The Quarantined Planet

Anyone reading the title of this blog post would probably assume it is just another lamentation of the ongoing Corona pandemic and all the problems caused by the forced quarantine most of us have to endure. Well, you are in for a surprise, this is about an entirely different sort of quarantine, a central theme in the Esoteric Tradition, what I use to call the Alcatraz theory. The assertion that our planet is a sort of interplanetary Alcatraz, a quarantined prison world where the scum and criminals of other planets have been placed to work out their own destiny.  An interesting point is that this claim was also presented by several of the first generation UFO contactees.

The flying saucer model placed outside the Köping UFO exhibition 1978

During the Summer of 1978 UFO-Sweden arranged a large UFO exhibition in Köping, a town in the middle of Sweden. This exhibition was also arranged for several years. The inauguration speech in 1980 was delivered by Anders Gernandt, former member of the Swedish Parliament och very interested in the UFO enigma. During the speech Gernandt stated his belief that ”Earth is the Kumla-prison of the Universe”. He was referring to Sweden´s largest prison facility at Kumla. This statement probably raised a few eyebrows. Not many of the listeners were aware of the history of the interplanetary Alcatraz idea, but it can be found referred to in the most unlikely writings. Famous Swedish author August Strindberg wrote in En blå bok (1913: ”… the earth is a prison for those who have committed crimes in heaven, we are all rascals…” (Zones of the Spirits. A book of Thoughts, p. 235).

Anders Gernandt

Vestmanlands Läns Tidning, May 25, 1980

Moscow, summer 1933. Journalist and author Arthur Koestler is relaxing at Café Metropoles. He has been sent to the Soviet Union to write about Stalin´s first Five-Year-Plan. After a few Vodkas his mood changes and he becomes painfully aware of the acute misery of human existence on this planet. Instead of an article on the Five-Year-Plan he starts formulating a fantasy on the Metropole´s napkins. This fantasy, a drama, was published as Twilight Bar in 1945. Two interplanetary visitors, Alpha and Omega, suddenly arrive on Earth with a mission to find the worst and most unhappy planet in the Universe. They find it - Tellus. Alpha and Omega give the governments three days to change the situation. If not, humanity will be wiped out and another civilization take its place. The drama ends one hour before the three days have expired.

Among the first generation UFO contactees we find many references to Earth as a very special type of quarantined prison planet:

”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 evolution is evolution through pain, sorrows, suffering and the illusion of physical death. 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)

  

"...centuries ago, in a meeting among the teachers of wisdom on many planets, it was decided to ship such selfish ones to new planets capable of maintaining human life... Earth in our system was chosen for the new home of these unruly ones from many planets inside and outside of our system. These exiles were what you on Earth call trouble-makers." 

(George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships, p. 180).

”They (the arrogant and unruly-HB) were exiled to this earth, as well as to some other worlds set aside for this purpose… These guardians of space, our Brothers, are continually doing all they can in many ways to benefit mankind, although they could do much more if this was not a quarantined world.”
(Kelvin Rowe, A Call at Dawn, pp. 38, 60).

In the Esoteric Tradition this theme is often mentioned and interested readers can find hundreds of quotes referring to the Alactraz idea expressed in various contexts:

The Tibetan, writing with the help of his amanuensis Alice Bailey, often refers in his books to "...the unhappy little planet of suffering which we call the Earth" (Discipleship in the New Age, p. 649) or "...this planet of suffering, sorrow, pain and struggle" (ibid. p. 385) and that this is part of a large experiment. We are also told that "conditions of agony and of distress such as are found on our planet are found in no such degree in any other scheme." (A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 416).

Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency is of very explicit when writing about la condition humaine on this planet:

”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. Organic life is the life that is the most unsuitable to consciousness development. The organism is an envelope of suffering with its potentials for disease, disablement, and general helplessness. It is to such planets that monads are transferred from other planets, monads that have a repulsive basic tendency and thus instinctive hatred, which renders evolution so enormously difficult.

(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Two, Conscious Development, 7.2.9).

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).

The idea of Earth as a very special planet in our part of the universe can be found in writings of authors perhaps not expected to harbour such ”irrational” and heretic views. On November 17, 2013 British author Doris Lessing died, aged 94, at her home in London. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. Once asked what she considered her foremost works she answered that it was the five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argus: Archives, written between 1979-1983. This was a surprising answer to all who were not aware of Doris Lessing´s profound interest in mysticism and esoteric traditions, especially Sufism. That the Sufi tradition was an important philosophy and the ideological basis of many of her later novels was totally missed in the obituaries and articles in the Swedish press.

The Canopus in Argus novels is the story of interstellar intervention with the aim to accelerate the biological and cultural evolution of Earth (Shikasta). Early in Earth history extraterrestrials from Canopus visited our planet and tried to civilize the the primitive inhabitants with genetic engineering and cultural influence. After a cosmic catastrophe contact is partially broken and another group arrives with evil intentions, spreading violence, hate and destruction. Both groups infiltrate their agents on Shikasta and the story is presented through the eyes of George Sherban, a Canopus agent.

After Shikasta there were four more volumes in the series. Anyone acquainted with the esoteric tradition will immediately recognize ideas and themes from the Ancient Wisdom. Volume three, The Sirian Experients, is especially interesting because of Doris Lessing´s preface: "I think it is likely that our view of ourselves as a species on this planet now is inaccurate, and will strike those who come after us as inadequate as the world view of, let´s say, the inhabitants of New Guinea seems to us. That our current view of ourselves as a species is wrong. That we know very little about what is going on. That a great deal of what is going on is not told to ordinary citizens, but remains the property of small castes and juntas."

In a further comment Doris Lessing´s interest in both UFOs and the esoteric tradition becomes even more explicit: "I would not be at all surprised to find out that this earth had been used for the purposes of experiment by more advanced creatures... and that there might have been a science in the past which we have forgotten... that we may be enslaved in ways we know nothing about, befriended in ways we know nothing about... As for UFOs, we may hardly disbelieve in what is so plentifully vouched for by so many sound, responsible, sensible people, scientific and secular".

The Alcatraz idea is fascinating but not very comforting. In the Esoteric Tradition we are told that evolution on this planet is especially tough but makes us specialists in handling excessive and organized evil. We can if doing the right thing become a sort of interplanetary Navy Seals or Special Operations Forces. Earth is a hard school and not the nicest place to be stranded on. John Keel expressed it in his own very special way: ”The earth is not inhabited. It is infested”