the out-of-print self-published book
You can hear the shaky quality to his voice during this presentation. He seems fragile and uneasy. In the middle of this talk he sort of awkwardly says: "... and then I tried to end it all, and I found myself in a hospital." This dramatic remark says a lot about the intensity of his set of experiences.
I met John at the UFO conference where he made this unnerving presentation in 2008. My heart went out to the guy, he seemed deeply troubled by what had intersected with his life.
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9 comments:
A facebook comment from David Chace (part 1):
Twenty years ago I would have dismissed such a story or refused to listen to it. I didn't have the concepts or categories in which to place experiences like this. Today one word comes to mind: Synchronicity.
The tie in to Dr. James Harder is interesting. I met him a the Northwest UFO/Paranormal Conference around ten years ago. I was going to see if he could send me copies of some of the alien drawings he had, but I never followed through with him. Dr. Harder got into some really bizarre aspects of the alien contact experience in his later years, but I now see him as someone who was ahead of his time in that regard, rather than someone who was off his rocker.
There are aspects of human experience, aspects of reality, aspects of space and time, that we don't understand. The use of the Ouija Board is basically a form of channeling. It's the same kind of process. The nature of the communications, "Bigfoot came from planet Pluto" or whatever... I think they are deliberately absurd and implausible. Someone or something is trying to stretch our minds, or just toying with us. The trickster is at work, or at play.
How can we approach these kinds of cases pragmatically, as researchers? I think we need to get beyond the belief/disbelief dichotomy, and to focus on recording descriptions of experiences, searching for patterns, and seeing what parts of the experience seem to represent events within objective physical reality (for instance the UFO sighting over the casino that made the cover of the newspaper).
A facebook comment from David Chace (part 2):
Then there was the dramatic Bigfoot sighting that involved two witnesses, but didn't leave any tracks, as the creature appeared to be levitating or gliding above the ground. Of course, Bigfoot researchers trying to find evidence of hidden indigenous primates would have trouble with such a report. It was objectively real, in the sense that two people witnessed it, but the creature did not behave like an unknown ape is supposed to (i.e., apes don't levitate). I have heard of cases in which Bigfoot sightings are connected with UFOs, which suggests we are dealing either with a form of UFO occupant, or perhaps something more like an illusion or screen memory connected with the UFO.
The references to secret societies and conspiracies would have really bothered me if I had listened to this a decade ago. I'm not interested in that subject, in particular because people seem to go a little crazy with it... It's where belief becomes a big issue for some people, and the description and documentation of experience becomes secondary. In this case, though, I'll accept it as simply part of the synchronicity John Clark experienced.
I understand why Dr. Richard Haines explained some of John's experiences as coincidence. Science is still emerging from its flirtation with the paradigm of reductionist materialism, and the related notion that chance governs all things. Well, the concept of synchronicity makes it okay to look at some of these things, and to try to find meaning in events that look like extreme and improbable coincidences. The concept of synchronicity is a "permission slip" that allows us to investigate experiences that we have shied away from in the past, even though we don't really understand what synchronicity is or how it works.
These events were not the work of Satan, but I'm not convinced they were the work of aliens either, though the UFO aspect suggests that aliens participated in some of John's experiences, or were somehow drawn into them. Perhaps it was the synchronicity that attracted the interest of the aliens, and not the aliens that caused the synchronicity!
At any rate, it was an interesting listen. I predict that Joe Nickell will not listen to this, because it would cause problems with his "baloney detector". I've learned to turn down the setting on my baloney detector, and allow my mind to stretch a bit as I listen to and evaluate different experiences. My impression is that John Clark was being completely sincere, and has endured a great deal of stress as a result of events that defy our consensus view of how the world is supposed to behave. It's possible that he was a little bit crazy, but not any more than the average person out there, trying to explain their experiences, and exploring different ideas and beliefs in the process.
Wow! I don't know what to make of John's speech. The experiences seem to lean more to the demonic. Dark, dark stuff...
Thanks for sharing this, Mike.
~ Susan
Really enjoyed this-- spooky stuff and honestly a little out of my comfort zone. Typically I would write off a story like John's and scream quack from the rooftop; however his all around uneasiness in sharing his story made it far more believable.
I am not sure if I am easier to convince now that I am looking into things of this nature. Although, I keep telling myself it would be much easier if these things would be fake-- I still have common sense, it has just shifted a tad in recent years.
Mike,
Can you put me in touch with John Clark or someone that might have a copy of this book? I'd love to get a copy.
Anonymous:
I have no idea how to get ahold of him. In the audio he gives his real name. I suspect he would be easy to find.
I searched and found his book on amazon. Good luck.
Thanks, Mike. Just got it on Amazon.
So, what was happening back in the 70s? I wonder this because Clark's story shares some similarities with Phil Dick's VALIS contact and also Robert Anton Wilson's Sirius contact.
The appearance in all three stories of person's associated with US intelligence is also curious given the US government's penchant for outre brain experiments.
The Invisible Crime by
Michael F Bell
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