I just finished reading Nick Redfern’s Final Events. It tells the story of the Collins Elite, a supposed group of government insiders who are convinced that alleged space visitors are demonic forces unleashed by occult activities carried out by the like of Jack Parsons. THe viewpoint of the CE is that of a particularly millennial fundamentalist Christianity. The book is worth reading, if for nothing else than the satisfyingly creepy figures Redfern met on his journey.

The book rekindled my thoughts on the intersection of Christianity and the paranormal—especially issues of saucers and contact. Fundamentalist Chrstianity seems to have gone through some convulsions in the past couple decades. The 19th century notion of dispensationalism has been expanded upon, leading to such notions as literal millennialism, a detailed eschatological timeline involving raptures of pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-trib varieties, and a political cognate known as “dominionism” that links the triumph of Christianity to the dominance of the United States. Most tangible is the connection between fundamentalist thought and American foreign policy, particulary some pro-Israel movements in the US.

Although I’m a Christian, coming from a Lutheran background, much of the fundamentalist though swimming around baffles me. Personally, I find the blending of faith and politics to be dangerous. It’s fascinating, however, to examine the overlap between some aspects of fundamentalist though and the paranormal. Writers such as L.A. Marzulli and Russ Dizdar have made names for themselves by connecting extraterrestrial contact with the old bugaboo of demonic possession or visitation. This is, however, old news.

Digging through my books the other day, I came across this classic from Bob Larson:

Larson has had a long career as a televengelist who is—recently, at least—focused on deliverence from evil spirits. Larson got his start in the Satanic cult scares of the 1980s, a field plagued by frauds and charlatans such as Mike Warnke. It always struck me as odd that the crossover between the DevilFear and the AlienFear took so long to take place.

After all, the beginning of the saucer contact mythos had strong spiritual—if not religious overtones, through the stories of the Contactees. Early concerns about the possibility of ET life having an adverse affect on our religious culture indicate that, as far back as the Brookings report, the overlap in the two topics existed. As the scientific bent of 1960s saucer research took hold, these religious questions moved to the back burner. Writers such as Keel and Vallee did much to move the notion of a wider ufology back to the fore but serious discussions of the intersection between religion and the paranormal were the exception rather than the rule.

Regardless of one’s views on religion (or on specific religions) the connections between the spirtual and the paranormal are there. It’s just awkward and difficult to look at it for any length of time. Like the intersection of the paranormal and academia any conclusions one draws tend to alienate at least 50% of the audience. Maybe…just maybe, it’s time for that to change.