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Orfeo Angelucci and the Esoteric Tradition

”His charm, humility, and sincerety are recognized by all who know him, and he is widely regarded as expressing the religious wing of the UFO contactee movement at its best.” This assessment of American contactee Orfeo Angelucci (1912-1993) was given by religious scholar Robert Ellwood in The Encyclopedia of UFOs, p. 21, (edited by Ronald Story). To state that Angelucci expressed the ”religious wing” of the movement is a bit misleading. What he actually did was presenting a somewhat simplified version of the Esoteric Tradition, which was the philosophy of the space people contacting Angelucci. As a member of the Theosophical Society in America and a priest in the Liberal Catholic Church, Robert Ellwood should have recognized the Ancient Wisdom or Science of the Multiverse in the Angelucci story and message.

Orfeo Angelucci

The contacts with space people made in the 1950s were not only a psychological test of the public reaction to contact with alien visitors but also a somewhat novel way to present the Ancient Wisdom. Upon a careful rereading of he classic books of a.o. George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel, Daniel Fry and Howard Menger I discovered that the world view and philosophy of the alien visitors given in these books was actually the esoteric worldview, although expressed in novel terms. But to recognize this fact an in-depth acquaintance with the core Esoteric Tradition (Blavatsky, Bailey, Laurency) is a necessary prerequisite.

After many years of study of the early contactee movement I also found strong indications that this movement was a carefully orchestrated project by at least two alien groups. This is revealed in the article Venusians Walk Our Streets by California journalist och esotericist Paul M. Vest (Mystic Magazine, no. 5, Aug. 1954). From an esoteric viewpoint this is one of the most interesting and informative articles ever written on the UFO contactee phenomenon. Vest´s experiences and articles in Fate and Mystic Magazine has been decisive in my formulation of an alternative Esoteric Intervention Theory.

In the Summer of 1953 Paul Vest was contacted at his home in Santa Monica by the alien visitor ”Bill” who asked Paul to help his group publicize the experiences of Orfeo Angelucci. This was part of a experiment in contacting ordinary citizens in various ways by physical meetings, ham radio, clairvoyance and clairaudience. Paul Vest was exceptionally well equipped to handle this delicate project as an investigator of paranormal phenomena as well as an experienced esotericist with a profound knowledge of the Esoteric Tradition. The alien group behind Bill had obviously done a lot of preparation before contacting Paul Vest. He is given a list of names, addresses and telephone numbers of people in the Southern California area who had been contacted by space visitors or would be useful because of their special knowledge. Later Vest spent several months contacting the people on the list given by Bill to get a verification of his claims.

Paul Vest

Orfeo Angelucci had several physical meetings with space people and at least one trip in their spacecraft. These well known experiences can be found on several websites and his book The Secret of the Saucers can be downloaded as a pdf. Orfeo´s wife Mabel also met the space people on at least two occasions, one of them an encounter with ”Bill”. She was seemingly not amused by the visit from Bill: "Oh, that man gave me the creeps. He rang the doorbell one day and introduced himself with an odd name I can´t remember. He seemed to know everything about us. It frightened me - there was something so strange and downright weird about him." The space people asked Angelucci to go public with his experiences and he started lecturing to groups of people in Los Angeles. Because of the harsh criticism and social stigma resulting from his activities Mabel was very much against his activities. She was concerned for the family reputation and their sons safety: ”Mabel pleaded with me to forget my experiences. I tried to explain to her why I had to tell about them, and we had some bitter misunderstandings on the subject.”

(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.38).

Orfeo and Mabel Angelucci

On February 19, 1953 Angelucci published a newspaper, 20th Century Times. It was essentually the same information later published as The Secret of the Saucers (1955). He had plans to make this a weekly newspaper but only one issue was published. In spite of his lectures and newspaper he reached comparatively few people. But all this changed in September 1953 when Paul Vest´s article about Angelucci was published in Ray Palmer´s Mystic magazine: ”I was amazed at the public interest and the general acceptance of my story. It appeared that intuitively many persons had been prepared for the account.” (Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.116). Obviously the work and planning of ”Bill” produced the effect hoped for by the space people. During the rest of the 1950s and 60s Orfeo Angelucci was a prominent member of the contactee movement and lectured at many UFO conventions.

Mystic magazine, November 1953

Continuing the tradition from Meade Layne, Desmond Leslie and Riley Crabb I will here give a few examples of esotericism in The Secret of the Saucers, compared with a few quotes from the esoteric writings. Laurency quotes are from the web editions.

Venus
”We feel a deep sense of brotherhood toward Earth´s inhabitants because of an ancient kinship of our planet with Earth… We ask that you look upon us simply as older brothers”.
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p. 9).

”The ancients” (initiates) called the planet Venus ”the morning star” (not the evening star) as well as ”Lucifer” (he who brought the light”, the knowledge to our planet). By order of the solar systemic government the Venusian planetary government relinquished some of its members, who took over the management of our planet when biological evolution had reached so far that the brain of ape-man could begin to be mentalized. This was 21 million years ago.
(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life One, The Planetary Hierarchy, 5.7.1).

Multiverse
”… we function in dimensions unknown to man and hence interpret all things differently”:
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.12).

”You have just fully realized that we are not like earthmen in that we function in dimensions unknown to your world.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.43).

”The last time you saw me, Orfeo, I was in a less objectified projection in your three-dimensional world… but tonight you see me fully objectified… tonight I am no half-phantom, but can move among men as an Earthman… You now know that we can appear and function as human beings.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.56).

Our planet (Terra) is the only planet in the solar system where organic life is possible. On other planets, man’s lowest envelope (49:5-7) is an aggregate envelope and not an organic one. As a rule there is only one such planet in each solar system. That planet is in fact given a special task.
(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Two, Conscious Development, 7.2.9).

Organisms are by no means necessary to the development of consciousness in the lowest physical molecular kinds (49:5-7). On other planets also the lowest envelope is an aggregate envelope. When a 45-self (in his second self envelope) “physicalizes”, so that he becomes visible in the physical world, he uses the first triad the energies of which shape a replica of his “lowest material form”, a replica as similar to the original as possible and consisting of mental, emotional, and physical molecular kinds. Shaping as well as dissolution is the work of an instant. This physical body cannot be distinguished from an organism.
(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Two, The Matter Aspect, 6.7.8-10).    

Interplanetary Alcatraz
”For all of its apparent beauty Earth is a purgatorial world among the planets evolving intelligent life. Hate, selfishness and cruelty rise from many parts of it like a dark mist.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.24).

”I may tell you that to the entities of certain other worlds Earth is regarded as ´the accursed planet´, the ´home of the reprobate, fallen ones´. Others call your Earth the ´home of sorrows´. For Earth´s s evolution is evolution through pain, sorrows in, suffering and the illusion of physical deaath. Belive me, all evolutions are not similar to Earth´s, despite the present beliefs of your scientists.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.43).

”Regrettably, our very planet is the “slop-pail” of the solar system. Monads of repulsive tendency have been transferred here from other planets and also solar systems, such hateful types as have caused trouble in planets with individuals of attractive tendency. “All bad qualities” are precisely the qualities of hatred, and all too many people have acquired such ones more than 50 per cent. It will take many incarnations before those qualities have been supplanted by good ones.”

(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life One, The Law, 9.45.3).

Our planet holds a special position, not just in our solar system but also in the greater globe comprising seven solar systems. Nowhere has such a mass of monads of repulsive basic tendency been gathered, nowhere has the tendency to selfish individual character been so intense. Nowhere has mankind incurred such a bad reaping by bad sowing. Our planet is the star of sorrow in our cosmic globe.
(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Two, Consciousness Development, 7.17.6).

"...this planet of suffering, sorrow, pain and struggle"
(Alice Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age, p. 385).
"...the unhappy little planet of suffering which we call the Earth"
(Alice Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age, p. 649).
 "conditions of agony and of distress such as are found on our planet are found in no such degree in any other scheme."
(Alice Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 416).

Ad for The Secret of the Saucers in Fate Magazine, July 1955

Asteroids

”Once there was another planet in your solar system… that planet was the original home of Earthlings... They made war among themselves… Ultimattely they destroyed their own planet which today exists only as a sterile and barren ring of asteroids and debris in the solar system. In order that those entities might gain understanding, compassion and brotherly love they were born into the animalistic, material evolution of a lesser planet, Earth. Suffring, sorrow, frustration and death became their teacher. Their symbol became the Man-Beast.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.44).

”The planetary hierarchy foresees that if religions are not freed from fear and aggression, if they do not seek that synthesis which eliminates the mutual antagonism and competition of the nations… then this will in the future lead to a new world war, this time a religious war, which in its bestiality will supersede everything and will spell the annihilation of life on our planet… If so, it would not be the first one. Astronomers have observed that in the wide interval between Mars and Jupiter, instead of one planet, there are hundreds of asteroids (so far they have discovered more than 1700). They were once part of a big planet. Will Terra share its destiny?
(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Five, The Black Lodge, 23.19.5).

Of interest regarding this issue is also this quote from contactee George Hunt Williamson:
”We must now decide what to do about your planet Earth. Your bombs will destroy Universal balance. Your Hydrogen Bomb could make an asteroid belt out of you. This happened many years ago to planet of the fifth orbit. We knew what they were doing but we didn´t interfere. We cannot stand by and see another waste.”
(George Hunt Williamson, The Saucers Speak, Neville Spearman 1963, p. 52).

Orfeo Angelucci

Swedish esotericist and founder of the publishing house Parthenon, Edith Nicolaisen,  corresponded with Orfeo Angelucci 1958 – 1962. She was given the publishing rights for The Secret of the Saucers but unfortunatly this was one of her many projects that was never implemented.  Edith´s co-worker in Parthenon, Mrs. Gertrud Bengtsson, had made a translation of the book and she asked Angelucci to write an addendum for the Swedish edition of the book. Four pages were sent to Mrs. Bengtsson and as this document has never been published before here are a few quotes of interest:

Gertrud Bengtsson, pen name Hillevi Lindahl

”It is the month of May, 1962, just ten years since the first experiences given to me in this wonderful age of new awakening. A large volume could be written about these ten years, but the main events, the rapid unfolding into the new awareness, the vibrant days, began May 23, 1952 and extended to the very end of the year 1954… It is not easy for me to add this letter, fully ten years later, for I re-endorse every word, every meaning, every effect. I am happy to make this attempt for the Swedish edition of the book, which is due for publication in 1963…

Mabel, my wife, still remains a phenomenon. Her smile is as dolcent as it ever was, her laugh as warbling and full as a spring day. She still does not believe all of what I have told, but she still holds nothing against me for it… In the past ten years Earth has made only a glimmer of progress, and even that glimmer is in the material things, such as electronics and satellites. In the moral and spiritual and ethical dimensions there has been more backward sliding than forward progress… my own involvement started May 23, 1952, the very first to announce a contact… I felt this would be the beginning of a golden age, the final emancipation of mankind from the last fetters of ignorance. And soon others were heard from, who also announced contacts. These were George Adamski, George Van Tassel, Truman Bethurum, Dan Fry, others, too may to list here.

I continued for a while to attend meetings, lectures, an some of my own activities. Finlly I dropped my own lectures, and devoted more time to attending thos of other contactees. George Van Tassel was in the desert, near Yucca Valley, California, and in 1954 he continued with the idea of conventions… Those who were able to accept the flying saucers as visitors from other places, far advanced from us on earth have the reward of knowing that our progress in the cosmos is not a lonely, unseen, and un-recorded series of events. We know it is part of the Cosmic Plan, the eternal existence, and the everlasting state of things. So, ten years have not blunted us, but sharpened us. It is the glory of the Truth, which only a few at a time can experience.”
(Document sent in letter to Mrs. Gertrud Bengtsson, Sweden, May 1962).

Orfeo Angelucci speaking at the Giant Rock Spacecraft Convention October 14, 1961. Photo by Swedish ufologist Kerstin Bäfverstedt

Something must have happened to Orfeo Angelucci in the 1970s, that changed his views and perspective. He published some booklets, very far from his earlier UFO experiences and philosophy. The Worst Crisis was published in the beginning of the 1970s and the tone of this document reminds more of a fundamentalist Christian from the Moral Majority than a UFO contactee. His hope is now not the space people but evangelist Billy Graham:

”The time is near when one who is truly a shepherd of men will step forth, break the chains that hold mankind, crumble the false things, and rebuild it all. I, for one, feel there is such a one among us. Many of u shave seen him, heard him, and have seen him struggle before the throngs as though straining at the leashes that hold him… Today, this world has experienced everyhting, good and bad. Man is landing on the moon physically, while going into the much spiritually. But it won´t. If this wonderful leader who is among us feels unequal to breaking the chains of rusty links that hold him, he can at least point to one who can do so… Even as a born and abiding Catholic, I nevertheless discern this wonderful Brother and World Helper, as the one now known all over the world. He is BILLY GRAHAM.”

(Orfeo Angelucci, The Worst Crisis and You, p. 28).

Even more surprising is an interview with Angelucci made in the late 1980s:
”… he appeared in a PBS documentary called California Saucers a revealed a new spin on his previous otherwordly encounters: ”What I think happened was that I dreamed a lot of my experiences which came back through my subconscious in visions.”
(Adam Gorightly, Greeg Bishop, ”A” is for Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees, p. 21). Whether Angelucci refer to some of his later more visionary experiences or all of his space contacts I don´t know, as I haven´t found this interview on the web. Hopefully more data on this enigma will come forward.

The core contactee movement as represented by a.o. George Adamski, Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel, Daniel Fry and Howard Menger actually represented a unique and positive cultural impulse and a philosophy of hope for a whole generation of humanity. They advocated a philosophy in accordance with the Esoteric Tradition, the third intellectual force or pillar i cultural history alongside science and religion. More research on this aspect of the first contactees should be of interest both to ufologists specializing in contactee studies and academic scholars of Western Esotericism.

Whatever happened to Orfeo Angelucci during his later years this assessment of him by Bryant and Helen Reeve reflects very aptly the author of The Secret of the Saucers:
”.. we discovered that we were indeed talking with an individual of great spiritual advancement, discernment and experience. By this we do not mean that he was what people call a ”religious” person far from it. There is a tremendous gap between religious orthodoxy, and the type of cosmic advancement we found i Angelucci.”
(Bryant and Helen Reeve, Flying Saucer Pilgrimage, p. 223. They interviewed Angelucci on September 19, 1955).

The Dark Vision of Don Worley

”The lone isolated researcher who knows so much of this sort of thing and really cannot communicate it to his fellow citizens, tends to examine himself and wonder if he is really normal or just a stupid believer of colossal lies… Some categories of the unknown and secretive-lie modus operandi seems to be amply identified and described in the Holy Bible. We earthlings are under assault as never before and at this late date we don´t even know it. Our enemy is making great progress on all fronts. For instance just one area – the moral and physical destruction of our most precious resource (our youth) via mind altering drugs and weeds has now reached frightening proportions.”

This was the dystopian vision and conclusion reached by American ufologist Donald (Don) Worley, presented in his first letter to me on March 19, 1981. We continued corresponding until 1995 and Don, very generously, provided me with lots of data and documents from his many years of field investigations. John Keel very aptly described Don as ”an experienced student of the unknown” (The Mothman Prophecies, p. 34). He began his studies of UFO and paranormal phenomena in 1965, being a member of NICAP and APRO. At the CUFOS conference in 1976 Don Worley was invited to present a paper on the relation between UFOs, Bigfoot and paranormal phenomena, titled The UFO-Related Antropoids: An Important New Opportunity for Investigator-Researchers With Courage.

To enter the controversial and possibly dangerous underground world of contactees, abductions, cattle mutilations and Men In Black (MIB) certainly requires a form a courage. This was the specialized area of research of both John Keel and Don Worley. In a certain sense they also arrived at similar conclusions regarding the intelligences behind the phenomena, although expressed in different terms. Keel used the more esoteric name elementals, while Worley preferred a mainstream Christian interpretation of good and evil - angels and demons.

Don Worley (1921- 2018) was born and lived in Connersville, Indiana most of his life. He was a member of Baptist Temple and American Legion Post No. 1. Employed at Boeing Aircraft in Seattle and at Roots Blowers for 31 years. After graduation in 1941, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard for 3 and a ½ years. On a Patrol Frigate, he was a radioman operating U boat detection equipment in the North Atlantic, south of Greenland. His active UFO interest and field investigations began in 1965 resulting in many articles, lectures, radio and TV appearances. Several of his articles can be found on the abduct.com website.

Don Worley

Reading the articles by Don Worley is to be catapulted into a world of sinister forces and entities. Although he did consider the possibility of benevolent alien visitors his many articles on the Nordics mostly imply dubious or evil intentions behind their activities. This is clearly stated in one of his later articles The Nordics Mystery (Contact Forum, March-April 1995): ”Are these ”love-exuding” entities – who are directing the lawless, invasive deeds of the greys and other types – simply greys in ”sheep´s clothing”?... Are the Nordics good, evil or indifferent?At this time it seems to me, we remain baffled and suspicious, yet hopeful.”

The mystery and possible threat from the Nordics, human-looking aliens, was a central theme in many of Don Worley´s articles. He was very serious about this issue and for several years engaged in a sort of mission impossible agenda to alert all he could reach of his findings: ”I have tried to ”wake up” congressmen, senators, (they contact the Pentagon which sooths with the usual lies, newsmen, national editorial writers, national TV commentators etc. Actually its just like World War Two. The escaping Jews returned to the gehettos and tried to tell everyone that the Germans were liquidating them by the millions but the monstrousness of the truth was unimaginable to the human mind and could not be accepted. After 22 years I have come to believe that the situation is really that grim. We don´t comprehend the primordial mind, know what it has done and is doing or what its final aim is.”
(Undated letter from Don Worley 1988).

Article by Don Worley in UFO Universe, Winter 1997

In a letter May 28, 1985 Don Worley told me he was working on the manuscript for a book with twelve chapters, cases and documents from his many field investigations. The title was UFO Ground Phenomena: The Visible Evidence of Earth´s Hidden Nemesis. Some of the chapters were The Hidden Deceivers at Work; Analysing the Hidden Enemy; Looking for a Savior. In the last letter to me November 1, 1995 Don had changed the title to Starships of Evil, reflecting his increasingly dystopian vision. The book was never published and I don´t know what happened to the manuscript or his archive.

Don published many articles in Flying Saucer Review (FSR), during the editorship of Gordon Creighton. He shared Worley´s doom and gloom estimation of mankind´s situation, although he favored an anthroposophical interpretation of the phenomena. A World Under Assault was published in Flying Saucer Review, Spring 1999: ”An epic, unseen, struggle has been raging for many years. Large intelligence groups in Earth´s leading nations and the valiant forces at their disposal are locked in a hopeless struggle with a foe whose power is unsurpassed. Sleeping humanity little suspects what lies in its perilous future. It is much like the falsely secure revellers on the doomed Titanic. If some miraculous help does not finally intervene it is probably that our cherished values and even we ourselves will be annihilated.”

There are several ufologists who, after a few years of field investigation, have reached the same conclusions as Don Worley regarding the intelligences behind the UFO phenomena. Some of them have completely abandoned ufology and joined more or less fundamentalist Christian churches or groups. But Don kept on researching the enigma although with his view of the situation he must have felt an increasing paranoia. This was somewhat reflected in a letter to me 1985: ”Here and there in ufology those who got into something big and got too close to the MIB sometimes end up exiting this life usually by the heart attack route. ”They” know about me of course , but I don´t think my book will be stopped. I believe there are forces protecting me that will not allow this to happen. Others like Keel, Dr. Vallee etc survived and seen their revelations published… It is amazing how the UFO situation may parallel just what the Bible has to say about good and evil. You said it was too bad I was such a pessimist. Facts are facts and I must stick to them but I do in a limited fashion cover the good guys (angels?) in my book. However its mostly about those in temporary control now – the great deceivers.”
(Letter from Don Worley, September 9, 1985).

One of the reasons Don Worley arrived at the conclusions above was that he relied rather heavily on claims made by abductees during hypnosis. Data obtained during hypnosis are exceedingly unreliable and must be confirmed by clear empirical or circumstantial evidence to have any value. In the 1980s many amateur psychologists and ufologists made a mess of the abduction phenomenon by using hypnosis with inadequate knowledge of the proceedings. Real and physical abduction do occur though but very few have been witnessesed by those not involved. The most well known is probably the Travis Walton abduction in 1975. Two abductions observed by independent witnesses are documented by Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke in her book Sky People, pp. 124 and 286.

With Don Worley´s deep fascination with contactee cases (Nordics) I find it strange that he never made an indepth study of the classic contactees of the 1950s: Adamski, Angelucci, Fry, Menger, Van Tassel etc. Many were still alive and possible to interview in the 1960s and 70s. Such an investigation could have made him realize that here was evidence of activity by a benevolent groups of alien visitors and this could have made his theories more moderate and less gloomy. Don was also bound by his Christian paradigm or worldview. If he had studied and considered the core Esoteric Tradition (Blavatsky, Bailey, Laurency) as an alternative hypothesis or paradigm he would have found some interesting clues to the UFO enigma. But in this respect he was, like many other ufologists, what Meade Layner and Riley Crabb called a ”metaphysical illiterate”.

Still I can feel a certain sympathy with Don Worley as in some respects I share his views, based on my own investigations of contactee cases. There definitely are some very strange things going on on this planet and obviously we have both good and bad ”players” in this drama – whoever they are. Although evil or dangerous space people were often mentioned by the first generation contactees there are very few references to ”cosmic evil” in the core Esoteric Tradition. Of possible relevance is one cryptic reference by the Tibetan to Alice Bailey: ”… the place where another kind of evil dwells - an evil which is not indigenous to our planet, an evil with which it was never intended that men should deal.” (Alice Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations, p. 753). To mainstream scientific ufologists such ideas and scenarios are simply myths and irrational conspiracy theories. Now suppose you, as a researcher, would find absolute and one hundred percent personal proof that there really is a secret war going on for this planet, but you are unable to prove this publicly. What would you do? How would you react? 

Here a few options:

1. Join the fight, hopefully on the side of the Angels.

2. Try the mission impossible option of going public with your knowledge.

3. Write a novel and in fictional form present what you know.

4. Document your knowledge and preserve it in a safe-deposit box, to be published after your death.

5. Forget the whole thing and try to live a normal life.