From: "WHITE" <mjawhite@digitaldune.net> [John White]
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 07:38:24 -0700
Fwd Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:19:34 -0400
Subject: Re: Questions for Abductees

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 10:58:16 -0400
From: Peregrine Mendoza <101653.2205@compuserve.com>
Subject: Questions for Abductees (RV)
To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>

Good morning all, and Duke, who wrote:

The Duke of Mendoza presents his compliments and apologizes for
this belated response to, among other things...

>From: clark@canby.mn.frontiercomm.net [Jerome Clark]
>Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 11:32:01 PDT
>To: updates@globalserve.net
>Subject: RE: UFO UpDate: Re: Questions for abductees

<snip>

Jerry wrote:

>Does anybody, including yourself, know the meaning of the
>phrase "the folklore that calls itself "abduction research"?
>All of us, including the undersigned (as you kindly reminded
>me recently), are capable of writing (and thinking) in haste,
>and I daresay you are doing so here. There is folklore about
>abductions, but the experience of abduction is not "folklore,"

<snip>

>One draws a curtain of modesty over American organizations' and
>individuals' approach to all this.


>Yours &c
>Plywood D. Mahogany
>Fascia Lifter

 Duke, et al.:

(I had not fully appreciated the "nom" peregine mendoza
until today's posting on wariness in giving
easy credence to false alien abduction stories.)

I took the phrase "the folklore that calls itself 'abduction
research'" to designate a body of written materials that a group
of people consider as scripture in their belief and conduct
involving alien abduction.

I took Duke's thoughtful, explanatory response to Clark's posting
on that phrase to mean that if one really wants to understand
that  "scripture" a deeper insight can be gained if one first
goes about focusing on what can be objectively "known."

That type of thinking got the gnostics branded as heretics in the
early christian church which was struggling to come up with its
own belief system:  whatever the gnostikos' orthodoxy,  the
christian orthodoxy was not:  "Off with their heads!"

The responding post triggered that interesting parallel for me.
So, I read several excerpts from The Foreigner, a gnostic text,
and sure 'nuff, the Foreigner speaks of technique in
comprehending reality, which didn't set right for the
competition, so they made it heresy.

(Great Post!)

John White  mjawhite@digitaldune.net