YOUR QUESTIONS
Q. Whitley, recentley I have read Communion and The Key. I loved both books but am a little confused. I understand that aliens are visiting us to help us, but at the same time in The Key your visitor friend stated that we also have aliens that are trying to prevent us from knowing what is really going on.Also stated was that we would be begging the aliens to help us at the end of earth's life. Could you just clarify the aliens motives. Are there different types of aliens other than the ones you mentioned?
A. I wouldn't be so sure that they're aliens. Something is certainly here, but what exactly this is, is not clear. I cannot even begin to clarify their motives. What I can say is that we are involved with something that operates at a very high level of complexity. But one thing is clear: we must continue to keep the whole matter in question.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. I am still working my way though the book..which I have been enjoying a great deal! Anwyay this morning I read the little account of them woman who encountered the visitors who said that they were (paraphrased)"We are interested in your girl child!". Isn't that the woman who is portrayed in the "Communion" film in the group therapy scene? Thanks and Be Well! Rich
A. Yes, it's our former secretary, Lorie Barnes. She sent us a letter right after Communion was published, and Anne was struck by the considered and careful detail in her story. Then we discovered that she lived literally in the building immediately next door to ours! She became our secretary, and worked through the letters with Anne for many years. She remains a dear friend.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. In your book you talk about the dead being associated with the visitors. Consider these verses in Matthew chapter 27 verses 51 thru 53? They tell of the bodies of many dead who were raised at the death of Jesus and walked around Jerusalem. Which is just strange enough to be true. Could it be that a door is opened when the visitors use whatever they use to travel and this opening of a door was first illustrated at the death of Jesus?
A. I have wondered about this, just in general. A careful reading of the gospels reveals that Jesus didn't only raise himself and Lazarus from the dead, he understood death and life and the relationship between them in ways that were completely unique to him at that time. His promise was very clear, and it has struck me that Corinthians 15:52 describes something that has yet to happen to us, but has already happened to them: "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." They have already experienced this change, I would think.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. Dear Mr Striber, meditating alone in the safety of one's home is certainly efficacious. But how might we artificially create the hightened state of fear/panic that would mimic the close encounter experience so that we might then practice meditating in that state of 'fight or flight' panic and 'eat our fear'? Achieving 'coherence' in comfortable life is one thing, achieving it during a CE is another thing altogether - how does one 'train' for that? Thank you.
A. I wasn't interested in creating more fear in myself but in overcoming what was already there. I often meditated in the woods at night to work on this and, while I could not overcome the fear, I learned to accept it and live with it as part of the experience.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. Dear Whitley: I've enjoyed, if that's the word, your visitors books including the latest and thank you very much for them. This is FYI, comments welcome: Seth: "The message for tonight is: you are not owned. "Now, your human stock did not all originate solely from your planet. ..." See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sethquotes/message/1432 On the use of sound: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sethquotes/message/439 Regards, Mark
A. Thanks for the comment.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. Mr Strieber, I apologize in advance if this question is a little too personal but I was wondering whether your grown-up son has ever felt inclined to discuss his recollections of his time at the family cabin during the 1980s? I've read that contact can often have a generational element and I would be fascinated to hear your son's memories of that time, and whether contact continues for him to this day. I'd also understand it if he didn't want to discuss anything given the state of our modern media! (Personal request: are there any interviews of you discussing non-UFO matters?!! I love your Tweets in which you discuss inspiration for your fiction writing, favourite poems/music etc, and I would be fascinated to hear your thoughts about the process of writing. Looking forward to reading your new book and many thanks to you and your wife for all your pioneering work.
A. My son does not wish to discuss his experiences, unfortunately. Regarding the 'process of writing,' all writing is an act of desperation. The blank page is a relentless master. I also feel profoundly dissatisfied with my work. There is a sense, always, that I have left too much unsaid. And yet, when I go back after years to something I have published, I usually have difficulty believing that I could ever have been capable of the insights it does contain. Writing is not a pleasure for me. It is an urgency. For example, I struggled for 10 years with the material that eventually became Solving the Communion Enigma. How to be coherent about what people were actually reporting, that the visitors and the dead were coming into their lives together? What might it mean? I worked on this for a very long time until I finally saw what it was that needed saying.
Regarding fiction, I write a sort of 'secret fiction' that contains triggers that are designed to enhance memory. The books appear to be ordinary thrillers, but they have a sub-rosa motivation, which is to shake loose memories in my readers. To do this, I try to capture in the fiction the flavor of experiences that remain almost impossible to articulate. But if I can build imaginary worlds that cause a similar 'flavor' to emerge in the reader's mind, then perhaps there will be an 'aha' moment, and another inward step taken in the journey to understanding.
Whitley
Regarding fiction, I write a sort of 'secret fiction' that contains triggers that are designed to enhance memory. The books appear to be ordinary thrillers, but they have a sub-rosa motivation, which is to shake loose memories in my readers. To do this, I try to capture in the fiction the flavor of experiences that remain almost impossible to articulate. But if I can build imaginary worlds that cause a similar 'flavor' to emerge in the reader's mind, then perhaps there will be an 'aha' moment, and another inward step taken in the journey to understanding.
Whitley
Q. Hi, I was wondering if anyone could communicate with them? What would we have to do to be open to this communication?
A. It's quite easy to communicate with them. When I had close encounters, I would often simply ask questions aloud. Usually, the answers would be in the form of vivid pictures in my mind. Sometimes, words I heard as if projected into my head. On rare occasions, spoken words. Two spoken responses were: To the question, what would help me the most, the spoken answer was "Have joy." To the question, do human beings have souls, the spoken answer was "Not all." But remember, these answers were NEVER designed to close the question. They were designed to open it further and deepen it, which they certainly did. If you mean communication as in how someone, for example, might talk to them and ask them where they're from or whatever, they are not here, I don't believe, for that level of discourse. At least, they weren't in my case. When I asked why they had come here, the answer was 'we saw a glow.' Again, an answer designed to extend the question, not answer it. They are here to broaden our vision by deepening our questions, so that we can extend our own journey into understanding on our own terms. That, it seems to me, would mitigate against conventional discourse, so I don't think there is going to be much of it.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. Hi Whitley, I just finished your new book. I myself feel that most of my contact experiences were in the late 80's and into the 90's for some reason....I was also starting my family at that same time...having three children in five years from '89 to '94. After 2000 the contacts seemed to have diminshed. I've read all your books and have noticed that the majority of contacts you had were also in the 80's/90's. In reading your last book it would appear that your 'contacts' have also tapered off. Do you have any idea as to why this is so? I've always wondered if, in my case, they were there to forsee the development of my children as now they are all in their late teens, early twenties. Perhaps they were just 'planting the seeds' of change and now we have grown to be accustomed to the experience for furture work alongside the ETs. BTW, my youngest son, 17, just had his first fully conscious contact experience! Thank you, Diane
A. After the initial rough experiences, my journey became that of a student in a school. To some extent, I've graduated. It's my task now to do my best in life with what I learned. Whoever is on the other side of this experience is extremely careful about free will. EXTREMELY careful. That, I think, is a big part of the reason why contact is not, in general, more open and better accepted. 'They' are very concerned about the danger of overwhelming the novelty of the human journey with their own knowledge. So, once those of us who end up in this school reach a point at which we can continue our exploration on our own, and help others on their own journeys, they withdraw from our lives. My thought, anyway.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. On Monday night's Coast to Coast radio program, G. Noory interviewed Kim Arnold, daughter of Kenneth Arnold, the pilot whose sighting of UFOs over Washington state in 1947 began the modern era of UFO awareness. Noory asked her what her father's opinion was later in his life about the nature or identity of the phenomenon. Her answer blew my mind because it recalled something you & Anne have surmised. She said he thought the UFO phenomena "represent a link between the living and the dead." I look forward with relish to reading Communion Enigma as soon as I can. And I want to thank you, profoundly, for your writing in the face of such resistance. You have many friends everywhere and I am one. And thank you as well for your essay "My Catholic Struggle" which I sympathize with and which was well received by a priest I know. With thanks & admiration, Patricia Prewitt
A. I heard that show also, and saw for the first time just how deeply Kenneth Arnold's contact had affected him. What is before us has on offer both enormous danger and enormous grace. Jeff Kripal, the Chair of Religious Studies at Rice University, who wrote the introduction to Solving the Communion Enigma, expresses this beautifully in his words. What is happening to mankind is not just 'contact' with aliens. If it is that at all, it is also contact with our own species as it really is, a vast presence that grows out of the physical world and on upward and outward into a vast unknown realm of consciousness, of which I am sure all life is part.
Whitley
Whitley
Q. Whitley, I have followed your work on this subject since Communion was published. I actually encountered that book in a "Christian" bookstore I worked for at the time. It took a long time for me to work up the courage to read it but I did and it opened up a whole new world. My question is this - How have these experiences changed your religious beliefs and how have you integrated(accepted?)them with the doctrines of the Catholic Church?
A. The experiences have done two things to my religious life. First, they have convinced me that there is a richly conscious world all around us that is not physical in the same way that we are. Second they have greatly deepened my understanding of Christ and the mystery of the resurrection. I continue to be the sort of Catholic I always have been. The Church as the Body of Christ is a deep home for me, but I am less sure about the pronouncements of the hierarchy. For example, I think that the decisions made at the Council of Nicea as much reflect a human desire to invent moral imperatives that enable social control as they do Christ's own words. Jesus was humble. I cannot see that same humility reflected in the whole of the institutional church. Although, on its long journey through history, I do see it seeking in recent generations to return more to his simple teachings. I respect the struggle of the hierarchy to find a way to express the will of God in the world, but also feel that participation in the Body of Christ is a deeply personal affair. My experiences have taught me not to trust the secular message, that life begins and ends with the physical world. But more than that, they have given me actual experience of the spiritual world. Direct knowledge. In that, I consider myself extremely lucky. This exposure has drawn me to an intense effort to express the words and way of Christ in my own life, and embrace His profound simplicity of being as best I am able.
Whitley
Whitley