Wyniki wyszukiwania:

This intriguing collection of essays presents reflections upon the birth, proliferation, enduring appeal, and future of extraterrestrial mythology. Highly respected authors and researchers representing the varied and sometimes competing perspectives of ufology and the sociology of religion provide a fascinating and instructive voyage into the social worlds of UFOs, abductees, and contactees. Reports of aliens and the changing nature of abduction experience, even its sexual dimension, are explored in relation to literature, cultural practices, and ideology. The influence of abduction therapy...

Of the approximately fifty percent of Americans who believe in UFOs, a fraction are devotees of one of the numerous UFO-based new religious movements. The Unarius Academy of Science is one of the oldest of these groups. Founded in 1954 by "Cosmic Visionaries" Ruth and Ernest Norman (also known, respectively, as Archangels Uriel and Raphiel), Unarius is devoted to teaching the all-encompassing Uranian Science. Combining elements of pop psychology, new age thought, and science fiction, the Science asks its students to channel messages from the infinitely intelligent Space Brothers and to heal...

Taking its inspiration from the 50th anniversary of the publication of Festinger et al.'s 1956 seminal and controversial volume When Prophecy Fails, which introduced the notion of "cognitive dissonance" as an explanation for how a small group of flying saucer devotees handled the failure of a predicted visit from space aliens, this volume looks at both theoretical and empirical studies of religious groups for whom space beings and civilizations provided an inspiration to prepare for the nearness of events that would trigger "the end of the world." Rather than examining merely the...