When UFOs Get Tricky
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By:
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Steve Erdmann
Copyright, C, Steve Erdmann, 2014
This article was published in the April 21 and May 14, 2014 issues of UFO Digest.
It is printed here with permission.
ufodigest.com/article/trickster-0420-0421
Reviewers and Journalist free to quote with full credits
Another version of this article can be seen at https://ufospotlight.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/the-world-of-the-trickster/
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George P. Hanson portrayed the paranormal, Psi, parapsychology, ghosts, UFOs, and all the monsters that seem to be associated with this arena in complicated detail in The Trickster and the Paranormal. Hansen, formerly employed in parapsychology laboratories for eight years, three at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, discovered the Shadow Reality of what appears to be behind these global specters. He believed there are various stages we must go through to discover their origin:
“This recombination of elements is a quality also found in altered (i.e., destructed) states of consciousness,” said Hanson. “Odd assortments of items appear in dreams and in productions of visionary artists. This is perhaps the essence of creativity – producing new patterns, new ways of seeing the world.”
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George P. Hansen
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(The Trickster and the Paranormal, George P. Hanson, Xlibris Corporation, www.xlibris.com, orders@xlibris.com, 1-888-795-4274, 2001, 564 pages, $23.46 [Amazon].)
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Prevalent themes ran through all cultures as shared beliefs, archetypes, and characteristics. Hanson called these repetitive, and often contradictory, characteristics and identities of “the trickster” as scornful. “…tricksters typically engage in deceit…tricksters often disrupt things. They don’t fit in well with the established order. They violate taboos, sometimes so severely that they are forced to live apart from others…deception, disruption, reduced sexual inhibitions, and magical Psi, supernatural practices.”
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SERIES OF PRACTICES
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The concept of the trickster ran as a gamut of lore and beliefs: Hermes of the Greeks, Loki of the Norse, Eshu-Elegba of Africa, Mercurius, and a whole pantheon of gods, goddesses, shamans, and legends. It included mysticism, magic, UFOs, conjurors, and a host of “unbounded phenomena,” as spoken by Hanson, which further included Big Foot sightings, cattle mutilations, UFO flaps, Men in Black, phantom helicopters, and even stranger characters.
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The Trickster Can and Likes to be Seen Often in the Disguise of a Clown
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“Unbounded phenomena are messy; gathering reliable information is difficult, and trickster manifestations are acute,” said Hanson. “These factors conspire to discourage scientific investigation, despite the intriguing response.”
“Another drawback to studying such phenomena is that they intrude into the personal lives of investigators. The full impact of this perhaps cannot be appreciated unless one has had direct experience.”
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THE TRICKSTER FIGURE
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Hanson saw the conflicts of belief that lead to the manifestations of the ‘trickster’ in the structure of the paranormal-related organizations such as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Hanson described CSICOP ingredients:
“It is structural rather than anti-structural; it values hierarchy over communities; it desires stability rather than liminality,” said Hanson. “Nevertheless, because it directly confronts the paranormal, it cannot escape a certain influence from it, and as I will show, the trickster manifests with both the supernatural and its opponents.”
Hanson said that such CSICOP-type debunking was a component of the trickster conflict. The supernatural was rich in all cultures. Slogans such as “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” will not effectively eliminate the supernatural. Hanson said that it was from such a rich soil of the ‘‘energetic, unconscious, archetypal process” that utilized “taboos” which gave birth to the “trickster.” Many other organizations shared and bonded with these same characteristics: clear anti-structural Psi, disorder and deception.
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GOVERNMENT ANTICS
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Hanson examined the antics of one Richard C. Doty of the U.S Air Force office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). Hanson studied Doty’s “long and convoluted” association with William L. Moore, MJ-12 papers, Paul Bonnewitz, Linda Howe, and UFO cases such as the Roswell, New Mexico 1947 crashed UFO, the Simone Mendez October, 1981 Top Secret messages, and other stories that portrayed the trickster’s sardonic games.
“Doty really couldn’t have been overlooked,” said Hanson, “after all, Linda Howe had published accounts that raised serious questions, not just about the Air Force, but particularly the AFOSI…and Vallee too raised questions about AFOSI.”
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OTHER PLAYERS
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Cecil B. Scott Jones had “multitudinous connections” to “unbounded” phenomena. Jones had exceptionally connected associations in government circles. He also had intimate contacts to New Age, Psi, and UFO topics. He served as president of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR).
“Jones was not a marginal individual,” said Hanson. “He had access to the highest levels in government. He associated with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. In fact, some of them financed his activities (1992).”
Hanson went on and tied a long trail of personalities: Bruce Maccabee, John Alexander, Karl Plock, Ed Dames, James Oberg, and several others. All were contributors to the fray.
“Most people think that UFOs, remote viewing, and cattle mutilations are entirely separate domains,” said Hanson, “‘and when these marginal topics are blended, establishment academics and journalists are repulsed. But the mixture is an ideal exemplar for his book. It displays boundary blurring, marginality, and deception, which are trickster characteristics.”
(Current and present-day “players” would have included controversial personalities such as David Icke, Alex Jones, and Edward Snowden: the list would seem endless as the spirit of such phenomena would be continuous. The troupes are far beyond Hanson’s or my directories.)
(The Alex Jones Show was a nationally syndicated news/talk show based out of Austin, TX. The show was syndicated by the Genesis Communication Network on over 60 AM and FM radio stations across the United States, and had gained a large internet based audience. Jones’ mission was to re-ignite the spirit of 1776 and stand as an example of the fact that one man can build a vocal media platform without the aid of big corporate news networks that only serve to compromise and dilute the core message of freedom and liberty.)
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Alex Jones
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-says-deep-state-carried-out-vegas-massacre-even-his-staff-wont-go-along-with-it
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(In 1999, Mr. Icke came out with his most famous book, The Biggest Secret. This book established the central tenet of Mr. Icke’s philosophy: that the world is run by a race of reptilian aliens that can change their shape and appear to be human, and that the world’s political, economic and social systems are a colossal conspiracy by these evil aliens to enslave mankind. Over his various series of books and lectures, Mr. Icke has expounded on this theory, weaving a complicated science-fiction history of the world wherein these aliens have been breeding humans since ancient times.)
(Edward Snowden was the man responsible for leaking information about secret government cellphone surveillance. He was a 29-year-old former CIA employee and NSA contractor. He was thought to be one of the most significant intelligence leaks in American history.)
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PART OF THE PHENOMENA
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Hanson denoted hoaxing as part of the deceptive fabric. He talked about the UFO phenomena as more than “nuts and bolts” aircraft and “flesh and blood” humanoid occupants.
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The Conquest of the Joker
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“UFO phenomena are fundamentally liminal, interstitial, betwixt and between, and anti-structural. UFOs inhabit the realm between heaven and earth (a binary opposition),” said Hanson, “much like spirits and angels, and they share common properties with them. In this domain we also find the blurring of imagination and reality, another binary opposition.” The field is both a goldmine and a cesspool, according to Hanson, but all outlined the “field’s complexity.”
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THE LINDA NAPOLITANO/ CORTILE HOAX
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High-profiled witnesses allegedly observed the purported UFO abduction of Linda Napolitano (Cortile) on November 30, 1989. The case was a complicated abduction story of Napolitano from her apartment in lower Manhattan. Undersecretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, along with two hired bodyguards, was an alleged witness. Another witness, by the pseudonym Janet Kimball, claimed to have witnessed the abduction. The principal UFO investigator was UFO researcher Budd Hopkins, who administered hypnosis.
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Linda Cortile said to be Levitated and Abduction into UFO Over Manhattan
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Hanson and other investigators became suspicious of the tale because of the many inconsistencies. Hopkins’s methods, said Hanson, were suspected as inappropriate. Speaking of the suspected hoax, Hanson said:
“The Napolitano case was not a technically difficult or expensive operation, nor would it have required a lot of time or coordination.”
Perez de Cuellar denied knowing Napolitano. Janet Kimball refused to cooperate. Hanson detected a strong “will to believe” among the people involved. (pp. 258-259) “…in many minds,” said Hanson, “the distinction between the hoaxers and the hoaxed is blurred, this being a subtle effect of the trickster.”
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CONFUSING WORLD
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The trickster, as Hanson had detailed, existed in an exotic world of ritual clowns, the collapse of cultures, magic tricks, scattered and incoherent happenings. “This is indeed how the trickster appears in our current rationalistic paradigms,” said Hanson.
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Movie Depiction of the Joker-Trickster-Clown
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The remainder of Hanson’s book was a maze of organizations, scientific findings, personalities, and tales that exemplified the complex “world of the trickster”: topics were explored such as totem-ism, quantum physics, paranoia, binary oppositions, and rationalization.
Not since the work of psychoanalyst C.G Jung and his book, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, had a professional researcher tried to form a meaningfully broad and worldwide view of bizarre, synchronistic and mystic events. Hanson’s book was one of several increasing attempts over the years.
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C.G. JUNG’S VISIONS
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Carl Jung was mainly known for his theories on the nature of the “unconscious mind.” However, he did have an interest in the paranormal. Jung also applied his analytical talents in his book Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies (Harcourt Publishers, 1959.). Jung applied his skills in studying the UFO phenomenon. Rather than assuming that the modern prevalence of UFO sightings are due to extraterrestrial craft, Jung reserved judgment on their origin and connected UFOs with archetypal imagery, concluding that they have become a “living myth.” Jung said this myth was possibly underlined by global tensions:
“In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets….Under these circumstances it would not be at all surprising if those sections of the community who ask themselves nothing were visited by`visions,’ by a widespread myth seriously believed in by some and rejected as absurd by others.”
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C.G. Jung
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Jung felt that if the extraterrestrial origin of the phenomena should be confirmed, that our science and technology would be deposited to the scrap heap. He said it would be a catastrophe similar to the Pax Britannica in primitive countries. He also said, “If we wish to avoid such a catastrophe, the authorities in possession of important information should not hesitate to enlighten the public as soon and as completely as possible and should, above all, stop these ridiculous antics of mysteries and vague allusions.”
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Gary Lachman in his recent book, Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung’s Life and Teachings (Tarcher/Penguin, June 2010) said that Jung argued that UFOs were mandalas from outer space. Jung had come upon the image of the mandala, the Sanskrit ‘magic circle,’ as a symbol of psychic wholeness, and he suggested that ‘flying saucers’ were mass archetypal projections, formed by the psychic tension produced by the Cold War that was heating up.
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PSYCHO COSMOLOGY
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Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, Ph.D. is an eminent scholar on the subject of C. G. Jung’s Red Book, and Hoeller said that Jungian psychology began with what Dr. Heoller called a “psycho cosmology” that emerged directly from Jung’s work as an artist, visionary, philosopher and prophet. Dr. Hoeller defined Jung as a prophet who told the truth of the Gods – that multi–dimensional transcendent power that animated our spiritual lives. (T.E Pelton: Mythology, Mysticism and Magic: “C.G. Jung, the Artist, Mystic and Prophet,” May 1, 2011.)
Robert Michael Place likewise said in Synchronicity & Magic (2000: this article first appeared in Llewellyn’s Magical Almanac) that magic was synonymous with what Jung called “synchronicity.” Carl Jung, himself, had stated as much. In his introduction to the Wilhelm/Baynes edition of the I Ching, Jung said that when we successfully consulted this Chinese oracle (which we may consider an act of magic) we are experiencing the principle, which he termed “synchronicity.”
Synchronicity, explained Place, was defined by Jung as a meaningful coincidence of an external event with a psychic event, such as a dream, fantasy, or thought. These events coincided in time in a way that gave them meaning for the observer. They seemed like communications between a divine force and us, and they confirmed that there is a connection or interaction between our psyche and physical reality.
http://thedepthcoach.com/synchronicity/
Steve Erdmann had sometimes referred to the unexplained mechanism in the trickster’s performance as ‘the X factor.’ He tried to point to that undefined equation in these happenings.
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The ‘X Factor’ and the Trickster
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Jerome Clark summarized in Unexplained: Strange sightings, Incredible Occurrences, and Puzzling Physical Phenomena (Visible Ink Press, 3rd edition.): “…we may well ask ourselves ‘are anomalous experiences significant, or are they just some form of absurd, empty display?’ I don’t know. Neither do you. Maybe one day we’ll find out…the three hardest words for a human being to utter are ‘I don’t know.’ We demand an accounting for every claim or experience, and when no accounting is available, someone will invent one for us.”
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INADEQUATE CONCEPTS
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Editor/Researcher Jim W. Mosley (left) with Radio Announcer John Nebel
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“So – what is a Trickster?” asked James Mosley in the September 20, 2012 issue of Saucer Smear: “To say there is no easy answer is an understatement…Our own definition of a trickster might be: ‘Someone or something that disrupts the normal order of things, deliberate or otherwise’…we know of instances where everything in a séance is either hoaxed or is explainable nonsense, until something absolutely real and unexplained actually happens. That is the trickster sticking his – its – nose into the séance!” Moseley points to Christopher O’Brien’s Stalking the Trickster: Shape shifters, Skin walkers, Dark Adepts, and 2012 as a source of information (Adventures Unlimited Press, 2009).
“The trickster has innumerable internal contradictions, and those are what have made him so different for scholars,” Hanson concluded. “He seems irrational, and he is. The usual scientific concepts are inadequate to fully explain him. He has many meanings and cannot be reduced to a single interpretation. He also resists being placed in any single category.”
Many questions remained, what if the world of mysticism – and UFOs – shared a strong physical reality along with an ethereal side, or, physical realities that shared a strong mystical side? There were adjoining questions: what if those “realities” had several different sources; and what if they had coexisted for ages?
“…what I am positing is that we co-create with Gaia Consciousness, cryptids, aliens, UFO’s, crop circles, electromagnetic anomalies, telepathic abilities (Gaia Consciousness as a carrier frequency), astral apparitions and on into telekinetic events,” said Erik Stitt (April 14, 2010). “Why? Because the Earth and the Human Species are trying to communicate with one another in the form of Psychoterrestrial Phenomena! This is language. This is speaking. This is communication! It may even be Universal.”
http://ufomagazine.squarespace.com/ufo-magazine/2010/4/14/psychoterrestrial-phenomena-and-the-ever-evolving-trickster.html.
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A POWER SO PERVASIVE
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Ann Druffel has been dynamic in investigating UFOs since 1957 when she joined the National Investigations Committee on Unidentified Flying Objects. The genial author of Tujunga Canyon Contacts (co-authored by D. Scott Rogo) and How To Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction is a serious individual. She has earned a good reputation and everyone respects her opinions, even when she stentorianly states:
“The entities who pose as ‘extraterrestrials’ are not what they say they are. Rather, they are apparently unwholesome entities who have deceived and interacted with humans since the dawn of history. Be they mythic, ‘real,’ ‘spiritual,’ inter-dimensional or from a ‘hidden world’ which somehow exists in or alongside our own earth plane, I cannot say, since proof still eludes us. I do know for certain, however, that interfering, shape shifting, ‘otherworldly’ entities have been described by every major culture (and many smaller cultures) on the face of the earth down through the millennia, and that these older cultures developed means to fend them off or, at the very least, recognize them for what they were.”
http://community.humanityhealing.net/profiles/blogs/hellfire-and-brimstone-the-dark-side-of-ufology.
“The same secret societies and old European bloodline families are in control of the world today,” said The Secret History of America: The Greatest Conspiracy on Earth. “To better understand what they do, we need to look at their philosophies and ideas. One motto of theirs is ‘Ordo ab Chao’ or ‘order out of chaos.’ First, they create ‘chaos,’ and then they propose the solution, ‘order,’ secretly behind the scenes to control a given situation.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-15/order-out-chaos-doctrine-runs-world
Participants, experts, shamans, leaders, priests, and occultists claimed knowledge of a Hidden World down through the ages:
“…there is a power so organized, so subtle, so complete, and so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
President Woodrow Wilson quoted in the United States Presidents and the Masonic Power Structure, Robert Howard, 1999.
http://richardboyden.com/united_states_presidents_and_the.htm.
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President Woodrow Wilson
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“Much will be made over the recently released ‘Joker’ movie, and a thousand and one interpretations will dispense about the Internet as to the motive and meaning. It would be much easier to just apply any semblance and motives to ‘ourselves’ and something psychologists are calling ‘masking’ in which humans hide their inner ID Monster behind a veil of ‘do-goodish’ actions and deceptive righteousness, not only brought out by Arthur Fleck but also the humans in the movie as a ‘mob.’ It is, once again, humans daring to ‘unmask’ their real selves and tired of disguising their evil acts and phony intentions”…Steve Erdmann, October, 2019.
Also see: http://mask.thebiointernet.com/masking-in-psychology/?fbclid=IwAR00O3uz1SAAX8i2Td8b513lamTRDa5evxVBTcXa3rrr7IQebsxAOjpa0-8
Update
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You can reach Steve Erdmann at dissenterdisinter@yahoo.com – or – independenterdmann@gmail.com.
You can Friend him at https://www.facebook.com/#!/stephen.erdmann1 on Facebook or visit the Dissenter/Disinter Group – at – https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/171577496293504/.
His Facebook email is http://facebook.com/stephen.erdmann1.
You can also visit his articles at the following:
mewe.com/i/stephenerdmann1
http://www.minds.com – TheDissenter,
http://www.ufospotlightwordpress.com,
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Alternate Perception Magazine: http://www.apmagazine.info/,
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Steve Erdmann – Independent Investigative Journalist
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https://www.google.com/search?q=Photos+of+The+Trickster+and+the+Paranormal+book+cover&rlz=1C1PRFC_enUS616US616&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit44aQ7MfVAhUP9mMKHTH0A_EQsAQIJw&biw=1633&bih=790#imgrc=YfrX8WWWOmDo_M:
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The Trickster Can and Likes to be Seen Often in the Disguise of a Clown
http://www.avclub.com/article/scary-clown-movie-it-offers-first-look-aforementio-239531.
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Linda Cortile said to be Levitated and Abduction into UFO Over Manhattan
http://skeptica.dk/artikler/?p=8348.
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George P. Hansen
http://www.findaghost.com/articles/editorials/hansen-review.html.
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Movie Depiction of the Joker-Trickster-Clown
http://nickjameswyattportfolio.weebly.com/blog/prom-poster-2014
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C.G. Jung
https://www.mindpodnetwork.com/the-world-within-carl-jung-in-his-own-words/.
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The ‘X Factor’ and the Trickster
http://darkamber.deviantart.com/favourites/43559223/Loki.
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http://izquotes.com/quote/97792.
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Update
Anohter version of this artile can be seen at https://ufospotlight.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/the-world-of-the-trickster/
https://wordpresscom507.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/stephen-erdmann-trust-and-foundatin/wordpresscom507 - Stephen Erdmann Foundation-Dissenter/Disinter Magazine 
Reblogged this on Rosettasister's Weblog.
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