Galacticmessages

Long before David Icke fell off his TV presenter's chair and banged his head, there were people who believed the world really was run by invisible aliens from the planet Zog (or aliens from the invisible planet Zog, I'm not too sure but I don't think it really matters that much). They weren't as public about it as they are today, but then there was no worldwide web, and they were left to walk the streets carrying "the end is nigh" signs and fervently hoping it wasn't. Today, though, things are looking up for the watchers of the skies.

The modern way to communicate with our masters from Beyond is through 'channeling', a respectable buzzword for what used to be called 'mediumship' and involved communing with the recently departed, not the recently arrived. Today, it seems that everyone can channel someone from the galactic federation who has just dropped by on his way to the fifth dimension, where, I'm told, there's a rather good vegetarian restaurant and Douglas Adams is alive and well. And why not? Let's be honest, the world is pretty messed up and we can use as many messages of goodwill as we can get. Even if they do come from multi-dimensional thinkers from another galaxy, whose thoughts, being multi-dimensional, can't be understood by anyone who can only experience three dimensions at a time. You and I, for example.

But even if the messages aren't clear, we can always come to a site such as this and read about the extra-terrestrial, extra-galactic and perhaps even Heavenly folks who are out there wishing us well and by and large, look forward to 2012 when we can all get those "The End Is Nigh" signs out again.

According to recent articles, all these messages from beyond are being channeled in greater and greater amounts by more and more people around the world in recent times. It may be mediumship, it may be astral travel, it may be telepathy, though more likely it's that "click to send to MySpace" button at the top of the page. Who cares? Outer space, MySpace, it's all owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Anyway, is all this likely to harm the unwary? I doubt it. This sort of material has been around for years, some of it well into the mainstream - Fortean Times, for example. It has an attraction for teens, who are looking for answers that the rest of us know they aren't going to find, and perhaps it appeals to some more adult folks for whom the confines of real life are too restrictive. When the President and the Prime Minister have no solutions, and you don't believe in a deity of any sort, then why not believe in angels, or invisible messengers from the cosmos? Both are the same, more or less, except the former, being from Heaven, naturally speak English.

I'm sorry but I don't see that this is a cult hangout; it's not remotely hypnotic and it's not in the least original, or organized, or convincing, even to someone as routinely disoriented as myself. But I still do have a serious concern about it, and it's this: real life is vastly more mysterious and interesting than anything most of us can imagine, and a person is going to miss out on that, if she spends too much time believing in this.

Take a look at the state of 'real' science today. Go read about quantum physics, parallel universes (yes, Virginia, there are infinite Santa Clauses), particle theories, cosmology, and maybe even go look at the actual stars up there, if you're not so confined to a polluted environment that you can no longer see them. We live in a 'real' world that is infinitely vast and infinitely tiny and we have not seen, nor can we ever see, what lies at the very smallest and largest extremes of it all. We can almost see the beginning now, which is pretty astonishing in itself, but we can never see the end. In all this wonder lie infinite possibilities, without needing to invent some new ones, and we have hardly begun to learn. Do we need a Galactic Federation out there to give us hope and a sense of wonder in our environment? If nothing else, it's a good question. Not answered by me here, though, and frankly, not by this site, either.