For those who’ve been working doggedly to see the matter of the UFO Phenomenon grounded in the awareness of the general public, the focus has long been on political engagement. That is to say, the aim has been to have the government disclose what it knows about these mysterious flying objects and the occupants who pilot them. Beyond the exposing of the details of the secrets themselves, the sense has been that only an official announcement from a podium will be sufficient to move this topic solidly into civilization-wide acceptance.

That said, what has—paradoxically—worked in opposition to that goal, has been the nature of the data themselves. Said more plainly, the issue often comes down to the high strangeness that comes part and parcel with people’s interactions with the anomalous phenomena. Simply put, these “inconvenient details” stretch credulity, and thus work against the hope of seeing official acknowledgement followed by societal engagement.

Here though, we should offer a clarifying qualifier. These elements of high strangeness—often bordering on apparent absurdity— only stretch credulity in Western circles. In other contemporaneous societies, as well as in Shamanic and indigenous societies of the past, these elements aren’t at all objectionable. They are, in fact, welcomed within a much more multidimensional model of relational reality.

Even as some disclosure advocates work to sanitize some of the data—so that the overarching Phenomena has a better chance of seeing official acknowledgment and engagement—people within Western society continue to experience the phenomena themselves; in all their inconvenient, paradigm-shattering, discombobulating glory. And this is resulting in what one might call a revolution of sorts, but one bubbling up from below, rather than descending from on high.

This of course includes—not just highly strange UFOs—but every experiential element that refuses to play by the rules of reductionistic materialism. Here I’m also speaking of elements such as synchronicities, altered states, psi phenomena, etc.. Because these elements are being both experienced and documented, they are playing a transformative, grassroots role in steering Western perspectives along more shamanic lines, even without acknowledgment from the ivory towers of our civilization.

What some particularly astute observers have asked is: is this perhaps by design? Is this an end-goal of the enterprise itself, to drop bread crumbs along the way so that a wayward civilization is able to find its way back into a more balanced understanding of its place within the interactive whole? This is a compelling argument; one deserving of a closer examination of just what’s involved. And that’s precisely what we’ll endeavor to do in this the 116th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Beginning with the revelations that arose in a now famous 2017 New York Times article titled “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program”, and further brought to light with the allegations made by former military insiders like Luis Elizondo and David Grusch, the general public is being slowly acclimated to a reality that those of us who are part of this community have long known to be the case: non-human intelligences and their technological marvels have been (and continue to be) in our very midst.

Still, for those of us who regularly dive deep into these murky (but often exhilarating) waters, we know that these revelations – as startling as they are to the average Joe and Jane on the street – are really just the beginning. And that’s because, simply put, there are numerous elements of human experience that simply don’t play well with the prevailing paradigm that rules in Western civilization – at least at present. These elements include out of body experiences, near death experiences, psi phenomena, synchronicity, contact with supposed deceased loved ones, and time slippages. And that’s just for starters.

Not only do these elements that have historically been forced to the fringes of polite conversation stretch the mainstream’s understanding of what’s possible, they also call into question the very maps we’ve so confidently crafted to make sense of what’s real altogether. For instance, when it comes to the matter of dealing with sophisticated, apparently non-human intelligences (ie. aliens), not only do we have the matter of the DoD allegedly housing the recovered craft and even the cadavers of non-human life forms – life forms that are decidedly biological, just like us – also on the table are the credible accounts of a host of other kind of non-conventional encounters.

Truth be told, there is a considerable body of data pointing to encounters with beings that are better described as ethereal, though – importantly – no less “real”. These beings are described by people from different walks of life in such consistent ways that they seem to claim just as much “real” and independent existence as we do. Other life forms that people encounter are perhaps better described as quasi-physical, and still others seem to navigate between these different domains like we might move between different rooms of a house.

Furthermore, human beings sometimes find themselves acting outside of their own bodies – and even outside of this 3D “physical” construct altogether – interacting with alien beings of various sorts and sometimes even with their own supposedly deceased loved ones in the process. The beings encountered also seem capable of moving human consciousness in ways that sometimes include the physical body, and other times do not. In short, what’s being highlighted here is the untenable nature of the physicalist paradigm altogether.

But all this being the case, how are we to proceed? If our modern maps have been exposed as – at best – approximations reflecting only one tiny corner of a much more expansive territory, how are we to make our way forward? And how can we reconcile the seemingly illusory boundaries between the living and the dead, sleep and waking states, and physical and ethereal realms? This all amounts to some pretty ambitious inquiry. But these are exactly the matters that we’ll seek to engage with in this the 104th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.