Barbelith Underground > Temple > And what's with shadow people?

Actually Art Bell puts up almost every picture he gets onto his website without judging each one. Some of them are obvious Photoshop fakes while others are more interesting.

Now about the shadow people.

Basically, during an "open lines" show on Art Bell Coast To Coast (open lines mean open phone lines, i.e. the show's accepting phone calls from listeners) a caller came in and reported seeing shadowy beings or maybe he saw one shadowy being. I don't know because I haven't listened to that specific show. I've only heard the one right after it. Well, here's the deal, "shadow people" are beings resembling shadows. They are usually seen in through periferal vision (seeing things from the side of your eye.) Now one can dismiss this as the human mind interpreting the blind spots on the side of the eye as some sort of creature and that possibility was mentioned on the show.. But here's the interesting part. The shadow people, as it turned out, could also be seen straight one. In your normal field of vision. you can blink all you want but the moving silhoettes where still there.

Here's why this became such a big deal/ After the show eneded Art Bell got 6000 messages from people who claimed to have seen shadow people. And almost every day for the next 2 weeks, Art has been getting around 1-2,000 messages from people who had witnessed the so-called "shadow people".

Here's what arose from the accounts. The "shadow people" aren't one singular phenomena. In fact there had been different kinds of shadow people who were reported through history. There are "shadow people" who are psychic vampires, and ghosts and other categories of shadow people.

A few theories were proposed. A few which I remember are the following...

Theory A.) They are creatures with a lower resonance frequency. Which might mean that they are from another dimension/universe or exist in another geometric dimension and "leak" over unto this one.

Theory B.) They had always been here and have been, at times, more clearer. They are creatures reported from all over the world and are creatures which are not usually seen in the West. Why? Because of the Western culture's insistance that the so-called "waking" state of mind is the most supreme state of mind. There's no scientific evidence to back up the idea that the "waking" state is the superior state of mind. The theory goes that since the human mind/awareness can take in more sensory information in other states of mind then one can see things that are present but not seen in the "ordinary" state of mind. They are ignored by the mind in the ordinary state of mind.

Theory B. is a very interesting theory because of the whole idea of the mind and perception. Basically you might think "If I don't see something, wouldn't I feel it? Hear it? Taste it?". No, in some situations you wouldn't. For example, a person can be hypnotized not to see a chair that's in front of him/her. When asked to walk in a straight line this person would walk forward, and then around the chair but in his mind he would be walking in a straight line. He would only notice that he's not walking in a straight line if his attention was drawn to this. If it was pointed out to him or if he, by some accident, noticed that he was doing what he's doing. To notice this would probably require a great deal of focussing and concentration on the hypnotized subjects part to stop the hypnotic suggestion and actually become aware of the chair.

Another interesting phenomenom which deals with seeing without percieving is "blindsight".

I'm now quoting from "Alternative Realities" by Leonard George, Ph.D.

"Individuals who sustain damage to the brain region involved in the visual sense often lose the ability to see certain features or areas in their field of vision. In some cases, although unaware of sensing anything in the blinded part of the field, they are able to respond to information in that area. For instance, a person may deny being able to see an array of dots on paper presented to him or her; but when asked to guess how many dots there are, the person will repeatedly guess the correct number. This phenomenon is called blindsight."

So, this basically presents the same casy as the hypnosis case except it does not use hypnosis but actual physical structures of the brain. The inability to see certain aspects of reality, and I quote myself from my head, "damage or the absess of development of the brain which leads one to not percieve certain aspects of reality and yet permits unconcious reaction to those very same aspects."

But wouldn't a thinking living being (in the case of shadow people) go after me or something? Wouldn't I feel, at least, the effects of it on me?

Not necessarily. When presented with facts that due not fit a person's reality tunnel, the subconcious can create an elaborate phantasy (I like spelling fantasy with a "ph") to fit the facts. In fact your mind is setting up an elaborate phantasy world right now as it recieves information from your physical senses which may or not be real.