Jacques Vallee's 'Messengers of Deception' with Kelly Chase

Transcript

All right. What's up, Jim? >> How you doing, Jared? Good to see you. >> Doing good, man. We have a special guest. Yes, Friday.

>> Friday, we've got a special guest here on the the the Dangerous Great Books, right? Um so, first though, uh what are you reading, Jared? >> So, this week, I actually picked up a Xjek uh essay in um uh what's it called? Uh critics and critique, I think is what it is. Crisis and critique. >> Yeah. It's called the hologram of conflicting universalities. It's pretty interesting.

It's kind of his his take on what trans uh kind of transcultural capitalism has caused in regard to universalities. >> So kind of interesting. >> Maybe maybe that one warrants an episode. I don't know. >> It's pretty good.

Yeah. >> Gjack should be on our radar. So um that and I think an entrance. >> So um okay. So I'm having my life changed by Doo's difference in repetition.

Okay. uh that I I've gone down a rabbit hole as it were with that book this week. Um and uh continuing to plug my way through a series of unfortunate events um in my in my my reading project there. So yeah, but it's been it's been a pretty big Dooze week for me. So >> nice.

>> Nice. And I think I we've talked about this before, Jared. I think Deloo is going to be on our radar for the show at some point here. So >> probably multiple episodes. Yeah.

>> But as we mentioned, we have a special guest this week. Uh the the listeners are are the legions though we I should note we now have over 100 followers. Okay. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah.

Yeah. So the the legion of dozens has like has reached the century. Um Okay. And uh so we we we uh we have a special guest this week. Uh our special guest is Kelly Chase, a friend of mine.

Um, Kelly uh for a while hosted a podcast called The UFO Rabbit Hole on which I appeared several times and it's now simply cosmosis. Is that right, Kelly? >> Yeah. Yeah. And you should think of Kelly as like the Renaissance woman of the weird is how I would describe your Kelly. So like uh Kelly Kelly wrote a book about the UFO phenomenon based on on a lot of her episodes.

Uh, if you ever listen to a podcast by Kelly, her episodes are are mostly pre-written, right, Kelly? Like, so that she's basically writing essays and producing like really academic work about this. Okay. Um, but so she's she's had that podcast. She has a new podcast co-hosted uh with Jay, right? Okay. Uh, she's been co-producer, I guess we'll call it, on on a television series, Cosmosis, right? uh is uh part of the team that runs a media company called Cosmosis that's that's branched out all sorts of areas.

Recently had a fora into an academic conference in in Britain, right? Okay. So, um and and you know, we brought Kelly in to talk about a book that would fall into what's called ufology and maybe we'll get into what that is and isn't. Um, but I think like Kelly would agree with me that like her vision is to move beyond like that kind of neuro limit and to really become this sort of renaissance woman of the weird, right? Is that all fair to say about you, Kelly? >> No, that's that's very fair and and very kind. I appreciate that. I uh yeah, my my work has progressively moved into just the space of general weirdness.

Um, you know, I said about the UFO rabbit hole for a while that it became a UFO podcast where we never talked about UFOs, but I I'm still fascinated by the UFO because I think it's an entry point for asking some of the most interesting questions we have to ask about the nature of our reality and who we are and where we are and all of that. So, it's it's still central and from a spiritual sense, but I'm less interested in like the physical craft. >> Yeah. Yeah. And uh Kelly, I don't know if you've listened to the last couple episodes, but what we've what we've been doing is um so for instance, last week we looked at Freud's uncanny, right? Um the the what did we do the week before that? >> Lovecraft.

>> We did Lovecraft. Okay. And in each case, you know what we emphasize in the episode is when we approach the weird space, we cannot just take the surface phenomenon at face value, right? And that's and that's sort of that's sort of the the debate I think that people fall into. Okay. And I think for Jared and I and correct me if I'm wrong Jared is what's really important for us is we cannot give our own unconscious a pass when we deal with the weird, right? Like we have to look at >> what is the unconscious contribution to our investment in these kinds of things.

Okay. And um before we can take the weird seriously, we have to like really get to the point where we can like trust ourselves, right? To have a mistrust for ourselves >> uh in approaching it, right? And and that's why uh and I know I know you and Kelly and I have spoken many many times. I think that's something important to Kelly. That's why we wanted to talk about this book, Messengers of Deception by Jacqu Filet, which is I think a great object study in I think both how that message can be announced and systematically unheard in a field of the weird. Right.

So, yeah. And so, uh, so Kelly, what I know you're very familiar with Valle's book. Can you can you maybe start with some background on the text at all? Yeah. So, I think Messengers of Deception to me is one of the most important books in the field of euphology, but I think that it's about so much more than that and that it should be read by people outside of the field. It it's really valuable.

I think that people need to start with understanding who Jacques Filet is and he's this guy who really has been at the bleeding edge of the future of what humanity is becoming in more ways than one. his interest in eupfology is kind of I think even to this day um he would describe as kind of a his silly little hobby on the side um and not necessarily um it's it's the focus of great inquiry for him but it's not really what he sees as his life's work. This is someone who is a computer scientist and has um played a large role in kind of the creation of the internet and the conceptualizing of what our world is going to look like moving into a more interconnected future. And um but I think that you need to understand all of these things together with valet because what he's really talking about in his books is about partly about the weirdness of this phenomenon, but I think he's also very often talking about the ways in which um our basic ways of apprehending and understanding our world are are deeply flawed, that we're very epistemically vulnerable as human beings, and that we're a e that we're a lot more easy to manipulate than we think. And I would say he never says this explicitly, but I think what comes through in his work is this idea that this manipulation isn't something that happens kind of like incidentally or sometimes or in certain cases, but that it's in many ways kind of the default setting for the reality that we encounter on a day-to-day basis.

And I don't think that a lot of people are reading him that deeply and in that way. But I am I believe very strongly that that's how he intends to present and what the world that he's trying to point to. >> Yeah, 100%. Um Jared mentioned that he read an essay by Gjac recently and you know one of one of the things that a lot of us have learned from Gjac who you know is a the sort of Slovenian madman of contemporary philosophy. Okay.

Um, is that ideology does not operate consciously. Okay. It operates in the unconscious. Okay. And I I think you're you're getting something very close to that in Valet's messengers of deceptions is like he's kind of outing how there are ideological structures operating in the unconscious background of the UFO phenomenon, right? Um, which leads to I think all sorts of very interesting ambiguities as to what is valet actually up to.

Okay. Um, so you know, Kelly, I think you would agree too is like like a lot of times when people want to cite the legitimacy of the study of the UFO, they'll cite Jacqu Valet. I've done the same thing. Okay. Because he's what he has he has a doctorate from in France, right? in in astronomy or some kind of advanced degree in astronomy from France and he has a PhD from was it Northwest University in computer science right he's a highly credentialed science scientist who took this stuff very seriously in some ways written several books about it but also he seems to think that there's something very sketchy about a lot of the classic UFO cases right and what you get in partly in in Messengers of deception from like the dean of UFO studies is he goes through a lot of the classic cases including like Roswell, right? And and comes out saying, uh, I think this may have been staged, right? I mean, and he actually goes through a case, uh, I believe it's in France where he's pretty convinced that French intelligence staged a UFO abduction, right? And and he talks about all sorts of stuff in like South America, etc., etc.

So it's it's interesting thing with valet like he writes some earlier things that really motivate the leg like the reality of the UFO but then he comes back with this book to say uh be careful right be careful because it does seem that there's a lot of chicainry that goes on with this right okay so I think like when I after I read this book I came away with this very ambiguous attitude towards Jack Filet right that he the right hand and left hand are like giving and taking. Yeah. >> Yeah. I I posted about messengers of deception because I was thinking about this conversation that was coming up and and you know I did mention at some point in a reply that I don't find valet to be a particularly reliable narrator and people were kind of like horrified and confused by the fact that I said that. But I think that that's another understanding that we have to bring to Jacqu Filelet is that like this is a man who almost certainly has held and almost certainly still holds clearances.

I would eat my hat if he doesn't. Right. The things that he's been involved in, the company that he keeps from the UF the UFO side into his, you know, more mainstream work, it all has him bumping up against some of the most um secretive projects that, you know, the government has undertaken over the last several decades. And all of them, I would argue, come back to major mechanisms of control that are that are utilized against us, against the the human population um by our government and that he has a really deep understanding of those things. I don't think that it's fair to like reduce the phenomenon to that.

But he does point out aggressively and I think in in messengers of deception a lot the way that there is this kind of um mimicry between the way that the phenomenon controls and manipulates us and the way that we have been controlled and manipulated by human beings sometimes under the guise of the phenomenon >> of the phenomenon. Yeah. And um but but the thing is about having all of those clearances, being somebody like that is that he can't just tell you what's happening, right? He's always pointing. He's always kind of like telling you a story where it seems kind of boring, but then you're like, "Oh, wait. Something in here actually doesn't make sense." And um you know, actually, I think you were someone who helped me understand, Jim, that so many people who write in this space are their work is redacted.

It's heavily redacted. But if you know how to look for the redactions, if you understand what the redactions are, then suddenly you are able to paint a bigger picture. And I think ballet is like famous for that, for kind of telling part of the story, for telling something that's a little apocryphal, for like combining something or or you know, and so I don't find him to be particularly reliable, but I think if you're educated on his work that you can still find a lot of value there. >> Yeah, Jack. Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I kind of read this is uh sort of like he's gone back into the cave of Plato's cave and he's pointed out the fact that there actually are shadow makers uh and that some people in in that are in the cave that are chained up also have unconscious uh you know psychological realities that are giving those shadows certain forms.

Right? All right. So, I see this kind of as a sociological text of, yeah, things are there, but they're not exactly what we've been told, maybe, or there's also a subconscious reality that's going on, a kind of cult-like reality that's going on that spreads this message in a way that we just need to be aware of, right? That it's just kind of opening our eyes to the fact that maybe it's not everything we've been told, but there is something going on, you know? >> C can I do two passages to where I think he just lays out his thesis really, really clearly? Okay. >> Yeah, please. And the one the one on page 20, he's like clearly he's doing that, right? He atalalicizes this. This is on page 20 of Messengers of Deception.

Um, which by the way, just know it came out in 1979, which I think is interesting time. But anyway, so quoting Valle, I propose that the UFO we see is among other things a device which creates a distortion of the witness's reality. that it does so for a purpose, which is which is a pro which is to project images or fabricated scenes designed to change our belief systems and that the technology we observe is only the the the incidental support for a worldwide enterprise of subliminal seduction. End quote. Okay.

Uh and then if you go to page 178 towards the end. Okay. Sorry. Okay. So this is the end of part two on page 178.

Valet says um I don't think we should expect salvation from the sky. I believe there is a very real UFO problem. I have also come to suspect that it is being manipulated for political ends and the data suggests that the manipulation may be human beings with a plan for social control. Such plans have been made before and have succeeded. History shows that having a cosmic uh mythology as part of such a plan is not always necessary, but it certainly helps.

End quote. Okay. All right. And so I mean I think once you once you've seen like just that it's very hard to to think that Jacqu Filet is someone that that can be read at a surface level in all his other work about ufology right and maybe everything else right because he is saying something out there is kind of spoiling the epistemic stew right that we don't have an unmediated access to this phenomenon and I would say we don't have an unmediated access to anything okay but he's saying like the UFO is not an exception to that and It is be like our access to this is being me mediated through systems of information control, data control, social control, etc., etc. And it's and he's clearly saying he thinks the phenomenon itself is a vehicle of those very those very structures, right? A vehicle as it were.

Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that's so important and I I think I'm glad you talked about the fact that it's published in 1979. I think very relevant to those passages that you just read is the fact that Jacqu filet has said that you shouldn't trust any UFO cases or like abduction cases before 1975. I mean sorry after 1975.

>> Yeah. And um you know I think that the implications there and you know for people who have done a lot of kind of deeper research into um what the government has been capable of and the sorts of things that they were experimenting on in you know the 60s7s and ' 80s you know there is this kind of implication that um that they might have the ability to to manufacture or fake some of these the aspects of these encounters that people have with UFOs or with non-human intelligence. es um and you know I I think for people who are less initiated into the UFO world it's important to know that that a very important and um undertalked about aspect of these encounters is that it completely transforms people. It transforms um their their belief systems. It transforms the ways that they think about themselves and the greater cosmos um their everything.

It can really, it's such an onlo ant my goodness onlogical rupture in someone's world that you almost have to stitch it back together with some kind of a story and that that makes it really easy to then um rewire somebody. And I think he means this quite literally. There's a a researcher Cole Keller was one of the early uh skinwalker investigators and has been involved in a lot of this for quite some time >> and he did a talk at archives of the impossible where he talked about birectional mimicry and the example that he used was that it's kind of it's just accepted for people who aren't as initiated. It's just except that people in euphology basically accept that the black triangle UFOs are some kind of reverse engineered technology, but it's human technology, right? The problem being that there were all kinds of sightings of these black triangle UFOs flying low and slow over residential areas or over highways in the middle of the day in front of, you know, crowded highways and that sort of thing. And >> we mean like many many reports of that.

I think that very common. >> Yeah. Very common. Yeah. >> One of the most common kinds.

And and so then the question becomes, if this is our secret technology, like that's just not how we behave with our technology. And his argument is that that we reverse engineered their technology to create these black triangles, but then that they are now showing people these black triangles in the sky as a like that they're basically mimicking us mimicking us back. But I think that that happens with far more than just like how these things represent materially or technologically. I think that that we are also or the powers that there are certain powers that be that are manipulating us in the ways that this phenomenon has manipulated us that it that it has learned what works um and and what can be done to a human being to make them completely abandon their belief system and adopt a new one. >> Yeah.

Yeah. you know, one of one of the things that um I've noted, you know, okay, so like this notion of like the the word onlogical shock gets gets thrown around quite a bit in in discussions of UFOs and things like that, right? And um you know for what that what that phrase actually originally meant when like Paul Tillik coined it and you know as like a reader of Haidiger I mean that the notion of shock was to say like one came to realize like the utter contingency of all of our stories about things right like it one came to see that that human the h like the human conception does not seem to be the measure of things and so now there's this sort of sense of utter groundlessness of all of our our practices, our narratives, our myths, etc., etc., right? And it's I find it interesting how like in that sense how unontlogically shocking most reports of UFOs are, right? It's like okay, so that there's like a different kind of like like aircraft is weird and like maybe would be distressing that there might be a history of technology that we're not privy to. that there's like, you know, gray aliens, what have you, it would be weird, but it's not but it doesn't fundamentally question like ontology, right? It doesn't change the categories of being, right? And that that sounds to me like maybe what's going on with a lot of this is people are having truly uncanny not in the Freudian sense that we've talked about but having truly uncanny experiences as something that Jared had said earlier and then just grabbing things that are in like the human you know imaginary um you know like available images and just throwing that on this right and I think this goes to your point Kelly that um once you like like if you do cause legitimate talk with shock like you've you've caused people to realize, hey, it looks like we don't get anything right about the world, right? They are going to be vulnerable for whatever is slithering by in the unconscious, right? To put to put some hold on that, right? Um, and that's my read on a lot of these phenomena now is I I think people do hit something that makes no sense whatsoever whatsoever to to like any common human story and then now they are just they are open to suggestion of things to their own unconscious or things from you know whatever could be like seated into the popular culture etc etc right and um valet I want to go to a passage here on page 48 8. This is one of my like real eye openers in this. Um yeah, on page 48 uh Valet says, "The link between the images of the UFO world and those of human forklow resides in the psyche.

The technology of UFOs is not designed to carry little men from one physical planet to another. It is designed much more simply to trigger the already existing imagery we are all carrying in our brains. It is the imagery of Meonia of intelligent beams of light uh dialogues with strange creatures uh emerging uh fully armed into our local universe like Athena being born from Zeus's head. the UFOs do nothing more than provide the physical support for our own dreams. End quote.

Okay. Um that I think is an important thing is it seems like what Valet is saying here is whatever's behind this phenomenon is good at tapping into the human unconscious, right? And like giving physical support, giving external affirmation of of fantasies that we are inclined to unconsciously, right? Does does that make sense? Uh and I think that that may explain a lot of like just the the the transformative of nature of this is like it's like what you've been unconsciously looking for all along suddenly gets affirmed to you. >> Yeah. I think that's a real danger. I mean, it's something that like in the work that I've done, I see >> all the time because, you know, I've kind of been in the business of uh shaking people's etch sketch and you know >> that that was really what where I started with the UFO rabbit hole was making the case that like there's that I don't know what's going on here, but something's going on here and it's far stranger than uh you know, we had been led to believe and that as a result, reality is far stranger than we've been led to believe.

And um people that can be really fun and exhilarating that process of kind of opening up and there's suddenly inquiry and you can the world is re-enchanted in a certain way but it's also can be deeply destabilizing and you know it's it's really tough when people are coming out of that and trying to figure out you know I I've had to and I talked to other people in this work who do similar things like you have to be careful and be ethical about how you're even engaging with these people because people become so porous and so open to suggestion and to any kind of a story that's going to put their world back together again in a way that makes sense. And you know, I think that the real message of valet and the lesson of eupfology, if you're brave enough to take it, is that you don't get to put it back together again and remain intellectually honest or even more important, I would say, intellectually sovereign, >> right? Yeah, that's a good point, Kelly, because like it could be um like like who says after an onlogical shock you ever get an ontology back, right? Right. Right. >> Do you see what I mean? Or or that really there's always the risk that you're just going to fall back into uh another kind of prepackaged in the unconscious ideological structure, right? Um it'll feel new, but it's not, right? >> Yeah. It's interesting.

I actually think of Freud's use of um either going to go into a stone age or into madness. Uh right. So it's it's a return to to a previous age. And sometimes in certain circles things like demons get attached to these uh to these images or to these you know appearances that happen. It's like well yeah that's a medieval way of being able to explain certain phenomena that within a certain structure does make sense.

Uh but whether or not that's true is the real question, right? Of whether or not that's actually what's going on. Uh it's an easy tag uh to to put on some of these things. >> The way I always put it, it's not as if the the concept of demon was ideologically innocent either, right? It's not that wasn't mediated through a historical moment that had purposes, etc., etc., right? You know, and I think there's there's this there's this real Okay. And I don't think Valet is denying it, right? And I'm not denying I don't think you two are that there's a real that people are bumping into it in this thing. Sure.

Right. Uh the the thing that I think is missing from all these conversations is a mistrust of our identifications of what that real is, right? And and an unwillingness to like sit with the fact that maybe all of our identifications of it like are not trustworthy, right? Yeah. Right. I mean um and so like there's here's another another passage from the text that I found like this is where I think he makes an almost Xjacian point. Okay.

Uh it's on page 55 says you can find scholars who will quote prove uh to you that the supernatural powers of Jesus never existed. You can also find scholars who will who quote prove to you that they did exist. Does it matter? Of course not. It only matters to to the experts who have who have staked their academic reputations on either side of the argument. The effect of the belief in Jesus, the impact of the doctrine based on the story of his life and death are real enough.

Socially, historically, the consequences are beyond question. I claim that the same now applies to flying saucers because enough people believe in them. Enough people believe that contact with them is possible. Enough people even believe that they have they they have secretly achieved such contact. End quote.

Okay. I mean, I what he's saying there is like it's okay, you know, we could pretend something into existence that then gets out of hand and now goes on its own. This is this is what I mean by a hyper object, right? Okay. Um like you we could pretend something in existence and I'm not weighing in on the bill or anything like that, right? But we could pretend something in existence and then be stuck with it and it's up and running and it has real effect now. Okay.

And I think he I mean this is clearly what he's saying with UFOs. could be that much of this has been pretended into existence either accidentally or intentionally and now it's up and running. It has a kind of cognitive life of its own. It's in the unconscious, right? And like anyone who's like tried to talk about this topic in a serious way and wants to like bracket whether or not a UFO is literally a spacecraft or literally little green man or what have you will run into this because like no matter what it goes back to oh so you're talking about aliens, right? Oh, you're talking about spacecraft and and the point is is I don't know what we're talking about, right? But it doesn't matter because the the the ideological germ is in the unconscious now, right? And it's going to have an effect, right? As as Les Xjac like likes to put it in Lacanian way, the big brother big other may not exist, but it still insists. It still has an effect, right? >> Yeah.

No, I think all of that is is really important. And I think it also points to, you know, I really do think that, and I know that we've talked about this before, Jim, but you know, in in some ways, valet is the godfather of modernity, like in this this like kind of new world that we're moving into, a willing one or not. I think you could argue that he's not, but um he's certainly somebody who's had a front row seat for a lot of it. And you know, the stuff that you guys even talk about on this show, you know, something that I found really interesting recently is that um I didn't realize, and maybe this is new, maybe everybody knows this, but I didn't know that uh Sigman Freud and uh Edward Bernay were related. I believe they were like uncle and nephew.

>> Yeah. Through who Edward Bernay is. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I had no no idea.

So for people who aren't familiar, Bernay is kind of the father of modern PR and really of of mass public manipulation of >> sentiment opinion. He kind of invented that or at least popularized it um and and shared that stuff widely. And so all of this stuff was happening at the same time that Valet is writing this book. You know, this is recounting, you know, him going around to these tiny little UFO groups in the 60s and 70s. um you know just because he was interested.

He wanted to talk to these contacties and and it was these fringe little groups and it wasn't like the internet was around and you know the people that he would run into at these events would be like extraordinarily highlevel members of the military intelligence apparatus. >> Let's explain what these events are. We're talking about like UFO conferences at like in, you know, at at like a a shady Motel 6 in like rural Arkansas, right? >> Yeah. Or like a back room at a library somewhere or like your local diner and it's like 10 guys, you know, and >> guys, right? >> Right. And and yet you would find these like highle military intelligence guys like what are they what are they doing? >> What are they doing now? And you see that still now like this investment and and I I guess I'm going with all of this is that when we became a more interconnected species, it opened up this doorway for us to be manipulated not just on like an individual level or like in one little community, but through these like vastworked communities and the power of that I think really can't be underestimated.

and that there were people at that time who like that's really what they were thinking about and that they're still thinking about and when you start to understand like what's been disturbing for me is what I was a marketer before all of this and I used to joke because it would get a laugh at the you know marketing conferences that marketing was psychology for sociopaths but I I really believe that now and I'm glad to have gotten out of it because I think that there like like when you start to understand how like personal individual psychology and marketing techniques and PR and um you know think tanks and all of these things are and then the intelligence community the actual tactics that the intelligence community uses to gain people's trust to infiltrate communities and to influence opinion like all of they're the same thing it's the same it's the exact same playbook. It's the exact same mechanisms. They are all painfully easy. They're easy and simple to the point that like no one wants to believe that it could work on me, right? Like there's no way like maybe other people it works on them, but it can't possibly >> unconscious but Jim Madden, >> right? >> I'm I'm in perfect control. Yeah.

And so I I really think what he's talking about is he's talking about he's saying something very important about the UFO community and the extent to which it's been manipulated and turned upside down against itself, but he's also I think saying something larger about our society as a whole. And you know, he's he's using the microcosm to show the macrocosm. >> And let let me let me uh this this is a gem from the book if you don't mind. I'm sorry. I'm all like >> Oh, no, please.

>> I'm I'm doing this like close read of valet. It's okay. So, I'm on page 68. At the top, he says, "Based on what you can observe, you have no way to know the truth, even if you have a Nobel Prize in physics. Besides, your television set influences you in other ways.

It determines what toothpaste you use, how you shave, who you go to bed with, and how you will vote in the next election. In some respects, I think UFOs are similar to television sets. They are physical objects, the products of technology. They are also something else, the tools of a major cultural change. I think UFOs are are are uh perpetuating a deception by presenting their so-called occupants and he and he puts occupants in scare quotes as being messengers from outer space.

And I suspect that these are groups of people on Earth exploiting this this deception end quote. Uh yeah, I mean there there he said it right. Yeah. >> And I I have in like something else some my work on this. I I called Valet uh the um you know you you know the um like like I I see what Valle is doing because I I don't think we mentioned this like he was very integral in the development of the internet right at least that's the story right he was very like integral in the defense department or the the the contracting the defense department developed the internet right I I actually see like valet as like the oppenheimer of the internet right in the way that Oenheimer like >> he got into this thing that he got in he got like into making this piece of technology and he was never clear to him why he was doing it and and he and he unleashes on the world and he's like oh my gosh I'm death right like what have we done but yet he did it right and he knew it was coming right um and he knew he knew precisely what a world changing not for the better this thing is and I that's how I interpret like Valet's work is he sees the internet as even maybe even a bigger threat to humanity of a different kind of threat Right.

Um, and he's and he's saying, "Oh my gosh, what have we done here?" Like, you know what? Where is this going to go? What is this going to do humanity in terms of our ability to think for ourselves? In terms of our ability to to actually keep our own unconscious at bay, etc., etc. I think he's seeing it. And I think for him, in a lot of ways, the UFO might just be a metaphor. Not just a metaphor, it might be a metaphor and maybe more else for that, right? for the fact that we've got this like technological tiger by the tail now that is the internet that is that is digital technology and is going to so fundamentally change things right in ways that will undermine like our very sense of what it was to be a human subject right um and and leave us as the play to the play things of these these manipulations of our unconscious right that that's how I read Valet's like overall like overall right Yeah. >> So I' I'd be interested to hear from from Kelly the does Valet have a hypothesis or in your work have you seen the hypothesis of why this kind of manipulation like why images? Why why these flying saucers? Why, you know, a continuation of of the narratives of some of these experiences that people claim to have had.

Um it just it's it's to me it's to to what end? and and maybe I'm I'm thinking too rationally about it. Uh that there may not actually be an end for it other than just trying to confuse. But is there a hypothesis there as to why? I think that he he argues in a lot of different ways about that. I think that in general it has to do with a couple of things. I think one is and I actually think this has been really illuminated well by Diana Pulka in her work in American cosmic um in particular and also in encounters um is that like it has to do with the power of images that you know for whatever reason sight is our most important sense in a way like I mean there are people who would argue that but even going back to the enlightenment it's part of the place I think we got ourselves a little bit in trouble in the enlightenment is this idea that like seeing is believing, right? Like just hearing something isn't enough, feeling something isn't enough.

Like really you have to if you see it though, you can say I saw it so it I saw it with my own two eyes, right? And so I think that there's something about the power of images on the human mind and that we I think really underestimate especially growing up in the culture that we all have where we're living so saturated in images that we don't understand that like an image is literally putting something into your brain. Like it's not you're not just reading a book. you are taking an image into your brain and that we as a species are are um you know our entire culture, our ways of communicating all of it and and the things that we value most and that we prize as being the most accurate, it's all mitigated by images. And so I think that that is part of it and that but I think that the reason that this has been used and that it's is because like it's so it's just it's effective. I think this has kind of always been the story with us.

I think if you look at um something I found really interesting is that there's a an economist named George Loenstein. I believe he's at Carnegie Melon. Um but he wrote back in I believe the 90s he did some um work on the psychology of curiosity and trying to figure out what actually happens in somebody's brain. And he identified these triggers. I probably won't remember them all but there's four triggers for involuntarily inducing curiosity in someone.

And this would make people so curious that they would actually like bribe the test, the people who are administering the test to give them the answer even though they could have gotten the answer for free after the test. And like some of the ways to involuntarily trigger this curiosity are um presenting people with a sequence of events with an unclear ending. Um, you know, it's the introducing of something like absurd that doesn't make sense in a situation without like showing them how that's going to resolve. Um, and it's also the idea that someone is that someone knows something that you do not. >> And so I think that like the the UFO kind of perfectly does all of these things.

It engages the human being. It captures us. It literally hijacks our nervous system and along the same reward centers as like sex and drugs and chocolate like and and it it captures you and I think it also serves then as that kind of initiation event that call to adventure and the hero's journey. It it gives people this it kind of wakes people up and it gives them this feeling that they are at the center of the story and that important things are about to happen. And I think people are very programmable in that state.

And I think that you can make them believe all kinds of new things about the world around them and about themselves that they wouldn't have been as willing to believe without the introduction of this thing that kind of like ruptures their expectations of the real. >> Yeah, that's really good. And I I think that um the way I'm hearing that also is kind of an invitation to a certain kind type of gnosticism uh that is kind of unending, you know, like not a I'm not against all the gnostics by by any means. Uh, but I think that there is a certain kind of narcissism seeking secret language that can or secret knowledge that can end up being your entire lifetime's journey towards some kind of never- ending story versus a narcissism of of like self-care and and certain aspects of that. But, uh, that's really interesting to kind of invite people into that without giving them a certain direction uh, of where to go.

That's really interesting. >> I love that Jared just did I'm not agnostic, but when I do, >> right? >> Exactly. We all do a little if we can't. >> But I do dabble. >> It's kind of hard to resist actually.

Like to want to be in on the real thing that no one else is. It's >> exactly. >> Yeah. Um Yeah. I I I look at that a lot of that not surprisingly through the sort of like like psychoanalytic lens of death drive.

Okay. in that um the fact that okay there's this thing that you don't know and you're constantly defeated in your attempts to know it >> then becomes utterly addictive, right? >> Like like the most dissatisfying thing that could happen to aology is that they found out what it is. >> Okay? Because then what what would be left? What what what would be the unattained object that causes desire for them, right? It's it's it's the Lanian thing that like the what we what we most want is not to get what we want because then we would be left utterly lifeless, right? And that we're kind of hooked in our own defeat ever chasing the thing that we feel like we had but we never did have, right? And I really think the UFO thing really taps that like one like one you do you get the esoteric like I'm in on the real thing but you never get the real thing, >> right? So it like it satisfies this sort of like like like need or desire to have like like anostic elitism, but then it also satisfies this like like this desire to get in our own way, right? This desire for defeat, this desire to like encounter an enjoyment of a lack, right? I really think that the the UFO phenomenon is a great example of seeing that in real time of how we can get sucked into that, right? >> Yeah. And and also like any lane though I'll say I'm not denying that there's a real there's a dang a thing that we're desiring in this that okay but but once again though we have to look at how easily that puts us vulnerable to ideological manipulation right >> yeah I think you know I think what's really important too is I think that there's a way in which people don't want to move on or they get stuck before the kind of integration phase I think that Everybody at some point like you had this impossible thing happen to you and now you have to grapple with it and at some in some way you have to integrate this back into your reality and into your person and but I think a lot of people get stuck there and can get kind of hijacked there not just by nefarious others but you know it's like in those experiments where they put a rat in a cage and like it can have hit this button and get food or it can hit this button and get like cocaine water and like it's it's and it's going for the drugs every time and it'll just hit that button, it hit that button, it hit that button. And I think that that initiatory period where you feel like the universe has winked at you in particular where like you feel like you are now at the center of some great unfolding and that you have some important part of it and that you're going to get to know because that's kind of the headsp space that people get into immediately after these kinds of events that that if people aren't willing to kind of move into the next phase of the hero's journey which is just like fear and disorient orientation, right? Not knowing what your next move is.

Or or you can be the rat in the cage and just keep hitting that button, hitting that button, hitting that button. And I think a lot of people get stuck there and that it's like a real hazard in some ways of this kind of inquiry is that you can literally make yourself crazy. >> Yes, it happens. Yeah. >> Right.

Um Okay. Can I do you mind if I get another passage from the >> Oh, yeah, please. >> Yeah. So, I'm on I'm on 236. Um, Valet says, "Discussing the two hypotheses I presented above, I have shown that neither of them fully accounted for all the facts.

I still feel that the UFO phenomena represents a manifestation of a reality that transcends our current understanding of physics. It is not the phenomena itself, but the belief that it has created, which is manipulated by human groups with their own objectivity." because I'm I'm going to come back to that but end quote there. Interesting. So what Valet is saying there is saying look I don't think any of the going hypothesis it's aliens it's just us playing with our own technology us meaning like an elite and military leader or something like that playing with technology etc. He thinks none of that actually explains what happens.

And I agree with him. Like if you've looked into some of these cases, it is very difficult to explain this stuff in conventional terms. Like even if you like do your best to like be ideologically critical of it and like like there's still this like kernel of like wow it does seem you can't fit this in. Right. Okay.

Um but what's interesting here he says yeah but that being said going back to that quote it is not the phenomena itself but the belief it has created which is manipulated by human groups with their own their own objectives. So I see that. So like he's saying it's the like the the manipulated hyper object here, right? The ideology that speaks us rather than we us speaking it. That's what's being manipulated, not this sort of real that people are running into. Okay.

I think that's an important and I think that's important for like Jared and my bearing to all these kinds of things. Is that right J? Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So now continuing he says I continue to be impressed by one fact I mentioned in my earlier book passport to Monia.

Such sightings have been made in earlier times. Similar effects have been described. Even the UFO occupants, once again, he quotes there, appear identical to Dennis of medieval Mononia. This suggests a reality of mind beyond whatever technology is activating UFO energy. I continue to regard this phenomena as a manifestation of a reality that is larger and more complex than a simple visit by interplanetary travelers.

The reality of Mononia. End quote. Okay. Now, interesting there. We we read a quote earlier where he referred to Meonia as a structure of the unconscious too where he says like um you know we've we've we have dreams of fairies and goblins and ghosts and things like that and then this phenomena like like gives us like a like a physical marker that licenses us to believe in our own dreams.

Okay. So I think that it's interesting though like so we we can't I think we can't really take Valet perfectly seriously that he's saying oh it turns out UFOs are elves right or or that they're goblins or that they're the the fairy folk. I think what he's saying is things have been reported of fairy folk are being reported now as UFOs. Do do you see that? I think that's a very important thing to see here. Right.

And he's not putting his foot down on saying oh the medieval stories are true. He's not doing that. Right. Uh I think he's saying that there there are structures of the human psyche, archetypes if you will, that this triggers. Okay.

But that's not a description of what it is. It's something else. Right. Yeah. And I think that's so important because I think there's like a certain kind of criticism that's become the default in like academia and in the mainstream that has this kind of idea that like we are very enlightened and we see things as they are and but and and then we judge everyone else as being these kind of like backward idiots who were kind of making stuff up out of whole cloth whenever they ran up against something that they didn't understand.

But like we are constantly also doing that which is what this book is about. And it's about how when people through whatever mechanism are pushed kind of into the fringes into the frontier of the known that we have these these same tendencies to just kind of like mythologize and to make to make things up and to and to believe very deeply in those things and that those beliefs do have real weight and meaning and impact. And you know an example is I just got back from this academic um workshop at the University of Exit that was about um the idea that plasma might be a substrate for intelligence or consciousness and that would be a very huge deal because that's the fourth state of matter in 99% of the visible universe is is plasma and so this idea that like plasma could be behind everything from you know UFOs to Sasquatch to fairies to angels to de you I mean that that that that could be what we're actually dealing with. I think it's a really interesting idea. It also shows you how like like nent we are in all of this, right? That that that we're we're just getting around to talking about the stuff that like 99% of the things that we know about are made out of, right? And like we're just getting there, but then you know what that some of the convers like we really don't know what we're talking about at all.

Right. But but then you see like and this was a really cool conference because you had people like Robert Temple and Bernard Carr and um Timothy Eastman and like and you know very legitimate scientists and you know astrophysicists and plasma scientists and also like philosophy of mind guys and you know people are into psychedelics and the holographic universe and you know and I was there for some reason and and you know but some of the conversations that came out thought of that I thought were so important because you know some of the people were asking and I was so glad to hear people ask this like okay but if everything if all of this weird stuff if we're just going to say that it can be explained by plasma have we not just brought ourselves back to materialism >> and like and and like like if that that's okay but like we need to support that if that's if that's the case you know what I mean and also like just because it looks like it's intelligent how do we actually know that plasma could be intelligent like what would that look like how do we and in raising all of these larger questions. And so it's I just saw once again that tendency to fill this space. We're like, "Oh, plasma. Plasma sounds like a great answer." And it's a great answer because we know nothing about it.

And so we can really just sort of like project whatever we want onto this idea that of plasma intelligence and and feel like we've somehow arrived at an answer, but we haven't. We're just mythologizing. >> Yeah. Exactly. And and I I love that that point you made there, K.

I think you know it it's one of my stalking horses is this like things like materialism idealism I don't find have any explanatory value whatsoever right um because I I I think they they ultimately like amount to the same thing okay like there's one stuff right do you mean and and it may be that humans are not good at ontology like that that is a possibility here right and our attempts to have grand categorizations like that may just not be what we're set up to do, right? I'm open to that, right? Um, and I think I love that the point you made also, Kelly, is that look, um, you know, the way I said like we all think everyone else has an unconscious but ourselves. Well, that's his that's a historical thing, too. We act like, oh yeah, prior generations, they were just like they were just the dupes of their own, you know, you know, needs for religious comfort or what have you, and now we're beyond that now that we've had the enlightenment. and as if like somehow like we can we could like get by without the fundamental background structures of the human mind and like we could exempt ourselves from it. Do you see what you know what I mean? And I think that's the important thing here is to say the same and I actually said this in my book on it is like the same scrutiny that we give to like classical religion psychoanalytically, genealogically, right, critically, we need to give to everything else then too, right? like like no one gets a free pass on this and whether it's whether it's our allegiance to contemporary science or our allegiance to something like uhology what have you it it it all has to be tested critically not just scientifically okay but also in terms of what are what are the rudiments of our investment in it right our our emotional investment in it that also needs to be explored no less than we need to explore that for classical religion right >> yeah and it's tough because you don't there is no way to operate intellectually or even just in your day-to-day life without making some pretty hard epistemological commitments.

Like you just you have to there and there's no way forward without it. And and I think that like what's been so valuable to me about studying eupfology and getting so deep into this and in ballet's work in particular is just this understanding that like I can't stop myself from doing that. I will do that but that there needs you have to find a way as much as possible to remain aware of the places where you're just like kind of mythologizing where you're where you're closing a gap without really having the means to support it where you're like well that sounds right or like that comports with what I believe to be true so I choose to also >> believe that you know like I I the becoming more aware of that it's there's no way to do it perfectly. There's no way to not get caught up, but um you know, leaving that little bit of humility and openness there when you're and being able to recognize what parts of your belief structure are manufactured or contingent, which is basically all of it. It turns out there's like these like small little kernels of like things I feel like I actually know to be true.

Um and most of them don't transmit well to others. it's, you know, getting coming back to nosis and it's uh it's complicated and it's not comfortable and it's not easy. It's not that this isn't fun. You know, I have a friend who's an an artist and I he told one of his uh classes he teaches at a university his his whole studio burned down like his like life's work. And you know, ever since then, he's told his students at the beginning of every year like if you can think of anything else in the world that would make you happy, you should go do that.

Anything else? And like I would actually say the same for eupfology in some ways. Like if you can think of anything else that would make you happy, you should go do that because like eupfology is not going to be a thing that's going to make you happy. Um >> I I mean I might say that's Kelly that's that that is a really profound I think encapsulation of a lot of what we're trying to achieve in the show is that I I think that is true of any truly honest inquiry. Right? If like if if you are not open to a possible result that would make you very unhappy with things, right? Then you're not actually engaged in inquiry, right? >> And of course, we can never be sure of ourselves that we aren't rigging the game to avoid that dark conclusion. But I think this is like what we what we call an imbecile injacian circles is that it's someone who like knows that we're constantly subject to our own unconscious subversions and yet still goes forward attempting in a futile way to beat that, right? And and so you're always going to have to go back to the beginning and start over, right? Because you because you can never really really be sure of the ultimate motive that's holding you to this thing, right? And yet you have to try, right? >> Yeah.

Yeah, but I like I like that a lot. Like if if there's anything else that would be make you happier, right? Or if it's not worth being unhappy to do this, >> then I then I then I think we can't really trust ourselves in doing it. I I completely agree and I you know our our mutual friend Daniel Alzando is someone that I really really really admire in this regard because Daniel has is our generation's Richard Dolan and he's like a brilliant brilliant researcher. He's forgotten more about like the history of this field than I'll ever know. Um, and as a result of like seeing so much like he's got some pretty dark takes on what's happening and but his >> capital D on that dark by the way.

>> Yes. Yes. Some of the darkest things I've ever heard of and it's it's it's hard to know some of these things and like but but Daniel is just one of the most joyful people I've ever met. He just loves it. He loves the whole thing.

He's just like, "Do you see how crazy this is? Like do you see how absurd it is?" And he and he just kind of like runs toward it and does it with just like without judgment for the people that he's like learning these horrible things about and with just like a an a bottomless well of just curiosity and just wanting to understand and to connect the dots that I'm I really admire that I try to be more like Daniel. >> Very cool. Very cool. All right. So m probably we're getting up to an hour here and I know Jared does have like a legitimate job.

[Laughter] >> I I am a lazy academic who's never worked a damn day in his life. So I'm okay. Uh uh but so I want to be respectful of time. Uh Kelly, do you have any takeaway for our audience? Um, I would just say that I love the I love what you're doing with this podcast. I think that there are so many dangerous books.

And I joke often in Euphology, I think this applies to really any community that the best place to hide information from the UFO community is in is in a book. Um because I think a lot of people >> buy them maybe as decoration or as so they can like snap a pic of it and put it on their Instagram, but it just becomes so obvious to me all the time that people aren't actually reading these books and um you know it's one thing >> I understand friend, >> right? Yeah. You're fighting the fight every day, I'm sure. Um and and I would really encourage people to do that. I think Valet in particular is somebody that gets all kinds of lip service, but by the way he's being discussed or not discussed.

I recognize that almost everyone who's talking about valet has not read valet and hasn't taken the time to understand his body of work, what he's trying to say. And that's just one person like start there. But I mean, I think that if you're trying to shortcut your way or I hate to say it, podcast your way to like listening to podcasts to, you know, understanding some of these deeper concepts, like this stuff can help and can provide you a road map, but like you really got to do the work yourself. And I hope that people, >> right, I hope that people aren't just listening to you guys talk about these great dangerous books. I hope that they uh crack some of them.

Um, probably your audience is not the choir. I'm I'm preaching to the preaching to the choir here, but I do hope um that more people in general are cracking these books and giving them a look. >> Yeah. You know, and I like that too, like maybe would you agree, Kelly, that like if you're going to jump into this into this like pool, cess pool maybe >> of of study um messengers of deception. Good good first foot in.

Yeah, I I think you should start there because I think to I wish I hadn't waited so long to consider which parts of this were human. >> Um, you know, like this is the UFO really is this kind of blank canvas on which you can project all kinds of beliefs and suppositions and hopes and dreams. Um, but there's a lot of this stuff that that the the phenomenon, the modern phenomenon as we know it is inextricably tied up in the technology and politics and power plays of the last, you know, 80 or so years. And you can't understand it outside of that. Anything any understanding of the phenomenon that you have divorced of those things is is just another fairy tale.

>> Yeah. And this book will give you a good BS detector as you enter that field of study. I I I agree. Yeah, >> absolutely. >> Jared, you got a takeaway today? We maybe we have to start having end of show takeaways.

>> Yeah. I just think that, you know, similar to to what we've been talking about, this this whole show is about trying to wake people up to the fact that there are forces at work that are both external and internal uh to you potentially being manipulated. And so we want people to be able to think for themselves, step outside of that box. And uh part of the reason we've been starting with a lot of essays is just because we want people to actually read these things. Yeah.

>> I can invite them to a 15-page essay and then we'll get into the larger works as we as we go. Uh but yeah, I really appreciated having you here on on the show, Kelly. It's been really wonderful to to connect with you and to to chat with you. Thank you for everything you do. Uh for sure.

So thank you for coming on the show. >> Oh, thank you. It was such a pleasure. I would I'll do it anytime. Jared, we uh we we've utterly failed in restraint on that with start though.

Like we >> Yeah, >> we do like two chapters and it just turned out to be book, right? I'm we're not disciplined men. Um yeah, I guess my takeaway would be, you know, look uh like you two have an unconscious. Okay. And and and be wary of that. Like be wary of yourself first and foremost.

Be aware of yourself first and foremost because without that you you will get sucked into things unawares. Yeah, I think that's that's important. Kelly, anything you want to plug? >> Um we have >> Vic Crassley. Yeah. >> Yes.

No, we've got we've got a bunch of new content coming up on um Cosmosis. Uh people can check that out. We're switching to like a much more kind of like video in the field style. I'm actually just today about to go out and start shooting a bunch of new stuff with um my creative partner Jay Christopher King because we're kind of tired of all of the the you know the narrative wars and the you know all the things that happen in this space and we're trying to just get back out into the field um where things are where weird things are happening to people and and trying to get as close to the signal as possible. And so that's what we're going to be doing over the next um couple months and you'll see that all rolling out on the podcast and I'm really excited for people to see what we're working on.

>> Cool. >> I'm sure we will check back in with you at some point here. >> Dangerous great books. >> I'd love that. >> Cool.

All right, man. All right. Have a great episode. >> Great episode. Yeah.

Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. >> Thanks, guys. Yeah.