Have you ever wondered about UFOs, haunted houses, alien abductions, ghosts, mediums, etc.? Have you ever desired to know what was behind all the fuss?
If you have, Timothy Dailey has written a new book called The Paranormal Conspiracy: The Truth about Ghosts, Aliens and Mysterious Beings where he explores the paranormal world from A to izzard.
I caught up with Timothy to pelt him with questions (cough), I mean, to interview him on his book. 🙂
Enjoy!
Instead of asking, “What is your book about,” I’m going to ask the question that’s behind that question. And that unspoken question is, “How are readers going to benefit from reading your book?”
Timothy Dailey: Something very alarming is afoot. Western culture is experiencing an unprecedented explosion of fascination with all things paranormal, as indicated by the quadrupling of the number of television shows featuring paranormal themes. With few exceptions, these programs implicitly accept a view of reality representing a radical sea change from that of our forefathers. Half a century ago, ESP, mediums, ghostly hauntings and other paranormal phenomena were relegated to the fringes of society. Most people looked askance at such practices as “wacky” or viewed them as dark (“occult”) arts to be avoided. UFO sightings were a rarity, and “alien abductions” were unknown.
Polls indicate that the biblical understanding about the nature of spiritual reality is no longer the predominant view. A recent Gallup poll, for example, found that “76 percent of Americans believe in the paranormal, which included questions about reincarnation, ESP, channeling spirits, clairvoyance and astrology.” It is a fair assumption that many of the people who answer in the positive “believe” in the sense of affirming the legitimacy of such practices.
This profound shift of attitude regarding the paranormal and occult practices cannot help but lead to unknown and dire consequences for Western culture. As the “doors of perception”—ala Aldous Huxley—to paranormal spiritual powers are thrown open, wide one considers with trepidation what might pass through. The Paranormal Conspiracy: The Truth about Ghosts, Aliens and Mysterious Beings is intended to provide insight into what is behind these mysterious phenomena as well as reveal a divine source of protection against spiritual attacks.
Tell us a bit about the experiences that shaped the insights in the book. What got you interested in paranormal activity and why is it important?
Timothy Dailey: Many years ago as a graduate student I helped found a ministry to those in the cults and the occult. Through studying and researching the subject of angels and demons, as well as learning from those who had come under attack by dark spiritual forces, I came to realize that there is a vast spiritual battle—a “conspiracy”—underfoot that seeks to destroy the lives and souls of humankind.
Fortunately, I have been spared personal involvement with the occult or paranormal phenomena. This I take as a blessing, as I have seen how once spiritual doors are opened and the devil and his minions are provided an opportunity for involvement in someone’s life, those “doors” are not easily closed. My message to anyone temped to have an imprudent interest in such matters is to warn against having any involvement whatsoever, even with seemingly innocuous activities such as having one’s horoscope read or playing with an Ouija board.
Surely, many people who say they have interacted with spirits are deliberately lying. But what about the other cases where the people appear to be telling the truth? What’s your explanation?
Timothy Dailey: The skeptics who reject the paranormal entirely find themselves having to discount a significant body of reliable witnesses—what noted researcher J. Allen Hynek called “credible persons reporting incredible things.” These include police officers and other professionals who are trained to report their observations accurately—respected members of the community who have little to gain except ridicule by telling others of their experiences.
Yet there exists little or no verifiable evidence to back up these witness reports. This suggests a trans-physical or interdimensional origin of the phenomena, i.e., otherworldly forces that are temporarily able to intersect our world and create a demonic virtual reality. Whether ghosts or Bigfoot or UFOs/aliens, witnesses often attest to the same temporary and ethereal nature of the phenomena. A metaphysical explanation also explains the almost total absence of physical evidence accompanying the phenomena. While the witnesses steadfastly remain convinced that they actually saw or experienced something, the reality—I suggest—is that the experience was indeed “real” but in a different sense, a fact indicated by subtle clues indicating that deceptive otherworldly beings are behind the phenomena.
Please give an example of the above.
Timothy Dailey: I relate the tragic story of Canadian Joe Fisher, who came under the spell of mediums and became convinced that he was communicating with his long-lost ethereal companion from other lifetimes. In the months and years to come, the spirit guide, which called itself “Filipa,” provided many details of their supposed former lives together, most recently in a village in eighteenth-century Greece. Fisher was captivated by the descriptions of their life together as well as Filipa’s promises that they would be together again.
When Fisher’s journalistic objectivity finally asserted itself and he set out to visit the village in Greece where Filipa claimed they had lived, he discovered to his dismay that the elaborate tapestry the spirit had woven of their life together was a complete forgery. Fisher never recovered from the immensity of the deception and eventually leapt to his death from a cliff, finally freed from the tormenting spirits he had come to fear. Or was he? Troubling evidence found at the scene indicated that he may have been pushed, but by who—or what?
These cautionary tales speak for themselves, and we can add little except to recall the scriptural admonition: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
I have no doubt that many who say they were abducted by aliens were deliberately lying. But what about the other cases where the people appear to be telling the truth. What’s the explanation?
Timothy Dailey: As shown in the case history to follow, my research indicates that those who claim to have been abducted by aliens have in fact experienced a demonic virtual reality—something along the lines of a 3D holographic illusion of a much greater order of complexity than anything created by humans. These illusions are contrived by deceptive spiritual beings in possession of faculties and abilities beyond what mere mortals can conceive of, and are so persuasive that the victims of such mental manipulation often insist that it really happened. And indeed something very “real” had happened: Their sensual perceptions had been commandeered by beings with an evil agenda.
In other research reported in the book, scientists have observed in a laboratory setting those who, under the influence of psychotropic drugs, claimed to have experienced extraordinary spirit creatures. Yet they had never left their beds, and no such entities were witnessed by those who were observing them. Once again, whatever happened was a highly sophisticated mental deception.
Please give an example of the above.
Timothy Dailey: In one intriguing case related in The Paranormal Conspiracy: The Truth about Ghosts, Aliens and Mysterious Beings, two women—longtime friends—reported having had the identical abduction experience. Questioned separately, both women described being taken in the night by what appeared to be alien beings to a massive underground chamber where UFOs were parked. A large number of other people who had apparently also been abducted were there as well.
The interviewer, abduction researcher Budd Hopkins of Missing Time and Intruders fame, took immediate interest in the presence of other people, as this would be one means of collaborating the women’s story. He inquired whether they happened to see anyone they knew. One of the women, Alice, stated that she was surprised to see a former schoolmate named Tiffany among the people in the hangar, and had gone over to speak with her.
Hopkins pressed Alice for details about what they had talked about. She had been out of contact with Tiffany for many years and asked her where she was living, what she had been doing—the usual questions. Tiffany told her that she was working as a pediatrician in Sacramento, California.
Sometime after that abduction experience, Alice succeeded in making contact with Tiffany and discovered that she was not a pediatrician and, moreover, lived in Cleveland, not Sacramento.
What does this tell us? For one thing, it is clear that Alice did not speak with her old friend Tiffany in an underground UFO hangar. The presence of such undeniable discrepancies in fact calls into question their entire abduction experience. While some of the basic details reported by the two women abductees did agree, the crucial—and erroneous—information provided by “Tiffany” indicates that the entire experience was an elaborate masquerade.
What’s your take on modern-day psychics? Are they all charlatans? If not, how are they able to tell details about people they’ve never met and even predict the future?
Timothy Dailey: There are a number of factors to consider regarding psychics who claim to receive information from their spirit guides. The first is that no known psychic has anything close to 100 percent accuracy in their presumed knowledge about the lives of their subjects. The second is that a careful observation of the techniques employed, especially in studio audience settings, reveals that psychics often employ a clever “trolling” of their audience to garner information.
For example, the odds are that feigning spirit-led inspiration, e.g., “I sense that someone here has recently lost a family member,” is likely to resonate with at least a few of those among the audience. The questioning continues with those who respond, with the psychic probing with vague questions until they hit on another life experience of an audience member. This has rightly been exposed as charlatanism.
Yet the psychics are often able to discern information about their subjects that the skeptics cannot explain. In such cases we must appeal to a broader understanding of reality, which includes other dimensions inhabited by beings—both good and evil. The Bible warns of demonic entities that seek to deceive humankind through mediums who claim to be in contact with “departed souls.” The psychics are actually in communication with spirit beings who have knowledge about the lives of the departed souls they are impersonating, and which pass along that information as part of an elaborate spiritual deception.
What’s your take on the Roswell UFO incident?
Timothy Dailey: It’s certainly an interesting case that has garnered a lot of attention among UFO enthusiasts through the years. However, it is difficult to place much confidence in conflicting reports about an incident that allegedly occurred almost seven decades ago. Claims regarding a crashed spacecraft at Roswell were only popularized three decades after the fact. Some of the stories of the handful of firsthand witnesses are admittedly intriguing, but upon examinination numerous discrepancies arise. For example, Jesse Marcel—touted as the principal witness—gave contradictory testimony and in fact had been censured by his base commander for chronic exaggeration. Also, the descriptions of the supposed space debris appear to support the military’s claim that it was in fact a specialized high-altitude weather balloon that crashed outside Roswell.
Give us two or three insights from the book that would be helpful to Christians.
Timothy Dailey: I was struck by the connections between seemingly unrelated topics such as Bigfoot, UFOs and the bizarre experiences of those under the influence of psychotropic drugs. There was often a deceptive spiritual component lurking behind the various phenomena that led those under its influence down very dark paths.
It was instructive to learn how those who prided themselves in their no-nonsense objectivity found themselves being inexorably drawn into the mystical world of the occult, listening attentively to the babblings of spirits and accepting fantastical notions about spaceships from distant galaxies.
One takeaway that I would definitely wish for the reader is to gain a healthy awareness of the dangers of involvement in the paranormal/occult—and of the subtle means whereby the evil one seeks to deceive and destroy.
What do you hope readers will walk away with after they finish your book?
Timothy Dailey: The Paranormal Conspiracy: The Truth about Ghosts, Aliens and Mysterious Beings uncovers the frightening powers of darkness and their malevolent stratagems against humankind. Supposedly evolved beings shower lofty wisdom and grandiose promises on those who fall under their spell, but instead of being guided to enlightenment or to mystical promised lands, as the case may be, their victims are plunged into confusion, despair and, ultimately, terror.
Yet we are not left defenseless against the devil and his minions. Though in possession of unearthly powers, the dark entities have constraints placed upon them. There is One who is infinitely greater than the forces of evil, which may be thwarted entirely by appealing to “the name that is above every name” in whom we may utterly place our trust: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.”
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In