Culture of Contact Convention

I’ve just learned that, aside of the Mermaid Parade this weekend at Coney Island (with its symbolism of King Neptune and other Mer-folk), there is also a very different kind of “UFO abductee” gathering this weekend in the city. It’s called the Culture of Contact Multi-Media Festival, which begins today and goes through Sunday at various places in NYC, including the Pioneer Theater, Pubic School 63(!) and Lit Lounge on the Lower East Side.

You can find the “full syllabus” of events here.

And here are some interesting snippets from the Culture of Contact’s FAQ.

Under “Who are We?”:

The Culture of Contact is a loosely-knit group of alien abductees who have come together to create a multimedia festival involving classic movies, the latest in UFO and abduction research, cool art displays, performance art, music, and more. We realized that the East Coast hasn’t had much in the way of UFO conventions these past few years, so we decided to create one. Only better.

Gone are the days of dry presentations retreading the cases we already know. It’s time for ufology to receive a swift kick in the butt and who better to kick it than alien abductees?

So, it’s a sort of hip(sterish?) UFO convention with those who have had an experience they’ve come to describe as an abduction coming out of the closet, as it were, balancing art-work and creative culture plus some old-timey UFO themed movies with the lecture stuff. Okay so far.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Under “Yes, But Why Right Now?”:

Fine. Right now because, Save the cheerleader, save the world. Wait. No. That’s “Heroes.” Right now because, similarly, one thing we’ve all been shown, and that you’re experiencing as we speak, is that earth cannot sustain us as we are for much longer. Nature is going haywire. We need help. Before help arrives we need to take this subject to the next level. Say goodbye to the media laughing at us or hiding us in shadow and voice modulation as we cry about scary abductions. The victim mentality ends here. The anal probe jokes end…well no, those will probably continue forever.

In any case, a lot is about to go wrong in a short amount of time and rather than rely on politicians, Rapturists, or Tom Cruise, we choose to go with the very beings who have actually shown us this years ago. When I say “shown” I mean that literally. We knew this was coming. We told the world. The media baulked. Here we all are. Maybe it’s time to stop scoffing and take our word for it, hmm?

Alright, I can’t help it. I already like the FAQ writer(s)…or, more accurately, I like the FAQ writer(s) witty style. A sense of humor goes a long way. That being said, the assumption made here seem, well, ambiguous, possibly dangerous as belief sets. “Earth cannot sustain us as we are for much longer:” let’s start with that one. Who is “we”? All humanity? Or a particular, or group of particular, cultural-industrial modes of living? I know it’s a FAQ, so it’s not gonna be totally in depth, but, and maybe it’s just me, but I like to have things spelled out, so I know exactly where someone’s coming from. Then there’s “Nature is going haywire.” Well, yeah…the weather is quite irregular these days, given what it was forty, even a hundred years ago. Part of it would seem to be a result of human industrial practices and modes of living, which are destroying large swaths of the natural world and is built on a domination model. Then there’s HAARP and other tin-foil sounding weather modification black-budget programs. And then there’s also…the procession of the Equinox and the suggestion that weather is changing for all planets in the solar system right now, not just Earth.

I’m all for ending the victim mentality, within any individual or group, so that’s cool enough. And I certainly wouldn’t rely on “politicians, Rapturists or Tom Cruise,” but…I’m not sure I’m down to rely on “the beings” either. First, I suspect that they may not actually be from outer space but from inner space. Second, as such, I think they can be equated with the djinn–or other traditionally defined spirit entities. (I don’t know that, everybody, it’s just a suspicion.) Some of them may be friendly, some predatory or parasitic, some neutral. I suspect they’re individual as are we. And that the way such entities want us to interpret certain experiences and the most beneficial ways to interpret them aren’t always the same thing. As Emmanuel Swedenborg came to conclude quite a long time ago, you gotta exercise some caution, maybe even suspend belief a little, because “the spirits lie.”

I’m not scoffing, either. But I don’t feel it’s wise to take anyone’s word for anything in matters like these. What was it that mustachioed Russian guy Gurdjieff said? Oh, yeah: don’t believe, verify. (Not that I’m taking his word for it, either, but in my experience, it seems pretty sound advice.)

But, this part of the FAQ sort of leads me to believe that the FAQ writer(s) probably acknowledges some of my reservations already:

EVIL GRAY ALIENS ARE CONTROLLING YOUR BRAIN.

That’s not a question. It’s also untrue. Or, well, let’s put it this way: If evil aliens were here doing evil things and they wanted to wipe us out, we’d be sleeping with the fishes by now. I don’t think they’d wait around to gain legitimacy through public openness just to then incinerate us. Likewise, if this was all about space brothers coming here to sing “Kumbaya” that, too, would have happened already. Real beings are much more complicated, as you know, so let’s stay away from the silly stuff and the paranoia. Not helpful.

Yeah, paranoia isn’t usually helpful, but it’s how you use it. Sometimes you can scare yourself awake, if you know that’s what you’re doing. I’m not sure what the silly stuff is. My silly isn’t necessarily your silly.

Suffice to say, I might check this thing out anyway. I like to interact with different perspectives on things. And I’d certainly like to have a conversation with the folks there regarding their experiences and mine.

If you’re in NYC this weekend, you could certainly do worse than engage with other people’s reality maps.