ALL IN ONE FILMS -Transcripts

Michael Grosso

INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL GROSSO

Well, in 1971, I was just about to get my PhD in philosophy. In fact, it was about three days before I defended and it was -- I remember also it was Shakespeare's birthday, April 23rd, and I was listening with a friend of mine where we lived in Greenwich Village to a piece of music by John Crowtrain, called the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, a jazz composition, by eleven o'clock at night, a crystal-clear spring evening, looked out the window casually and noticed these lights dancing around the sky and it seemed at first almost in unison with the music. And in about a second or two, I realized that what I was looking at -- seemed impossible. And they were like clusters of brilliant lights, dancing, prancing and performing impossible manoeuvres in the sky.

VERY LARGE?

Not -- no. Rather like -- maybe the largest star, a cluster of brilliant stars. And they moved around at this incredible velocity, incredible patterns. I called my friend over to the window and I said hey, look at that, what on earth is that? And then at -- while both of us were watching this incredible sight, they stopped these movements and then shot in a straight line to the dome of the church across the street, a church called Our Lady of Pompeii, and hovered motionless over the cross. It beamed at us.

Okay. And it was at that point clear to me -- I made the connection. I'm listening to the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. Whatever the heck is out there knows that I'm listening, that we are listening to this piece of music. And then, as it were, they displayed themselves for a few seconds. And then from a stationary position shot up into the sky and in jagged, sort of classic UFO motions disappeared over the Empire State building.

Well, I was electrified and we then -- we literally, by the way I should say -- there was a feeling of electricity in the room. That may have been subjective reaction here. My friend and I went up the roof. We were living on the top floor. And it so happened, there was a fellow up there who -- his name was Louie. He was a young jazz musician. And synchonisticially, I had just turned him on to John Crowtrain a couple of weeks ago. So he was up the roof star-gazing and he lunged at me did you see that? So he also saw the lights and he noted the fact that they sort of seemed to pass over the rooftop and was silent.

At any rate, that was the end of that experience and that's what got me launched. I mean, I was convinced that night that I had seen something that I had no explanation for and launched me into -- and the irony of it to me was -- just the coming and the irony of it, it felt like a kind of a joke. That they were joking with me. Lika, ah-hah, you're about to get your PhD. That means doctor and that means wise. Well, you're not wise at all, you know?

HERE, LOOK AT THIS.

Look at this, look at us, you know?

THERE'S A LINE OF YOURS THAT I -- I MEAN, I'M NOT COMPLETELY CORRECT, BUT IT REALLY STUCK WITH ME AND IT'S ABOUT THE -- IT SAYS THE HIGHWAY TO THE SPIRIT HAS BEEN ROADBLOCKED BY SCIENCE OR THERE ARE ROADBLOCKS OF SCIENCE...

Yeah. Well, I think so. I think that -- you know, I'm doing research in a book right now, a book on the millenium and I have a chapter on the -- on the enlightenments, so I've been reading some of the enlightenment philosophies and I'm reading Didaro and -- on Nakondasai (ph) and he has a marvellous passage in which he explains how it's absolutely impossible that there could be any protogies or miracles, all of those things that were associated with the church because it's just inconsistent with -- of the laws of nature. He thought he knew what the law of nature was.

And I think -- you see, the -- historically, the miraculous paranormal and even ultimately the spiritual -- and I could make all kinds of distinctions there -- are associated in the minds of many decent, caring, rational human beings with retrograde, intolerant, superstitious religious beliefs and practises and that's the origin of the -- of the roadblock, in my opinion. That's why bright people, talented academics who ought to be more open and receptive are not because they associate and wrongly -- obvious logically incorrect inferences. They associate these phenomena automatically with depression, intolerance and superstition. And I believe that's the challenge for people like myself who I consider -- I'm on the side of Didaro, on the side of the enlightenment. But I also believe that we don't know what the laws of nature are. That our understanding of reality is still extremely primitive.

Based on an examination of all kinds of what I call the family of anomalies or patterns of anomalous phenomena, I'm personally convinced that there is an intelligence that is operative in our world that interacts with human beings and has been interacting with human beings throughout history and is in evidence today in the contemporary world and whose origin and nature is not personal. And I'm not saying not human, but not confined in its origins to the human personality.

So therefore, the expression "mind at large" seems wonderfully apt. At large. It's simply out there. And where it's coming from, I don't know. The traditional view would be that this mind at large is the mind of God and I have no -- hold no brief against that interpretation. It's a speculative interpretation and, as I said, I have no problem with it. But on the other hand, this intelligence may also emanate from or some aspects of it from some extra-terresterial source. There are some indications that support that view. If you want, we could talk about what they might be.

Another interpretation of this intelligence or mind at large is that it is the product of -- in some sense a collective intelligence of the human mind and with a life of its own. In some sense, a product of but also transcending the individual minds of the human species with an intentionality and a program of its own.

SO WHAT IS ITS INTENTION?

That's the interesting question. I mean, sometimes it seems just to be sort of mucking about with us and playing games and other times, I believe it's -- part of its intention is to give vent to a benign trend, an instructive trend to bring us up to a wider, deeper perception of reality and a greater sense of humanist, a greater sense of cosmic solidarity. But on the other hand, this intelligence at large sometimes, as I say, is merely playful and at times it would appear to be nasty, deceptive, unpleasant. There's lots of evidence. I mean, I -- my interpretation, for example of Joan of Arc, this was a woman that clearly was in touch with some intelligence at large that gave her information that normal -- that was beyond the normal and enabled her to do the things that she did. And it left her in the lurch the last minute and she was gobbled up by the policians and that was the end of her.

Maybe something like that happened with Jesus of Nazareth. So it does seem -- you know, just looking at the facts in absolute and forcing any interpretation, that's my take on it. It's -- the intelligence here is of unknown origin and even unclear in its ultimate intent. I like to think of it as a kind of a playful instructor. But beware because it may not be an intelligence that is all good. Here is how it would differ in my conception of mind at large from the traditional notion of God. The traditional notion of God is that God is all-loving and all-powerful. I don't believe that the mind at large that I think is empirically demonstrable or infallible is either all-powerful or all good.

let's assume that it is either a collective or extra -- or what I sometimes call an ultra-dementional mind that is behind this -- these alien abductions. Once you make that assumption, then you have to ask what's the message, what are they trying to do? And I think the first step -- at least in my case, how I try to make sense of the experiences is that they are speaking to us. They are in a kind of symbolic language. There's a symbolism going on here.

So for example -- a lot of information comes across -- it's -- the people who have these experiences -- that the aliens are here to interbreed -- to breed sometimes genetic program because they are failing in their vitality. They need to be regenerated. Well, my interpretation, if this is -- if the alien abduction scenario was a collective dream, then this is a collective -- a dream about the collective fate of humanity. And thus, I would argue then that this is really about our need to be regenerated as a species.

Now, given the fact that we're coming to the end of 2000 years and there's this sort of sense of -- the millenial imagination I believe is already being worked up and stimulated, it seems to me that when you look at the history of the millenial imagination, there's one thing that emerges the central and that is regeneration. In other words, this vision of social and physical regeneration of the human race.

So one possible interpretation is that this -- that these -- the alien abduction scenario is part of the kind of eccastological closure of what, about six thousand years of human history on the planet and that the message really is that we are on the threshold of a vast sprawling regeneration experience of human consciousness. I don't think of this intelligence as sort of human, like an engineer that's guiding us precisely. I see it more as a kind of stumbling, groping, rather like an artist who scratches out a theme and discovers what he wants to say or she wants to say as... So I'm hesitant to be too dogmatic about making any statement about this -- what happened.

YEAH. BUT IT'S -- SO IT'S A CREATION OF US THEN, THE ABDUCTIONS?

Well, yeah. I think what the -- what the abductions might be saying is that it's we who have to regenerate ourselves and it's a very traumatic and in the instances of victims of these experiences. Now, I don't quite understand the mechanism, but it's a harsh and almost random, as it were, a selection of people poking them very hard and saying get the message out, you know, your reality is about to be shattered.

I would strongly argue that there is one mind, one intelligence interpreted in a variety of ways.

And the challenge to us in the twenty-first century -- on the threshold of the twenty-first century is to become conscious of this. First of all, to see that there's an underlying unity to all of these manifestations. I mean, so many people, for example, separate -- I mean, I see all kinds of connections between visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the UFO phenomena, which is a complex phenomena; it's not just alien abductions and several other types of experiences that are being reported. Near death experience... Many people in the Christian world, there's a whole wakening of the Christian spiritualism, being slain in the spirit, babbling in tongues and all of these things.

Again, I feel it's the same intelligence pressing, as it were, looking for forms, looking for vehicles through which the message can be expressed. (unclear) channel is another example. Channelling is a kind of a secular encounter, sort of a symbol poor encounter outside the normal traditions. And so what you have is a bunch of different channelists inventing their own, mostly of the time, rather clumsy mythologies.

IF there is a planetary intelligence it must include the body as well as the collective mental history of the species. And not only the body of the human species, but the body of the whole planet and it there is some interesting research that has been done, that indicates that some UFO and possibly other types of apparitions that the raw material of these apparitions may be generated by techtonic magnetic and electronic stresses in the earth. But the idea is tht these light forms that are generated by the earth then seem to interact with the observer the human observer and provide a kind of raw light energy for the production of meaningful images. And therefore, I would argue and though our knowledge at this point is extremely primitive of the nature of this planetary intelligence that whatever it's nature it must include the, the a kind of geodynamics as well as psychodynamics of the collective intelligence, so ah. Ya.

the universe is alive to poets, to visionaries, to inspired people, to people in love, when I wake up in the morning I look out at the fields around me it's alive, if I'm in love, if I'm happy, if I'm inspired. But if I'm not, then everything is dead, even people are dead, I'm dead so is the universe itself literally alive? I mean there are philosophical theories which argue that you know Whiteheads process, philosophy of process argues that all interaction, anything that interacts ah, in the universe at the lowest molecular level, involves some kind of consciousness, but that to me is a rather esoteric philosophical speculation. To me it's only meaningful to talk about the universe being alive from the point of view of living beings and the more alive you are, the more animated, the more your soul is awake and alive, the more your sense are alive, the more the universe appears alive and the more you treat other beings as alive, and I think this is very important for ah, the, for the environmental crisis, when we look around, when the developer looks around at some portion of the environment as this dead raw material to be developed for the sake of making a Profit the universe stopped being alive for that particular individual and that particular company of developers. And I think that what we need to do is educate our sense of aliveness, educate our imagination re-educate our sense of soul so that even developers and capitalists can learn to acquire a sense of the aliveness of the world adn that means an awakening of the imagination.

I mean children think the universe is alive right? I mean and ah..

BUT DOES THAT HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THE WAY WE SHOULD LOOK AT ABDUCTEES? I MEAN DO WE SEE THEM AS MESSENGERS?

I see them as receiving messages and I would very much pay attention to the abductees message, but everything depends on how we interpret it. I would be, I would beware of any hasty and literal interpretations of these phenomenon, becuase in so doing we may be missing some important messages. on the other hand I wouldn't want to go, rush to the other extreme and deny the possibility that we may in fact be ah, being invaded or inhabited or visited by some higher technical civilization and @@ I don't think that the symbolic spiritual and poetic interpretation of the, ah, alien abduction experience is inconsistent with a literal interpretation so this point, all quite amorphous and I think the important thing is to maintain an open mind and be able to simultaneusly think in about four or five different levels -- what's wrong with that, why not keep all the interpetations and then more evidence we accumulate the clearer it will get, maybe.

it doesn't get clearer to me it gets more interesting but not clearer.

WELL THAT'S WHAT A LOT OF US HAVE SAID OVER, OVER THE TIME HERE IS THAT THE MORE TIME YOU SPEND LOOKING AT THIS THE LESS SURE YOU ARE OF WHAT THE ANSWER IS BUT THE MORE INVOLVED YOU'RE GETTING.

I absolutely agree. Maybe that's part of it. maybe the whole part of this intelligence is to draw us into and involve us in the process. By continually puzzling us and by continually baffling us. After all if we resolved it we'd be return to our normal state of mental contentness and so ah, that may be part of the process to keep us constant and we may need it because given the arrogance of scientific, of the scientific mentality that's you know problem solving mentality maybe that's an essential ingredient to the whole experience.