Is author and paranormal investigator John A. Keel (best known for The Mothman Prophecies) a demonologist? Loren Coleman seems to think so…
There is so much involved in Keel’s works that it is difficult to condense and summarise it. Indeed, at different points throughout his books he will entertain any number of theories, but I think on closer reading you can ascertain which theories Keel thinks are more workable, or likely.
I must admit Loren Coleman’s suggestion that Keel is a “demonologist” has always left me scratching my head. Keel writes in The Cosmic Question, pg. 189:
“A small band of scholars known as aretalogists still quietly study cases of contact between humans and parahumans, sifting the messages and noting comparsions. The less precise angelologists try to catalog the ‘endless genealogies’ of the parahumans who claim divine origin, a task as frustrating as trying to list the names of all the planets described by the flying-saucers entities. Demonologists have drawn up massive directories of names of the demons and demigods who have marched in Fort’s ignoble procession of the damned. We never seriously heeded the biblical warning to beware of those who pretended to represent ‘principalities and powers’.
“It would be more productive to join all these futile pursuits into one single broad study stripped of belief, a study that would be aptly named chimeralogy.”
So far from being a Demonologist (something Keel obviously sees as a futile exercise!), he is surely a chimeralogist!
Chimeralogy, a term seemingly coined by Keel himself, sees a more inclusive study of the experiences of percipients that tries to examine the experiences beyond the frames of reference presented – that is beyond face value itself.
Keel seemed to think the manifestations (ghosts, ufos, etc.) were of less interest than the cosmic force that he anticipated produced them. The Cosmic Question (originally published as The Eighth Tower) seems to be his definitive work on the subject. Moreover, much of the book considers psychological aspects of human experience – especially the ever important ‘devil theory’, which has applications extending beyond the paranormal.
His theory behind the mechanics of that cosmic force is somewhat complex… that of a theoretical Super Spectrum. He writes on pg 67:
“The superspectrum is made up of biological energies with gravity at the bottom of the scale (figure 7). Beyond gravity there are other biological forces that produce all psychic and occult manifestations.”
Keel points out that the human eye wasn’t constructed to be able to see the whole spectrum of light. (He suggested in a talk to a Fortean group that the ‘purple lights’ he famously recorded seeing in The Mothman Prophecies may have been much larger, consisting of other elements he was unable to see. Admittedly he did this somewhat whimsically, but the point still stands.)
Now, admittedly this next section comes out of my interpretation of what I have read… but from my reading of The Cosmic Question I anticipate Keel is suggesting that either this ‘cosmic force’ is:
a) a natural part of the earth or the universe (the “earth organism” as conceived of by Ivan T. Sanderson); or
b) some sort of computer programmed for self preservation, of origins unknown, that regularly intervened in the affairs of men to inspire devil theories, provide frames of reference and, in effect, create the destiny of mankind for reasons largely unknown;
With regard to the second possibility, Keel has this to say (pg. 210):
“Like [Arthur C.] Clarke’s monolith [in Childhood's End] and my projection of tomorrow’s supercomputer, it doesn’t look like much. It is a cube of black stone. Muslim scientists who have seen it have described it as being a kind of metal alloy like some of the iron and nickel meteorites that rain on us. Whatever it is, when some men stand in its presence, they are zinged by the cosmic energy that produces Illumination. Their minds open up for a fleeting moment and they view the whole cosmos, as it is, not as we think it to be. And they are overwhelmed by a fanatical urge to protect and defend this black lump with their lives.”
Actually back when Keel penned The Eighth Tower he seemed quite optimistic about that mysterious cosmic mechanism, or superspectrum, being understood by science in a short matter of years. He wrote on pg. 222:
“… In a few years, perhaps even in our own lifetime, all sciences will suddenly converge at a single point, and the mysteries of the superspectrum will unravel in our hands. We will finally understand – truly understand – the forces that have directed our destinies throughout history. But it will be a costly discovery. Organized religion will crumble in the face of the new knowledge. Many of the religious and political fictions that have nourished us during the long night will collapse. The beams of energy that now stride our landscape like a giant on stilts may fade away when the entire population has been programmed and reprogrammed. Folklorists, mythologists, and historians will have to throw away all of their learned interpretations when they realise that man has substituted myth for history and history for myth.”
Although in later interviews – notably appearing in Colvin’s The Mothman’s Photographer – Keel seems a little wearied and disillusioned by the lack of progress made in this area.
But then even Keel himself concedes that “… this is an intellectual exercise. I have demonstrated how it is possible to take a set of known facts and develop a new and plausible devil theory. We are now beginning to understand the mysteries of the electromagnetic spectrum and those those energies control some of us completely and control the rest of us indirectly but decisively. The greatest control does not come from black roads or some radio transmitter buried in the ice of Greenland, but from ourselves. What we believe becomes more important than what we know. The Eighth Tower was built by men standing on the desert, staring awestruck at the starlit sky. It was built by priests, Pharoahs, popes, kings, generals, dictators, and madmen who believed in something – in anything. It inspired Stonehenge, the Nazca lines of Peru, the pyramids, the thousands of ‘Indian’ mounds scattered across the Americas, the voyages of Columbus, and the Apollo moon missions. Most of our wars and much of our human progress came because of men obsessed with some personal devil theory.” (pgs 211-212).
Our ability to make sense of the unknown may be impaired from our own human construction, first and foremost, and only secondly by any shielding forces by the force itself.
In short – belief is the enemy, and the reason Keel attempted to actively divorce himself from all popular frames of reference.
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Of course, my “label” did not come out of thin air. As I mention in my writings, the source was none other than John A. Keel, himself, whom I re-interviewed about the “demonology” issue after 9/11. He said it mainly in reaction to his horror at being called a “ufologist” by most authors. He said he saw himself primarily as a “demonologist.”
Best wishes,
Loren Coleman
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