Swedenborg and Scientific Evidence of Extraterrestrial Venusians

In the 18th century, a clairvoyant visionary Emanuel Swedenborg had visions of heaven and hell, and among these visions he was allowed to explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the solar system and beyond.  Various theories to explain this are covered in the previous blog post Extraterrestrial Contact, Emanuel Swedenborg and Christianity.  From this he concluded that several planets of the solar system were inhabited - including Venus.  It should be mentioned again, he did not see the surface of the planet, he only saw that there were extraterrestrial humans associated with the planet.  The question as to whether or not there was surface life on Venus was settled in 1962 with the observation of the Mariner 2 probe which discovered that although the upper atmosphere was cool, the surface was extremely hot - at least 425 °C (797 °F). This ended any hopes of surface life on Venus.  The pressure of the atmosphere is 92 times greater than that of earth, which is equivalent to being 1 km below the surface of the Earth's ocean.  So there is no life on the surface of Venus.  And that should be the end of the matter as far as science is concerned.

GOVERNMENT DISINFORMATION

Modern space exploration not only discounts the testimony of Swedenborg, but it also discounts the testimonies of many UFO contactees of the 1950s.  Indeed, there were many questionable frauds and hoaxes.  But a few stand out - and with all the UFO sightings since the explosion of the atomic bomb from thousands of witnesses, as well as physical evidence, something was going on, and is still going on.  So I ignored it, until I saw clear cut evidence that certain government agencies were sponsoring disinformation on UFO sightings.  I then knew - the government was hiding something.  As Winston Churchill once said:

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

So with any UFO research, one has to be aware of the pitfalls, and many give up with so much worthless information.  One UFO researcher Jacques Vallee was told by military and intelligence circles that they regard many UFO/ET organizations as "useful idiots" - because they help cloud the issue and keep the whole matter a secret.  They even feed them false information.  It encourages people to regard it as a corny hoax and encourages silence through social taboo.  Are there good reasons for non disclosure? Yes and no, but one thing for sure: the situation is complicated.

THE VENUSIAN CONTACTS FROM THE 1950s

In the face of contrary scientific evidence, and disinformation, it would seem impossible to verify the existence of extraterrestrial humans in our solar system.  However one case stands out, and that is the book Secret of the Saucers by Orfeo Angelucci.  He met a group of highly advanced spiritual humans from flying saucers, who did not reveal who they were.  And here is the catch: the book was published in 1955, and yet it contains a prediction that was fulfilled by the Chernobyl Disaster in Russia in 1986.  The exact year is mentioned.  I covered this earlier in Extraterrestrial Contact in 1952: the Case of Orfeo Angelucci.  Eye witnesses have indicated there was a UFO at the site of Chernobyl, which may have reduced the radioactive output - see UFOs over Chernobyl and Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants.

It is an interesting case. However, as I said, these extraterrestrial humans did not reveal who they were or where they came from.  Recently I read a follow up book by Orfeo Angelucci published in 1959 entitled The Son of the Sun.  Orfeo encountered a doctor under the pseudonym of "Adam" who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had seven months to live.  Terminally ill, he closed his practice, and faced with the prospect of death he completely changed his perspective on life.  He shifted from a focus from money and material things to what mattered most in life - which is love.  He moved from Seattle to the desert in California, and one evening these extraterrestrial humans made contact with him.  They revealed they were the same group that had contacted Orfeo Angelucci, and showed him a copy of Secret of the Saucers - before it had actually been published.  They revealed they were Venusians, but did not originate from the solar system and their current home world was Alpha Centauri.  The doctor "Adam" was taken to the atmosphere of Venus, where he was shown a giant mother ship 10 miles across hovering the the clouds, housing about a half million of their people.  the ship's name was "Andromeda."

The contact was to show him the importance of what matters most in life, and that is love, and the love of learning knowledge is more important than blind religious faith.  It is at first a fantastic story, which most would regard as fiction.  Normally in these contact stories there is nothing in it to prove whether or not it was real.  They are apparently bound to some sort of oath of non interference, or at least not revealing themselves publicly, except in cases for the few who already accept their existence and contact would not make a difference.  However, this was published in 1959, and some factual information has slipped through in this account which indicates that it may be a real story.  So lets take a look.

LIGHTNING IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF VENUS

I was casually reading The Son of the Sun for entertainment, waiting for something of substance to slip through.  He meets three extraterrestrial Venusian women, and to say why would be giving away the ending.  The difference in character between them and us does shine through in the book.  They are more in touch with love and honesty, with no jealousy.  Then on page 88, I took immediate notice when I read this:

"Adam noticed his drowsiness did not increase, but that he took on new zest while walking.  Outside, he asked his two escorts what all the lightning and electrical flaring far above them meant.  It never ceased.  He could even hear the rumble of thunder accompanying the lighting effects.  The man answered his question.
"Our ship, Andromeda," he said, "is afloat in the atmosphere of Venus. The solar energy causes the electrical turbulence you see above us in the cloudy atmosphere.  Our ship is deep enough in the atmosphere to prevent seeing the sun, or its outline.  On the night side of Venus there is no lightning. No need for more detail to your ready assimilation, is there, Adam?" he asked."

Note they are trying to control and limit the amount of information they give here.  Then we have this on page 110:

"The sky above Andromeda itself was dark, but the whole interior of Andromeda was as light as day. There were no longer lightning flashes above.  Adam asked Launie [a Venusian] the reason for this.
"Because," she replied, "we are now on the night side of Venus. That is why you see no lightning and other effects.  The center of our ceiling is five miles high.  Andromeda is a large half-sphere ship.  She can stand anything but the interior of burning stars.  Although we are still in the cloudy atmosphere of Venus, as I said, we are opposite the sun, and it is the sun's intense rays which cause the constant electrical displays on the side facing it."

And remember, this was 1959.  No probe had yet gone to Venus.  So there are two predictions here: there is lightning on Venus, and it only happens on the side of Venus facing the sun. Is this true?

The answer is, yes, it is true.  Lightning in the atmosphere of Venus was finally confirmed by the European Venus Express probe as recent as 2007.  For this I will quote from NASA, our famous space agency that has not yet confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial life that apparently needs more government funding.  From NASA Scientist Confirms Light Show on Venus (11.28.07):

Venus is a hellish place of high temperatures and crushing air pressure. The European Space Agency's Venus Express mission adds into this mix the first confirmation that the Venusian atmosphere generates its own lightning. The discovery is part of the Venus Express science findings that appear in a special section of the Nov. 29 issue of the journal Nature.
"In addition to all the pressure and heat, we can confirm there is lightning on Venus -- maybe even more activity than there is here on Earth," said Christopher Russell, a NASA-sponsored scientist on Venus Express from the University of California, Los Angeles, and lead author of one of the Nature papers. "Not a very good place to vacation, that is for sure."

Venusian would probably beg to differ on that last point. The article (from 2007) continues:

The discovery puts Venus in elite planetary company. Scientists currently know of only three other planetary bodies in the entire universe that generate lightning -- Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. Lightning on Venus -- as well as on any other planet -- is an important discovery because the electrical discharges drive the chemistry of an atmosphere by breaking molecules into fragments that can then join with other fragments in unexpected ways. The lightning on Venus is unique from that found on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn in that it is the only lightning known that is not associated with water clouds. Instead, on Venus, the lightning is associated with clouds of sulfuric acid.

Our science, up to 2007, only acknowledged lightning on three planets of our solar system.  The discovery of lightning on Venus is a surprise.  There were hints of lightning on previous missions, but they were all discounted by our scientists.  From The Electrified Atmosphere of Venus:

As one report in Science magazine said, “On Venus the clouds tend to resemble fogbanks… You don’t see much lightning in fog.” But when the Galileo spacecraft passed Venus on its way to Jupiter, Science reported with some surprise, “The most striking observations made by the Galileo spacecraft during its flyby of Venus was evidence of lightning.” Earlier reports of lightning tended to be discounted, it seems, because they did not fit the pattern of earthly lightning.
The Venera spacecraft found “continuous lightning activity from 32km down to about 2km altitude, with discharges as frequent as an amazing 25 per second.” The highest recorded rate on Earth is 1.4 per second during a severe blizzard. The Pioneer lander recorded 1000 radio impulses. Thirty-two minutes after landing, Venera 11 detected a very loud noise, which was believed to be thunder. The astronomer, Garry Hunt, suggested that “...Venusians may well be glowing from the nearly continuous discharges of those frequent lightning strokes.”

Even with this evidence, all of the earth missions to Venus were subsequent to the year 1959, when The Son of the Sun was published.  However, I am not finding anything in scientific articles that says lightning only occurs on the side of Venus facing the Sun.  I only found this question from 2005 towards lightning expert Dr. Joseph Dwyer (from Lightning: Expert Q&A):

Q: In recent years lightning has been detected on Venus, Jupiter, Mars—in fact, throughout the solar system. A similar source and mechanism therefore appears likely. We also have comets producing X-rays. I wonder if you are aware that when the two Soviet Vega probes crossed the sunward side of Halley's in 1986 they detected a powerful electron beam?? It's true! And the fact that both the X-rays and the electron beam were on the sunward side indicates that these two phenomena are related. Clearly, the electron beam was producing the cometary X-rays, just as lightning produces X-rays on Earth. The facts also suggest that the common source of both is the sun—not cosmic rays. Have you considered this?

To which he answers:

Dwyer: Dear Mark,
Energetic electrons indeed make X-rays when they interact with matter. This happens during lightning, inside X-ray tubes, and at comets. In space, there are a lot of ways of accelerating electrons that do not work in a dense atmosphere like on Earth. Indeed, energetic electrons are observed to be produced in a large number of places in our solar system. On the other hand, for thunderstorms and lightning, the only way that we have figured out to accelerate electrons through air is with runaway breakdown. Because the kind of runaway breakdown that occurs inside thunderstorms and uses cosmic rays does not work so well in space where the densities are very low, the two phenomena may not be closely related. Nevertheless, I agree that it is worth looking into, and so thanks for the info.

So what is a runaway breakdown?  From Runaway Breakdown:

Runaway breakdown is a theory of lightning initiation proposed by Alex Gurevich in 1992.
Electrons in air have a mean free path of ~1 cm. Fast electrons which move at a large fraction of the speed of light have a mean free path up to 100 times longer. Given the long free paths, an electric field can accelerate these electrons to energies far higher than that of initially static electrons. If they strike air molecules, more relativistic electrons will be released, creating an avalanche multiplication of "runaway" electrons. This process, relativistic runaway electron avalanche, has been hypothesized to lead to electrical breakdown in thunderstorms, but only when a source of high-energy electrons from a cosmic ray is present to start the "runaway" process.

So, it makes sense: lightning is more likely to occur on the sun side of Venus.  In which case, NASA should take not and plan to drop probes on the night side of Venus.  In fact, they may have uncovered that in data from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter probe beginning in 1978.  In Venus Aeronamy by Christopher Russell, on page 333, it is stated that the Pioneer Venus Orbiter detected possible lightning signals only 2% of the time when it was on the night side of Venus.

One would think this simple fact would be easy to find, but it wasn't.  In fact, it was readily apparent from earlier probes - all after 1959 - that Venus had lightning in its atmosphere.  One wonders how long it will take for scientists to finally admit they found a microbe in a Martian meteorite.

DEPTH OF JUPITER'S LIQUID HYDROGEN LAYER

At one point during Adam's trip, he is shown a monitor screen that zooms in on the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.  He sees three spherical Venusian ships traversing the Great Red Spot, which then decide to dip into Jupiter's interior.  And when they dip in, they go all the way down through (from page 118):

"Those are three of our ships.  They are spherical for the purpose of strength, not only in the vacuum of space but for the pressures of submergence in any ocean, or in any medium."  Even as Antares spoke, the three craft plunged straight into the blistering metal ocean.  It seemed suicidal, and Adam felt a wave of deep compassion sweep over him for those poor souls in the three little ships.  But the voice of Antares reassured him.
"That boiling sea is more than ten thousand miles deep, Adam.  Those ships you saw plunging beneath its surface actually went to its full depth.  Can you imagine diving into a cauldron of molten metals more than ten thousand miles deep?  To us this is what you would call routine.  The floor of that blistering ocean," he continued, "goes to the very center, or the core of Jupiter."

So, is there a layer of Jupiter that is 10,000 miles in depth?  Again from NASA, from A Freaky Fluid inside Jupiter?:

Below the roughly 1000-kilometer-thick atmosphere, a layer of liquid hydrogen is believed to extend to a depth of 20,000 kilometers. Even deeper, it is believed that there is a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen at a pressure of 3 million bars.

Converting kilometers to miles, the depth of the liquid hydrogen ocean is thus 12427 miles.  As far as I know, nothing like this was known in 1959.  In 1995 Galileo was the first probe to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter, and atmospheric models of Jupiter were produced after that time.

CORE HEAT OF JUPITER RELEASED THROUGH THE GREAT RED SPOT

Note, in the above picture, Jupiter's Great Red Spot is more orange than red.  On page 119 of The Son of the Sun, we have this statement given by a Venusian:

"Your sun is so much greater in mass that it smashes a far larger area in its center into formless energy, and it asserts itself throughout the entire sun body, rendering the whole sphere radiant and lighted.  Your earth expels this energy by way of volcanoes, hot geysers, hot springs and earthquakes. Jupiter expels its inner core heat by way of its red spot, which you now know as that burning orange sea."

So here is another piece of evidence we can verify from science.  This book was published in 1959.  And here is what was discovered 7 years later, from Atmosphere of Jupiter:

As has been known since 1966, Jupiter radiates much more heat than it receives from the Sun.

So in 1959, it was not even known that Jupiter released more heat than it received.   But does it release this core heat through the Great Red Spot?  At first, this seems to be incorrect:

Infrared data have long indicated that the Great Red Spot is colder (and thus, higher in altitude) than most of the other clouds on the planet; the cloudtops of the GRS are about 8 km above the surrounding clouds.

However this does not answer the question, the infrared measurement is only measuring the upper layer of the Great Red Spot.  This turns out to be a complicated question to answer.  For this, I found an interview at Jupiter Is a Garden of Storms which interviews Philip Marcus at the University of California Berkeley, who is trained in not only astronomy but fluid mechanics, and both are necessary to understand the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.  So is core heat from Jupiter released through the Great Red Spot?  I will quote:

It’s known that the Great Red Spot has a high pressure at its center, but its gases don’t go squirting out horizontally from its sides because of the Coriolis force in those directions—instead they squirt out vertically from the top and bottom. So, what can prevent the gases from squirting out vertically? The only way that I know to prevent that is if the top of the Great Red Spot has a dense cold lid of atmosphere above it. It’s that extra density that pushes the gases in the Great Red Spot back down. And, below the Great Red Spot, there must be a warm buoyant floor of atmosphere, and that floor prevents the high pressure center from pushing the gases in the Great Red Spot downward and out its bottom. That’s the balance.

So, infrared measurements are only measuring the cold lid of atmosphere at the top of the Great Red Spot, but below it, there is constant heat rising up.  It is the equilibrium between the two which has allowed the Great Red Spot to exist for so many centuries.

However that is not the complete story.  What is more clear is that core heat from Jupiter is released through other formations known as "hot spots."  Again this was not well known until after 1995.  Here is a video from Jupiter's Atmosphere Has Weird Hot Flashes:

SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

The above data allows us to determine the likelihood of someone just making up this story.  What is the probability of someone guessing the following in the year 1959:

1. There is lightning on Venus.
2. The lightning is more common on the day side of Venus.
3. The depth of the first layer below the clouds on Jupiter is around 10,000 miles.
4. Jupiter expels heat from its core.
5. Jupiter expels heat from its Great Red Spot.

I don't know, that is looking pretty good to me.  The other point here, is before modern probes were sent to Venus or Jupiter, there is nothing indicating something that disagrees with scientific fact.  If someone were to invent this, why not invent a fantastic civilization on the surface, as others have done?  We see nothing like that in this story.  I would say this is better than the scientific evidence presented in Extraterrestrial Contact from Tau Ceti, Venus and Mars.  That contact was again with a Venusian, who revealed they were originally from Tau Ceti and had settled on Venus and Mars in our solar system over 12,000 years ago.

One last piece of scientific evidence which I forgot to mention, is Adam noted the change in color of the Venusian atmosphere as the scout ship enters it (from page 73):

The green of the window now faded to soft yellow, then gradually became orange, then amber.  Soon it evolved to the white of brilliant clouds.
"Vega," Adam said, in wonderment.  "It grows whiter and whiter, cloudier and cloudier.  What is the meaning of it?"
"That," she replied with a smile of contentment, "is the outer atmosphere of Venus."

The outer cloud layer of Venus is indeed a yellowish white. Here is an actual photo from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter from 1979:

The orange or amber clouds would be caused by the the layer of sulphuric acid clouds, thus from the surface of Venus everything would appear orangish-red.  But what of the white clouds?  What many people do not know, is that the upper atmosphere of Venus is actually habitable, with breathable air for humans.  This has led to proposals to build a cloud city in the atmosphere of Venus.  From The Surprisingly Strong Case for Colonizing Venus:

The second planet from the Sun might seem like a nasty place to build a home, with a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead and an atmosphere so dense it would feel like being submerged beneath 3000 feet of water. But the air on Venus thins out as you rise above the surface and cools considerably; about 30 miles up you hit the sweet spot for human habitation: Mediterranean temperatures and sea-level barometric pressure. If ever there were a place to build a floating city, this would be it. ...Breathable air floats in Venus's soupy carbon dioxide atmosphere, which means on Venus, a blimp could use air as its lifting gas, the way terrestrial blimps use helium to float in our much thinner atmosphere.

This also was not known in 1959.  It looks like a group of extraterrestrials have beat us to it.  It is also a perfect place to hide.

As Venusians, as Swedenborg saw, are human like us, to prove that they exist is a bit hard for they look just like one of us, and can mingle among us unnoticed.  Hypothetically speaking, this is perhaps a better proof than to reveal one among us who is incognito.

SOME INTERESTING VENUSIAN QUOTES

So, with the debate about whether or not these extraterrestrial humans exist or not out of the way, how about some interesting Venusian quotes?  I gathered a few from the book which explains their philosophy.  Here is one explaining their rule of non interference:

"We visit, but we do not conquer and impose.  We observe, but we do not intrude and interfere.  We inherit our estate, because we remain meek.  We enter gates where so many meet destruction."

They have class differences.  On Alpha Centauri the upper level are the "peers," who number around 20 billion.  The half million on the mother ship in the clouds of Venus were a lower level of neophytes monitored by the peers for their spiritual and moral development.  The following quote from a lower class Venusian explains why the majority of Venusians will choose to remain separate from the society of earth:

"We have full freedom, including marriage to a peer if mutually agreeable, but the peers, knowing it would not be wise, refrain from this practice.  A peer could not elevate the backward one by that gesture; in fact, the reverse would occur.  He would at once descend and join the society of backward ones. Only the slow process of evolution could correct the back-slip for himself and his progeny.  It is easier to fall, Adam, that it is to rise.  It is easier to spend than to earn.  Civilizations rise one person at a time, but they can fall all at once.  If a whole world rises, yet overlooks one lower being, that being could begin the toppling of the whole, no matter what the number involved or the length of time involved." (p. 62-63)

This implies a belief in reincarnation, but they do not discuss that in as much detail as in The Secret of the Saucers.  Swedenborg gives a perhaps more rational explanation of evidence that could lead one to believe in reincarnation.  This would explain their aversion to violence, as they are well aware of the consequences.  This quote reveals a social ethic of helping the most in need. This social ethic was also given in another completely different contact.  This shows how backward our society is, which honors the rich and the profit statements of corporations.

Here is a quote that seems distinctly "Swedenborgian" - for in the New Church, emphasis is placed on the marriage or conjunction between love and truth:

"Knowledge in its highest sense would be but a skeleton without the warmth of love. ...Love was not only the motivating force at the beginning of the worlds, but it is also the ultimate goal which we seek.  We revere the concept and vision of God, but God seems far away.  We, in our world, get no more response through our meditations or supplications to God than do your people.  Yet we get much more response from His vital and dynamic universe than your people of earth.  Therefore, you can see that in the eyes of the Fatherhead we all stand equal, but His creation, the universe, its heart and motions, respond much more to our advanced knowledge than to the primitive awareness of your earth.  Therefore, Adam, as you already suspect, the straightest way to the Fatherhead is by the path of knowledge - knowledge of the truth, which is no more than knowledge of actualities.  Not dreams; not fantasies; not traditions, which are nothing but stalemates... but the love of pure learning.  That is the only pathway toward true ascension." (p. 68-69)

They see spirituality in material things of the universe. They merge science with religion: it is but knowledge of the truth.  And compare this to what Swedenborg said of the Venusians he encountered in the 18th century:

"These spirits [of Venus]  in the Greatest Man have reference to the memory of things material corresponding to the memory of things immaterial..." (Heavenly Arcana, n. 7253)

This is more clearly stated in another quote:

"Our physics are somewhat ahead of yours; in fact, they are ahead by many hundreds of years.  True physics merges into metaphysics, and true metaphysics must come upon physics.  Neither is of the highest order unless it comes face to face with the other." (p. 128-129)

What of Jesus Christ?  Here is their opinion of Him:

"You [Adam]  have had a similar experience, called the sudden moment of enlightenment, the cosmic consciousness and many other names, but we shall call it the Cosmic Splendour, for it is just that.  It comes only once in a lifetime.  Many people seek it from the fountains of others and thereby lose any hope of attaining it.  You cannot seek it, for in seeking it you lose it, but if you seek the truth and the light which makes a better person of you, you will one day know this moment of splendour.  No one on earth can retain its fullness for long.  The evolutionary stage of earthlings is too primitive as yet for your mortals to sustain its grandeur.  Yet, remember this.  There was one being on earth who was born with it, grew up in its glow, lived every moment in the fullness of it and lost it not even in the torture of the cross. Yes, read the story of Christ, and you will note this fact to stand out clearly throughout his thirty-three years." (p. 128)

According to Swedenborg, the Venusians had seen Jesus:

"In talking with me they said, that when they were in the world they acknowledged and now more fully acknowledge our Lord as their only God. They said that in their earth they had seen Him, walking among them, and they also represented in what fashion they had seen Him." (Heavenly Arcana, n. 7252)

From multiple contact sources, the Venusians claim they have been monitoring us for many thousands of years.  They can do this remotely.  That is probably how they came to know the Lord.  Otherwise, this passage from Swedenborg makes no sense whatsoever.

At one point a Venusian named 'Saturn' asks Adam, "My son, what do you consider to be the finest piece of written matter pertaining to earth and its life?"  To this Adam responds, the Holy Bible.  The Venusian then asks, "What would you say, Adam, about the Bible?  Is it a detailed history and prognosis, or is it in the main an allegoric and symbolic scripture of human life on earth?"  Adam agrees that the Bible is mainly allegorical and symbolic, which is why it is higher than other writings. The Venusian then asks, "Would you say, then, that it is the Word of God?"  To this Adam says yes. The Venusian replies that he simply does not know, but agrees that scripture is symbolic.  The Venusian then says this:

"Shed light on any darkness and it is no longer dark.  Shed knowledge on ignorance and ignorance no longer exists.  The love of pure learning is the only virtue that exists, and apathy and care-not attitudes are the only sins that be.  The rankest atheism is nothing more than the manifestation and expression of lazy minds and ignorant souls. Allegories and symbolic expressions are the underlying and steadfast truths of things that were and are yet to be." (p. 154)

This does begin to sound like the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, does it not?  He wrote volumes on the Bible to show it is allegorical and symbolic, that the truths contained within it are eternal.  Here is a quote that is similar to the beginning of the gospel of John:

"In the beginning there was the thought, and the thought became Word and the Word became worlds and life.  That still remains as the dynamic, the beginning and end of everything.  From imperfection all things must evolve to perfection, and the order and the wherewithal abound within all things to evolve." (p. 155)

Adam then mentions that the Bible records how God spoke to Moses, to produce the 10 commandments.  The Venusian responds that Moses spoke with a 'Spirit' and heard a 'Voice.'  But then Adam responds, does not scripture state that the 10 Commandments were forged by hand of God?  Then the following takes place:

"As for the fusion of the commandments on the tablet; do you mean like this?"
As the plate lay on the floor Adam saw the Commandments burned into it, and heard plainly a slight purring sound.
That was enough.  Adam needed no more.  But he had another question, which he asked sincerely and slowly.
"Saturn, was it your people who conversed with Moses?"
"That we cannot answer.  No, in no way can we offer you any answer.  But there are hosts far above us in stature.  Inasmuch as all high orders are learning, learning toward God, everything is in a sense the Word of God."

So an ambiguous answer.  From scripture we know angels are simply messengers who convey the Word of God.  If it was a highly elevated spiritual being conveying the message of the Word of God, would it make a difference?  Swedenborg did say that the miracles recorded in Exodus did indeed take place, although each event does have an allegorical meaning.  The revelation given to Moses, from their nature, was probably done through angelic contact.

Among the Venusians, emphasis is placed on learning the truth and freedom of thought, rather than blind belief:

"...churches have become mere cults, holding in psychic and spiritual bondage those whom they should be helping and enlightening.  It is the churches that must become as free as the sciences, or they will disappear.  A church should teach its congregation and then graduate it, to try other churches. If they fear to do this, and on earth they all do, then they have no faith in themselves." (p. 161)

This again is a principle of the New Church, which emphasizes freedom of thought, and rationality, over blind belief.  And then there is this prediction: the fall of the old Christian churches of belief alone, replaced with a new one:

"True growth and evolution is slow and solid.  They shall all topple into the dust, leaving only the foundations which were built upon the rock, not the sand, and from these small stumps shall rise your new churches.  They shall be Churches of Learning, replacing the cold and equally empty schools of learning.  Everything must change, Adam.  Everything must give way to discovered truths." (p. 161-162)

One wonders just why Swedenborg mentioned extraterrestrials among his visions of heaven and hell.  Perhaps they will play a future role in the New Church that we can hardly fathom at the moment, for their philosophy - at least those of the Venusians - is very similar to that of the New Church.

MUSIC OF THE VENUSIANS

While Adam was there on the Venusian mothership in the clouds of Venus, he was shown that it was the custom of women to greet guests with a song and dance.  As they observe earth remotely, they are able to extract items of print and music.  For one dance, this Venusian woman selected the song Siboney.  It it a Cuban song written in 1929 by Ernesto Lecuona, who was homesick for his city of Siboney in Cuba.  Here is an instrumental version:



It is normally sung with Spanish lyrics, and one thing that I found strange is that the Venusians invented their own language which was a combination of English, Spanish and Italian, combining the best features of each.  Another reported song, for quieter occasions, they played La Vie En Rose.  Here is a version by Daniela Andrada:

A CLAIRVOYANT DREAM?

The story of The Son of the Sun begins with Orfeo Angelucci meeting Adam at a diner at Twentynine Palms in California.  While they are talking, they both saw a tiny woman appear in third a glass of water that was set on the table, apparently some sort of hologram, indicating they were being monitored remotely.  She does a dance, perhaps to the song Siboney.  From that Orfeo believed Adam did have a contact, although he did not have the evidence we now have many years later.  While writing this someone I know saw a possible clairvoyant dream, where a crystal globe was given with a clear bird inside of it, the kind that probably plays music.  It was a positive dream.  Whether or not it is related, or just pure coincidence I do not know.