Radio Misterioso

Another visit to David Perkins’ home, another interview. Perkins has been studying the mutilation phenomenon longer than perhaps anyone in the world. Starting in the mid-1970s, he was performing field investigations and writing up his findings. Noted mutilation researcher and author Chris O’Brien considers David his mentor and guru in the field (and the next post will feature both of them together in conversation.)

This time, David decided to posit a premise that we could kick around: “The paranormal is a key to understanding consciousness and cattle mutilations are the key to understanding the paranormal.” We explored the permutations of this idea, and how science is beginning to recognize the role of the observer and the participation of consciousness in maps and conceptions of reality. In a wider sense, the Gaia hypothesis contends that the Earth can be seen as a conscious being, and David proposed that one of the ways that the planet is trying to wake us up to environmental damage is though an “unrecognized natural force” that may be behind the mutilation phenomenon. We also discussed mutilations and other aspects of the paranormal as “memeplexes” and how pervasive ideas begin, mutate, and propagate.

Always fun to kick around radical ideas with a seasoned researcher and deep thinker such as David Perkins, but as he says, don’t worry, because “everything I say is a provisional theory.”

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Dr. Massimo Teodorani is an astrophsyicist who uses his scientific expertise to examine issues of consciousness and its relation to the physical universe, as well as the implications of the observed properties of anomalous light phenomena (such as the Hessdalen lights) to the search for ways to create stable plasma states such as those found in fusion reactor research. He is involved in ongoing research about eruptive stars, extrasolar planets and SETI, and lectures regularly at the University of Bologna.

We spoke about his original deep interest in the UFO issue and how almost all the books he read on the subject were so useless to him that he burned them. He traveled to the Hessdalen Valley in Norway and observed the mysterious lights, discovering that they apparently exhibited complicated and evolving structures (one even assumed a rectangular shape.) He mentioned that some plasma phenomena seem to exhibit elements of conscious control, and that consciousness may be an element of structure in the observable universe. These issues are discussed at length in his (now sadly out of print) book The Hyperspace of Consciousness.

Dr. Teodorani is also interested in visionary states and how symbols and experiences from this realm seem to have encoded information that can be useful in practical ways. We spoke about this and ended with a discussion of flight and his music compositions. Teodorani is also an accomplished electronic musician who goes by the name of “Totemtag.”

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David Perkins (AKA “Izzy”) is known to many as Chris O’Brien’s longtime research partner (and “mentor” as O’Brien also refers to him.) Perkins began his interest in the cattle and livestock mutilation mystery from the beginnings of the phenomenon (ca. 1975) in southern Colorado. In the over 40 years he has looked at this strange and at times horrifying issue, he has not come to any hard conclusions about what is going on, although he does have specific ideas about a nexus of all the issues connecting the disparate aspects of this puzzling conundrum.

At first, he thought it was some government program, because of all the helicopters that kept turning up in reports. He has never really considered the UFO/ alien explanation, since the facts he uncovered proved it was too narrow. During the program, we discussed the concept of a “memeplex,” which is a group of ideas and beliefs that support and play off each other, and which can increase our understanding of how the problem has been compounded by weak explanations and an eagerness to reach a conclusion.

Perkins also considers the mutilation mystery as an example of an “ideoplastic” problem as he believes that it responds to expectations, culture, and researcher bias. He believes an important path towards understanding can be achieved by thinking of it as a manifestation of “unrecognized forces of nature,” which combine in a way that indicates some sort of directed, conscious purpose that is as yet inscrutable to humans. He compares it to the Gaia hypothesis, in a way that makes Nature itself an active participant, as if we are being sent an undeniable message about how we treat and use domestic animals, and our complicity in the degradation of the environment.

We also talked about how the study of animal mutilations has driven many researchers off the deep end or forced them out of the field altogether, although Perkins concludes that his experience has been “one of the greatest educational experiences I could ever imagine.”

David contributed one of his own musical compositions for the outro music, recorded only two days before our interview, which took place on his backyard patio in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Photo: Perkins struggles with the ancient concept of a pay phone on a Santa Fe street corner.

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Rosemary Ellen Guiley thinks she “came out of the womb writing” and enjoys the process of producing books, which is probably the first time any author has told me this. Guiley is a highly-regarded paranormal researcher with 65 books to her name, that range from encyclopedias of saints and angels, to the divination technique of scrying, to witchcraft, and of course, UFOs. Her new book (co-written with Michael Brein) is entitled The Road to Strange: UFOs, Aliens and High Strangeness. The book features first person accounts of dramatic UFO encounters and includes not only the sighting accounts themselves, but more importantly, the witness’ impressions and emotions during and after, which I believe is very important. We talked about this aspect of emerging research, and how this might be changing UFO study.

We discussed the differences between male and female investigators, and how witnesses react to both. We also brought up the recent controversy over the Chicago mothman sightings and how investigators occasionally seem to enjoy fighting with each other more than the actual research they are supposedly doing. We also talked about her work with an abductee research group (FREE) and how the encounters seem to almost always transform the consciousness of the witness. We delved into the shadow people phenomenon and issues with ouija boards (which is the subject of at least two of her books) and the techniques used in scrying. There was some light debate and discussion on the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and Guiley’s idea that observed alien entities are most likely inter-dimensional beings.

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Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum (1946-??)

In 2019, I told my friend Miguel Romero about the little-known Mexican parapsychologist Dr. Jacobo Grinberg Zylberbaum, but we could find little about him online, except for a few sensationalized articles in Spanish. This year, a documentary on his life, work, and mysterious disappearance in 1994 at the age of 47 was released. Titled “The Secret of Dr. Grinberg,” it is currently making the rounds of the film festival circuit, seeking a distributor. Miguel wrote a review.

Miguel and I spoke about his work and life and the childhood trauma that shaped him, and as a young man, how he met an English spiritualist who made predictions which “shook him out of his materialism.” Grinberg also attended university in New York and experimented with LSD. He even became a colleague of Carlos Castaneda for awhile. In 1985, he attended a conference in Costa Rica with Jacques Vallee, John Keel, parapsychologist Andrija Puharich, and Spanish ufologist Salvador Freixedo, among others. He was referred to by some who knew him as the “Einstein of consciousness,” and developed a unified field theory of consciousness which he called “Syntergy.” We hope a new appreciation will be kindled and continue to grow for this little-known pioneer.

End music is a cover of “Planet Claire” by Spanish musician Aviador Dro.

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