Book Review: Lightquest by Andrew Collins

LightQuest: Your Guide to Seeing and Interacting with UFOs, Mystery Lights and Plasma Intelligences by Andrew Collins

There are plenty of UFO books out there. More than you can probably count. Most of them do not offer anything new, if they offer anything at all. The majority of them are stuck in the extra-terrestrial paradigm. Through the years, there have been books in the field that stand out, notably the work of people like Jacques Vallee, John Keel, John Mack, Whitley Strieber, etc. The people who were willing to try and truly understand the phenomenon. 

I believe that Lightquest from Andrew Collins belongs on that list. Is it the definitive book that clearly explains everything? No. We may never have that. But this book, may very well be a step in the right direction. Expanding primarily on the work of another novel researcher, Paul Devereux, Andrew proposes that what we see as space ships, fairies, etc, are really plasma formations. This is not a new idea, although it is not a well known theory, where Collins differs, is he proposes a definite intelligence behind the phenomenon. He suggests a combination of altered states of consciousness, and what he calls a 'bubble reality' to explain what is happening to people who come in close contact with these plasma intelligences. He starts the book by debunking Roswell, the flagship of the ET Hypothesis. Following that, he explores areas that have earth lights, probable plasma formations, that show up regularly, such as Marfa, Texas. He then takes it deeper into UFO territory and explores encounters and how strange they really get. He deals with cutting edge science to try and understand what we may really be experiencing, rather than what it looks like on the surface. 

Like all of his books, he shares information you will not find anywhere else. He shares some personal accounts and some never before published accounts that support his theory. He even, at the end, takes a look at the Rendlesham case. 

All throughout, as he explores 'window areas', UFO hotspots, and why they may be such, he also gives you tips if you wish to visit them yourself, and where you are most likely to see something. Personally, I have been a fan of Andrew Collins for a long time now, and the majority of his books have had to do with archaeology and lost civilizations, but there are a few exceptions, like this. He has never disappointed me. He always has something worthwhile to share when he authors a book, and with the number he has out, that is quite impressive. This one is around 400 pages, detailed, well written, easy to read, and just packed with information. There is even a brief Q&A section at the end just to clarify some of the points in the book. 

If you are at all interested in the UFO Phenomenon, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Even if you disagree with his overall theory, I can almost guarantee you will get something out of it of value. 

You can find out more about Andrew Collins at his official website.

Near Death, UFO's, and The Rethinking of Reality...

“I believe there is an perichoresis, an interpenetration. It is possible, indeed, that we three are now sitting among desolate rocks, by bitter streams.

…And with what companions?”

- Arthur Machen

When most people think of Near Death Experiences, they think of a tunnel of light, meeting heavenly beings, etc. A good number of people also think it’s bullshit. Those are the people who have never actually researched the subject. Does a NDE prove life after death? No. Absolutely not. However it is a genuine mystery that a few brave scientists over the years may have finally made some headway into.

Make no mistake NDE’s are a joke among conventional scientists, not because there is nothing to them, but because they fall into that fringe that they stay far away from. That fringe starts to unravel accepted theories, and is really just inconvenient. So the mainstream scientists stay far away. There are however, doctors who often starting out as skeptical, eventually admit that there seems to be something to the experiences. Michael Sabom wrote a book back in the late 90's called, Light and Death about a particular case that can’t be explained by accepted theories. But this case is not unique, often people who are dead on the operating table find themselves hovering over their bodies and can describe in detail what was happening on the operating table, or in other rooms nearby. The standard explanation for this is that they are just hearing it and their brains are making up the rest. There was a cardiologist, whose name escapes me at the moment, who after hearing numerous stories of NDE’s, and being completely skeptical, decided to mount his own study. What he did was this, over the coarse of a year or so, every patient he worked on was asked to fill out a questionnaire. Said document asked IF the person had a NDE, as well as questions about what happened during the procedure. What he discovered after many 100’s of patients was interesting, and turned him away from being a skeptic (a common thing for cardiologists who actually do any research on the subject). He found that, as we already knew, not everyone who died had a NDE. BUT, he also discovered that some people who did not die, and weren’t even near death, DID have a NDE. He also found that the people who had NDE’s could describe in clear and precise detail what was happening in the operating room, not just conversations, but actions, tools, etc. The people who did not have NDE’s, also filled out this portion, and he found that what they thought was happening could not have been more wrong. This disproved the idea that people were just making up what was happening in the operating room or just dreaming about it. Every indication is that these people were seeing what was going on in the room, even when all brain activity had ceased. There is, of course, also the famous story of the woman who, while having a NDE, floated out of the operating room, was able to recount a conversation, that was verified, happening in the waiting room, and then finally floated outside the building. In the last part, she saw a red shoe sitting on the ledge. When she woke up and told the doctor about it, she decided to check it out. She went to where the shoe was supposed to be, and sure enough, there it was, just as described. What was more, the shoe was not in a location anyone would have been able to casually see it.

All of this, however, does not say anything about an afterlife, what it displays is the probability that consciousness can move without the body. Now that we have established certain facts about NDE’s, we have to look at other research.

There were studies done at a certain point using Ketamine, and it was shown that under certain conditions, the drug could create visions similar to NDE’s. The problem with this, however, is that there is no known mechanism for the body to create Ketamine naturally. This did not stop various skeptics from latching on to the theory that somehow Ketamine explained away NDE’s. After all, when your only goal is to dismiss something, and you have already made up your mind, any explanation will do. Skeptics don’t use facts, they use belief. The very people who did the study said that they did not believe that this explained NDE’s in any way. Yet it was sighted repeatedly as the solution to NDE’s.

On the other hand, Dr. Rick Strassman, who was the only doctor since the 70’s allowed to do research on hallucinatory drugs, found that DMT, which is naturally occurring in the human body, also created experiences similar to NDE’s. Not exact, but he theorized that the circumstances may also be a factor, and that we don’t know what a natural release of DMT may do. Some of the experiencers also reported encounters very similar to alien abduction scenarios. He was not prepared for any of this, and after years of research he finally concluded that DMT didn’t cause hallucinations, per se. He felt that what was more likely happening was that DMT was re-tuning the brain, allowing consciousness to interact with a different reality. He termed our reality, channel normal, comparing the re-tuning to a TV set. In his book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences, he shows, in detail, why he doesn’t feel that what people were experiencing on DMT were mere hallucinations. There was too much consistency between trips, and between the patients. Hallucinations simply don’t work like that.

But this makes a strange connection, that of alien abductions and NDE’s. Oddly enough, Dr. Kenneth Ring made the same connection back in his 1992 book, The Omega Project: Near-Death Experiences, Ufo Encounters, and Mind at Large. Originally, Dr. Ring’s research was into the NDE. In this book, he expanded his research to not only explore the after effects of the Near Death Experience, but also to explore the alien abduction phenomenon. What he found was stunning, and rather confusing. He found that the aftereffects of both experiences had similar effects on the experiencer. Dr. Ring identified various value and belief changes associated with people who have had either experience. Some of these changes in personality involve having a greater appreciation for live, higher self-esteem, more compassion, a better understanding of life, as well as a sense of purpose, a desire to learn new things, an increase in spirituality (do not confuse this with religion), and many other things, including a raising of IQ. On the other hand both experiences can also create negative effects, where people have trouble dealing with the experience and life afterwards. But what stands out in this research, aside from the similarities, are the verifiable changes in the people who experience these things. Hallucinations do not cause core changes in a person, these experiences do. The late John Mack also dealt, on the abduction side, with these personality changes in great detail. He was, of course, ostracized for even attempting to study such a field. Again, his research confirms what Dr. Ring discovered. That there are changes to the individual, and that both experiences seem to have some common core.

One of the things that Dr. Strassman did not find, were any kind of long lasting personality changes in the individual. It is possible, however, that the amount of DMT, or the setting may have been to blame. Or maybe DMT is not the catalyst. But there is more.

As I said at the start, not everyone who dies has a Near Death Experience. This would seem to be a puzzle. On explanation may be, that only some remember it. Like dreams. Everyone dreams. Everyone. However, it is not hard to find people who rarely or never remember their dreams, or who believe they do not dream. Dreaming is also an altered state of consciousness, so perhaps there is a connection. Dr. Ring’s research led him to the idea of the Encounter Prone Personality. The EPP is someone who is more likely to have a paranormal experience. Could this be connected to DMT? Dr. Strassman wonders the same thing. Could it be that some people have more DMT running through their systems than others. Or maybe some people’s bodies create DMT more easily, then allowing them to access another reality. It could even be an environmental factor that sets it off. Consider that UFO sightings often happen in flaps, or flap areas. Paul Devereux has his Earth Lights theory (Earth Lights Revelation: Ufo's and Mystery Lightform Phenomena : The Earth's Secret Energy Force), which shows that such lights, perhaps generated by the Earth itself, happen most often along fault lines. All of these things may be connected. The same mechanism that causes Earth Lights, may have an effect on certain people, whose brains then release a dose of DMT, allowing them to access another world, or have an alien abduction experience, whatever it really is. This theory seems rather effective. There is only one problem. There are many UFO encounters with physical evidence. Granted never enough to fully claim the UFO Phenomenon as real to many people, but take for instance, there was a UFO landing case, where the witnesses watched a bright object come down and land in their woods. They went out to investigate. When they got there, it shot off and disappeared. It broke some of the tree limbs, and left a white circle on the floor of the forest. The mother of the group, reached out and touched the circle, and lost all feeling in her hand. It never returned. The area where the circle was is now, still, dead, decades later. Nothing can grow there. What does this prove? Nothing but that something odd happened. There are enough of these cases, enough radar traces, and other tantalizing pieces of evidence to rule out a purely mental phenomenon. At the same time, there is no evidence that UFO sightings like this are in any way extra-terrestrial. What they are is a total mystery.

I could go on for days about examples to back up all of the above. What it boils down to, though, is that there is more going on here than we currently can comprehend. A Near Death Experience may have nothing to do with what actually happens when we die, any more than UFO’s looking like saucers mean they come from outer space. They may have more to do with each other than most suspect. There is a legitimate mystery here, and one that may need a complete reorganization of our view of reality to even begin to process.

One take could be this. These experiences allow us access to another world. Another dimension. Under the right circumstances, we can interact and access that world. The above DMT theory would allow for this to happen. However, the inhabitants of that world, may also be able to come here, maybe not fully, but just enough to create the type of odd UFO sightings and such that occur, occasionally leaving puzzling evidence. This would account for all the evidence. It is not currently provable, and may be completely wrong, but at least it takes everything into account.

Lets look at one more piece of the puzzle. In his book Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, Graham Hancock suggests that the alien abduction scenario, the fairies and elves of the past, and shamanic experiences are all of the same ilk. Jacques Vallee had previous, in Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds, and DIMENSIONS: A Casebook of Alien Contact, shown the link between fairies, UFO’s, Fatima, and more. Graham goes a bit further and shows how the ancient cave paintings are not of hunted animals, but of shamanic journeys. All of these factors collide to create a rich and varied picture. Vallee shows that this phenomenon, whatever it truly is, has been with us throughout history. Graham adds into the picture the Shamanic element, which then aligns with the DMT research. When all is said and done, we are looking at something that has interacted with and been of part of the foundation of mankind throughout time. Some, like John Keel, feel that this phenomenon may not have our best wishes at heart. Mack and Hancock show that with bad experiences, growth comes, so maybe what Keel sees as dangerous, may eventually be beneficial. Or maybe, like us, some of what is there is helpful and some is not.

So let us look again at the NDE, in this new light. What do we know? Well, the out of body experiences suggest that consciousness is not confined to the body, and MAY survive death. It does not, however, necessarily show us what death is like. This reminds me though, of another strange connection between the UFO phenomenon and NDE’s. One of the common elements of the NDE is meeting of dead relatives when they go towards or reach the light. There have been numerous abduction accounts of people on ‘ships’ meeting dead relatives aboard. Whether or not these are their actual dead relatives in either case, is an open question, but the appearance of said factor in UFO accounts is very strange. Whatever is happening has a common factor. The experiences may be different, but yet, not so much at times. The other interesting thing is the personality changes that NDE and UFO experiencers have. As mentioned above, a simple hallucination does not cause this, nor does the DMT doses that were given by Strassman. I find the raise in IQ especially interesting, as being dead should not expand your intelligence, if anything, one would think small amounts of brain damage would likely be more common. Current science can not explain any of this. Nor will it even address the subjects. Death may have nothing to do with NDE’s, but the near death state may open up doors in some people.

It is easy for the skeptic to dismiss this data, they will never accept it anyways, so proving anything to skeptics is pointless. They have made up their minds. Luckily, there are those open minded skeptics, who are willing to do open and honest research and not dismiss things out of hand. It is because of these people that we may have finally reached something NEW about these types of experiences. For the foreseeable future, I suppose we will all find out when we do die. What happens will happen. I often wonder how these closed minded skeptics (and atheists for that matter) react when they die and their consciousness continues. Do they stop and look back, realizing how ignorant they were? On the other hand, if they are right, and when you die that is it, well, we won’t know anyways, now will we. I believe that there is more than enough evidence to suggest the independent nature of consciousness without the body, as well as the idea that consciousness is not a by product of matter, but that matter is a creation of consciousness. A very eastern idea, that western science is slowly finding itself having to deal with. Ah, but that is another subject...

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

- Teilhard de Chardin

The Light and the Moon...

Standing at the end of the path, fields surround. The moon, bright in the sky, casts everything in a beautiful glow. Quick moving clouds skirt across the sky, in patches dimming the glow occasionally, but none the less, there is a beauty to it all. A breeze, comes across from the West, guiding the clouds on their way. As I watch, I notice a light in one of the fields, strange that, as there is nothing out there to create a light. It is at first, though, only a passing interest. Despite my severely clear sense of consciousness, things start to happen... First a flash, like someone taking a picture. The flash is there, but without a sharp climax, and then an odd decay. Interesting, and hard to focus on, like it comes from somewhere we don't normally have access to. Then, oddness becomes outstanding. As I gaze up at the clouds starting to cover the moon, the lunar body suddenly bursts through the thick clouds and shakes wildly. Clearly a hallucination. I look away, at that odd light in the field. It blinks on and off at regular intervals. I look up and the moon is normal again, for a moment, then it starts its impossible dance. Bewildered I look away. I look inward to examine my seeming clarity of mind, and find that it still seems to be intact. That light is still there. I stare at it, and it goes out and doesn't come back on. Odd. I look at the bizarre lunar dance again, and once again, it seems like it should at first, then it performs it's convulsion. If it was an optical illusion, would that not be there as soon as I look? I notice the light is back, I look at it, trying to determine something, anything, about it. It goes out and stays out. Frustrating. I wait and it fails to relight. I look away, and from the corner of my eye, it returns. Like a game. I watch it from the corner of my eye, and it blinks on and off every seven seconds. Fine, I think, so there is a pattern to this seemingly out of place luminosity. As it ignites, I look at it, it stays on seven seconds, goes out, and does not come back... Till I look elsewhere, then it resumes it's blinking. Now how can that be. It is a good distance away, yet it seems to be interacting with me. It is not unusually bright and it stays perfectly still. What sense can be made of this. If I look when it is out, it stays out till I look away. Subtle, yet, so striking in it's action. I look up, the moon, free of clouds seems like it should, but the flashes on the landscape remain on occasion. I wonder if I should feel scared by all this? Worried about my own sanity, yet I know, this is something that is definitely there, this is not a mental hallucination.

I recall that at Fatima, the sun was said to fall from the sky and fly around. I think about our need to believe in ghosts or aliens, or something else that we can somehow fit into our idea of logic. Perhaps, though, the world does not play by those rules. Perhaps that light is always there, but it takes a certain state of mind, or state of earth, or alignment with something, somewhere, for me to see this. And there it is. And more than anything, it wants contact. And maybe it has caused these other things, the flashes and the dancing moon, only to direct my attention to it. But what then. If a person were to sit in that lonely field and wait for perhaps me to wander this way, even with some nice night vision goggles and motivation, they could not detect the slight change in my vision that provokes the light to respond. It knows when I am looking at it, and it is telling me so. The clouds are passed, and the sun is coming soon. The light remains. I bid it farewell and return from where I came, with a great sense of wonder, invigorated by something so simple, yet so profound. Not a ghost, nor an alien, nor anything else we can fully comprehend in our world of logic and order.  Perhaps, though, something that seeks contact, something so strange to us, that we can't yet see what it truly is. Perhaps we lack the facilities to, the senses to. And if it is so strange to us, how can we even guess it's motivation? It's awareness is likely to be so foreign and alien to ours that how can we hope to really communicate. We are closed minded and arrogant. Yet it tries. We can not hope to apply to something our limited views and behaviours to it and hope to make any sense of them. It has been here, trying, for as long as we know. We have assigned it different faces, angels, demons, aliens, ghosts, fairies... But these were the illusions, which we provided as it tries to get through on some level. A light in a field, where there is no light, that responds in ways it can't. It's seems so trivial and small.

Clearly, though, it is patient.

Book Review: Alien Energy: UFO's, Ritual Landscapes, and the Human Mind by Andrew Collins

Alien Energy: UFOs, Ritual Landscapes and the Human Mind
by Andrew Collins

This is actually an early book from Andrew Collins, re-released a few years ago. Overall, WELL worth the read. We'll start with the negatives, though. The typeset in the book is horrible. The font is tiny, and there is a lot of extra space. The photos, which play such a part in the research also look pretty bad. Finally, being that so much of it is recounting details of research, you can find yourself getting a bit tired of drudging through some of the text.

As for positives, however, the material is fantastic. He starts off talking about William Reich's Orgone Energy Theory, and the various experiments conducted. This ties in to some of their experiments later on. He follows that we fascinating research on Crop Circles. At this point, most Crop Circles are fakes, but there are some that are not known to be fake, and he goes back on the history of the subject, all the way back to the middle ages. The thing that he finds most interesting is the unusual effects that are experiences inside the crop circles, whether that be increased radiation traces, or physical symptoms that even the most skeptical people can suffer.

He poses a theory. That there is something in the field of energy of the earth, which in certain locations, can be a sort of window area, where other dimensions can overlap. He suggests that certain areas where crop circles are made are prone to this type of bleed through, and that somehow the crop circle amplifies it.

Beyond that, he then reviews Paul Devereux's Earth Lights research, which shows a correlation between fault lines and paranormal or UFO encounters. When he overlays this data with Crop Circles, he sees more possible correlations. And finally, he explores the nature of the earth below various ancient sites, to see of there is something they share, that may, again, enhance this energy.

After working through these various pieces, they then conduct 2 experiments based on these theories, using a lot of sensitive instruments, Geiger counters, IR Photography, and various other tools. They combine that with various locations, and ancient sights, orgone accumulators, and a host of meditations. This is the part of the book that drags the most. And it doesn't help that there is nothing that definitively proves or disproves anything. Collins is a good researcher, he doesn't jump at any anomaly and claim it proof. He looks for patterns, and they do find some intriguing ones to be present. There are also some really interesting personal experiences that he relates from the experiments.

I believe, not just based on his research, but also on my personal experiences, that he may be on to something. This has brought light unto some very strange things that have happened to me over the years, as Collins seems to do with many of his books. His work suggests that what we see as UFO's and mysterious lights in the sky, may not only be real, but far stranger than most people imagine. As with John Keel, his work leans towards an Ultra-Terrestrial explanation for these things. Collins admits to being an ardent believer in the nuts and bolts UFO theory for many years, but now has seen enough to suspect that our conscious minds play as much a part in their manifestation as the beings themselves.

If you want an open minded and original piece of work, this is it. But, as I said, it is a bit of a chore to work your way through. If you are serious about exploring these connections, though, read this.