Religious studies scholar Dr. Stephen Finley (Louisiana State University) is almost singular in his academic study of the UFO origins of the belief system of the Nation of Islam (NOI.) In the late 1980s, Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the most popular offshoot of the group, announced that he had an encounter with space people on a mountaintop in Mexico, and was taken aboard what he referred to as the ”Mother Wheel,” where he claimed to have met with the deceased leaders of the religion and given the blessing and authority to lead the group into the future.
Dr. Finley joined me to discuss this episode and the tributaries of personalities and events that led to it, and how it has affected the history of the Nation of Islam ever since. We traced the origins of the African American experience that led to this belief system, and his claim that “you cannot make sense of the NOI without looking at it as a UFO religion.” Finley believes that his study “says something about who we are as a people” and that the very act of marginalizing the subject (especially among his fellow academicians) was what drew him to it in the first place.  
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Stephen Finley – The Nation Of Islam as a UFO Religion

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Due to be released in November, Dr. Diana Walsh-Pasulka’s second book on the UFO subject is to me is a portrait of the UFO phenomenon as manifested personally among those who are interested in the subject. In this way, it is more of a teaching text than a narrative, as her first volume, American Cosmic was. It examines personal truths about the direct experiences of those who do not get on the news or attend UFO conventions, and how this can tell us more about these encounters on an individual level, where I believe the best understanding of this mystery lies. It also stands as a snapshot of where the subject stands right now; how it is seen and internalized by witnesses, how it is mediated by those with agendas or misunderstandings, and how it might be eventually accessible to all to help us evolve and survive.
Diana spent many months talking to the people she profiles in Encounters. The result is a deep dive into not just the UFO subject, but a real look at the mindsets and approaches to those interested in examining this mystery. Her portrait of space psychologist Iya Whiteley is particularly fascinating, and reveals how carefully listening to the reports and emotions of astronauts and pilots not only saved countless lives, but could also revise the database on UFO reports. The “overview effect” experienced by many astronauts is particularly useful in this regard.
We talked about the need of the humanities and the sciences to look at the UFO subject on equal terms, and the importance of the oral transmission of information, rather than the written word, which is widely used and respected, especially in the space program. And surprisingly, the use of the technique among “invisible college” scientists and academics.
We also discussed another of the researchers in the book, who looks at AI not so much as a threat, but a chance to engage in a learning dialogue with a vast intelligence, and her view that it is an alien intelligence from the future, helping us to evolve into our next incarnation as a human species.
We end with quote from “Tyler D,” character from her first book and his advice about the UFO subject, which was that “We are not meant to figure it out.”
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Diana Walsh Pasulka –  Encounters


I have known Thea Wirsching for a few months and my respect for her intellect and deep knowledge of tarot and astrology and their place in American History continues to amaze. Her advice and her singular project entitled the American Renaissance Tarot was one of the guides and inspirations for our own Ufology Tarot. She recently gave a fascinating lecture at the Philosophical Research Society about the esoteric roots of Edgar Allan Poe.
We talked about her path to her doctorate in English and her dissertation on the hermetic and the occult roots of American culture, particularly in the 19th century. In academia, she pointed out, “the occult is transgressive” and “conjures up the devil” for many, which made her degree more difficult to accomplish. She said that academics often “do not allow the subjects studied the dignity of their beliefs” and we talked about how this might be changing.
Thea mentioned the African American occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph and his influence on Aliester Crowley and that he quite possibly authored the first vampire novel. He was part of a very real and important brand of American hermeticism that influenced occult movements worldwide, and was disseminated through fiction and writers such as Melville, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman and ended up in the teachings of Theosophy and the practice of Spiritualism (which itself was an American phenomenon which spread worldwide.) These authors and others, as well as significant figures from American history play important roles in the American Renaissance Tarot deck and book.
She emphasized that while U.S. history is filled with triumphs and horrors, that we must look at the negative as well as the positive in order to make peace with it and change for the better.
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Thea Wirsching – The Occult and American History

Morgan Knudsen is on a mission to normalize what is commonly referred to as the “paranormal.” For over 20 years she has researched, experienced, and lectured and taught classes on hauntings and psychic functioning. She founded  Entityseeker Paranormal Research & Teachings in 2003, co-hosts a podcast called Supernatural Circumstances, and has been featured on countless radio and television programs and has written two books: Teaching the Living, and The Gift of Instinct.
For this first RM show of 2023, we began with the inspiration of her great great grandfather Albert Durrant Watson, who was president of the Canadian Association of Psychical Research in the early 20th century. Morgan’s main goal is to let her audiences know that psychic events and abilities are normal and pervasive. She emphasized that, especially in this realm, we get and experience what we expect, adding, “If people could connect to this in a way that is beneficial, your life really does change.”
We spoke on how many paranormal events happen to people who don’t expect it or don’t care or just when they turn off equipment. Knudsen spoke about the “power of giving up,” adding, “As soon as you let go, you stop the resistance to what’s trying to happen.” She also surprised me with her take on the general reaction of her fellow Canadians towards these subjects, which tends to be conservative and almost dismissive.
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Morgan Knudsen – Making the Paranormal Normal


Chris Aubeck’s previous book, co-authored with Jacques Vallée, was entitled Wonders in the Sky, published in 2010. It was a comprehensive examination of aerial phenomena reports from antiquity to the year 1879. His new title is Alien Artifacts: From Antiquity to  1880: The Forgotten Story of How We Came to Believe in Visitors From the Stars. The book describes the long and intricate history of ideas about extraterrestrial worlds and their inhabitants. The examples stretch back to ancient Greece and include the first speculations on the origins of the ancient alien theory, the first ideas of extraterrestrial craft, original accounts of what we would know today as flying saucer contactees, and even the racist origins of ideas about superior beings. Chris says he’s been told that his research is “like drawing back a curtain to reveal a long forgotten history of an obsession we thought was new.”
In his first appearance on the show in over 6 years, Chris described his research into the history of ideas about extraterrestrials in archives. libraries, and the internet, and how he has discovered that “we’ve read so much into it based on our expectations.” Many UFO stories in the 19th century and before were invented as fiction or to sell newspapers and other printed media, but many of them contain quite modern elements, such as ideas about alien artifacts and writing, and even elements of abduction stories. Aubeck says that this is not proof that UFO sightings and encounters are made up, but that we need to look at cultural contexts and antecedents for them to gain perspective. We also discussed the writings of 18th century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, and his descriptions of people from other planets that contain many elements that would appear in 20th century UFO contactee literature. Another fascinating tangent was the strange (to us) theory beginning in the 19th century, that meteorites had arrived from other worlds carrying flora and fauna, sometimes still living.
(Song credit: “They’re Here” by Boots Walker)
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Chris Aubeck – A History of Alien Artifacts


Clas Svahn is a journalist by profession, and also the Chairman of the Archives For The Unexplained, located in Norrköping Sweden. The AFU is dedicated to collecting materials about UFOs, ufology, Forteana, cryptozoology, paranormal phenomena and folklore. It is a nonprofit foundation, and the collections comprise approximately 3.5 kilometers of shelf space in 15 different locations. The collections include over 55,000 books in various languages, 88,000 magazine issues representing 8,000 annual magazines, 650,000 newspaper clippings, 30,000 photographs, films, and tape, vinyl records, as well as memorabilia, scale models, paintings, paraphernalia, posters, clothes, toys, and other items.
Clas has written a book about the archives, entitled “Files of the Unexplained,” which is basically a tour of the archives and some of its rare and unusual holdings. We spoke about the beginnings of the archive, and how Svahn and his staff scour the globe for collections of books and other ephemera. He says he brings in about 2 tons of material every year. Svahn says he “doesn’t take no for an answer” when hunting down obscure material and has even retrieved material from dump sites after relatives told him they disposed of valuable collections. Amazingly, the AFU also holds records of the Scole experiment.
Svahn also told me that he spent a day with famous abductee Betty Hill and learned that she claimed to have seen a UFO crash years before her famous abduction and even to have picked up pieces of the craft.
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Stephen Finley – The Nation Of Islam as a UFO Religion

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