This is continued conversation with Walter Starck, editor of the impressive Golden Dolphin Video CD Magazine, who first contacted us after hearing of our crop circle documentary, Crop Circles: Quest for Truth. For the first part of the conversation, visit Walter Starck – Page One.
Walter writes:
Have you seen Wired News – Wheat Graffiti: A roundup of the top of the crops, by Daniel Pinchbeck? I can understand SETI's state of denial. Crop circles make their whole vast effort misplaced, like using a telescope to find one's way home from the office.
The important thing is the overall tone of the article. It isn't dismissive. It appears the mainstream is beginning to wake up and recognize something inexplicable is going on.
Suzanne responds:
Re the Wheat Graffiti article, if you saw it on the Net and not in the magazine, check out my Crop Circle Website where I posted the beautiful and informative graphics. This Pinchbeck is a player – I emailed him and we're having a good go. I posted our conversation on that page as well. His Website is impressive – url in the correspondence.
SETI's denial I am told is rooted in old official policy, dating back to Roswell time. Anything we can't control is perceived as a frightening threat to us, and the denial is so that people don't get scared by that. I hope that people who read the article don't miss the absurdity of SETI's position, which Pinchbeck didn't point out. Do you think it's clear?
Walter writes:
Have been busy with getting out another issue of Golden Dolphin, doing annual tax return and reviewing new digital camera. Did manage to get in listening to your interview with Madam X (fascinating) and am looking forward to listening to more of your shows when I can catch up.
Have more for The Conversation but will have to get current tasks out of the way first. Shouldn't be too long. I much enjoy receiving your Conversation updates.
The latest circle was particularly fascinating. It is the first I have seen that might be called 3D in appearance.
Suzanne replies:
Madam X, aka Gail Bates, spent the summer with me in England, where she turned her considerable artistic talent to filmmaking. She shot wonderful footage for our film and has been taking classes since we got back. I want to do a film with her – my current suggestion is to draw out of people what "staying in the moment" is for them, interspersed by footage of people who have to stay in the moment to do what they do, like jugglers or acrobats or or or. It would be very artful and very moving, where we evoke the experience of this primal state of awareness that we need to be tuned into.
There have been astonishing 3D effects for a few years now – yet another aspect of the design work extraordinaire our circlemakers are delivering: http://www.temporarytemples.co.uk/default-lib.html – hit 1999 and scroll down to "West Kennet Longbarrow" for a good one.
Walter responds:
Am still busy with various chores but wanted to pass on a few more thoughts on various things. The more I have a chance to explore The Conversation web site the more I am impressed with what you are doing. The scope, quantity and quality of material is awesome.
The living in the moment video interviews by Madam X should be most interesting. DV cameras have opened the way for a whole new style of film making. With them one can be personal, genuine, unobtrusive, and intimate in a manner simply not possible with big cumbersome equipment and crews. The prevailing language of film has evolved around the obtrusive technology of the past and the new possibilities are only beginning to be explored. Beyond the production stage, computer based editing has freed us from the time/cost limitations of expensive editing studios and Internet/CD/DVD distribution bypass the old mass media/least common denominator of taste channels of distribution. A CD/DVD can be replicated and posted anywhere in the world for about $2. The potential is quite exciting.
Incidentally, if still photography is of any interest to readers of The Conversation I have just posted a review of the latest Nikon digital still camera on my website at www.goldendolphin.com. Just click on the Coolpix 5700 Review item. It also includes a rundown on the current state of the art re: digital vs. film.
I have found the quotes section of The Conversation particularly interesting in several respects. The intelligence and clarity of thought reflected are refreshing. It is also reassuring to see that one's own perceptions may not be as hopeless a minority as daily life and the mass media view of the world would indicate. Most important is seeing that a disparate group of people of widely differing backgrounds and circumstances with only obvious intelligence and an open mind in common have arrived at surprisingly similar points of view on so many issues. It would seem to indicate that reason can indeed lead to inescapable conclusions and nonsense is still nonsense even when it attracts majority belief.
Meanwhile in the broader world every issue is attended by great argument and disagreement. A never ending proliferation of laws and regulation governing the minutiae of every activity is the response to every problem. As a society it is clear we have a failure of philosophy. Instead of a few clear basic principles we have multitudes of arcane specific rules. Procedure has trumped result. Legality has replaced ethics.
No amount of additional patches can fix this. We must go back to basics and reconsider our fundamental understanding of life, the world and our place in it. We need to reconstruct a simple clear statement of our basic principles. From this all else emerges naturally. Without it we have only a hopeless muddle of conflict and compromise. Much of what is needed is inherent in The Conversation. What is required is a clear concise formulation of it.
At this point we have a disparate group of researchers who have figured it out for themselves. Now we need to sell it to management and the shareholders. For this we need an executive summary and popular presentation.
Suzanne responds:
I think the body of work I've been compiling is compelling, but one thing these days that keeps separation in place is what the Dalai Lama called "time sickness." Everybody is on overwhelm meeting obligations, and there's not much receptivity and horizontal connecting. So, I much appreciate your soaking it all in.
You and I hear each other so clearly that we might come up with something good. It feels like it could be time for a big change. That Howard Zinn piece about the Camden 28, at the end of the Vietnam War, was heartening – when the time is ripe the scale can be tipped. What about "an executive summary and popular presentation?" Say more.
Have a look at the latest exchange with Daniel Pinchbeck, who did the "WIRED" piece on the circles. I also passed this exchange to Brian Swimme – I'd like systems thinkers to compare notes. This Daniel guy is so smart, and he's been places on his shamanic journeys. I don't see the universe carved up into such a phantasmagoria, but, when Daniel speaks – and it's Steiner's story, too – it deserves a listen.
Walter responds:
Our lifestyle of incessant relentless busyness is indeed a problem. It is increasingly difficult to communicate anything that can't be encapsulated in a 45 second sound bite.
As the Howard Zinn piece points out there are times when society opens to new considerations. What is chosen and much of what follows stems from the ideas available at that time. Such times of opening usually accompany times of crisis arising from the increasing dysfunction of earlier concepts. Clearly we are headed for such a time and this is why I think it is important to have available a well presented alternative.
I too have explored shamanic realms and psychotropics. I have also read all of the authors to whom Daniel Pinchbeck refers. I have even had a mind altering experience of the UFO phenomena. As you said of such experiences, "each person creates theater, translating the ineffable into a recognizable symbology." And, "I don't see the universe carved up into such a phantasmagoria...". I fully agree.
Taking anyone's (including one's own) interpretation of such experience too literally is fraught with risk. There are as many interpretations as there are interpreters and while there are some commonalities each offers their own largely unique scenario. If we wish to avoid confusing ourselves with elaborate beliefs that have little relation to the reality of our own being or the world in which we live, we must exercise belief with caution. It is much better to not know and know we don't know than it is to be convinced of things that are untrue.
Occam's Razor, logical consistency, and independent verification enable us to avoid a great deal of nonsense. Accepting uncertainty and being willing to change one's mind in accord with reason and evidence permit the shedding or clarification of our misperceptions. This is easy to say and not really too hard to actually do but somehow still very difficult to accept. We want answers to everything. We want certainty. We don't want to consider anything that does not conform to what we already believe. Above all we don't want to change our minds.
Elaborate scenarios not consistent with anything else we know and that cannot be confirmed by ourselves, others or empirical evidence must be accepted on faith alone. To paraphrase Ambrose Bierce on faith – belief without evidence in events without precedence as reported by a solitary observer, admittedly unworthy.
The origins and intent of crop circles are simply not known. That they exist is verifiable. In view of all available evidence, human origination for most of them appears most unlikely. The designs reflect a high order of intelligence. Their method of formation is not explicable. Their context in terms of geography and human activities also seem meaningful. The hypothesis that they are messages to us from an intelligence other than our own is not unreasonable and even inescapable if one is to approach the issue with an open mind. If they are indeed messages from another intelligence, the implications are profound. They deserve our most careful and detailed consideration. Trying to deny them as petty hoaxes or confusing the issue with wild speculation or leaps into unfounded belief are unhelpful.
We need also be aware that trying to understand another and probably more advanced consciousness than our own by assuming motivations or aims similar to ours may be highly misleading. We are ill tempered primates who can't stand being alone but when together spend much of our time squabbling with one another. It is impossible to imagine a far more advanced technology in the hands of beings with a consciousness such as our own at present. To avoid self destruction, any truly advanced beings must have arrived at a far more benign state of being and broader awareness of self than our present one.
Ideas of advanced civilizations comprised of beings motivated and behaving as we do are reflections of our nature, not theirs.
Suzanne responds:
This is so beautiful. You have such a gift for capturing the essence of things. I keep thinking of it as new common sense.
The most recent round of my spiritual enthusiasm was for Advaita. Some guides came along, mostly from the non-dual Ramana Maharshi lineage (I got involved with helping one of them, Yukio Ramana) – no belief, no following, nothing outside one's own awareness, where what you could call God is found. Stories that are told are so different from a knowing, and it's hard to understand why they captivate people. But, I seem to remember the late great Terence McKenna telling about beings that everyone would encounter if they found the realms where they abide. Could there be something tangible to some "elaborate scenarios?" Maybe Pinchbeck will give us a clue.
People at large aren't being given enough information to encourage them even to consider what crop circles could be. It's logical, given how SETI dismisses them, that everyone will do the same. People very understandably think inside the box until there's reason to do otherwise. I think we're back to the stranglehold of the powers that be, rather than it being about widespread resistance.
I've been thinking that the soul of America, its great spirit, isn't in what makes the headlines every day. Power does transformative things. It makes for a trail of conquest and tears. But the essence of what America is isn't this. There is a fundamental goodness in the heart of America, which is the great majority of its people. It's made visible whenever big trouble strikes, but is pervasive in the everyday way people are there for one another. They just are. They have families and neighbors and live with a connectedness and a caring. They water their plants, they feed their cats, they give each other their kidneys, they save lives in emergency wards. This is America. We can be very proud.
But, we are encapsulated by those who hold the reins of power. Those who make the laws and those who have the money are intertwined to form a shield around us that meets the world, so that others don't see through to where the real America is. I think your observations hold for the face the world observes, but I think there's more to the body of America than that.
I'm eager to find out what you're thinking. For years I've been looking for how to change the thoughtform. I keep going from one possibility to another (like Yukio), with the crop circle phenomenon ever present in my awareness as the ace up my sleeve. Feels like a good new move is coming from your quarter!
Walter writes...
Knowing through direct personal experience is a most important form of independent verification. This is especially so with matters pertaining to consciousness. Although someone may tell a fascinating story it remains only that unless it is confirmed by similar experience of others or better yet, ourselves. Even then it must also have applicability in our lives to be anything other than a curiosity.
If there is something tangible in an elaborate scenario we can expect it to manifest in some kind of commonality of experience and it is there we must look for meaning. The essence of consciousness is pattern, that which repeats. All meaning is pattern, all else is chaos or the void. Consciousness is itself a pattern of patterns. Like a hologram it is a portion of the universe reflecting to greater or lesser degree the whole. It is the microcosm that encompasses the macrocosm. A localized manifestation of a universal wholeness that in the realm of being can be referred to as God.
The devil is very much in the details. They are the noise that distracts us from recognizing the patterns essential to higher levels of harmony and understanding, greater oneness with the whole. By all means lets hear everyone's story but look for the pattern and meaning without putting too much credence on details that differ with every teller.
The SETI position is deja vu the Condon Report. That was the Air Force funded independent study of UFOs. They found that a good number were explicable as sightings of Venus, weather balloons, etc. Then there were the hoaxes, dubious witnesses, and reports with too little detail to evaluate. That left a remaining portion of detailed reports by reliable (sometimes multiple) witnesses. Here was the real phenomena, and for this they concluded that since the others were all explicable where sufficient information was available these would be also if more information were obtainable. After separating the signal from the noise they had a quick look, saw it wasn't what they wanted to consider and mixed it back in with the noise.
I agree there is a great goodness in America but from my experience it is in all people everywhere along with considerable badness. Which manifests depends on circumstance but given an opportunity the good prevails. It's simple really. When we are doing good we feel good and the world we experience is a better one. When we are doing bad we feel it and our world becomes a mean one. I think America's greatness stems not so much from a special goodness of Americans as from the goodness of certain of America's ideals and values. Key elements in this have been the ethos of the frontier, incorporating freedom, independence and individuality. These values along with the philosophy of the enlightenment and elements of the self governance of the Native American people were enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Numerous struggles over human rights and massive diverse immigration have contributed also.
The result has been a unique national character. Americans are optimistic. They think things can be done better and aren't reticent to try. The role of government isn't just to govern but to serve. Its deficiencies are to be criticized and rectified not denied or justified. Americans have a get up and do attitude. They have an admiration of success rather than a resentment of it. They also have an aspiration to it rather than simply accepting a given level.
Americans see their country as more free and moral than other nations. This has both good and bad aspects. To the extent that America tries to live up to it's self image it is good. To the extent that it blinds Americans to the internal erosion of their freedom and values it isn't so good. To the extent that it inhibits America from perceiving deficiencies and mistakes in dealing with other nations it is a real detriment.
As you allude to, there is a real disparity between the nature of the American people and the American government. In short the government no longer reflects the will of the people. This is a matter I will have to leave for another occasion.
Suzanne responds:
The pattern thoughts seems like they belong in a different milieu than the Internet -- better in-person, back and forth. Like I don't know about "applicability" in terms of what I was talking about. Realization changes you. It's its own thing, and then it's the story of your life as to who who've become. But maybe you're talking about something else. In terms of things that are unknown to oneself -- re whether there's reality to the phantasmagoria worlds -- agreement of others might be cause for pause about whether there's truth involved. Your remarks about consciousness are poetic truths. (What's with you reading Brian Swimme's book, speaking of consciousness poetry?)
Yes, I think basic goodness is in all people – and basic fear. I think you nailed it – that what "manifests depends on circumstance but given an opportunity the good prevails." I'm not glorifying humanity-at-large, but just making a distinction in suggesting that the venality of the elite isn't across the boards for the rest. There's something inevitable in an industrial civilization, where making economics fundamental ultimately has people destroying each other to win the money game. That perhaps has happened before, where civilizations then have vanished. We perhaps are at that precipice now, where we'll perish or come through the crisis having reinvented ourselves.
The origins of America, I think, represented an earlier step of progress – a country full of escapees from more constrictive realities, so that a higher rung, where America's ongoing virtues live, could be reached. But abject evil also lives here. I recently saw a great documentary, "The Middle Passage," about a several month voyage of a slave ship from Africa. Seeing that, I wondered if we ever could get it right, it is so dark how we got it wrong. Stolen people were chained beasts, not even respected as worth money. In the same week, I saw a Holocaust documentary about how a world that didn't like Jews knew what was going on and didn't permit them to escape to any shores. It is unthinkable how humans can behave.
I think 9/11 has been an eye-opener for Americans. I don't think we by and large knew how America had behaved that brought about so much resentment of us. Many in the upper echelons just weren't political, and still believed that America was living its ideals to a greater extent than we discovered was true, and we let the power machine run wild. We know more now. And, in this knowledge, there's a substantive resistance to the powers-that-be. Witness Michael Moore's book still number one on the best seller list. What we haven't done yet is create any alignment so that those who are incensed can cooperate to become a force. This is the need if the hour – a very late hour.
I am doing radio shows all over the U.S. and in Canada. Word is out that I'm a crop circle expert, and "Signs" has made crop circles a hot topic. I'm just about to watch CNN, where the promo for the show coming up said something like, "There's proof that they're all man-made, but people still believe..." That's pretty much the tenor of the media. But, nonetheless, with so much reporting a more thoughtful perspective hopefully will start to dawn, most particularly from how discordant hoax stories are with the gorgeous images that accompany the sneers and dismissals. And, there was a great documentary on our Learning Channel last night – the first objective report. Seeing that I started to feel the tide possibly turning.
Walter replies:
By applicability I mean knowledge that can be applied to better understand ourselves or our world and resulting in a more effective or harmonious existence for us. Inapplicable knowledge on the other hand, simply doesn't matter. Whether true or not there is nothing we can do about it or with it. For example, a scenario of various spirits and realms of being without any insight as to how we might further explore or apply such knowledge is only a curiosity. Our time is better spent directed to things we can further understand or apply. This in no way dismisses the possibility but only suggests where our attention is better focused unless or until a way forward in such areas arises.
Some thoughts re: a succinct summary of Crop Circles:
1. Number (thousands), extent (many countries), and duration (at least 20+years) would require a large scale, long term, international conspiracy if human made. Such a conspiracy is hard to imagine and no indication for it exists.
2. Demonstrated hoaxes are crude and simple only. They do not approach the size and complexity of numerous unexplained circles.
3. Despite numerous examples of large sophisticated designs no hoaxers have been caught in act of creating any.
4. Scientific study of plant anomalies and magnetic effects associated with circles can not be explained or dismissed.
5. Plasma vortex hypothesis while worth consideration raises more questions than it explains:
a. Vortex is a hypothetical not known to exist.6. Circles cannot be credibly explained as either human constructs or natural phenomena.
b. Localization due to electrical charges associated with groundwater levels is a hypothetical not known to exist.
c. Geometric patterns explicable as natural for vortices is extreme speculation and not known to exist.
d. Increasing complexity of designs and pictorial nature of some designs is not addressed at all by vortex hypothesis.
7. Involvement of high order non-human intelligence in origination of circles cannot be rationally ignored. They deserve serious consideration.
I know you are well aware of all this but am thinking that trying to put it into the most succinct form possible may be useful.
This is a basic template I've been sending to TV programs and the LA Times. We've got to stop thinking the same thoughts!
WHAT IF CROP CIRCLES ARE A REAL PHENOMENON?
If we had definitive evidence of "contact" with another intelligence, we would have to rethink everything. What a blessing that could be, at a time in human history when humanity is so oppositional and endangered.
Given the need, it behooves us to go from skepticism to curiosity about such matters. If things are bogus, nothing is lost. But, if we come out of the dark closet in which we can't see anything, there's a chance we could bring to light something invaluable.
With "Signs," the movie that's brought crop circles to the fore, virtually all media coverage comes from a presumption that boys from the pub make them. This denial is especially perverse because of what the boys couldn't do, which is to make awesomely beautiful and complex designs, indicating something majestic and benign is signaling to us. Since 1989, when simple circles suddenly became parts of larger patterns, some artistic auspice has been developing a startling portfolio. It is ever evolving, ever building upon itself, ever adding design features, ever increasing in complexity. Any otherness capable of such an extraordinary body of artwork would have to be deeply soulful rather than ominous, and contact only could be of help to us.
The first way it could help would be to get our attention off each other, onto a wider world. Everyone would have to reconsider reality to make new sense of what is going on.
Then, who knows what other assistance might come if we are receptive? Any power great enough to deliver the astonishing formations could have much to offer us, but we need to be in a mode that will receive.
But maybe the realization is all we need. Us learning to see further, and not getting a hand-out from a great power, could perhaps serve us best. As the circlemakers tantalize us to stretch to perceive them, they could have this in mind.
This is what the great classical scholar and geometer, John Michell, has said:
A great power has arisen, directing thoughts and perception in a certain direction, towards a more complete and satisfactory view of reality than the modern conventions of materialism have previously allowed. Gently, subtly, with no disturbance or panic, we are being guided across a watershed, from one world view to another. And this is in no way arbitrary, but a purposeful process, in accordance with the interests of eternal nature and the necessities of the present.
Let's talk turkey now about what's making crop circles.
If anyone could explain how any complex formation was created by human hand, we all would listen. However, hoaxers and debunkers NEVER do that -- the circles we know they make are inferior, and no evidence EVER has been offered that they've made any good formations.
As to indications good circle-making can't be done by people, there are many:
The list goes on. The signs point to something that reasons and designs and imprints our reality. Without a category for what that could be, the mind denies what it sees to explain the phenomenon away. Also, we have government disinformation, which discredits what could be threatening to us so people don't get scared.
- The parallel lay of the stalks (sometimes inches off the ground).
- The stalks that have been bent (not broken), as if under the influence of high heat.
- The woven features, like nests, tents, basket-weave and half-tones.
- The adjustments for hilly terrain so that patterns appear symmetrical from the air.
- The laboratory analyses showing molecular changes to the crop.
- The absence of mud in formations made in the rain.
- The failure of electronic and mechanical equipment inside and above circles.
- The geometric intricacy that would take the best surveyors days to lay out.
- The size and complexity of formations created during short English nights.
- The creation of formations in broad daylight near major highways and tourist sites like Stonehenge.
- The downed crop in lines too narrow for people to pass.
- The circles in the middle of fields with no access and no human tracks.
A feature documentary, "CROP CIRCLES: Quest for Truth," which will have a world-wide release, opens in Los Angeles on August 23. It will show that you can't explain the crop circle phenomenon based on human endeavor. The filmmakers' hope is that it's time for humanity to open its eyes.
Your template looks excellent and is well written. One thing we both have not mentioned but probably should:
While we are spending a great deal of time and sophisticated effort trying to detect an intelligable message amidst the cacophony of cosmic radio noise we have been studiously ignoring an ongoing clearly discernable, large scale, repeated signal placed right in front of us and refreshed almost daily. It's time we stopped trying to explain it away and give it serious consideration. This doesn't require subscribing to any belief about it but only approaching it with an open mind.
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Yesterday I visited a new crop formation which came down near Sparsholt, just a few miles east of Winchester England. In all my years of croppying, this has been one of the most fundamental and deeply stirring of experiences, a privilege for which I feel deeply grateful. So I thought I'd send you a report of my subjective experience of the formation - or more correctly, of the 'space' within it. To see the formation properly, go here: temporarytemples.co.uk The picture the formation makes is impossible to distinguish on the ground. Unlike most formations it is not swirled and flowing, but definitely right-angular in the lay of the wheat. The face part is made up of parallel lines of varying thickness, using a 'rasterising' effect to create a subtly shaded image, as seen from above. Though Steve Alexander, the photographer, told me that, while hovering over it in a helicopter, it was very difficult to perceive exactly what the picture was, so he photographed it from as many angles as possible, and only saw the full picture when the film was developed. The formation was very energy-dense. When we approached it I was in quite a balanced and calm state. Stepping into the first bit of the formation (its 'frame') I suddenly felt shocked, as if falling suddenly into the deep end, out of my depth. The magnitude of the experience was quick to be felt - a heart-fluttering thing. I felt almost forcibly 'pulled within' and found that, although there were several old friends there, my social skills were zeroed out immediately. It wasn't unpleasant, and I think everyone there was experiencing roughly similar things. As with some other formations, I felt as if I could be seen inside by X-ray eyes above me, read off and monitored. It's as if our normal relativistic universe dissolves, leaving us in empty, wide-open space - though, in another sense, as if we've come home - a bit like landing in a foreign country and feeling instantly familiar with it, even if you don't speak the language. The 'energy-signature' of the formation was different from others I've been in. In the 'main series' formations over the years, I get quite an intimate feeling of a presence or of energy-fields, but these presences distinctly don't want to tell who they are or what they are saying or doing. It's a bit like being a child watching an adult, without understanding why adults do what they do though nevertheless knowing that there must be some reason and sense to it which is beyond us. It seems that the main point of these is to present us with unanswerable questions which have a deeply transformative effect on consciousness and our sense of reality. An opportunity for communion, a chance to step into 'their' world while remaining on or in 'ours'. It seems clear to many croppies that these beings are not ETs as such, but interdimensional beings of a non-physical yet non-earthly nature. We don't know who they are, but somehow we know them well, and the experience is recognisable, tweaking deep memory, even if unique and entirely new. Then, of course, there are those who are desperate to assert that crop formations are man-made, but, sad to say, that's their problem, and their cosmic constipation will no doubt one day be relieved! This formation felt like a personal message from a specific being, with a distinct identity 'he' was revealing to us. Sheila said she felt it was a rather shy being, tentatively offering itself to us, to see how we would respond. Clearly, the face in the aerial photos is an ET face - unlike the Face at Chilbolton (six miles from this one) last year, which was humanoid. The picture, when first seen, brings up mixed reactions, but the atmosphere in the formation is undoubtedly friendly and benign. The Face of 2001 looked straight at us. To me it said 'We are watching/eyeballing you - and we are you watching yourselves'. The 2002 face looks over our left shoulder - and the feeling I got was that it was looking and communicating with our soul, which stands, as it were, just behind us (perhaps because we omit fully to incorporate our core and heart into our worldly lives). I looked and felt my way around the face part of the formation for a while, but was drawn into the disk - and everyone else was there too, mostly lying on their backs and 'far away'. (It was a bit like a who's who of currently active croppies, actually!). The disk reminds me of psychic experiences I've had, of being given a 'rote ball', a hologram-bundle of multidimensional information which, once given, unfolds itself gradually over time (rather like being given a CD of information to look through, as you find ways of opening the files in it). Settling down close to the centre of the disk, I went inside and felt as if an energy-information download had started to take place. At one point Tulki, my son, spoke to me, and I surfaced, only to feel that the download was half-way through, so I went inside again to complete the download, and a point came where I felt it was complete. A few others verified this experience too. God knows what happens next, with that experience, and today (Sunday), the day following, I'm left wondering what to do with it or, more specifically, what this ET wants of me. It feels totally okay, and a great blessing - and I guess I'll find out! The 'disk' is made up of a fine spiral, with 'blips' on it which are spaced and sized in such a way as clearly to represent a coded and decodable message - my croppy friend Michael Glickman, earlier in the day, had said "Well, that's given me a winter's-worth of work to do!". Someone will hopefully decode it in due course by linearising the 'track' of the spiral and analysing the patterns and spacing of the 'blips'. Virtually all previous formations (except the Chilbolton 'Face' and 'Code' of 2001) distinctly represent clear patterning, mathematical principles and geometry, while the specific 'message' cannot be interpreted, at least in the language and concepts we currently possess. Yet this seems to be something we can decode, a specific message from a specific source. Some people threaded the spiral of the disk but, frankly, my capacity for physical movement was strongly reduced (until I left the formation, when it returned), so I didn't do that. My body felt like stiffened rubber, stable and grounded, but in another way my motion-connectors weren't wired up and motion was thus reluctant. Subjectively, I felt that each blip on the disk's spiral was not just a piece of information, but a kind of 'file name' to a whole bundle of information in its own right - it felt as if a whole library, not just a statement, was being given. I presume that a series or sequence of insights or life-experiences might follow from here. This felt to me like a distinct 'close encounter' - a very intimate one, perhaps closer than we can get to our own selves. Everyone stayed there for a few hours - it was difficult to leave, as if we were already 'home'. While in the formation and reflecting on the experience, I was aware of being a part of history. Perhaps the men who were with John Cabot when he 'discovered' Newfoundland in the 1400s would not have been aware of all that would unfold thereafter, and of the subsequent significance of their landfall (the whole history of USA/Canada). I felt this was similar, as if more will unfold in the centuries to come which will render this event significant in a new light. Of course, this event should be front-page news, but its true significance will hardly be noted or seen publicly. The materialists amongst us might well ask "What has this to do with Iraq, guns, cars and stock markets?" and, although the logical connections are perhaps flimsy, I'd say this event is totally relevant, by dint of its timing and also the larger light it throws on our vexatious human affairs. 'We have contact', and those of us who are open to it, whether or not you can visit the crop formation, need perhaps to send back the signal "Message received with thanks! And we await further developments". I do find myself wondering what I am to do with this gift, though I trust that answers will be revealed in due course. But one immediate conclusion is that I find myself reaffirming my commitment to the life-path I have chosen. Even though it's a ridiculously small number of people involved in croppie research, I feel blessed to be one, to suspend my intellectual neuroses, metaphysical control agendas and fear of madness and the Unknown, or of loss of reputation or friends, and to simply follow this trail. |
There is a pause in the conversation, and Suzanne opens up again with this...
Am transitioning Webmasters so nothing for a couple of weeks. Here's what's hot that others will have to wait for -- much decoding going on. This email [posted on the right] happens to be from my new Webmaster.
Walter replies
I saw the new CC image in Swirled News a couple of days ago. [Click here to see pictures of the Sparsholt Face formation of August 2002]. It is most extraordinary. The "data disk" with obvious coding data is particularly intriguing. Will be most interested in what the decoders come up with.
The ongoing debate over hoaxing is hard to believe. A few hoaxes are easy to accept but the higher the percentage the more difficult the hoax explanation is to accept. A high percentage requires dismissing thousands of figures spanning decades and continents as just a practical joke. This smacks more of denial than of explanation and it raises a host of new questions regarding who, how,and why. It also begs a key issue. Regardless of the proportion of hoaxes, anything less than 100% still leaves the same basic phenomenon unexplained. Even just a single large complex figure that is not of human origin has profound implications for our entire world concept.
The hoax explanation has the clear hallmarks of denial. It is based on suppositions, ignores any facts that don't lend support, and the response to any questioning of it is not explanation but anger. All the hoax proponents have to do to vastly strengthen their case is to either offer some proof that one of the large complex formations was indeed made by humans or better yet, actually demonstrate the making of such an artifact complete with weaving and stem bending effects. That they have not done either of these obvious things one can reasonably assume is only because they can not do so. Meanwhile, back in the real world and irrespective of all the argument, the figures continue to appear and become ever more complex. What does it take to get us to simply recognize that something we can't explain is going on and we should perhaps pay attention?
Walter writes...
The following is a copy of something I received today that I thought you would find intersting if you haven't already seen it. [Click to read We the People, We the Warriors]
Suzanne replies...
I've been crop circle consumed of late, not reading much of what's coming through, and am very grateful for this compilation of intelligence around the most pressing issue of our day. We may be eating each other alive on the corporate front, but Iraq is something that can destroy the playing field for our folly. Will make this a five star piece.
The crop circle movie scene is one of the great minor messes of the world -- major to me. I am having a very hard time with the filmmaker, who didn't make the movie he was contracted to make and then turned on me to make personal assaults. One of the things I've been doing is writing up the story to spare my having to tell it separately to many people -- and to make clear the fact that though I'm the executive producer this is not my film. Will send you the saga when I have it. In the meantime, my new Webmaster is fallout from the movie situation, with the old webmaster now the filmmaker's girlfriend. Palden is a menchy English crop circle guy and then some, who will be more of a co-creator for the site.
Walter wrote...
I have come to realize that in addition to a few believers and deniers in Crop Circles plus a majority simply ignoring them, there is another important reaction. These are intelligent people who can accept the phenomena and the inadequacy of the hoax explanation but they cannot (or will not) recognize the profound implications of a non-human origin for them. Like a dog watching TV, their attention may be aroused momentarily by what is going on but as to what it all means, they simply don't get it. Certainly anyone who has an inkling of the significance must, in the face of such monumental implications for so much of what we believe, have no time for petty squabbles.
Suzanne replied
Yes to all your comments, once again remarkably synchronistic with my thoughts. I was just working on my "story" this morning, saying that the film does the job of impressing skeptics, but looks like it won't cause the prevailing opinion to shift -- it would have had to have packed a more powerful wallop to put "Contact" into headlines. You speak to that with what you say, that there are "intelligent people who can accept the phenomena and the inadequacy of the hoax explanation but they cannot (or will not) recognize the profound implications of a non-human origin for them." The pull of the band of reality we are used to is so strong that even people who recognize the next band can remain unimpacted by it. In fact, as the circle situation has played out over the years, popular awareness has dawned very slowly. And, there is an awareness in me of how right that could be -- perhaps even planned that way by the circlemakers, so as not to jolt their neighbors in another reality. No one has better expressed what that might be about than John Michell, an original light in the circle world, who for years published its best publication, "The Cereologist." He said:
A great power has arisen, directing thoughts and perception in a certain direction, towards a more complete and satisfactory view of reality than the modern conventions of materialism have previously allowed. Gently, subtly, with no disturbance or panic, we are being guided across a watershed, from one world view to another. And this is in no way arbitrary, but a purposeful process, in accordance with the interests of eternal nature and the necessities of the present.
For the immediate future it appears further conflict and retaliation are inevitable. This is unlikely to change until the mass consciousness wakes up to the realization we are all in the same boat and it is headed, quite literally into a storm the likes of which we haven't seen before. Avoiding it or coping with it's consequences if we fail to change course in time is going to require all hands putting aside petty differences and working together. The following is an editorial I have just written for the next issue of Golden Dolphin that explains what I am referring to:
While the details of global climatic change are uncertain and still attended by considerable controversy, overall trends are becoming increasingly clear. At both poles reduction in sea ice coverage, glacial thinning and significant biological shifts have become prominent over recent decades. Elsewhere, retreat of montane glaciers is being observed everywhere and latitudinal expansion of warmer climate biota is increasingly reported. An overall warming trend now seems indisputable.
How much of this is attributable to human effects as opposed to natural cycles or trends is likewise uncertain but a significant rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases over the past century is indisputable. Regardless of the relative importance of greenhouse vs. other warming effects it seems highly likely the greenhouse effect must be playing at least some part in the observed climatic changes.
Although varying estimates of average warming due to greenhouse effects are the subject of much debate a perhaps much more important aspect of the phenomena receives scant attention. Greenhouse absorption of back-radiated infra-red radiation is not evenly distributed. The amount of back-radiated infra-red varies widely over different surfaces. This ranges from very high over bare earth (deserts), to intermediate with varying vegetation, less over water, and very little over snow and ice. Consequent atmospheric warming is thus highly variable with time and place. Any significant increase in greenhouse gases must result in greatly increased atmospheric energy gradients having much more effect than a simple average warming would indicate. The result must be a more energetic atmosphere with an increase in extremes of weather of all types. Again, this already seems to be happening all over the globe.
Whether natural or human induced the consequence of continued climatic forcing also receives little consideration. It is characteristic of self-organized complex dynamic systems such as the global ocean/atmosphere to be able to maintain themselves against minor perturbation but if forced beyond certain (typically narrow) limits to become chaotic for a time before reorganizing around a new pattern. Needless to say increasingly erratic weather culminating in a shift to new global pattern would be catastrophic for ourselves with our populations and food production organized around current patterns. Certainty in these matters can only come with the events. Insisting on it amounts to betting the life of large numbers of people that regardless of observed changes and any theoretical understanding the global system will continue to accommodate our unlimited growth and effects.
We can either rethink our way of life and ideology of never ending growth or nature will do it for us. Ongoing climatic events and trends are beginning to provide clear warnings but our time to begin acting is probably not extended. It's up to us.
Major weather disasters and increasing crop failures may be just what it takes to get us to stop fighting and start co-operating.
You have an awesome way with words. This says it all:
For the immediate future it appears further conflict and retaliation are inevitable. This is unlikely to change until the mass consciousness wakes up to the realization we are all in the same boat and it is headed, quite literally into a storm the likes of which we haven't seen before. Avoiding it or coping with it's consequences if we fail to change course in time is going to require all hands putting aside petty differences and working together...Major weather disasters and increasing crop failures may be just what it takes to get us to stop fighting and start co-operating.Still wondering what your thoughts are about how we could be engaging the world. I think just reading your letters would wake everyone up. How to bring that about?
Have just been reading the latest Swirled News. The ongoing controversy over hoaxing reminds me of the Cargo Cults of the Pacific Islands after World War II. Before the war the islands of the southwest Pacific were little known backwaters of the colonial world. Most of the native people lived in their traditional subsistence manner and their only contact with the outside world was a few scattered administrators, planters, traders and missionaries. Then came the war. Vast armadas of ships appeared and unloaded veritable mountains of goods. U.S. forces paid well for native labor and were generous with blankets, machetes, foodstuff and other goods highly valued by the islanders. After the war the colonials tried to resume where they had left off but few islanders were interested in returning to plantation labor for a few shillings a month.
So called "Cargo Cults" began to spring up in various places. These formed around self-appointed leaders who promised followers a return to the bountiful times of the war years. Each cult took its own individual form but basically they all offered return of the cargo bearing ships and aircraft through ritual magic. Some tried organizing their villages to emulate military camps complete with flagpoles and dawn reveille. Others styled themselves as "beachmasters" and enacted rituals intended to emulate the military beachmasters who directed operations on invasion beaches. Some interior villages created "airfields" complete with mock aircraft of sticks and leaves to lure the cargo carrying airplanes they hoped to arrive.
Colonial authorities tried explaining to no effect. They tried jailing cult leaders but others quickly took their place. In Papua New Guinea the administration went so far as to take a group of cult leaders down to Australia to show them factories and production lines where "cargo" really came from. The result was indeed an eye opener. The leaders returned and incorporated mock factory and production line rituals into their cults. Their fundamental understanding was that of a world governed by spirits and supernatural forces which could be influenced or manipulated to desired ends by means of ritual and magic so everything they saw was interpreted in those terms.
Eventually, with ongoing failure of the cargo to be delivered, the cults faded away. In some respects our own modern society is not altogether that different. Few people have a broad understanding of our technology, what can or can't be done and what is involved in actually doing it. In place of ritual we have a belief in technological manipulation. Somewhere, somehow, "they" are doing it. In place of supernatural forces we believe reality is limited to and governed by that which is known and explicable to mainstream consensus scientific belief, primarily a Newtonian mechanical perspective.
When Crop Circles are said to be a hoax perpetrated by pranksters using strings and planks it is readily accepted with no understanding of what would actually be involved in designing, laying out, and executing any of the larger more elaborate figures. With any appreciation of what would be required to execute a single such figure much less hundreds over decades, each different, rarely making anything that could be called a mistake and never getting caught, the hoax explanation begins to look as naive and ethnocentric as the Cargo Cults.
As for the self-proclaimed hoaxers, why so vehemently argue when all that need be done to settle the matter is put on a public demonstration of creating an impressively elaborate design? The fact that such proof is so obvious, would be irrefutable and also presumably easy to those having done hundreds of them over many years yet has never been done is, ironically, the strongest evidence that the hoaxer are indeed just what they claim to be, hoaxers.
...The main issue is that no proof will please people who have what is, in reality, an emotional attachment to a mechanistic, meaningless universe. Rationalism which refuses to openly investigate hypotheses is an emotional issue, frequently, and unscientifically, mistaken for a mental or scientific stance.
This is a fascinating story. I'm surpised I never heard it before. It's a reverse of now -- before the blind believed in magic, but now the blind believe in technology!
Again your way with just the right words is impressive:
When Crop Circles are said to be a hoax perpetrated by pranksters using strings and planks it is readily accepted with no understanding of what would actually be involved in designing, laying out, and executing any of the larger more elaborate figures. With any appreciation of what would be required to execute a single such figure much less hundreds over decades, each different, rarely making anything that could be called a mistake and never getting caught, the hoax explanation begins to look as naive and ethnocentric as the Cargo Cults.
...As for the self-proclaimed hoaxers, why so vehemently argue when all that need be done to settle the matter is put on a public demonstration of creating an impressively elaborate design. The fact that such proof is so obvious, would be irrefutable and also presumably easy to those having done hundreds of them over many years yet has never been done is, ironically, the strongest evidence that the hoaxer are indeed just what they claim to be, hoaxers.
For more exchanges with Walter Starck, click here...
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