In 1987, I was in a Little Professor bookstore, I think it was, in a mall in Fort Lauderdale, and saw a display of books with a compelling cover: that of an alien, a grey. The title? Communion, by Whitley Strieber. I picked it up, read the back cover, the inside flap, and bought the book immediately.
I had read Strieber’s fiction and thought that his novel, The Hunger, was one of the best vampires stories I’d ever read. My editor at the time, Chris Cox at Ballantine, was close friends with Susan Sarandon, who played a major role in the film version of the book, and gave us the insider scoop of the filming of Strieber’s novel. A good synchro!
When that cover of Communion stopped me in my tracks, I suddenly felt there was a connection between the vampires he’d written about in The Hunger and whatever lay at the core of Communion. This was purely an intuitive conclusion, I had no facts to back it up because I hadn’t yet read Communion.
I raced home with my book and started reading. Two sittings and I was done. My worldview was permanently altered. It’s no small thing when a book – or a movie, a person, an event, even a thought or a dream – suddenly and profoundly alters what you feel and believe to be true about yourself and the reality you inhabit.
Please understand, neither Rob nor I have ever been abducted by an alien or a human. To our knowledge, weird experiments have never been performed on either of us. But in the mid to late 1980s, we were writing for the UFO section of OMNI Magazine and as a result, spent a UFO conference weekend with Betty Hill, accompanied Budd Hopkins to a regression session with an abductee, and met a number of individuals who believed they had been abducted and experimented upon by what Strieber refers to as visitors. We believed then as we do now that the entire phenomenon – aliens, abductions, contact – actually addresses  the nature of reality.
Now, 25 years after the publication of Communion, Strieber has published Solving the Communion Enigma.  It’s stunning.  In reading this, I have the same sense that I did when we spent a weekend with Betty Hill; Strieber’s experiences enabled him to penetrate a level of reality that few of us ever see.
The individuals who go there, who move behind what I think of as a veil, sometimes lose the capacity to distinguish between real life and illusion. That’s what happened to Betty Hill. Every light in the sky was a UFO; during the weekend we spent with her, she even took us outside and showed us the lights. See that? See this? It’s them. The nurse who accompanied her to that UFO conference remarked that her life was based on paranoia.
But with Strieber, there’s an undeniable grounding, a center, a focus that Betty lacked. Maybe Betty had that focus when Barney was still alive, but when we met her, Barney had been dead for a number of years. Strieber’s wife, Anne, isn’t just his partner; she’s  his measurement of what is true and genuine, his rock, his reality check, his compass.
When I had read Communion, I remember wondering how Strieber’s wife and son were affected; this book answers some of those questions.  But it also answers a whole lot of other questions. Why did Strieber experience what he did with the visitors? How could it be that these experiences dated all the way back to the early childhood? Was he chosen? Or was he invited and chose to accept? What opened him up intuitively so that he would be able to see what others don’t about the visitors?
Destiny versus free will. The questions you ask versus the ones you yearn to ask but never articulate.
Strieber is a Gemini; I used his chart as an example in a book I wrote some years ago on astrology and creativity. Gemini’s MO is to question everything- and communicate what you discover. He has done that. Every step of the way through his strange journey, he has questioned: What do I feel? What does this mean? How does this fit into my concept of reality? What’s really going on here? How can I write about this?
In the new book, Strieber speculates that the visitors may be connected in some way to the dead, to the afterlife. In one visitor encounter he saw an old friend who had already passed on. Other abductees we’ve talked to have also experienced this phenomenon. It may be more common than we know. And that’s the thing with Strieber’s work. He’s defining new archetypes and has been doing it since his first encounters in 1985. But he isn’t doing it alone, that’s apparent in this book.
Anne catalogs this material and seems to have an eidetic memory for specifics. Ask her about 3:33 AM in abduction lore. Ask her about threes in abduction scenarios. Ask her about the half a million letters Strieber received from abductees and contactees. Their relationship is a true partnership, the melding of two brains, two souls.
In Solving the Communion Enigma, Strieber takes us into dark, eerie places, just as Betty Hill and Budd Hopkins did. The difference is that Strieber has such a facility with language, with articulating complex emotions and concepts, that you come away from this book realizing that we, as a species, must make a quantum leap in consciousness if we are to survive whatever comes next. Strieber is a true pioneer. He’s exploring for those of us who are terrified of venturing into this unknown.
It will take me some time….days, weeks, months, perhaps…to wrap my mind around Strieber’s material. Even though it’s easily readable, the contents are entirely too complex and jarring to be absorbed in one sitting. There is a specific point that he made, however, with which I am not in complete agreement. He states that virtually ALL contactees and people who have been taken have histories of childhood abuse and/or trauma. The dedicated and intensive research of Dr. John Mack, Budd Hopkins, and Dr. David Jacobs did not find this to be true, either. The only childhood trauma I experienced, (and none is hidden in my subconscious; we’ve done seriously deep hypnotic forays there), is a series of deaths of folks I loved dearly; the transfer of my Dad to California from Alabama, which was severely traumatizing for me and caused extreme culture shock; and the encounter with “Them” when I was four years old, and which I remember consciously…..but the types of abuse as indicated by Whitley, hidden or otherwise, none. I tend to think ALL children, without exception, experience traumatizing events of one kind or another. It’s part and parcel of early life. The encounter with the Other, the alien entity or whatever he was, when I was four… my initial remembered abduction, did leave me violently ill for two weeks afterwards; I projectile vomited during that entire period of time. He was one of the very tall, inhumanly tall, jump-suited ETs, and yes, I was hurt physically. My memories are quite vivid of this.
But beyond these incidents, no “trauma and abuse” as a child as it is presented in Whitley’s text. More urgently, though, I’m stunned by his hypothesis of the connection between “them” and the afterlife and the dead, as there have been numerous incidents throughout my entire life that support this hypothesis, and I’ve thought I was insane because I’ve made that connection. I was glad to read that he does indicate there ARE positive and negative experiences with these entities, whoever they are and wherever they originate, and was gratified by the inclusion of military incidents, etc. The multiple parallel universes/dimensions is also something I’ve long believed…..and his descriptions of moving from one into another in his car is mind-shattering but sooooo obviously truth, as well as his dropping through his solid floor. Been there, done that…thru walls and ceilings, in my case.
In the very first pages of the introduction, the Egyptians are mentioned in a manner that almost threw me out of my chair, it hit so close to home with me. As stated, it’s going to take a second reading and some time for me to wrap my mind around it all. When I sat there after closing the final page, I just felt…..paralyzed. Not by fear, though. And Gypsy, you DO need to read the book if you can. You really do, Cousin J. I will confess that for me it raised more questions than it answered, but those questions MUST be asked, and somewhere along our journey they MUST be answered. Who was it that said, “THE ANSWERS ARE OUT THERE”? Well, perhaps the answers are right here where we live and breathe and have our beingness. Perhaps we just don’t have eyes to see and ears to hear and minds to correlate that fact. No doubt I will read Strieber’s book several times, high-lighting and also reading between the lines and listening to the wee small (and sometimes screaming and yelling) voice of my intuition. This is a tome to keep and study, guys. Both frightening and comforting at one and the same time. Sorry for the length of this comment. The book can’t be reviewed briefly, and this barely scratches its surface!
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It’s bedtime. I’ve read all but the last chapter. Didn’t skim it. Read every word.
Now I must digest it and will finish the final chapter in the morning. In many places it touches me where I live. I was pretty knocked out by the experiences of the contactees who had purple bruises with pin-prick puncture marks in them. Do you recall several years ago I told you, T & R, that this was happening to me, and that I was left with those same feelings of dizziness, weakness, low blood pressure, and low platelet levels??? But it happened to ME when the black helicopters would come and hover, and once during a seeming sleep encounter that wasn’t sleep. No one, including Strieber, had ever reported these specific things until now. I’m pretty
zombied by this. Will comment more after finishing the last page….maybe.
I knew you’d get it.
Knew you would be zombied.
My son has gone to pick it up for me. I managed to get the very last copy that B&N had, and they’re holding it at the desk for me!! So I assume it must have been waiting for me. We know how my afternoon shall be spent. Not on laundry, as it should be, or on other domestic house-wifey tasks, but deep into Strieber material!! Thanks, guys. Nonethess, I shall light my candles and “do my thang” prior to opening its pages! 🙂 Am too empathetic to do otherwise…..I have a sense of NEEDING this particular one, so am both excited AND a bit anxious. Will also have my high-lighter in hand because I tend to read and absorb quickly, then go back and re-read more than once, and the high-lighted parts are obviously messages that speak something to me. Did that with ESPERANZA and your SYNCHRONICITY books.
The last copy! Definitely it was waiting for you.
Well, since Communion is how we ended up meeting – you suggested this book to me way back when – I’ll take your advice on this one. If you think it holds important information, I’m happy to purchase it. I do believe we need to evolve and evolve quickly. This is done through the heart somehow. Of that, I’m certain. Think through the heart.
I forgot that I had recommended it to you. You won’t be disappointed in this one!
Yes, Gyps. My Dad had brain cancer that, by the time he was in a final deep, terminal coma, his speech center and vision center had been totally destroyed for many weeks prior to his death, so he was stone blind and couldn’t speak long before he went to the hospital the last time. At the moment of his death, and in the presence of several physicians and nurses as well as my Mother and my dad’s sister, who was an Air Force nurse-anesthetist, Dad opened his eyes, gazed directly into my Mother’s eyes, and very clearly, very distinctly said, “HONEY, THERE’S A BIG SHIP OVER THERE. I’M GOING NOW TO GET ON IT”. So do I believe they are connected to the afterlife and to the dead? You bet I do!! My Dad wasn’t a “boating” person. He wasn’t seeing a “water ship”. They, his true family in my humble opinion, came to get him at that moment of his physical death, and they came in a craft. In my soul of souls, I KNOW this to be true. Somehow, the essence that was my Dad superceded the destruction of his physical brain at that moment and spoke “through” him, “from” him…..saying goodbye. That “big ship”. YES. Took him Home. Do I believe? I have no viable choice, under this and myriad other relative experiences. Like you, Gyps, I want to read Whitley’s book yet feel some kind of peculiar reluctance. However, Trish, I will read it. Getting a copy of it today.
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My only comments are simple and brief to Trish and Rob, who understand completely:
“Visitors may be somehow connected to the dead, to the afterlife”. The experience at the moment of my Dad’s final breath, and subsequent encounters, support this hypothesis totally. No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. I will purchase the book. Don’t know if I’ll be able to read it.
Once you start the book, you won’t be able to stop reading, Math.
great interesting post – just a couple of takes on things here – first is the paranoia issue – something to which i can relate having felt the same way on a number of occasions during and/or after experiences of my own – for me, there was/is this sense of “them” looking for “me” – for example, with the ufo sighting on the in-transit bus with other people, all i could think of was to get off the bus with my children and go somewhere that i could not be found – it is as real to me this minute as it was then so many years ago – the feeling and my memory of it – i think one cannot help but have such feelings in light of the particular experiences – i mean, the question of “why me” is haunting – and another thing strieber mentions in his writings is the thing of wanting to be in a large city with lots of people/bright lights – my mouth fell open when i read that because i’ve never said it aloud to anyone – that i can remember – even in the recounting of some of my own experiences, but that sense of wanting/needing to be in a large city is overwhelming when it happens – well, when i have had certain similar experiences anyway – in any event, some striking things here in his writings – i have not yet decided if i will read the book completely – i doubt that i will but for reasons that have only to do with me personally – but the book itself is a must read it seems for those with even the slightest curiosity about this world and others –
Interesting parallels there, Gypsy. The book would speak to you on multiple levels.
you’re right – about the book speaking to me on many levels – which is why i am undecided about even picking it up – another parallel and one of the other things i failed to mention above is the thing of moving – relocating – for years each time i had a similar experience, i had to move – i mean, for me, i had to move – and i did – every time – another thing he talks about – just reading the excerpts of this and the other communion book and i was whisked back – back into my own experiences – it’s odd how we can read something of someone else and know immediately “they’ve really been there” – and to make it “more real” to your own experiences – it would be comforting sometimes to think of these things as “dreams” or whatever – but they are not – unless, of course, we are sharing each others’ dreams in even the most minute detail – such as thought/responses to each such experience – and i don’t discount that possibility, either – and then, like the mention of there being a connection of these visitors to the dead/the afterlife – while i cannot at all consciously place how or why, there is a sense of familiarity to that possibility – sort of like a whisper in the wind kind of thing – anyway – again, so intriguing – all the possibilities – and thanks to strieber for his courage and tenacity in sharing all –
cj – i’m trying to remember the thing with your father – he said something didn’t he???
I am about 2/3 of the way done with his book and I have found it very valuable! Communion totally shattered my worldview and rattled me to my core, and I really feel like Solving the Communion Enigma is helping me to readdress and resort things out a little neater than I had in the past. Definitely worth purchasing!!
Worth every penny.
Super post, another book for my list – thanks.
When you wrote ‘visitors may be connected in some way to the dead, to the afterlife’ this somehow feels right to me. Maybe they are simply from another time zone or the ‘future’ as most would call it. The Time Machine lives on.
Yes, it feels right to me, too, Mike. I like that phrase: the time machine lives on!
I just got his book and cannot wait to read it!
I too remember seeing the cover of “The Grays” and had a feeling like “Yes!”
You comment on Betty Hill’s Paranoia and he seems to have a little of that too.
After spending that weekend with Betty Hill, my sense is that she and barney DID experience something. Her paranoia may have just grown over the years and gotten worse after Barney died.
Thing is, if they did experience what they said they did – who wouldn’t be paranoid?
You’ll love the book!