Trialogue 2 Crop Circles - Crop Circles

Greetings from Cyberdelic Space.

This is Lorenzo, and I'm your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.

And today we're going to be hearing a little more from the private trialogue

that Ralph Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake, and Terence McKenna held in September of 1991.

But before we get to them, I want to take a moment and thank two of the salon's most stalwart supporters.

They are Vipal P. and Michael M., both of whom made very generous donations to the salon during the past week.

And I want to note that both Vipal and Michael were frequent donors last year as well.

Their contributions have significantly enhanced my ability to continue producing these podcasts,

and I want to thank them and all of the salon's other financial supporters for helping us keep expanding our physical facilities

to accommodate the ever-growing number of friends who join us here in the salon each week.

Thanks again to all of you.

Now for today's program.

This is the next-to-last session on the set of cassette tapes made of a private trialogue

that I'm guessing they held in preparation for the completion of their book,

Trialogues on the Edge of the West, that came out the following year.

The topic today is crop circles, and to me it provided what I am thinking of as a role reversal for Terence McKenna.

I've kind of always thought of Terence as being out there on the far edge of things for the most part,

but in this discussion he becomes the conservative one.

As you'll hear, Rupert and Ralph have pretty open minds on the subject,

but Terence is convinced it's a hoax.

The irony here, at least to me, is that from where I sit,

Terence's theory about the British government being behind the phenomena

in some kind of a long-term research study about public opinion

seems to be as far-fetched as the little green men and flying saucers being behind it.

Of course, this trialogue was held over 16 years ago, and a lot has happened since then.

You may not agree with me, but I think that Ralph's and Rupert's objections to Terence's position

are even stronger today now that there have been several thousand more circles that have been formed in the interim.

But I'll let you decide about this for yourself after you hear their various takes on this interesting phenomena.

We'll start with Rupert Sheldrake setting up the premise of this discussion.

So it's Tuesday evening, September 3rd, 1991,

and our subject is crop circles.

Well, I think it's interesting to talk about crop circles.

And it's particularly interesting for those of us in Britain,

partly because this is almost the only phenomenon in which Britain currently leads the world.

And my own involvement in this, apart from the general interest,

an interest shared by practically everybody in Britain,

the subject is discussed by almost every man, woman, and child in the British Isles,

is that I'm a member of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies and on the scientific panel,

both because of my interest in morpic resonance

and also because I'm one of the few crop physiologists around.

And since this is a crop phenomenon, crop physiology is one of the relevant disciplines.

The phenomenon of crop circles first came to public attention in 1980 or 1981,

when people started noticing circular areas of fields which were depressed,

usually with a spiral pattern of flattening of the corn.

And to start with, these were simply circles.

And so the name grew up, they were called Crop Circles.

There were a few seen in 1981,

and at first they attracted the attention of the UFO people

and the Earth Mysteries people,

particularly the UFO experts,

because they started occurring in the neighbourhood of Warminster in Wiltshire,

which is an area famed for UFO sightings.

In fact, in those parts of southwest England with long histories of UFO interest.

Then, in subsequent years, as interest grew,

more and more of them were observed.

By the mid-80s, they'd become a fairly well-known phenomenon.

They were reported in the media and caused quite a lot of comment.

And the main way that they were explained at the time

was in terms of whirlwinds.

The chief proponent of the whirlwind theory

is an indefatigable fellow called Medan,

who believes that they're caused by plasma vortices,

a new kind of previously unobserved whirlwind,

which, unlike ordinary whirlwinds,

which move across fields like dust devils

and will therefore leave a trap,

came into being at a single, localised, focused point.

And, by spinning around,

created this sharply defined depression of the crop.

By the mid-80s,

the phenomenon had developed

so that instead of just single circles,

circles appeared now with smaller circles around them,

sometimes four circles

spaced at equal intervals around the central circle.

Sometimes with rims around them,

so there'd be the circle,

then there'd be a gap of standing corn,

and then there'd be a ring around the original circle.

Medan had to elaborate his plasma vortex theory now

to account for vortices which could jump

and create symmetrical patterns of vortices

around the original circles.

And, as he elaborated his theory,

so the phenomenon became more elaborate.

He was one of the principal investigators at the time,

and he's the editor of the Journal of Meteorology

and the president of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation,

which has to do with curious weather phenomena.

By 1988,

phenomena had started appearing

where you've got rows of circles.

By 1989,

these had become more elaborate.

And by 1990,

the phenomena had become

so extraordinarily elaborate

that these aroused

extremely widespread attention and media interest.

There were ones where there were a series of rings

joined together by lines

with symmetrically placed boxes on the side

and sometimes with cone-like structures coming off.

Well, this was clearly a challenge

for the plasma vortex theory,

and Medan, ever ingenious,

elaborated it further

so that these plasma vortices

could now create things

that look more like Sumerian hieroglyphs

than anything else.

So, his theory was elaborated ad hoc

until this year.

He had to resort

to an additional hypothesis

namely that these plasma vortices

were organised by chaotic attractors.

Well, for some reason,

because Medan claimed to have

the principal scientific explanation for these,

at first, people thought,

well, they were a curious phenomenon,

an anomalous scientific phenomenon.

As the phenomenon has become

more and more elaborate,

his attempt to explain the phenomena

in terms of seemingly normal natural forces

had become less and less credible to many.

In June 1990,

there was a conference organised

by him and his group

in Oxford, in England,

the culmination of which

was supposed to be

a general endorsement

of the fact the phenomenon

had now been solved

in terms of the plasma vortex.

However, just at the end of the conference,

one of the investigators

came in with a set of slides

of the crop circles

that had appeared

within the few preceding weeks,

which included these

large Sumerian hieroglyph forms

with a series of rings,

symmetrical boxes, and so on.

And the conference dissolved

in disarray

as everybody but Meaden

realised that

these extremely complex

and symmetrical structures

couldn't conceivably be explained

by the type of whirlwind theory

he was putting forward.

Because the whirlwind theory

was so widely accepted

as being the most rational

scientific explanation for this,

the hoax theory,

which is one of the main alternatives,

was not considered

that seriously initially.

As the phenomena

have gotten more elaborate,

the phenomena has become

more and more puzzling

and more and more people

have been driven

to consider the hoax theory.

There have been

some definite hoaxes.

One was commissioned

by one of the popular

daily newspapers in Britain

partly to outwit

one of the rival newspapers

who'd been giving

a lot of coverage

to corn circles.

They were then able

to show evidence of a hoax

which was carried out

by people commissioned

by themselves

to produce

a spurious phenomena.

One appeared two years ago

which was a fairly

crudely executed hoax

and to make the point

that it was a hoax

Ouija boards

were found

in the middle of the circles

when the hoax

was discovered.

So that one was clearly

announcing itself

as a hoax.

Well,

there are several features

about these

which perhaps

I should mention

by way of introduction.

Firstly,

they don't

occur just in

single types of crops.

They mainly occur

in cereal crops

usually wheat and barley

and

other cereal crops

but they also

have been found

in oilseed rape

and other crops

so they're not

confined to cereals

but they're mainly

in cereal crops.

And for

just a footnote

for the benefit

of Americans

what we in England

called corn

means all cereal crops

so when people

talk about corn circles

they don't mean

circles of maize

in maize fields.

Maize is hardly

grown in England

and as far as I know

these have never been

observed in maize crops.

the crop is flattened

the stems are not broken

they're bent over

usually at the base

there's two kinds

of flattening

one is where

the stem is bent

and the other

which happens

in wet ground

is where the roots

become loose

and the whole plant

goes over

because the roots

have provided

very little resistance.

Both these types

of flattening

occur naturally

as a result

of wind damage

to crops

and in the trade

they're called

lodging

where a crop

falls over.

When a crop

falls over

if it's still

at the green

and growing stage

then the growing

ends of the thing

will right themselves

and start growing up

again.

This is a normal

physiological response

found in any

flattened grass

and so if the

lodging occurs

at an early stage

in the growth

of the crop

then you get them

regenerating

and recovering

and growing up.

There's nothing

mysterious about this

it's what happens

to any crop

whether lodged

by wind

or pressed over

mechanically

or in a crop

circle.

These crop

circles have

mostly been

found in

south-western

England

and a remarkably

high concentration

is found

around UFO

centres

like Warminster

there's a

particular hill

near Warminster

which is

a centre

of UFO sightings

and they've

been found

around there.

They've been

found near

to Stonehenge

near to

Avebury

Silbury Hill

and East

and West

Kennet Long

Barriers

a whole complex

of megalithic

remains

in Wiltshire

and they've

been found

near Winchester

and other

places

where there

are ancient

centres.

So there's

a curious

association

of these

with some

of the

prime complexes

in England

of megalithic

remains

and megalithic

sites.

They're often

within a few

miles of them

and some

of the best

ones have

been sites

you can

actually stand

on Silbury

Hill

and see

them.

There's

this here

there were

something like

eight or

nine

within two

miles of

Avebury

in that

particular

complex.

The

patterns

as I've

already mentioned

have been

rapidly evolving

from simple

circles.

They've

moved on

to complexes

of circles

and then

to these

lines of

circles

with boxes

around

and sometimes

with semicircles

at the end.

This year

the elaboration

continued further.

Ones appeared

with ladder

type patterns

in them

and perhaps

the most

remarkable

of all

occurred

in July

involving

a circle

in the middle

ring around

it

a triangle

over that

and at the

apices of

the triangle

further circles

containing

different spiral

patterns in

each.

This last one

is remarkably

like the

center of the

crop circle

studies logo

which consists

of a circle

with a triangle

and rings

at the end.

And the ones

with ladders

which appeared

this year

are very

like pictures

of

neolithic

rock markings

which were

published in

an article

earlier in

the year

comparing crop

circles to

archaic

artifacts

in Europe

drawing attention

to the fact

that some of them

are like

ball and ring

markings.

And there were

some of the

pictures in this

book which

showed ladder

formations

very similar

to ones

that subsequently

appeared.

Well,

there have also

been sightings

of crop circles

in other parts

of England

and there have

been a few

have been

reported from

parts of the

US, Australia,

Crimea and

elsewhere.

The evolution

of the phenomenon

and also its

spread is

very remarkable.

In 1990

there were over

400 circles

or formations

in fields

whereas the

total recorded

number up to

1990 from

1980 onwards

only came to

about 400.

So the number

of these is

increasing quite

rapidly.

This year the

season started

late, 1991,

partly because

we had a wet

spring, apparently

they're deterred

by rainy

weather.

The peak

time for the

accounts of

these is in

May, June and

July when the

crops are still

growing.

Some occur in

August but in

August the crops

are maturing and

becoming, drying

up and they're

harvested typically

in August so

there's a limited

season when the

phenomenon appears.

You don't get them

between August and

May because there

are no standing

crops or in the

earlier part of the

spring they've

hardly grown at all.

people have set up

and people have set up

structures, observed

fields with field

glasses, infrared

recording apparatus

and so forth.

There have been

various accounts of

mysterious blue

lights, buzzing

noises, humming

noises, some of

which have been

recorded on tape

recorders and other

peculiar phenomena.

dowsers, occultists,

parapsychological

researchers, ufologists

and all kinds of

people interested in

paranormal phenomena,

fortians and so on

have been drawn to

these phenomena in

droves and attempts

to explain them in

terms of occult forces,

dowsing lines, lay

lines and so on are

so numerous that it

would take many hours

to go through them

all.

The remarkable thing

though is that

almost every hypothesis

that's been put

forward to explain

them is either

refuted by the

facts or even more

mind-boggling in the

phenomenon itself.

The variety of

theories include

migrating hedgehogs

removing in circles,

mysterious fungus and

viral diseases occurring

in patterns in the

fields, of course the

plasma vortex theory

and then a whole range

of other theories which

fall into two main

categories, the top

down theory that has

the patterning influence

coming from above like

in the wind, the air

or by some force coming

down from above or the

bottom up theory that has

the patterns emerging

through the earth and

somehow weakening the

crop so that it falls

over possibly by the

agency of wind but a

kind of weakening force

moving up from the

earth.

So you could call

these the Gaian theory

moving up from the

earth or the celestial

theory, forces moving

down from above.

It's perfectly clear now

to everybody involved in

the field that these

involve some kind of

designing intelligence

and they're obviously not

merely random patterns

caused by child's

natural phenomena.

The fact that the

complexity of the

phenomena has increased

so much in the few years

that they've been

observed can't be

explained simply in

terms of more people

looking out for them

and therefore patterns

being seen which were

not seen before.

These are huge

structures.

It's impossible that

especially in the last

ten years, structures

of the complexity

observed in the last

two or three years

could have occurred in

that part of England

and not been observed.

Of course, people

involved in trying to

explain them

naturalistically have to

try and say they've

always happened, it's

just that they've never

observed them before.

It's only the press

attention that's led to

them being observed.

And so when we come

to the present state

of play, it's clear

to everyone that

there's some kind

of intelligence

involved, some kind

of patterning or

formative influence.

The two main

categories of

explanation that have

been put forward

involve first the

hoax theory, that

the whole thing is

an incredibly

elaborate hoax

involving a great

deal of precision

planning, command

like skills, master

minded by people

of extraordinary

imagination and

intelligence, and so

far with complete

secrecy on the part

of all those involved.

Or that we're

dealing here with a

phenomenon so

remarkable that it

goes off the end of

the scale of any

previously known

poltergeist, fortian

or other such

paranormal phenomenon

because of its

evolving nature, the

intelligence behind it

and the fact that it

has a kind of sense of

humour and interacts

with what we think

about them.

Whatever theory is put

forward, the phenomenon

seems to refute within

the next year.

One of the very few

generalisations you can

make is that they

never cross field

boundaries.

They've never yet been

observed to straddle a

hedge, for example,

between two fields.

But almost because that

generalisation has been

made, there are some

people in the Centre for

Crop Circle Studies who

expect that that will in

fact happen next year.

So in summary, I think

what they present is a

kind of koan, a kind of

puzzle which evolves

year by year, which is a

definite phenomenon

that's unmistakable, can be

photographed and is

photographed, reported in the

national press and the

local media, on television,

discussed throughout

Britain and increasingly in

other parts of the world.

But for which the mind can

find no single satisfying

explanation, because any

attempt to come up with

such an explanation seems to

be refuted by the facts or

can be countered by some

alternative explanation.

So they present a real

enigma or riddle, which in

my opinion is yet completely

unsolved.

I think to take the most

synthetic view to your

presentation, the most

radical hypothesis behind

the enigma, something like

intelligent species on the

twelfth planet with a ray

bound or a powerful force

or whatever you please,

intelligent, an external

intelligence really trying

seriously to communicate

with us.

Let's say, I like this, I

am ready to go.

Then before even so we

could interpret the

phenomenon, we would be

required by every

consideration to completely

eliminate the hoax theory.

So, even the UFO theorists, I

think would agree, before you

could start listing some more

or less credible explanations,

you would have to dispose of the

hoax theory or give your

argument why it's extremely

improbable or something like

that, in service, in proper

service to the traditional

cognitive style of this planet

and trying to give the best

service to the intelligence of

the other planet.

And yet, it seems in your

discussion and in the

discussions I've read in the

journals and books, there is

no argument that is given to

rule out or diminish the

likelihood of the hoax theory.

So, this is the point, first of

all, that I'm not understanding.

I need to dispose somehow of

what seems to me the

likeliest explanation in order

to give any theories

consideration to alternative

explanations.

All right, so let us consider

the hoax theory, since Terence

is such an expert at

elaborate conspiracy theories,

perhaps this would fall to him

to provide an explanation.

I think the main reason why

people who are involved in

investigating it don't think

they're all hoaxes.

Almost everyone who I know

who's actually investigated

and been there, including

farmers in whose fields they

appear, the policemen in the

aerial patrol whom we met

when we visited one in

Rockshire, the people who've

seen them on the ground and

who've seen most of them.

There's hardly anyone who's

actually acquainted with the

phenomena at first hand who

thinks they're all hoaxes.

The people who think they're

all hoaxes are people who've

never seen them, who sit in

armchairs and the armchair

sceptics.

But why?

What is it that has made you

personally to think that a

hoax is unlikely, not like the

explanation?

Well, first of all, the fact

that the hoaxes haven't been

detected, if so.

Secondly, that when looking at the

phenomena, it's very hard to

conceive how the whole thing

could have been executed.

Thirdly, and probably the most

important objection, that for such

a hoax to have been perpetrated

over a ten-year period would

require an extreme elaborateness of

organisation, dedication on the

part of quite a large number of

people, military precision in

planning and execution, ability to

do these things under the nose of

teams of investigators who spend

all night trying to find out how

they're done.

They often occur within a few

hundred yards of investigators

trying to track the phenomenon

and somehow don't detect them.

An imagination and intelligence of

a high order and a dedication to

this cause, which is rare among

hoaxes, a persistent hoax going on

for over ten years, showing

remarkably skilful elaboration, so

that to start with, the phenomena

are quite simple and straightforward

and therefore can easily be

accepted as if they're created by

whirlwinds. That does seem a

plausible explanation for the

occasional circle of this kind.

And then carefully building up

so that the thing becomes more and

more intriguing and peculiar.

It's just that a hoax on that scale

and of that kind seems exceedingly

improbable. It's difficult to think

who could have done it, how they

could have maintained the secrecy,

what could have motivated them, and

what kind of dedication and skills

could have been involved. So the

hoax theory, if it was just one, the

hoax theory would be very plausible.

But a phenomenon over such a long

time period, now with ones turning up

in other parts of the world as well,

on increasing level, 400 of them last

year, in different parts of Britain,

this requires quite a large effort.

So are there documented cases with

photographs from other parts of the world?

I mean, you keep hearing that they've been

observed in Russia and Canada and so on,

but I haven't seen any.

I haven't yet seen any documented

evidence for these, except that the

people who say they've seen them seem

reasonably reliable.

So in terms of some kind of actual

conviction, you would think it's so

conceivable that it will be discovered

that it's a hoax, and then the whole

phenomenon would be forgotten.

That's not totally ruled out.

I don't take a rule like that, no.

To say that it's very improbable,

a matter of scale, secrecy,

persistence in time, and so on.

Is it more improbable than any other

explanation? Can one think of a more

probable explanation than that it's

a hoax? It seems to me any other

explanation will be orders of magnitude

more improbable than that it's a hoax.

Well, it depends where you come from.

You see, someone who was a skeptic,

you know, would be forced to that

hypothesis, whatever happened.

The Humean skeptical position, you know,

where Hume's argument against miracles

is that miracles are kind of rarely,

they're extremely improbable.

Or it's far more probable that these

are all either conjuring tricks,

deceptions, or illusions.

This is a standard rationalist position.

And I think for anyone who takes a

rationalist or skeptical point of view,

the hoax theory will always be a priori,

the best theory, whatever happens,

whatever the phenomenon.

For those who think paranormal phenomena

are likely, even probable,

for people who subscribe to the Fortune

Times, for members of the Society for

the Psychical Research, and so on,

then the possibility that some other

forms of intelligence may be

communicating with us in some way at this

crucial juncture in human history has a certain plausibility but the phenomenon you see rather

depends on what you believe to start with well that's a very interesting point because it's as if

um again assuming i mean i really want to believe that the paranormal forces will be revealed with

superhuman intelligence and speak to us like uh maybe nice dolphins could speak to us so

uh from that perspective that means that this intelligence has chosen a way to speak to us

which will be misunderstood in most people i mean it's almost appears to be intentionally disguised

as a hoax starting from the simplest forms where a plasma vortex theory could conceivably apply

gradually gradually separating the men from the boys as it were let us find a way of speaking

which is a whisper of intelligence to one group and is absolutely ridiculous to another group

is is a great idea we'll just speak to it isn't communication it's anti-communication

can i wade into this um well let's see first of all in trying to understand any

unsolved mystery or unknown phenomenon it seems to me the western mind has developed a number of tools

that have general application one of them being what's called occam's razor that hypotheses should

not be multiplied without necessity so that we should seek the simplest explanation

and force it to fail before we move on to time travelers space travelers to lyric forces and so forth and so on

there are a number of things about this that seem to me to argue very very strongly that it is a hoax

uh first of all uh and in your description of it robert there were all the if it is shown to be a hoax

we could replay the tape of your description of it and it's consistent with it being a hoax and with

the explanation of it being right under the surface you speak of how it could only be done

uh by a commando style operation it would require an organization with great self-discipline and secrecy

that oddly enough uh every explanation is then met with a crop circle which torpedoes that explanation

uh it uh the people who are attracted to the phenomenon it occurs within driving distance of their doorstep in an area with a history of unusual phenomena

so forth and so on um it seems to me that the likely explanation is that we're dealing with

not a hoax so much as an experiment an experiment in uh in deception it's a deception someone is studying

how people react to the paranormal one of the most puzzling things about this entire thing is

that no one has ever seen one of these things in the act of coming into existence so we get before

and we get after the hoax theory would be completely shot out of the water by videotape

of these cereal grains lying down in a pattern and i predict that we will never obtain such videotape

because i'll bet you to see it happening is to see how it's done and that the absence of

this videotape is a strong indication that um this is a disinformation project

the most devious argument i've ever heard why is it devious if you can't catch it in the act it means

that seeing how it's done will tell you how it's done yes but that's very clever of it to always be

invisible or very necessary for it to keep from being blowing its own cover rupert said it's discussed by

all and everyone in the uk uh that is obviously the intent of whatever is behind it he said it displays

humor now humor is one of the most uh human of all characteristics polish jokes don't even make sense

outside of poland yet this has humor we're told that it is the product of a designing

agency we're told that blue lights and humming noises are associated with it as if these facts made

it more mysterious they don't make it more mysterious they make it less mysterious

and to my mind the most astonishing fact about all this which seems to pose no problem for the english

is that their own ministry of defense shows no alarm whatsoever over this phenomenon here are nightly

trespasses of law-abiding english property owners violations of the airspace of the united kingdom

and the government maintains a blithe aloofness uh and i dare say i'm sure there are nuclear weapons

storage areas uh within driving distance of these areas exhausted chasing ufos for the past 20 years

well so here's my uh notion of what is going on every uh intelligence agency on earth that does its work

well has within it special units that are devoted to studying the paranormal both as a real possibility

and as a potential uh disinformation tool to be used against their enemies and in spite of the

uh fact that uh in other discussions rupert has somewhat disparaged uh is it mi5 yes the world

reputation of mi5 is that it is contains some of the subtlest thinkers that any intelligence agency on earth has

ever brought under the best expert well alan turing so forth and so on we could go on and on about this

so i suspect that an experiment is in progress to see how people react to a phenomenon which defies

explanation and every time an explanation is brought forth the phenomenon is redesigned to

destroy and discredit the explanation it's it's a it's a deep cover study of the semiotics of

deception and uh this does this seems to me a very good way for an intelligence agency to spend its money

this is the business intelligence agencies are in is deception now the people who are

uh uh participating in this on the front lines the lay liners the dowsers the ufo the enthusiasts and

the tuluruses are simply dupes and a population the easiest population on earth to do any stage magician

will tell you that the easiest people to fool are people who believe in magic they are have already

come over to your side now um in the united states a somewhat similar phenomenon occurred somewhat earlier

in time which were um cattle mutilations and much was made of this and and the same crowd of people

manned the front lines and announced that aliens were experimenting with bovine pituitary glands and so

forth and so on and in fact i believe what was happening was a similar effort on the part of the cia

to start a disinformation backfire uh to the spreading cult of allegiance to ufos

uh we there is a method for looking at this kind of phenomenon where you analyze

what it's doing in terms of its effect on society and then you can reason back

to uh its causes and what i knew we'd get deconstructions what this phenomenon is doing

is um casting doubt on scientific orthodoxy the story of the gentleman yes the gentleman who called the

conference to have his theory sanctioned who was in who had his conference dissolve in chaos when

evidence was brought in that was completely outside the purvey of his theory was simply he was made a

monkey of by um this agency so i think that we i find this all very very interesting but i think we

should be very cautious of lining up with the people who proclaim that friendlies nebulganubians or people

from a far-flung future are communicating because nothing is being communicated and in the absence of the

observation of the phenomenon in progress i think it would be absurd to go outside the

uh uh uh uh uh conjuring power of reason and just say this is an intelligence operation

in progress and uh infer deception and the mechanics of deception and the sociological response to

deception is being very very carefully studied i find it fascinating that from august to may

it can't happen i submit this is when this is the period when the data is analyzed and next year's

designs are planned and perhaps training is carried out in other parts of the world where the commandos

if it is true that these things are occurring in other parts of the world then that may be

where the practice takes place i would suspect that it actually isn't going on in other parts of the world

and that it's simply the enthusiasm of the uh the ley line people to make this claim the whole thing seems

to me beneath our uh intelligence it's a mass it's directed toward the mass mind it's a dialogue between

mi5 and the tabloids with the gullible haplessly caught in between and the rest of us able to look

down with a small smile that had all this sound and fury uh over nothing

it's um extremely implausible for anyone who's brought up in britain and there's the kind of official

set up there to think that an intelligence agency in britain could have the imagination that such an

imaginative scheme could be sanctioned by whatever committers are in power that they should have the

motivation to discredit science in the eyes of the public um or that any official body could carry on

for so long in the spirit of mischief more implausible than that out here the aliens from another

dimension are writing incomprehensible glyphs in the cornfields of england no there is the main

little people the main theory that appeals to um people in the on the paranormal front in england is

not aliens aliens and the ufo thing subsided into background quite early you see when you

had circles with symmetrical smaller circles around them placed in fours or even fives um the ufologists

said well this is obviously the landing marks of an alien spacecraft um however as soon as they'd said

that the next year ones of this kind appeared directly under power transmission lines thus refuting

the idea that any heavy object could have come down vertically from above and landed there it would

have had to come down then move sideways a large heavy object without having any effect on the

surrounding crop and then land which is surely a devious way for it to happen so the most obvious

flying saucer type theories were refuted by the phenomenon itself the alien theory is a very rare one

among the theories encountered the the one that i think is most popular in uh among people who take

seriously the phenomenon and think that the hoax theory is not the only possible explanation is that

there's a uh the spirit of the land itself or earth mysteries long embedded in these ancient megalithic

monuments are sort of coming back to life again and somehow um are being reactivated in britain's

hour of need or that um gaia the gaian intelligence or the gaian mind itself is involved in some

um um ongoing dialogue or communication which um principally has the effect year by year of attracting

more and more attention and the message year by year seems to be watch this space

well i i would make a series of predictions about this phenomenon the strongest prediction that i would

make is it will simply be eventually exposed as exactly what i said it was a government disinformation

study because if the british government is as bungling as you say it is then eventually they will drop the

ball that would be my first prediction and the whole thing will be exposed as a study of disinformation and

deception especially now with the budget problems if that doesn't happen then i would make the following

two predictions we will never see film or videotape of one of these things in the act of happening

and the phenomenon will stop very suddenly of its own accord because the project will end

one point i didn't get to make in my attack is you mentioned that it it is deterred by rainy weather

i submit to you this is simply because in rainy weather uh it's harder to cover your tracks to cover your

tracks you're going to leave footprints helicopter skid marks or whatever it is that rainy weather makes it

more difficult to carry out the deception so i think we will never see videotape or film of this and that

it will be either go away very suddenly when the project is completed or some at night a number of

these lay liners will stumble on mi5's group hard at work making a crop circle green and yellow stripes

yes and anything else i i mean i'm willing to be convinced and i would say i'll abandon my position

if i see film of it in progress that's what we need is it's intolerable to claim that this is going on

on such a large scale and no one can come it must take many minutes to make one of these things even if

you were a commando team and unless we're asked to believe it happens instantly it seems that the

strangest thing about it is that we never catch it in the act and also i do find the silence of the

british government absolutely beyond understanding unless they are at the highest levels fully informed

test the american government had a ufo project but it was top secret so they might be interested in a

way that we don't know about the terence i don't like this idea of um making a large bet on this single

theory i agree that um from our perspective the hoax theories have not been uh diminished in probability

enough and that occam's razor does seem to apply and among hoax theories i would say your military

version is uh maybe let us just suppose it's the most likely hoax theory it still seems to me that

you could be the dupe because uh we have these very interesting precedents if they be precedents

uh the vedas the bible the sacred books they are written in several levels in vedas they have four

levels of communication the bible has two clear levels are constantly uh interpreted and hermeneutics and put

before us there is a level for ordinary stupid people and there is another level for um elite uh spiritual

devotees so here we have a phenomenon where if a gaia is speaking to us i mean cases it's not a hoax in

case it's not a hoax then what is it it does seem to be disguised as a hoax that's true but there would

be a reason for that you see and all people who believe it's a hoax when as a matter of fact it's a

divine communication those people are dupes as in the case of the bible there are a lot of people who

think it's just history and so on well but even the people who the people who don't believe it's a hoax

are of many minds about what it is it doesn't seem to be clearly communicating anything to anybody

well the interpretation of the bible is also not so clear well communicate this is anti-communication

in other words what in the world is the point of opening a channel and then sending noise through

the channel well as you were saying about cain and abel exactly who did they make with to produce

the allegiance that followed is this noise is this a story well i i don't feel the force of calling on the

vedas or the bible at all the very fact that you have to reach back that far shows the desperate

effort to save the phenomenon uh it seems to me that this is quite a tight little explanation

and i'm sure that the british government doesn't dismiss the safety of its thermonuclear weapons by

appealing to the double level of the vagueness i think that we should bet on the red and we should

bet on the black probably you're right probably it's a hoax in case it's a hoax probably it's military

all right but just as the the fanatics of this phenomenon can't reduce the hoax theory to zero

neither can we reduce the non-hoax theory to zero therefore we have to keep our eyes open

in case it begins to actually say some understandable intelligence to us we can't dismiss it completely

we have to keep watching the photograph it doesn't even have to say something intelligent to us it just

has to happen while we're looking at it that would bring every newspaper on earth it doesn't

would report it well why not is it trying to communicate what would it lose by being seen

in the act of happening we see that it happens if i produced a videotape and said look here's the

thing taken by the center for crop circle studies team in the field here's the video here you can

see the stalks being flattened if you didn't say it certainly members of psycorp and skeptical

organizations would that this videotape is a hoax that the people who are out there

no but they would be on the defensive right now it's the ley liners who are on the defensive

no they're not on the defensive that's why they watch for it that's why they're so keen to what

they know that seeing it happen is a key event in the evolution well everybody agrees that it would

be interesting to be able to record one happening it would be the crux of the map well that's why people

are out there investigating it you see but anyone who's out there investigating it well whatever they

find has their testimony doubted unless they happen to find people actually photographs of clear

cut evidence of military people flattening it now that you see what the trouble is nothing will prove

it either way that's my point if you have a picture of the military involved in a hoax or non-military or

anybody else then people some people say that proves they're all hoaxes others will say well we've always

known that some of them are hoaxes and this is just one of the hoaxes but the others aren't that's right

this happened with the cattle mutilations no matter how many times they found military scalpels at the

site and saw helicopters departing from the site the hard core continued to claim that there was a

residuum of these phenomena that were in fact aliens connecting pineal glass there's very little

difference between a low-speed helicopter and a ufo well except where they come from but you can't tell

the thing is you see i don't see why you have such a need to close the issue in advance you see i think

the reasonable position is to keep an open mind the hoax theory is one theory it has a certain plausibility

it's the one that involves the least uh it involves a very considerable stretching of one's

mind and credulity about the powers of the british government or organizations in britain to do something

like this it involves the least offense to ordinary scientific rationalism it involves the same kind

of occam's razor principle by which many would dismiss claims for example of elf sightings under the

influence of hallucinogens well but this is a repeatable phenomenon if you don't think elves can

be observed under dmt smoke dmt and see this doesn't have that kind of straightforward this has

that weird slippery you know for the believer it's obvious for the non-believer it's nonsense

well kind of thing well i think the dmt and elf sighting is a parallel since it in some areas uh

you side with the rationalists and others with non-rationalists the elf sightings under the influence

of dmt are not seen by all who take dmt according to the only scientific study of the subject but some do

it's seen by two people out of twelve well but what's what's claimed uh what's claimed uh what's claimed here

is a massive violation of physics uh a a complete breakdown of natural law over hundreds of square

meters um on very little evidence on a on some trampled down crops

uh well talk about a mountain out of a molehill and i submit to you you keep avoiding directly

addressing this why isn't the british government concerned about the violation of its sovereignty in

airspace i mean somebody's been raised well why not because in britain there's this kind of

defense paranoia thing that it is not that's that's a very odd culture bound it's like i see you as a

painted cannibal when you explain to me that britain is different we don't really care about the security

of our thermal nuclear weapons and air bases that's an odd cultural phenomenon that you americans seem to

have developed we're quite casual about securing our thermal nuclear weapon depots are you serious

well then there are more american thermal nuclear weapons in britain than there are british ones well

then the cia then good old american paranoia must be uh quite agitated by this kind of thing

well possibly as soon as ufos were reported in the united states the first thing that happened was

they said what is the president's position on this and the president said we're immediately appointing

a blue ribbon committee to look into this and it will report to me and the congress and i assure

the people of the united states blah blah blah blah let's hear what they say in this case why don't

you write to your representative and say that you're alarmed that these crop cycle phenomena are

happening in britain uh... within twenty miles or so apparently there's been one or two in the united

states well this gets very shaky but it's for sure they're happening in britain so and for sure there

are lots of american nuclear weapons there far more than there are british nuclear weapons so you could

have the matter raised in congress and we could get a statement from the president of the united states

uh... and him to appoint a commission on the subject straight away well i'm sure what he would say

was on matters of the safety of thermonuclear weapons we make no statements however we are in

contact with the british government on this matter stay tuned that's what they would say well then at least

they would think further then then uh you could ask a question a few months later and say you know

what have you found out if nothing why not what are we paying these intelligence services for

and uh... it may then if it's forced to a political crisis in america with freedom of information or the rest of it

force them to compel the british secret services to reveal that the whole thing is a military hoax

the thing is that if you're right but don't you find it odd that it's never been raised in england

no because it's the kind of the this is not a soul in england who would think like that no

the the flattening of you're assuming all along that it's a violation of airspace the the normal

assumption that most people would have is that um poxers arrive by car well what are the attitudes of

the farmers whose crops are ruined by this well they vary in attitude some of them are puzzled and

find the whole thing very mysterious and some of them set up a sign and make a pound a person off of it

but i should think some would uh be quite some people are very proprietary and to get up some

morning and see your wheat crop ruined and a bunch of tellurists wandering around taking pictures

the police are doing what they can they're protecting their rear they lie around in helicopters trying

to prevent occurrences if they see anybody rolling around in a crop circle they attack them immediately

but to pretend that it stops at the constabulary level it i just it was a good level for uh trespassing

on farmers property we don't i i think you i think you have a i just i just don't get it it's obvious that

the british government is fully informed of what's going on and is not alarmed and the only reason

reason they're not alarmed is because there's nothing to be alarmed about. And the reason

there's nothing to be alarmed about is because MI5 is doing it. It's so obvious that to think

anything else is to, you might as well line up with Elvis at the 7-11. Well, let's say it's a good

theory. All right, it's a good theory, and then we can discuss it. We'll just put it on the list.

Under the hypothesis that this is actually what's happening. All right, now, they're going to a

fantastic expense over a period of 10 years, and they've done over a thousand crop circles so far

at considerable expense. Well, these agencies are well-funded. Of course, it could be the French

intelligence services, or the American, or the Russian intelligence services, making a statement

proving to MI5 that, as a matter of fact, there's nothing they can do to apprehend them. But supposing

it's the, as you say, the simplest theory, Occup's razor, the English military are doing this,

making this expense as what? As an experiment in disinformation. Now, let's see what we can learn

about disinformation from this. They get the results in the newspaper. They're watching us.

They're reading the Journal of Cereology, and so on. We can also read the Journal of Cereology.

Let us be scientists. We'll do some grassroots science here, and we'll study the process of

disinformation. Well, what have we learned? Well, we actually aren't learning very much,

you see, because we know that some people, like, prefer to believe in the paranormal theories.

Other people, like you, prefer to believe in the hoax theory. What actually does that tell us?

Some people, like Meaden, prefer a kind of scientific theory based on...

Yes. There's actually three categories of theory, and let's say we could survey the English populace

by reading letters to the editor in the various newspapers, and we find out there's 30% for

this, 35% for that, 25% for this. Is this research? Is this worth the expense?

Well, we don't know where it's going. We're halfway through this. We don't know what

MI5 actually has in mind. It may be simply that they are studying...

They're going to overthrow the monarchy.

We don't know what they have in mind. That's a good point.

When Jacques Vallée, in his book, The Messengers of Deception, he felt that there were forces

at the highest levels of governments that actually were interested in destroying the credibility

of scientific establishments.

But then here we have a program...

And that's what this thing does. That's its social consequence.

The British government can cut science funding yet further, you mean?

Well, who knows why? I mean, I don't think our inability to second-guess MI5's reasons for doing

this means that they don't have reasons for doing it. I mean, the deep-cover study of disinformation

is not our field. Nor are we experts on propaganda, symbol manipulation, mass brainwashing, so forth

and so on. This is not our field.

It's correct. It's going to be revealed as a hoax eventually.

Or it will disappear.

All the people who maintain it wasn't a hoax, they'll be discredited. So, unlike...

Now, that's an interesting point.

...it is the Earth mystery, UFO, and Tiller force people who are going to be discredited

not the scientists. Thus, it's not the military, it's the British science establishment, led

by John Maddox, who's...

It is from nature.

Ah, well, now think about the consequences of that for a moment. If this blows up and

we flip on the BBC and see that, lo and behold, John Michel led his forces over a hill and surprised

MI5 in the act, then that is like a body blow to a whole bunch of paranormal belief systems

that have otherwise been flourishing furiously in England.

It's the post-modern equivalent of war!

It's the collapse of the Communist Party on an occult level in England.

Those people would forfeit credibility for the rest of the millennium.

That would put them all out of business.

There's war on this ideological level.

Now we understand what it is.

It's a trap.

It's a trap for...

It's a trap for gullible occultists, paranormalists, and soft-headed types of all sorts.

And they're all going to be led into the trap, announce the eminent approach of the Zenebul

Gnubiites or the re-emergence of the forces that built New Grange and all this.

And then the government will say...

The government may simply announce, yes, we did it, here's how we did it, we'll show

you how we did it, we're going to show you how the trick was done, and now why don't we

get back to the business of being a rational and mature civilization and all you Merlinites,

teleuricists, lay liners, Ouija boarders, channelers, and what have you, should seek

honest work.

Look at what fools you have made of yourselves.

Now the incomplete military theory has become the complete military theory.

I like it.

I think we've got it, gentlemen.

The military-industrial-scientific alliance complex theory.

Yes.

I think...

Pretty good, huh?

I think that this is yet another version of the conspiracy theory.

Well, let's not get caught in this trap.

However, I mean, leaving aside the fact that I very much doubt if teleuricists, earth mysteries,

lay hunters, Merlinites, and the rest of it in Britain constitute a significant threat

to the social order that would be taken sufficiently seriously for anyone to mount a scheme of this

kind.

Leaving aside that objection, my approach is, in fact, empirical.

I have a plan.

The plan is to move beyond this stage of armchair speculation to actual empirical research.

And the empirical research that I'm proposing, which I shall propose to the Centre for Crop

Circle Studies when I get back, is this.

Next year, since the hoax theory is one of the theories that we have to take seriously

and consider, next year, the Centre for Crop Circle Studies sponsors a competition

for the best hoax crop circles.

We have a farmer on the committee who has offered his land for experimentation on this subject.

People would be able to rent fields from him or other farmers to practise.

Then there would be a small charge for that.

The amount of damage in making one of these would be something like 100 pounds worth of

corn with the damage.

So, for fees commensurate with the amount of damage, they could rent fields from farmers

him or other ones to practise in.

Then there would be the final competition.

There would be a particular knight.

Each group that entered for this would be assigned a particular field.

There would be certain standard observation techniques applied to the field.

They would get marks for minimum detectability through infrared binoculars or other means.

And in the morning, the finished results would be seen and judges would go in who would examine

them using the criteria used in the case of normal crop cycles for trying to decide whether

that's a hoax or not, an independent panel would judge which was the most ingenious design,

the most surprising, that had got the most marks for being done undetected, that was the most

convincing.

This would be an international competition.

There would be a prize of £10,000, let's say, for the best crop cycle, which would be put

up by the Guardian newspaper or the Daily Express, which would then have exclusive rights on the

first publicity of the results, and then could be sold on to other.

There would be a tremendous media interest in this.

When this competition would then force the evolution of the phenomenon, it would first of all show

us what competent and well-motivated groups of hoaxers were capable of, which there's

been no demonstration of so far.

Secondly, how long it took, how many people it took, what kind of apparatus they'd need,

you know, how you do it at night to try and escape detection.

It would show the kind of imagination and schemes and plans and designs and how you execute an

undercover of darkness, fairly complex designs in the field, coordinating different people.

And it would force the evolution of the phenomenon, because if the military or some other group

of conspirators or hoaxers are in fact responsible for the phenomenon, this would then raise the

standards against which they had to work.

And whether it's a natural phenomenon, a paranormal intelligence or a military or other kind of

hoax, the following year we would accelerate the evolution of the entire phenomenon.

So this is my proposal as a positive step forward to testing the hoax theory, to gaining positive

evidence and providing further amusement for the British public.

Well I want to go back to something you said.

You said you didn't think that this phenomenon was threatening or that the tellurists and so

forth were threatening the social order.

But again, this book by Vallée, The Messengers of Deception, is very interesting.

In the United States, over the past 20 years or so, up until about 1980, every poll that was done,

every successive poll, showed that more and more people believed in the reality of UFOs.

And it went from 15 percent to like 70 percent.

People believe, whatever real means, people would say, yes, I believe UFOs are real.

And then the cattle mutilation phenomenon came along.

And instead of the friendly space brothers bringing peace to all mankind, you get

these forces which move in the night with scalpels removing the organs of animals.

And this whole creepy aspect of it was brought in.

Lo and behold, belief in UFOs, interest in UFOs, all of this stuff began to fall.

Now, in fact, there is going on and we are involved in an effort to subvert the social order.

Your theory, my belief in the importance of psychedelic drugs,

our general commitment to the idea that science is inadequate to describing reality.

And all of these, what it is, Rupert, is it's a war between pagan thought,

it's an ideological war between pagan thought and straight people, the Church of England,

if you want to call it that. And they are, this is an incredibly clever way of dealing a tremendous

setback to the forces of pagan thought. If this thing is exposed as a hoax, paganism,

earth energy, to lurid stuff, all of this will be discredited in England for years to come. It

will be a tremendous body blow to the anti-Christian forces in England. And if you, and tracking information

and shifts in social attitudes toward orthodox morality and so forth and so on, may have in fact

triggered a decision on the part of the British government where they go to MI5 and say, look,

we're losing hold of society. People believe in the Sheldrake theory and they believe in the

Telluric forces and the return of the elf armies and the rise of the fairy legions and all this stuff.

Can't you figure out some way to restore the power of orthodoxy? And they said, aha,

we'll build an enormous trap for these people. We'll lure them so far out onto a branch and then

we're going to cut it off. And that's what's happening. I think that this is the prediction

that should be forwarded to the seriologist. You people are all going to be made fools of. Your

gullibility has set you up to betray the real pagan Renaissance. There's no way to avoid this.

Absolutely not, because first of all, the Center for Crop Circle Studies is not committed

to, like the Society for Psychical Research, is not committed to say these are done by Martians

or anything. No, but this guy, John Michel, is a pagan through and through. He's the head of the

pagan party in England. Yes, but he's the editor of the seriologist. That's another... And ruining

him would be a tremendous blow to paganism. It's like what would happen to the Third Reich if you

blew up Hitler is what will happen to paganism in England if you get rid of... Well, the chances are

that if anyone discovers it's a hoax, it's going to be the Center for Crop Circle Studies itself,

because this is the group that's actually mounting field investigations. No, I suspect the government is

going to announce it and say, we did it and show it and here's how we did it and he will show it in

front of you and send the media of the world to observe and we'll make you crop circles from here

to Canterbury and back again. Well, let us say that that doesn't happen. What would convince you

you were wrong? A film of it happening. A film of it happening. That wouldn't convince you. Yes,

it would. I'm not as hard as you think. But I just see that what's happening... It's not solid enough.

There's too much funny business. It doesn't feel right. It feels like a bunch of well-meaning,

gullible people are being coaxed deeper and deeper into delusion and they're being set up for an enormous

fall and their political agenda will then be... Now you always ask, why would they do it the other

night? That was your challenge to me. Why would the British government do it? Here's why, to set back

paganism, to preserve orthodoxy, to save England from the flakes. And protect themselves from this

trap by simply saying and repeating on a monthly basis in the Syriologists that yes, we think it may be a

hoax. No, they should say the most likely explanation is a hoax. And we're out there searching to

discover it. Well, that's the point. The point is, the center of a crop circle studies does say that,

that it may be a hoax. Well, but I've read the Syriologists and it's by no means what you would call

an organ of rationalism, of rational discourse. It's a clearinghouse for every screwball theory,

ever to come down the pike. The trap theory is one of them. The trap theory is just another theory.

They print it in the Syriologists. If you submit this, they'll print it. They print any theory.

They regard the theories as interesting as the phenomenon itself. Well, I haven't... I've been puzzled.

I've been under pressure of this dialogue. I've perfected this theory. I confess, up until this

week, I was a fence-sitter. And I desperately, like you, I assume, and you, wanted to believe

that from the far future, from beneath here, from somewhere that would rock our world view,

someone was reaching out. But it's...

You want a whole village to see the UFO.

I don't think so. I would not get near it now. I've seen through it. This does it for me.

Well, I still think that the best way forward is this experimental approach to the hoax theory

that I'm proposing. I think that's very good.

The best thing that can be done in the circumstances, it doesn't commit one, one way or the other. It does

shed further information on just how hoaxes... It escapes the trap, you see. It gives credibility

to the gullible. You should lead them out of the trap, Rupert, before it's too late.

This is what I intend to try and get the Center for Crop Circle Studies to mount next year.

This, I think, would enable them to maintain a position. My position, and that's the position of

others in this organization, is that here's an amazing phenomenon, whatever they call it,

those many theories, whatever the cause, it needs to be investigated. Now, you see,

the position of people who are against this is to say, here's an amazing thing that appears in

papers. We shouldn't investigate it. We should pay no attention. We should leave it just at the

journalists. We shouldn't attempt to find out how it's happening. We shouldn't wait at night to try

with video cameras to see how it comes. That seems to me a very peculiar position. It seems to me the

position of the investigators of this phenomenon is far more scientific and rational than the

position of those who say, we already know the answer. There's no point whatever in attempting

to see what's happening or paying any attention. Just leave it to the media. So, I think that this

is the only rational position to adopt, namely to treat it as a natural historical phenomenon,

or at least a phenomenon, let's just say a phenomenon, to investigate it empirically. I think this is

Baconian science. Yes, well, this is what I called for, Occam's razor. The hypotheses should not be

multiplied unless there's a necessity to do so. I can assure you that there's hundreds of hypotheses,

of which yours is one. You've just multiplied the hypotheses this evening. Well, but I handled all of

the facts in three-dimensional space, in political space, in rational space, and managed to tie it up

all very neatly without violating physics, or calling on other dimensions, or hypothesizing strange forms

of energy, or any of the violations of ordinary... It's not a strange form of conspiracy. It's orthodoxy,

fighting back with the weapons at its disposal. What's new about that? It gives them a great credit

of intelligence, which may not be justified. Yes, I find the most... I think that... I've seen no evidence,

either that orthodoxy is as coherent as you assume, or that it's as intelligent as you assume, or that it has

the kind of humor, imagination, and flexibility that you assume. Most orthodoxy is run by committees.

This is a phenomenon that couldn't be run by a committee, in my opinion. Well, but you are not...

You haven't looked into brainwashing, disinformation programs, manipulation of mass perception of

reality, and these are the specialties of governments and intelligence agencies, not your specialty,

their specialty. Well, let's say that this is an excellent theory, and it's not appropriate, really,

to give probability to it at this time. I think Rupert's plan for research project is very exciting,

and the idea of publishing the trap theory in The Cereologist, I think, is an excellent plan. It

wouldn't take long to write this up as a letter to John Michel. A possible supplement to the

research program for grassroots science would be to do some survey research of the British population

before and after the competition, and see, as a matter of fact, what effect the competition has on

the credibility or gullibility of... Well, even ahead of that, it's probably

already been looked at the rate at which pagan ideas are spreading in England. What percentage of the

population ten years ago... Are they fairies? Not fairies, that's a general folk belief in England,

not really a fair test, but the abandonment of orthodox Christianity for the new age, for new

metaphysical positions, channeling, so forth and so on. It is on the rise, is it not? I mean,

isn't Glastonbury the center of all this, and it's spreading and spreading? Well, if you're a straight

person in England, you must view this with considerable alarm, I mean... I don't think that straight people in

England view that with a great deal of alarm. I think they're more alarmed by cocaine, you know,

crime in the inner cities and that kind of thing. I don't think that new age phenomena are particularly

alarming in Britain. There's a long tradition in Britain of interest in these kinds of things.

Prince Charles is an establishment representative of this particular point of view. Well, in this country,

it's quite the other case. Religious fundamentalists have for years been denouncing the new age as

Satan's legions expanding their base. The popularity of goddess workshops at the Omega

Foundation and here at Essendon is on the increase, and I don't think that's created a great wave of

paranoia in government or the military. That would be far-fetched in the United States.

Well, but England is a more pagan country. It's more delicately balanced than the United States

in these matters. There's opposition that is more agreeable to people there.

And also, there's not a sharp polarization. And if you take the Church of England, I mean, after all...

There's not a sharp polarization between Christians and paganism? This is...

No. Well, I speak as one myself. I mean, I'm a communicating Anglican, a loyal member of my

parish congregation. Well, so when they start burning pagans at the stake, where will you stand?

I shall... And my position is one of Christian animism. I believe that the true base of Christianity

is to be rooted in the land. I think that the actual position of many Anglicans in Britain is to

appreciate the sanctity of the sacred places, like the cathedrals, the churches, and so on. The revival of

Marian religion is sort of fairly well established. Pilgrimage is on the increase. The idea that sacred

places have ancient roots in the land and that Christian cathedrals and churches are built on

ancient pagan sacred sites appeals to many Anglicans. They don't dismiss this. I try these ideas out on

vicars and members of congregations. Most of them really like them. I've never encountered any

opposition to this approach in my conversations quite widely. Well, the reason those churches were

built on those pagan sites was not an appreciation of telluric energy. It was to appropriate those

sites and utterly obliterate the pagan temples that were there. It was, in fact, a program of

ideological genocide that was carried down. Well, you can look at it that way, but that's the way

you can look at it too. I'm sure that's how the pagans looked at it. I think that the way that the

when in the Celtic church in Britain the pagans willingly accepted Christianity, as they did in

many cases in Ireland and in Iona and places, they did so partly because they assimilated it to their

worldview. And they were able to assimilate it by including Christian shrines in their sacred sites.

So you could say that what's happened in that you could look at it from both points. One, an

incorporation of Christianity into a pagan system and the other way the incorporation of the pagan

system into Christianity. But both are true and both these attitudes coexist and it's by no means the

simple idea of total obliteration by conquering it. I think if you had been there, I mean,

I don't know that much about the coming of Christianity to the British Isles, but where I do know

something about it, it was always a bloody nightmare such as in Mexico or South America. I just did this

a cheerful story of how these happy pagans. I think we're rambling too much here. And maybe we could

bring it back to corn circles or in the trap theory, we could say the church is more on the pagan side

actually than on the side of science and the military industrial complex. Certainly. I've never,

you know, I go to church every Sunday, I've heard lots of sermons, I read things about religious

columns and newspapers and that kind of thing. I've never heard any denunciation of crop circles from

any credible Christians. No, but denunciations of paganism. I've heard almost none of those.

The entire history of Western civilization is a frantic effort to stamp out paganism. It's taken them

2,000 years and they're still at it, still in vain against witchcraft, sorcery, scrying,

all of these things. I mean, this cheerful story you tell about this land of happy men is nonsense.

We're talking about the fate of Western civilization. And if you don't think people will defend their

vision of it with disinformation programs, propaganda, lying, trickery, and manipulation,

and if that doesn't work, canon, then you just haven't read Western history.

I don't think the church is involved in the conspiracy if there is...

I think orthodoxy is defending itself against unorthodox forces. It doesn't have to do with church.

Yes, only 2% of the population... Time to fight back, I dare say.

It's very, very unlikely that orthodoxy in Britain is no longer identified with the official Christian

point of view. Secondly, I don't think orthodoxy in Britain, as represented by the conservative

government, has any axe to grind for scientific orthodoxy. They've done more to set back the cause

of science in Britain than any government in history. They've cut funds and they've demoralized

scientific institutions. The Thatcher government has closed down lab after lab. The scientific

community in Britain, almost to a man, is anti-government to the depth of their being,

because never before has the scientific community been so demoralized and humiliated.

Well, then ready to lash out by any means necessary. Time for wild schemes. If they're that demoralized,

if their backs are that much to the wall, then it seems the absolute precondition for them to undertake

an operation like this. There's no evidence of conspiracy between the church and the military.

I'm not claiming that. Or between the scientific community and government. I'm not claiming that.

I'm claiming that orthodoxy is defending itself against magic. It's a war between reason and

magic. And you can talk about whether the Thatcherites are on one side or the other, or where does the

Church of England come down. It's a desperate struggle between rational orthodoxy and magic.

And magic is being led into a trap. These assertions should probably be posed as questions

for grassroots social science research. Questionnaires. Clergymen could be asked, you know,

for their attitudes and clever ways about different things. Well, I think you need to ask the whole

population of England and see to what degree is loyalty being transferred from reason to the occult.

And what does reason think about that? And what does the occult think about that?

I think that's an important question that could be approached by survey sampling research. And

that would sort of give us an idea how we're doing. And I'm not sure if there have been any such survey

in Britain or in the United States on these questions. It would constantly speculate.

them about them in all our talks and there's been no objective measures this is a very good

grassroots project simple to do yes so why don't we let it lie at that yes all right good

you're listening to the psychedelic salon where people are changing their lives one thought at a

time well that was what rupert ralph and terence thought about crop circles back in 1991

and i thought it was telling that at one point terence said he thought the phenomena would

eventually be exposed as a government information study however 16 years have gone by since he made

that statement and if anything the picture is even less clear today than it was back in 1991

while i applaud terence for refusing to believe that crop circles are created by non-human energies

until he sees one being made i wonder how he would react today to the news that at least some of the

crop circles that have been seen in past 10 years or so have essentially how shall i say it laid down

in a matter of moments there are a number of cases where this has been documented but the one that

hit me most forcefully was the circle that appeared in under an hour's time and in full daylight i can't

remember which crop circle video had this clip on it but a commercial pilot who took tourists for rides

out to see stonehenge by air showed some footage of a circle that appeared during the time that it took

him to return to the airport refuel and pick up another load of tourists on the return flight and not far

from stonehenge and directly on the flight path that he had just completed suddenly there was a big crop

circle it had simply appeared in a very short time and in full daylight now i don't mean to diss terence

here but after all he's the one who once said the problem is how do we know an alien intelligence when

we encounter it because after all it is alien now maybe he had that thought later on i i really don't

know but it is at least something to consider don't you think communicating with an alien species

is a tougher problem than you might think until you work on it a bit if you've ever tried to train an

animal you know what i mean you can talk and talk and talk and your dog will just sit there looking

at you seeming to understand every word you're saying yet we know that they don't have a clue what

all those funny little mouth noises we're making are all about and so they tilt their head and give you

this quizzical look kind of like the way we must tilt our heads and look at crop circles if you think

about it so maybe someone or something whether you call it gaia or think of it as an extra-dimensional

entity may have opened a communications channel and is actually sending information not noise as

terence suggested but real information that we haven't yet been able to decode which boils down to

ralph's approach of keeping our minds open until there is a clear agreed upon understanding of the

phenomena now that i've seen a half dozen or so films about crop circles and read a few books as well

i'm no closer to forming a solid opinion about them than i was when i began and unless i ever have the

opportunity to walk in several crop circles myself i don't expect to come to any final conclusions

but for what it's worth i'll at least give you my working hypothesis about crop circles and while

this is meant to be tongue-in-cheek the way it resonates with those i tell it to makes me think

that maybe there actually is something to this crackpot idea here it is if you've ever been to one of the

large cities in the u.s. you've probably seen graffiti painted all over the place particularly in areas

where youth gangs are active and there you'll see young men primarily young men with paint cans in

their hands running around tagging any available space with their gang symbol now stretch your mind a

bit and try to imagine the same type of behavior on the part of beings that exist in other dimensions

once you're with me on this you can see that it's no stretch to imagine young beings in higher

dimensions who are still not very civilized for their level and so they sneak back down to this

dimension and tag parts of the land that their young spirits claim so there it is lorenzo's theory

of crop circles is that they're nothing more than the graffiti tags of adolescent ghosts

well it's not much to go on i admit but hey i'm just the carnival barker here if you want to see the

real action just take a look in the big tent we call the internet and there you can find some excellent

sites that deal with the crop circle phenomena and where you can also follow up on the project that

rupert proposed among many more current topics there are seven sites about crop circles that i'd like to

recommend along with as many videos but rather than read them all out here as site names and urls right now

i'll just add them to the program notes for this podcast so you can click right through to them

two other good places to visit on the net but which aren't focused exclusively on crop circles are our

own notes from the psychedelic salon which you can find at psychedelics salon.org and there you will find

a wide range of comments that are posted under the various podcast program notes as well as other posts

from fellow salonners and then there is also the psychedelic salon forum over on the grow report.com

where you will find items like the question dutch boy post asking where to find more biographical

information about terence mckenna one of the people who answered that question by the way was max freakout the

host of psychonautica a podcast that you can find over on the cannabis podcast network at dopefiend.co.uk

dot uk in fact that is also where you can find bb's bungalow hosted from down under by black beauty

whose lovely voice you heard right after today's trial log while i'm at it i guess i should also

mention lefty's lounge the grow report and the cornerstone podcast the dopecast by the dope fiend

coming to us from the uk and in case you haven't heard a dopecast yet just start with his most recent

one i just listened to number 108 yesterday and once again i'm impressed with the quality of the

information and the level-headedness of the host who goes by the handle dope fiend and if you're a

parent that is looking for some drug information you can trust for your teenager i highly recommend the

dope fiends podcasts and my guess is that your kids will not only get a lot of good information from

them they're also going to thank you for treating them like adults and putting them in touch with the

truth about cannabis because they already know that the schools that they're going to aren't teaching

them the truth they know that from their peers you know it's a it's an interesting and fun podcast that

i think you'll find quite compelling so you might want to check it out for yourself and now they've

added several other podcasts to their lineup over at dopefiend.co.uk and unless i missed my guess

uh you're going to find more than one podcast over there to interest you and hey lefty i hope you're

feeling better these days my friend and i don't want to forget kmo's podcast from the sea realm which

you can find via kmo.livejournal.com if i'm not mistaken i think kmo is conducting an interview uh today with

our friend matt palomary for one of uh kmo's upcoming podcasts you'll remember matt from several of our

ayahuasca podcasts i think they're numbers 80 and 89 in case you haven't heard them yet matt or casowack

as i call him has a new book out that i'll be talking about in a future podcast myself it's a memoir and

i'm here to tell you that it reads like a page turning novel right now uh i don't want to say

anything more about it until after kmo podcast's interview and i'm sure that's going to be quite

interesting and speaking of interesting i was out of town for a while over the recent holidays

and after i returned home it took me a bit to get back up to speed and while i still haven't actually

caught up with all of the posts on our forum over at the grow report all i can say is wow activity

there has really picked up these past few weeks for example uh topics like don't depotentiate the

psychedelic and best terrence mckenna podcast for a newcomer have already gathered between 40 and 90

replies and and a lot of it's not only great information much of it is also new to me as well

so if you want to keep up with some of the latest buzz on the street about the psychedelic community

you might want to take a look at the wide range of forums over there besides the salon kmo has a forum

there uh as to all of the podcasts from dopefiend.co.uk and for the medical marijuana growing community the uh

the growreport.com should probably be one of your first stops if you want to learn more of the best

ways to tend to your crops i doubt if you're going to find any better advice than you can get for free

from xandor and mrs xandor and their podcasts and on their forums we all owe a great big thank you to

the two of them for all they do for our community so on behalf of our fellow saloners thanks again for

all you do xandor and mrs z the world is a much better place for having you here and while i'm

talking about the girl reports forums i particularly want to mention the thread on our salons forum

that's titled a thread of high art where you can find some of the art created by our fellow saloners

there are images posted there as well as many links to other sites where their work is posted

and i'm i'm really happy to see this thread get started so we can all share in the wonderful creative

energy of this community before i go there are two other brief announcements i should make

and that is for those of you who have signed up for the palenque norte mailing list

or the matrix masters mailing list or tried to link to the salon as a myspace friend well i'm sorry to

have to say that the mailing lists and our myspace account are all inactive now as you know myspace

simply deleted our account a few months back and i'm not willing to waste my time arguing with them

and setting it up again and as for the mailing lists they kind of went by the board when i started

podcasting back in 2005 my thought was that rather than clog your email inbox with more stuff to read

i just limit my communications to these podcasts and our blog and and to the psychedelic salon forum

so if you've been wondering why your subscription never resulted in a newsletter showing up well now

you know why hopefully you won't be too disappointed

other than that i should mention that this and all of the podcasts from the psychedelic salon are

protected under the creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike 3.0 license and if you

have any questions about that just uh click the creative commons link at the bottom of the psychedelic

salon web page well thanks for being here with us again today and for now this is lorenzo signing off

from cyberdelic space be well my friends