UFOs & The Demonic with Charles Upton

Charles Upton's first books of poetry were published in 1968 and 1969 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Light Books in San Francisco. He was then considered the youngest member of the "beat generation" as he was still in high school. He has subsequently written many books associated with the traditionalist school of spirituality including The Science of the Greater Jihad, System of the Antichrist, Vectors of the Counter-Initiation, Folk Metaphysics, and Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering. His website is https://charles-upton.com/.

Although not a UFOlogist, Upton feels that the Traditionalist metaphysics of René Guénon affords him a foundation from which he can criticize the current wave of interest in UFOs. Guénon maintains that we are at the "end of times" in which dark paranormal forces are breaking through into our physical world. The UFO abduction literature exhibits many horrific encounters. Upton is critical of those who think that alien contact is beneficial to humanity – and suggests that this idea is being used as a form of social engineering.

Counterpoint:

The UFO as Daimon: A Neoplatonic discussion of Charles Upton’s Cracks in the Great Wall

Simão Cortês

I hope to have been able to address some of Upton’s arguments in this rather short essay. My purpose is not to suggest that what I have said here is true, I wanted to experiment with the idea of a Platonic answer to Upton’s thesis. I am sympathetic to the idea of reading this sort of phenomenon through a well defined metaphysical framework, and that was the most interesting thing that Upton has brought to the table. I feel however that some of his arguments were weak because of a strong bias towards the idea that UFOs are evil and also because of the inherent tensions in the adaptation of Platonic concepts to the Abrahamic traditions. Going back to the very beginning of the essay, to the question “What are UFOs”, I tend to agree with the idea that they stand at a liminal place between the literal world and some other plane, and this perfectly agrees with Upton’s Jinn hypothesis. The great question that we are left with is: “what to do”. I hope to have planted some seeds to answer that question from a Platonic point of view, so that we can, like sunflowers, find a way to pray that is aligned with our own deepest nature.

I do think Upton seems a bit overly paranoid, in the way people with Gnostic sentiments can be.

That said, I do think Upton does rightly point out that UFO contact has a range of positive and negative aspects and the negative should not be ignored.