Much as with UFOs; I have read a fair bit about ET contacts (and viewed documentaries or videos); and various of my penfriends have described their own ET contacts - so my attitude has been somewhat open to the reality of such things.
But this openness-in-principle has been modified by an underlying lack of interest in the subject; which is itself a reaction against the enormous (sometimes cosmically vast and spiritual) claims of significance made by ET proponents; whether positive or negative.
Furthermore, there is the problem that I don't believe most of the claims - or at least, I am not confident of their validity.
Some reports seem to be lies, while other experiences seem to be self-deceptions due to illness or stupidity - while other people seem to reporting genuine spiritual or paranormal experiences, but may be misinterpreting other kinds of experiences as ET contacts.
In particular, to believe ET reports requires for me a confidence in the discernment - including spiritual discernment - of the witness, and up-until-now I had not come across any ET reports that ticked all the necessary boxes.
This has changed since I read To Think Without Fear: the challenge of the extra-terrestrial (2015), by Anthony Duncan (1930-2003) - which has convinced me of the validity of his report of ET contacts happening to himself and family, in the middle 1990s in Northumberland, where he was an Anglican priest.
Although, as a Church of England Vicar of several parishes; at times AD lived near to me and I walked past his churches frequently; I never met him and did know know about him (indeed, I did not become a Christian until after he had died).
I came across Duncan rather vaguely at first through an interest in "Celtic Christianity" (a subject about which he wrote several books); but mainly through my reading of Gareth Knight. And esepcially Kiight's superb autobiography: I called it magic (2011).
Duncan and Knight met when AD was curate at Tewksbury Abbey while GK lived in the town; and AD prepared Knight for confirmation into the CofE. They rapidly became friends and then complementary collaborators; ultimately leading AD to an interest in the Qabalah that eventually bore fruit in Duncan's The Christ, Psychotherapy and Magic (1969); which fed-into Knight's restoration of Christian ceremonial magic in Experience of the Inner Worlds (1975).
Duncan was a natural, spontaneous, psychic and mystic - who had paranormal as well as supernatural experiences throughout his adult life' He was an officially-recognized exorcist in the Church of England - and became a Canon of Newcastle Cathedral.
I read GK's memoir of AD (Christ and Qabalah - 2013) and then several of AD's books and a recorded lecture; before tackling To think without fear TTWF. So I already liked and respected Duncan, before reading the ET book.
However, it needed two attempts to get-through TTWF; because of the rather unfortunate way it is structured. The key parts that actually convinced me of the validity of his interpretations of his experiences - the descriptions of his ET experiences; come at the very end of the volume, in the Appendices.
...Before which I needed to wade through a great deal of complex, abstract, and (from my POV) theologically-unconvincing explanations and justifications of the reality of ETs from the context of mainstream-orthodox Anglican philosophy and doctrine (with various eclectic additions).
There are, however, many important insights scattered throughout these rather turgid early parts - and the effort of penetrating these chapters surely prepared my receptivity for the simple and clear expositions that came at the end.
Despite all its defects, what made this the only account to convince me of the reality of an ET experience was that background of already knowing and respecting Duncan; plus my confidence that he was able - from considerable experienced reflected-upon - to discern the provenance of strange experiences.
In other words, Duncan, had throughout his adult Christian life, experienced many contacts and "communication" involving angels, demons, ghosts and the like - and therefore he was exceptionally well-placed and able to discern that these ETs were... what they "said" they were.
AD was also well-motivated, i.e. not trying to gain personal advantage from reporting ET contacts. Indeed he did not share the experiences described in this book outside the circles of his friends: and this book was not published until a decade after his death.
In brief; the nature of the ET contacts (confirmed by two other people) was a non-visual but definite sense of presences (various numbers, and of various types of personage); and a direct, usually non-verbal, mind-to-mind telepathic (back-and-forth, Q&A type) understanding.
So, having been convinced - what then?
For me, nothing much more than an expansion of metaphysical possibility: I remain largely uninterested by such contacts - and have no significant desire to share them.
The claims variously made in other books etc of a strategic importance of ETs for Mankind, material and or spiritual, seem to me to have been refuted by the passage of decades. Such discussion is contaminated by "geopolitical" forms of thinking about civilizational purposes, clashes, alliances and the like.
I think the real significance (and this seems to be the opinion of AD) is interpersonal. The significant depends on the actual parties involved - the specific human and the specific ET (who seem to vary in kind and motivation) - and the quality of what happens between them.
Contact with ETs is therefore as important, or as trivial, as contact with other kinds of living Beings - whether living or dead, material or spiritual.
That is to say - genuinely loving contact between Beings (if this develops) is eternally-significant and of positive value to divine creation...
Whereas contacts that have an instrumental purpose (in which one or both parties are attempting to use the other for some benefit, or from mere curiosity, or operating under orders) are net-harmful interactions; but usually just insignificant, in the wider scheme.
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