independent and The Times (both 6 May 1991). The 'case' cropped up again in Jenny Rand1es' The Paranormal Year 1993 [2] as a way of shoehoming in some more recent near-misses between aircraft and UFOs.