Alternate Perceptions Magazine, May 2023
The Audacity Demanded of Close Encountering Individuals.
(a follow up of my previous essay, The Third Kind, about close-encountering).
by: James Edward Carlos
Included in the following thoughts are references to the initial pages of my earlier essay, The Third Kind, presented in three divisions in the February, March, and April 2023 issues of Brent Raynes’ online Alternate Perceptions Magazine. Close encounters continue to prod me to study further the emerging theorizing and experiencing of individuals sharing in the nature of describing the vehicles viewed by pilot Kenneth Arnold and confirmed by Professor Josef Allen Hynek with his classifications of approaching encounter phenomena.
I further include below the initial Maurice Merleau-Ponty quote therefore presented as a frontispiece quote to The Third Kind from which the following espouses:
“In the perception of another, I find myself in relation with another “myself,” who is, in principle open to the same truths as I am, in relation to the same being that I am. And this perception is realized. From the depths of my subjectivity I see another subjectivity invested with equal rights appear, because the behavior of the other takes place within my perceptual field. I understand this behavior, the words of another; I espouse his thought because this other, born in the midst of my phenomena, appropriates them and treats them in accord with typical behaviors which I myself have experienced. Just as my body, as the system of all my holds on the world, founds the unity of the objects which I perceive, in the same way the body of the other—as the bearer of symbolic behaviors and of the behavior of true reality—tears itself away from being one of my phenomena, offers me the task of a true communication, and confers on my objects the new dimension of intersubjective being or, in other words, of objectivity. Such are, in a quick resume, the elements of a description of the perceived world.”
(p. 53. “Primacy of Perception: Philosophical Consequences,” The Essential Writings of Merleau-Ponty. Edited by Alden L. Fisher).
I find this quote close to personifying a perspective significant to one who has had close encounters, especially the term “intersubjective” because of the personal narratives enlivened by the hayyot (holy living beings – Old Testament). This essay (in itself, then) is an initial offering therein being subject to following commentaries to come during my attempt at explication by way of the many levels of close encountering, again as anticipated first and then furthered from the following material. I warn a reader this writing is convoluted, in keeping with the complex nature of close encounters. *
The issue of encountering is enormously complex and many layered as to exposition and to the levels of consciousness addressing that issuing. To attempt clarification of my explications of encountering, I include referrals via quotes of the same writer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in my effort to re-examine and then indicate my experiencing of the messages/ correspondences with the hayyot (holy, living beings) (as herein then addressed). I utilize below three Merleau-Ponty quotes drawn from my initial quote repeated above, in the first of three related sections in my essay (TTK) as reinforcements of some of the various levels of explication therein, followed by a second M-P quote and a third M-P quote all 3 depicted in the initial frontispiece quoting.
In doing so, again to repeat the above thoughts, below I return to the initial pages of my entire earlier, initial essay, The Third Kind, once more, to further address the encounter implications. I must state all in this essay addresses a specific encounter occurring wherein I requested (from the hayyot) explication of the reality of the encounter event and defining therein my (and others’) sanity involved with any encounter. The response from the hayyot was almost immediate. I met another man who appeared in a close encounter, sporting the same encounter thigh markings as myself. This verified the significance of the marks and of another encontrant momentarily appearing before and after the encounter which had the two of us with others (all naked) in a line receiving these machine-made marks in our upper thigh. I needed no other proof but that week’s “guest” and our involvement. As if to complicate the need for intensive interpretation, the encounter’s second part involved my doctoral work on the two-part structure of Jean Genet’s The Blacks, momentous as to a symbolic doubling of almost every facet involved.
However I again warn any reader that the subject is multifaceted, with each strand of thought compiling herein, and, thereby, and hereof, additional complexity. Thereby addressing any part of the encounter is confounding, too, both to write and for a reader (including myself) to read and make sense of encountering, both specifically herein referred to, and at once, continuingly akin to all encounters expanding and progressing to wider margins of access: HENCE my effort at explication follows:
First). Three separate Merleau-Ponty quote are herein divided from one paragraph into three separate ideas thereof contained....). These three quotes utilized by me are to indicate levels of demarcations in examining close encounters and their effect on an individual (myself) as elicited from the book Primacy of Perception, by author Maurice Merleau-Ponty, all three quotes below being from...(M-P: p.53), one immediately therein following each other:
(First quoting): “In the perception of another, I find myself in relation with another ‘myself,’ who is, in principle open to the same truths as I am, in relation to the same being that I am. And this perception is realized. From the depths of my subjectivity I see another subjectivity invested with equal rights appear, because the behavior of the other takes place within my perceptual field.” This essay personifies, categorically, the elements of encountering truths. Those involved are two varying subjectivities that interlace thereby conferring related statuses. We are co-equals in the personal presences and essences conferred.
Secondly) then therein considering: “I understand this behavior, the words of another; I espouse his thought because this other, born in the midst of my phenomena, appropriates them and treats them in accord with typical behaviors which I myself have experienced.” (M-P: p. 53). A justification of our equal and shared authenticity within an encounter will unfold during the encounter narratives, intermingling in symbolic manifestations, as such elements’ derivations also open as continuing revelations unfolding in an inherent lengthened time sequence. This for this author is a significant new rationalization of the authenticity of encountering.
3). (and continuing...): “Just as my body, as the system of all my holds on the world, founds the unity of the objects which I perceive, in the same way the body of the other—as the bearer of symbolic behaviors and of the behavior of true reality—tears itself away from being one of my phenomena, offers me the task of a true communication, and confers on my objects the new dimension of intersubjective being or, in other words, of objectivity.” (M-P: p. 53). Encounters involve each extensive dimensionality with each individual while relaying personal intra-conversions taking place, eventually at a broader orientation culturally. Therein a suspense builds as to what the encounter is conveying, mysteriously as to effect, while in an apparent secretive manner (thereby equally protective), each individual to the other sharing a wild culture within an intensifying array of consciousnesses of a shared inheritance (ultimately) (including the potentiality of a shared stereotyping and herd mentality, while yet strengthening each individual’s personal physicality and mentality as ultimate correlations of our separate objective human natures forming. A suspension of behavior will occur demanding subversion in terms of the cultural reality, but guidance, angelic in nature, allows for an ultimate dedication to a greater truth. The similarities continuing inspire our audacious behaviors as being truly, inherently human amidst a huge array of humanities, both peaceful in nature while often being destructively violent within the various cultural dimensions forming as to an extensive development of awareness, in deeds prevalent as to hostilities, and as to our mutual recollections that of each separate awareness being mutually co-linked, inter-subjective in nature, and shaped and shared in our current worlds, affecting us intuitively and by degree to a greater reality seemingly beyond our personal controls.
I relate each set of the above italicized references above to the big verification of close encountering regarding an almost immediate meeting another human being - the man I will refer to protectively as -“ABW.” Upon my request to the hayyot for a sense of the truth of encounters that I addressed to the hayyot with whom I communicate during each close encounter. (i.e., the holy, living beings (via The Old Testament)). I acknowledged above that I list from each section quoted especial comments intended to indicated that the above quoting is related and as posited (thereby to follow):
a). Regarding Spatiality as a concept and more specifically as an encounter principle being addressed about encounters as a fundamental principle of such, I include from The Third Kind (TTK p. 3)) the immediate following: “With an apprehensive grasp of mystical knowledge thereof acknowledging a relationship between Earth and the supernal world (or Heaven), a kinship is comparably ‘foundational to an ultimate realization about Space/s.’ I herein address further a complexity (about encounters, and about the images within those that address the information inferred in the symbols presented by the hayyot thus further inferred in a specific encounter mentioned briefly above):
b). .....further continuing my TTK noting with: “transformation in what is an intimacy between species,” as my reference, then, to what occurs during the encountering between hayyot and human, but extending the thought, implicitly perhaps more than explicitly, more so to all species maintaining within the inter-depths of earth species, all to each other however transcribed. An example could be what is occurring between a family pet (a dog, or a cat, for instances) and oneself.
c. (from TTK: p. 4: “Such verbal phrasing, implying the ‘space’ thereof is the space of a thought, the space entwined thereof as a word, verbal oral and written. Through mirroring of imagery in encounters we learn of oneself as a self to the angelic principles.” ... further, then, in my addressing the encounter’s complexity in our encountering exchange, I add herein this essay that....: .... The very nature of encountering is inherently biological and corporal, as to our relationship to and with others. In the encounter I address in reference to my question the verification of the reality of encountering that was a response to my request to the hayyot for verification of the truth of encounters for grasping the sanity of our deliberation, with other beings. This grasp of encounter dimensioning enters into their demarcation of what they address to us human as symbols- (even as omens toward deeper meanings arising): hence from my past in this lifetime, I refer to the vibratory nature of our being when in close affiliation with a wider vibration-based gravity, plus I infer an irrationality of all spiritual dominions in coherence, one to another. ... To be a bit more explicit, during the encounter, I am presented with an image of a vibration existing between my embodiment as a white actor in this encounter and a black slave herein inferring the earlier reincarnation experienced earlier in my current lifetime but confounding a pattern between life-times.
By the hayyot references to the spatiality in the drama the encounter related to me based on Jean Genet’s The Blacks, and then referencing my doctoral study of that drama various factors are given: the resilience of the spirit with the balcony and human judgment cohering to the stage-floor lower level where activities take place in the drama, as referenced during my close encounter (as to the symbolic affectivity implicit): hence, as therein inferred is the catafalque (death implicit via that altar and the incense implied and used by the actors (all black individuals) in their circular dancing movement around the altar). My presence therein the encounter indicates an oscillation between my being a white man in this lifetime and my being a black man simultaneously from another earlier incarnation. I note this movement and the stage-altar as in The Blacks as inferring funereal evidence of our own impending deaths by which is a factor, as symbolic, in the movement from one lifetime to another. Reincarnation has been pivotal as a “lesson” given by the hayyot which often involves the land as a memory carrier and inducing a sense of reality, relived as in the form of existence. Thereby as an inclusion, the verifying of object-symbols/beings during an encounter that each incarnation is subject to both future and past as to various reincarnations. That these also refer to various encounters during this particular lifetime, my noting such adds to the complexity, and therefore to our encountering confounding within this complexity.
The validity of this is concentrated in my exploration of the mass-communion ritual of my earlier life presented in the encounter in this lifetime in my writing herein about the influence the Roman Catholic Mass had on me in my youth.
Interestingly as to all of the above we deal, too, with humanity’s penchant for judgment, as if of a moral/amoral leveling with distinction implied. In this particular encounter being discussed the woman-judge, full of criticism for the central being she addresses (me), suggests that even at the supernal levels of our reconciliation with close encounters, one is subject to grasp the nature of such emotional deliberation affecting all spatial regards of the encounter. I note that this particular judge (of several seated on the balcony throughout the Genet drama) is both, for me as the encontrant, a black woman in the encounter-drama but also a critical white woman in my earlier life in this lifetime as a college student having befriended the woman.
The balcony and the lower stage floor are conjoined as a symbol implicit to this spatial demeanor, but the artifact of being masked by all the judges on the balcony indicates psychologically a persona further complicating the various dimensions of the objects involved (mask, balcony, black woman judge wearing a white mask), and thereby the degrees of depth to be ascertained in our interpretations.
Also, in this same relationship of spaces (upper balcony to lower stage) symbolically have to be reconciled by the encontrant (myself but treated below in the third person conferring the diversity of persons grammatically, enriching the narrative thereof), which indicates the manifesting of two lives even within the one encontrant, basic and prior to the interrelationship with all other figures (in both the encounter as presented using a stage drama for an implicit sexual occurrence and in the levels of awareness for the encontrant within that stage presence as articulated in this very encounter). So, each encounter issuance is configurative to the diverse actions of the drama and of the history implicit to the personal life of the encontrant. Therein the double-figuration of white actor and black actor oscillates between his own various incarnations: implicit therein is his current life and a serious consideration of the ritual of the mass as to communion center between two orientations; hence, indicative of our capability to learn via the lessons to be reconciled, and too, symbolically inferring a former lifetime in which slavery and the erotic disposition of sexuality therein incarnated. That the encontrant oscillates between these two lives, involving two races, two cultures, two stage representations, two men separated by each in a different time but conversant of both together within the oscillation, all of which therein widens as to a voodoo ritual manifesting as a nightly “escape” from the confining aspects of being a slave. The complexity as essence of the encounter simply runs throughout the encounter and the references, even as symbols, to former life events.
d. (TTK - p. 4 once again: “on transcribing thoughts for interpretation. Such verbal phrasing, implying the space thereof is the space of a thought, the space entwined thereof as a word, verbal oral and written. Through mirroring of imagery in encounters we learn of oneself as a self to the angelic principles.”). This entails another significant level to the encounter when unfolding. Our means to communication, a codification of symbolic factors such as the verbal orientations in the encounter’s relationship between beings, the intimacy implied as potential and the distancing that accompanies every activity, corporal and psychological manifestations, are intended to be seen as an exchange with various implications (levels of comprehension) involving the expansion of the state of being, a kind of balancing from one lifetime to another, each different in nature but coordinated in the tone of actual factoring.
Telling (aggadah) as indicated in the Old Testament when discussing Ezekiel’s close encounter and Ezekiel’s interpreting in recounting the factors he addresses as of his involvement) is a significant manifestation as to one’s interpreting more than one orientation implicit in the encounter.
I acknowledge that I was hoping for a verification as to the reality of the actual encountering manifestation that reaches in various directions all at once, but as to that considering of the reality inherent - the “external” meeting of another man wishing to share his significant experiences with me in that moment, as an implicit testimony given within the encounter to follow that meeting, gives in the corporal “being’ prefacing the encounter, as an indication of verification and validation, that even if not intimate in the exchange, or being present to the encounter mechanisms within the narration, by appearing in the before and after of the activities of that weekend encountering to follow our initial meeting, working over time and through space to actuate the truth of the encounter is for me, prodigious, including ...
... e).: : “acknowledging about former lives lived, patterns succeeding thereof ultimately about infinity experienced during those encounters.” (TTK, p. 4). The depth is immediate and a pattern is established through the two men (myself and ABW) meeting physically and by our both standing in line for the body-markings during the encounter on the vehicle involved.
Therein ... “from my translating and transcribing pictorial visionary imagery into verbal orientation the verbal configuration becomes symbolic. The symbols attempt communication through a flexible dimensionality.” So, therein is the reconfiguring suggesting consciousness and levels of interacting consciousness ((Example/s: regular consciousness with mystical consciousness or one’s subconscious)) profound in the configurative senses pertaining to the before and after his and my separate encountering weekend’s compilation of various dimensions, that congruence of all factors therein presented in the encounter as symbolic engineering as to how an encounter “actually” manifests, and becomes both substantial and consubstantial.
Therein transformation is an essential aspect of the symbolic manifestations via the language and the image means of communicating that, indeed, yes, close encounters are real and formidable as to expansion and of the mystery inherent in all aspects of inherent reconciliation between factions and beings, historical (as to the balcony of judging) and (as to the doctoral manifesting in multiple levels of implication throughout the entire factoring of details within the narrative conscriptions taking place). Such factoring indicates levels of symbolism within symbolism as de facto presences during any encounter.
f): “The symbols attempt communication through a flexible dimensionality. A soulful need to impart what is mentally imported, is to share.” –(TTK: p. 4). ... Space, that of the immediacy of the intimations, and the breadth of the spatiality deeper and more implicit of the expansion as ideational and behavioral is the face of relationship with the dimensions of closeness even to the erotic manifestations but as well, to the distancing any experience is once objectified.
The symbolic nature is to be understood of the internalization and hence the externalization of the details taking on a symbolic registration for the encontrant. To preface the historical nature of an encontrant is suggested by the title of my essay The Third Kind followed by this essay attempt (i.e, in The Audacity Demanded of Close Encountering Individuals) which are both based on the actuality of the aerial phenomenon seen by Arnold, and kind of sanctified by Allen Hynek as explicative aspects including duration, past the actual sighting of the crafts in flight. Time and space thereby are to be recurrently transfigured in each aspect of the encountering, therein and forthwith).
I relate the above immediately on my own venturing into the close encounter phenomena, to the spacing within spacing as of the manifest within that encountering weekend’s physical sensing of being beyond the encountering precision for the acts inherent. The implications are codified although symbolic, at each of the levels of the two principals involved in acknowledging the body-thigh markings (and although not mentioned previously, an implant in an ear) being explicit to the relationships within the encounter. For both men, thereof, before, during, and after said encounter involving us each, a wealth of relevance is in the revealing of all of those levels even if considered as simultaneously occurring, supporting the spiritual and physical conjoining and conjoined.
In pursuing the encounter details of that week, I include that ABW’s week involved initially our meeting in which during a two hour conversation when we met, he affirmed his homosexuality. On the weekend encounter following that which involved the thigh markings, he had attended a gay bar whereof he had a sexual encounter with a black man. On the Sunday of that weekend, ABW phoned me that his partner in that exchange had phoned him of another actual sexual encountering involved the black man revealing another sexual escapade with a third man who had AIDs. I suggested he immediately attend a hospital for conformation of his status, which he did. He phoned again on that following Tuesday, a week after our meeting, in which I revealed my history of close encounters, showing him photos of the body-thigh-markings. ABW affirmed, then, he, too, had the same identical markings from the weekend before, then showing me and allowed me to photograph his thigh. The markings were so identical he had to use his finger to point to his, indicating which images were his and which were my own. I was aghast because this was indeed a confirmation of the truth of my encounters, and verified indeed my sanity in my lifetime of encountering. ABW also reveal that his tests verified that he had no evidence of AIDs, a great relief for him.
In explication then, a series of terms, acting as principles of the participation of diverse components is to be considered, as well as to how each is rendered in the expanded conformation with that entire week involving the encounter (before and after the event) and that weekend within that particular week (that Tuesday through to the next inherent Tuesday, the encounter occurring on the weekend). That again, a doubling occurred in that we were two very different encontrants, but the activities of the encountering of that week confirmed that relationships exist in great detail affirming the two differing statuses in a specific encounter affirming such connections.
The hayyot profoundly hold the nature of their telepathic discourse with us, as human and as individual and as an encontrant (in the making) which ultimately verifies their awareness and concern of greater depth in the ultimate appreciation of what all an encounter holds. Their mind and my assumed distinctions as to the memory of the hayyot in communicating with me) are “mere details” in the immensity of the encounter’s unfolding at many levels).
The division of that week of encountering as to what preceded the encounter and what followed the encounter, including the body markings this time, involves the Tuesday meeting of us two men, and then the diversity and strangely, too, communality on the weekend’s activities per each guy, and then followed on the next Tuesday comprising the broad entanglement about becoming and being as continually prefacing each man’s experiences offering profundity. So, the implications of that encounter are continually then and before then and after manifesting.
Briefly then, some highlights of that ensuing encountering are included next: here, with apologies for any repetitions which are my writing attempt in this essay to better clarify, hopefully, the extensive affects of what an encounter holds and does) :
My own initial request about verification is essential to my request for verification of the actuality being not just of an encounter therein, but of the history of encountering with a lifetime and between lifetimes as to the reconfiguration before and after every encounter between these two species (the human and the hayyot) as an initial orientation.
ABW and I were both standing, naked, in a line of others for then being marked with a machine within the UFO-vehicle. We are merely two of several beings therein that lineup, the others as to my own attempt at reconciling having other distant concurrences less involving for the lesson at hand. Not for that detail to be dismissed, but to realize a culture of many is established within the physical lineup and demarcating of a sign to register that the encountering individuals are supported in truth, by a truth resonant to the encounter activities inclusive of the week surrounding the weekend parlay.
With the entanglement grasped between the two men (ABW and me) and the angelic hayyot, especially, I found in the encounter imagery/narrative myself on a theatrical stage, as if an actor and as a direction of the drama at hand in the activity to follow as essential, and long serving in my personal lifetime, designated by the activities surrounding my earlier dissertation about The Blacks reassembling the Roman Catholic mass ritual as a possible medieval representation of a black mass.
During the encountering phenomenon, I stood at the stage level beneath the stage balcony, and my body, despite all else, oscillates between myself as the studious and experiential “personal center” involving both a religious ritual and a staging and another individual, altered by yet another third individual – Jean Genet, only presented through the production of that author’s drama about a black revolution. Therein the encounter I was both the white writer-artist of this lifetime and the black slave and “houseboy” of a previous lifetime. But I must include this awareness in the encounter derived in part by the woman masked judge on the balcony above where I stood). The activities of that lifetime are presented waywardly, to some apprehension, on stage because behind my stance beneath the balcony, more was going on. Thereby and I note the “doubles” involved through activities in this play-within-a-play as staged by two other black men/actors showing again a dividing orientation as to their activities on stage, behind my stance.
I was aware, which is important, of their activities while involved with the oscillating movement of myself from two orientations (simultaneously through the vibrating motion) that held a division of traits like my own personage involving two histories, two cultures, two races, two sets of two men (to personifications inherent within the behaviors of their participation, common to both orientations, even if only psychological and symbolic, as the reality within the encounter presentation.
These two men located behind me while I was facing the judge on the balcony are in each indication akin to my own persona, represented by the black male aggressor as to the sexual behavior to follow (to which Genet as dramatist inferred), and the other black male of those two men being disguised as a white female in costume to indicate he was a white woman. Hence s/he represents two attributes of racial affirmation both in the coloring racially enacted and as the gendering of an individual to the engendering indicated in the first man’s androgyny (depicted mythically as our legendary Adam, who carries within himself the femininity of Eve). This mythic allegory of all human beings affirms at the “beginning” origin of sexual manifestation with each human.
Herein as conclusion to this essay, I find prudence in mentioning some uncomfortable manifestations in “encountering” as to the 2023 current, horrific, climate upheavals and the enormous greed of economic repression on the part of corporate interests financially in today’s culture amassing billionaires for example, plus the slavery inherence as to women’s rights as to their bodies in terms of abortion, being so taken over by the perpetuation of false lies continually being presented by Republican congressionals in our current world of anarchistic dictators or want-to-be despots and tyrants (Donald Trump and his minions sporting the MAGA red cap (make America great again).
That large groupings of followers of these forms of language manipulation is disheartening in contrast to the importance of the hayyot dissemination of lessons akin to those of time-honored encounter definitions of Enoch, Ezekiel, and Moses among others.
This reaches terrible conclusions with the influence of the National Rifle Association so wide spread, leading to mass executions frequency with adherences to the outrageous manufacturing of guns. That this vermin kills innocent children, and life-affirming adults, alike, needs our utmost insistence on perpetuating loving wisdom in contrast.
Encounters are viable about the soul’s awareness of our human transactions, both in the environment of positive and negative surroundings; each encounter remains positive in nature regardless, and attempts therein to acknowledge our human incarnations over the centuries and the patterns of such from lifetime to lifetime. One of the major valuable lessons taught to me via the hayyot is the awareness of reincarnation and the karmic manifestation of every lifetime. Multiple levels of awareness are inherent in any encounter.
This mythic allegory in the manifestations of all human beings affirms at the “beginning” origin of bisexual manifestation with each human, which the androgynous Adam, and Eve, personify in the continuing advancing humanity, ultimately, personifying in a contemporary manner (but inclusive of history) as symbolic means to grasping the implicit natural erotic basis in the heart of humanity and incorporated in the close encounter phenomena.
