”…the history of ufology should be placed within an
esoteric context. Throughout history there has been a tradition of higher
knowledge, and the claim that it was accessible to us, if only we agreed to be
tested, to work through certain spiritual problems… That´s the meaning of the
hermetic schools. The UFO problem, the question of parapsychology, are central
to this business. Looking for the solution isn´t just a scientific project;
it´s a quest, an initiation, an enigma like that of the Sphinx…”. (Jacques
Vallee, Forbidden Science II, p. 211).
I am often reminded of this thoughtful quote from
Jacques Vallee when looking back at the many years of UFO research and the
spiritual quest of my own life. Several colleagues and friends in the UFO
research community have recognized this profound idea and besides being
committed to the scientific, empirical method in research have also, sometimes
in secret, being sincere students of the Forbidden Science – The Esoteric
Tradition. This quest is no easy path to tread alone, offering a djungle of
metaphysical schools and teachers with conflicting ideas. I had the good
fortune of, early in life, finding a
group of ufologists who were also spiritual seekers. This blog post is the
story of this group.
One Winter evening in the beginning of the 1960s,
when I was around ten years old, my mother and I went for a walk to get rid of
some bulky trash nearby our then place of living in Södertälje. It was a
beautiful, starry night and mother told me about various constellations and
stars. This awe-inspiring experience so greatly influenced me that I as soon as
possible visited the local public library to borrow books on astronomy. My
mother was from early in life a spiritual seeker and an avid reader. This deep
interest was reflected in the library she built up at our home. There were
books on Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, ancient mysteries and all the
early UFO contactee books from the Swedish publishing house Parthenon. Authors
like George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Ray and Rex Stanford, Elisabeth Klarer a.o. As
a young teenager I discovered these books in our family library and became
deeply fascinated by all these subjects, especially UFOs.
In November 1970 my friend Kjell Jonsson and I
formed a local UFO group in Södertälje. We were young, naive and idealistic and
spent many evenings skywatching and waiting for the space people to appear in
their craft. When our UFO interest became more realistic and research oriented
we founded, in 1973, an informal working group Arbetsgruppen för ufologi (AFU),
later Archives for UFO Research, together with UFO colleague Anders Liljegren,
Norrköping. Today the acronym is well known as Archives for the Unexplained.
A local UFO group, Stockholms UFO-Center (SUFOC),
had been formed in 1971. I became aquainted with the leaders of this group, especially
Tony Eckardt and Lennart Johansson and we cooperated on several UFO projects and
exchanged newsletters during 1972-1973. Sture and Turid Johansson were invited
for a lecture at SUFOC in 1973. Sture and Turid were deeply involved in the UFO
contact scene in the 1960s and 70s with several UFO observations and personal
contact experiences. Now they planned to form a meditation group and several
members of the Stockholm UFO-Center joined this group which began in the Autumn
of 1973, meeting every Friday evening.
Tony Eckardt during one of our field investigations, July 1972
Although living in another city I was
also invited and attended my first meditation session on November 1, 1973 at
the home of Sture and Turid Johansson, then living in Lidingö, Stockholm. Stockholms UFO-Center was a rather small group, not
more than 20 members. Only a few of the more spiritually oriented members
joined the meditation group. Besides Sture and Turid Johansson the core group
consisted of Tony Eckardt, Lennart Johansson, Eva Helderud, Solveig Simlin,
Sune Nordwall and Pia Ringstrand. Our meetings always started with the Lord´s
Prayer followed by around 15 minutes meditation. During the first months we
tried studying The Secret Doctrine by Blavatsky but soon realized that this
tome was not for beginners. The rest of the evenings were spent drinking tea or
coffee coupled with vivid discussions of
UFOs, paranormal phenomena, mysticism, esotericism and meditation methods.
Pia Ringstrand and Lennart Johansson
Sune Nordwall and Solveig Simlin
Me during a meditation meeting, August 1974
We all became close friends and fellow spiritual
seekers in the meditation group, studying and discussing all aspects of
philosophy and paranormal phenomena. These were joyous and inspiring
gatherings. Although the subjects
discussed were serious we often joked heartily and rather irreverently about
spiritual teachers and ourselves. As almost all of us were active in various
UFO, parapsychological and spiritual organizations we referred to our group as
The Occult Mafia (O.M.)
We often gathered together at holidays, New Year´s Eve and other occasions. We had summer parties, visiting lectures, exhibitions and interesting persons among our acquaintances. We also sometimes invited representatives from various New Age and occult groups to hear of their experiences and views. One evening we spontaneously decided to place our meditation session deep in the forest, a few Swedish miles south of Stockholm at a place called Paradiset, Paradise. After having walked in the dark forest for about a mile we arrived at a small lake, Trehörningen. There the group settled together, meditating and gazing at the beautiful night sky filled with stars and occasional meteors. It way an awe-inspiring evening full of magical beauty and mystery. Many times later we gathered at this place for recreation and bathing in the lake, a few times sleeping in a lapp cot or tepee built close to the lake.
Me in the lapp cot in, August 1974
Turid Johansson in the meditation group 1974
Beach party with the meditation group and friends, Summer 1975
Although differing in age and occupation we became a
tightly knit group united by our spiritual quest and friendship. Tony Eckardt
and Lennart Johansson were engineers active in Stockholms UFO-Center. Lennart
donated his entire collection of UFO literature, 200 titles, to AFU during
Spring 1974. This became the cornerstone and beginning of the AFU library and
archive. His interest and research changed to the more esoteric like the Keely
mystery, the Juvelius cipher and Rennes le Chateu. Pia Ringstrand had for several
years worked together with Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the Parthenon publishing
house. In September 1972 Pia, together with the Parthenon board, had attended
the 10th Deutsche UFO/IFO-Studiengemeinschaft (DUIST) Congress in Wiesbaden. Sune
Nordwall was a dedicated student of Rudolf Steiner ´s Anthroposophy. I shared
his interest in Anthroposophy but had joined Alice Bailey´s The Arcane School
in September 1972.
Celebrating New Year´s Eve with the group 1974. From left Sture and Turid Johansson, Lennart Johansson
Lennart Johansson, group meeting August 1974
The meditation group became for me very much the
spiritual and social homebase and I moved to Sundbyberg, close to Stockholm to
be closer to my spiritual friends. Another reason for the change of city was my
entering studies of History of Religions at Stockholm University in September
1974. During my student years at Stockholm University I did a rather extensive
study of the Kabbalah, resulting in a short thesis on the early Merkabah
mysticism, presented at the History of Religion department. As an addition to
my academic studies I also read every book I could find on the Kabbalah,
written by various exponents of the Western Mystery Tradition, authors such as
Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight, W.E. Butler, A.E.Waite a.o.
A couple of days ago I asked Tony Eckardt what the
meditation group meant to him and how he regard this activity today. In an
email October 10 he wrote: ”… for me personally it became a mystery school and
a unique education for life because of the group.” I can only agree. The group
met every Friday evening for about three years. We discussed and investigated
all kinds of UFO and paranormal phenomena, distant healing, telepathy etc. We
visited mediums, mystics, healers and various spiritual groups like the Liberal
Catholic Church. In 1974 several members of our group participated in an Tibetan
Buddhist initiation ceremony officiated by Kalu Rimpoche, teacher of Tibetan
Buddhism and meditation from Bhutan.
Kalu Rimpoche
During 1974-1975 I was heavily influenced by the well
known Swedish nature therapist Birger Ledin. He was clairvoyant and a strong
advocate of Steiner´s Anthroposophy and regarded Steiner as the foremost
spiritual adept in Europé. Our meditation group visited him at his home on
August 8, 1975. This inspired me to suggest that the group be transformed to an
esoteric order. We chose the acronym O.M. again but changed it to Ordre de
Michel – the Order of Saint Michael. We bought chalices and on September 29,
1975 we founded the order in a sacred ceremony. But this activity and idea soon
faded.
In 1975-1976 I studied Theoretical Philosophy at
Stockholm University and was very much occupied with the intellectual and
epistemological difficulty in accepting the reality of a multiverse in the
esoteric sense. In my diary from January 8, 1976 I wrote: “My thinking is now
very much occupied with the problem whether it is consistent with intellectual
integrity to accept a worldview that cannot be verified by empirical science?
If this is possible than esotericism can be philosophically established and
motivated.” Up until 1975 I was very
much influenced by the writings of Rudolf Steiner on these issues. His ideas
regarding a Spiritual Science that could be verified by special training
appealed to my own theories. But in December 1975 I read Kunskapen om verkligheten
(The Knowledge of Reality) by the eminent and erudite Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency. His penetrating criticism of Steiner´s Anthroposophy became a
watershed and an eye-opener in my own thinking which resulted in a comment in
my diary for December 2, 1975: “By studying Laurency, Bailey and other authors
I have found that Laurency´s criticism of Steiner is tenable. I didn´t expect
that my view on Steiner could be so radically modified and altered.”
A seminal event occurred during our meditation
meeting on November 19, 1976. Turid told the group that Sture had recently
begun going into a trance state and a spirit, Simeno, had started talking
through him. Although members of the group had read about many paranormal
events we were all somewhat apprehensive when Sture started to gasp and shake,
rised up and a completely foreign voice said: ”I greet you. Do not be afraid. It is not as
dangerous as it looks. What you call the instrument does not suffer from this…
But the instrument is still afraid so please tell him that he represents no
hazard to you. I am very glad to be here.” Then followed a short explanation of
how trance channeling worked and assurance that the man speaking through Sture
would be back again many times.
Sture and Turid Johansson during a deep trance session
The trance communications marked the beginning of
the end for the meditation group. Sture och Turid Johansson became more and
more involved in spreading the messages from Simeno, and later an old Egyptian
calling himself Ambres. I entered The Swedish School of Library and Information
Science in Borås. Tony Eckardt became active in an organization for
psychobiophysics and producer of the radio programme New Dimensions. Today he
run the company Shekinah Media together with his wife Eva. Pia Ringstrand was
for a few years a board member of the organization InCal, an information center
for alternative lifeviews and new research. Sune Nordwall continued as an
advocate of Antroposophy and Lennart Johansson later became active in the Green
Party of Sweden. I continued working with AFU and studying the Esoteric
Tradition in the writings of a.o. Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Henry T.
Laurency.
Today some of the members of the meditation group have left this world, Turid Johansson, Leif Johansson and Solveig Simlin. When looking back on this time of my life I can only express my deepest gratitude to the Gods of Fate for this opportunity of learning. Our joyous meetings and activities coupled with the varm friendships will always stay in my memory.
