Newsletter 15 - Manifest Horror ~ The Arcadian Complex

Hi friends, Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Horror author Paul James Keyes here with another newsletter!

Last time I started talking about UFO’s and the videos released by the Pentagon. [LINK TO NEWSLETTER 14 - ALIENS-WHERE? HOW? WHAT?!]. This time, I’ll continue the discussion by focusing on a group of individuals that believe they can summon UFO’s with the power of thought and contact aliens by meditating. This practice has gained popularity with the release of the Pentagon videos, but it SHOULD NOT BE DONE. I repeat, do NOT try to contact aliens with your mind. This is because it can literally cause you to go insane.

The US Government even released a PSA warning people not to try it, which of course everyone in these groups immediately ignored because they don’t trust the government. But the reason the government says this practice is harmful is what makes this story much more interesting than one might assume:

When you meditate, you try to quiet your thoughts and let your mind go still. The UFO summoners believe that they can then hear alien voices talking back to them in their heads. They teach that others may be able to “hear the voices” and even write out lengthy stories about specific entities and the rules governing their supposed society. Now, meditating typically isn’t something that would warrant a government PSA, but in this case, sometimes people are undiagnosed schizophrenics and listening to the voices unlocks a quickly devolving mental state leading to insanity.

How scary is that? People are literally listening to their own internal thoughts and believing them to be aliens, and then tumbling down dark and terrible paths of mental illness, which they don’t want to treat because again, they think it’s aliens. It’s really quite sad.

When multiple people claim to be hearing the same entity, the story gets even weirder, but I would argue that they are passing the “entity” back and forth like a meme reflecting in their minds. Unsurprisingly, a lot of conflicting stories came out of these groups about what the entities had to say. A second person only hears the same things from these “entities” if they already know what the people before them claim to have heard. In this way, they pass the ideas back and forth to each other (online or in person) and then experience a sort of mass delusion over the whole thing.

It’s like going up to a group of children and incepting them with an idea by saying “did you just hear that scary sound?” and suddenly they all think they heard it.

Now, if you’re not an undiagnosed schizophrenic, having a chat with the voices in your head is probably harmless, but unless you have a family history of mental illness, you wouldn’t even know it’s dangerous for you until it’s too late.

The thing about the voices in your head—that is to say, your thoughts—is that you are NOT your thoughts. Your thoughts are phrases and ideas that pop into your head, and which you then have control over whether to take them seriously, or vocalize them, or ignore them. What you say in your head (or what appears there) can have power over you if you let it, but again, it is your choice! You are heavily influenced by your thoughts, and your thoughts are heavily influenced by your surroundings, but you are removed from your thoughts—you get to process them, and choose how you behave.

Whatever you choose to do, they are a manifestation of your mind, and you have the power to believe what you want. If you choose poorly, you are going to believe some unequivocally untrue things, and that will not serve you well in life. Stay critical of your thoughts and you will increase your self-awareness.

Until next time, stay safe out there!