Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/ftp-stuff/assault/text0001.txt

Text File | 1996-05-11 | 7.2 KB | 137 lines

             <<< PRISM::$3$DUA42:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ORTHODOX.NOTE;4 >>>
          -< ARCHANGEL MICHAEL RUSSIAN ORTHODOX STUDENT ASSOCIATION >-
================================================================================
Note 11.0               "UFO's: the 'Shattering Assault'"             No replies
AMBER::GILSTRAP                                     252 lines   7-MAY-1990 14:28
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        UFO's: The "Shattering Assault"
        PART 2
        by Father Alexey Young
        'Orthodox America' issue #88
transcribed and posted with the permission of the publisher

    No Orthodox Christian even slightly versed in the lives of the
saints and the writings of the Holy Fathers can fail to understand what
is happening here. The similarities between Streiber's experiences (and
those of other UFO "contactees") and the demonic warfare of the saints is
compelling. The author himself even describes peculiar smells associated
with his "visitors" -- among them, a "sulfur-like" odor which he compares
to the head of a matchstick. His "visitors" have frightening, insect-like
heads with enormous eyes that he associates with statues of the pagan
goddess Ishtar. In 'Transformation' he writes:

    "I felt an absolutely indescribable sense of menace. It was hell
on earth to be there, and yet I couldn't move, couldn't cry out, and
couldn't get away. I lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies.
Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy and dark and
sinister ... I still remember that thing crouching there, so terribly
ugly, its arms and legs like limbs of a great insect, its eyes glaring at
me."

    In his second book Streiber concludes that many of the "close
encounters" he has had (and is still having) are for the purpose of
"shattering my belief in the accepted paradigm of reality. And it
succeeded very well ... I suspect that experiences such as [these] are
the outcomes of a fundamental shift of mind. They are what happens when
people begin to abandon the old, *false* beliefs..." Truer words were
never spoken.

    Although Streiber now believes that his "visitors" are extra-
terrestrials and have a physical reality, he also calls them "goblins"
and "soul-eaters," who have the "ability to enter the mind and affect
thought," and much, much worse. He writes:

    "Increasingly I felt as if I were entering a struggle that might
be a struggle *for my soul*, my essence, or whatever part of me might
have reference to the eternal...It was clear that the soul was very much
at issue. People [have] experienced feeling as if their souls were being
dragged from their bodies. More than one person had seen the visitors in
the context of a near-death experience."

    In spite of all this, Streiber's delusion is so great that he can
enthusiastically say that "it is up to each one of us to seek our own
contact [with the 'visitors'], develop it if it occurs, and challenge
ourselves to use it for...spiritual growth..."

    By contrast, Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov wrote a century ago:
"The perception of spirits with the eyes of sense always brings harm,
sometimes greater and sometimes less, to men who do not have spiritual
perception...He will unfailingly be deceived, he will unfailingly be
attracted, he will unfailingly be sealed with the seal of deception...the
seal of a frightful injury to his spirit; and further, the possibility of
correction and salvation is often lost. This has happened with many, very
many. It has happened not only with pagans, whose priests were for the
most part in open *communion* with demons; it has happened not only with
many Christians who do not know the mysteries of Christianity..' it has
[also] happened with many strugglers and monks..." (quoted in 'The Soul
After Death', Fr. Seraphim Rose, p.68)

    When he wasn't "seeing" them, Streiber nonetheless frequently
"heard" their voices, "as if from a small speaker just to the right of my
head." Without any difficulty at all he saw that this was similar to the
pagan oracles of old: "the oracles at Delphi and many other places in the
ancient world were channels answering questions in trance...With the rise
of Christianity the voice died...So the voice I was hearing, as also the
voices heard by modern channels, was possessed by an ancient and lofty
human heritage...I was still well within the tradition of human
experience."

    Streiber also speaks of psychic gifts that suddenly appear,
unbidden, in people who have UFO experiences: "precognition, apparent
telepathy, out-of-the-body perceptions, and even physical levitation.
Such people often find street lights mysteriously shutting down as they
walk down the street. (One wonders if he had ever seen the 1950's film
about modern-day witchcraft, 'Bell, Book, and Candle', in which a novice
warlock is able to turn out the street lights as he passes by.)

    Streiber concludes benignly; "I do not think we have even begun
to comprehend the visitors. I suspect that we are a lot farther from
understanding them than we are from understanding , say, the songs of the
whales..."

    But Fr. Seraphim wrote: "Such stories of demonic activity were
commonplace in earlier centuries. It is a sign of the spiritual crisis of
today that modern men, for all their proud 'enlightenment' and 'wisdom'
are becoming once more aware of such experiences -- but no longer have
the Christian framwork with which to explain them...A true evaluation of
UFO experiences may be made only on the basis of Christian revelation and
experience, and it is accessible only to the humble Christian believer
who trusts these sources" (Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, pps
137-138).

    Ever since the phenomenally successful movies, 'Close Encounters'
and 'E.T.'(just rereleased on video), we have seen a resurgence of
interest in UFO phenomena. It will doubtless continue to grow as
Christianity wanes in the West and people instead tune their ears to very
ancient "voices", once stilled by the Son of God.

    The Orthodox Christian, however must hold on to the redemption
offered by Christ, for as Fr. Seraphim wrote, "he knows that man is not
to 'evolve' into 'something higher', nor has he any reason to believe
that there are 'highly evolved' beings on other planets; but he knows
well that there are indeed ' advanced intelligences' in the universe
besides himself: these are of two kinds, and he strives to live so as to
dwell with those who serve God (the angels) and avoid contact with the
others who have rejected God (the demons)...he distrusts his own ability
to see through the deceptions of the demons, and therefore clings all the
more firmly to the Scriptural and Patristic guidelines which the Church
of Christ provides for his life...."(Orthodoxy and the religion of the
Future, pps. 144-145).

    O Archangel of God, leave us not defenseless against
    the spirits of evil in the upper air!

    from the prayer to St Michael the Archangel
[patron of Archangel Michael Russian Orthodox Student Association]

                written by Father Alexey Young
                published by Orthodox America
                Vol IX, #8 (issue 88), March 89
                available from GOLD::GILSTRAP
                or by subscription from:
                P.O.Box 2132, Redding CA., 96099

notes by transcriber set off by [...]