Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 73 Amir Azarvan 3 An Eastern Christian Perspective on UFO Phenomena Before the process of secularization – which seems to have transferred the object of man’s natural longing for the transcendent from the spiritual to the extraterrestrial – unfolded in the West, UFO phenomena would have more likely been understood as encounters with malevolent spiritual beings (Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has predictably been mocked for holding fast to this traditional explanation) (Burris 2023). Indeed, there are interesting parallels between contemporary reports of alien encounters and earlier stories of demonic phenomena. A case in point is an account of “alien abduction” recently told in a History Channel documentary (History Channel 2022). The alleged space creatures in this story traveled through walls and, most tellingly, smelled of sulfur, which is commonly associated in the Christian tradition with divine judgment and hell. Nevertheless, not once did the narrator acknowledge the possibility that these paraphysical entities were malevolent supernatural beings. It is worth noting that these parallels were acknowledged in a 1969 U.S. government report (Catoe 1969, iv): Many of the UFO reports now being published in the popular press recount alleged incidents that are strikingly similar to demoniac possession and psychic phenomena which have long been known to theologians and parapsychologists. Such incidents are especially familiar to the theologians of the Christian East. Indeed, Christian ascetics have documented numerous and consistent accounts of demonic encounters. The demons are said to exhibit two characteristics that are of particular relevance to this paper. First, they possess the ability to metamorphosize. As St. Anthony the Great (n.d., § 42) explains, “when they come they approach us in a form corresponding to the state in which they discover us, and adapt their delusions to the condition of mind in which they find us.” Likewise, St. Peter of Damascus (1984, 236) writes that “the demons take whatever shape they want.” In more recent times, the ascetic to whom Markides (2001, 102) assigns the pseudonym Fr. Maximos argues that “Satan… is a real entity who… does not maintain a stable image. When he appears to human beings in ways that he can be seen, he constantly metamorphoses his appearance.” What are some of the manifold ways in which the demons manifest themselves? According to St. Diadochos of Photiki (1979, 263), demons can appear as a light or some “fiery form” [5]. They can also assume the appearance “of women, wild beasts, creeping things, gigantic bodies, and troops of soldiers” (St. Anthony the Great n.d., § 23). The second noteworthy characteristic of demons is their desire to deceive or frighten people through these varied appearances (e.g., St. Diadochos of Photiki 1979, 263; St. Anthony the Great n.d., § 23) [6]. To sum, the demons are argued to possess the capability of metamorphosizing in various ways, and for deceptive purposes. Thus, the very sight of what appears to be – especially in a culture conditioned to believe that it is – alien space craft could not, in itself, be taken as evidence that refutes the spiritual explanation of UFO phenomena. On the contrary, such visions are perfectly compatible with this explanation. Accordingly, per the view articulated by Fr. Seraphim Rose (2008), phenomena that, today, are normally characterized as extraterrestrial in origin are nothing new. What is relatively novel about these extraordinary events is not their occurrence, but rather the meaning that modern society ascribes to them. In the secular culture of the West, interest in science fiction created the dominant interpretive framework used to make sense of these deceptive visions [7]. In the current, post-Christian era, people are increasingly looking to be delivered by beings from outer space, and this new framework “supplies images of spacecraft and space beings” (Rose 2008, 101)? Ultimately, Fr. Seraphim (2008, 110–111) explains that the purpose of these UFO phenomena is to prepare mankind for political rule by the “‘savior’ of the apostate world.”
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