Despite being an eccentric enough person to have a podcast about magic, I find the topic of UFOs and UAPs difficult to talk about. Unlike animism, folk magic, and faeries, the UAP subject is no longer a fringe pursuit. It's making headlines in legacy media outlets and being earnestly discussed by the figureheads at both ends of the US political spectrum. Unlike most of what we cover on this show, UAP phenomena is now a suitable topic of conversation for even the normies in my life. Now, with very few qualifiers, I can dive into a philosophical conversation with almost anyone, about the vast spectrum of implications we're facing if we are to finally find ourselves the recipients of some kind of "official" disclosure. I think my hesitation to bring up these subjects casually has something to do with the ways in which, despite dovetailing with so many of my own spiritual and philosophical interests, the general consensus is that this phenomena can not only be explained within a fundamental materialist worldview, but that it, in some way, supercedes the spiritual, rendering it obsolete.

When we look at the mainstream coverage of the UAP topic, what we see is a very materialistic spin on what is otherwise a fairly mysterious and aberrant phenomena. This narrative fetishizes the tech of these so-called crafts and presupposes an advanced alien race, perhaps ready to welcome the humans of the 21st century into their intergalactic federation now that we have AI deepfakes and self-driving taxis. For someone like me, interested in the esoteric and arcane, this scenario doesn't feel like progress, nor does it describe what I see when I explore the UAP subject with magician goggles. During my conversation with today's guests, Sinéad Whelehan and Anthony Miller of the Fire in the Cosmos podcast, Sinéad made a fascinating point about how the historically male-dominated field of "UFOlogy" has skewed the narrative of the subject toward the "nuts-and-bolts" paradigm most of us take for granted today. Interestingly, I think you can see echoes of this in a majority of the paranormal fields, where for most of this century, a primacy has been placed on cutting-edge technology being employed to "hunt" and "prove" the tangible reality of these subjects and subdue them into the rational materialist paradigm once and for all.

It's heartening to see a shift in the conversation around UAP and related fields, and the welcoming of more female voices and perspectives. With this shift, the wider acceptance of the right-brained side of the conversation has finally come, and subjects relating to consciousness, myth, and spirituality are becoming less relegated to the fringes. With this holistic consideration of the UAP topic, suddenly the knowledge and experience of the occultist or magician feels just as relevant to the task of groking this mystery as any cutting-edge science, and with this paradigm shift, perhaps our pre-conceived notions of what science and magic are in the first place can begin to grow and expand.

SHOW NOTES:

Podcast: Fire in the Cosmos

Patreon: Fire in the Cosmos

Contact in the Desert: May 28 - June 1st