Extracted from the Crop Circle Year Book 2021
In the mostly inane chatter about the crop circle subject in the realms of social media – the endless, circuitous arguments over the origins of the formations themselves, the seemingly limitless griping, carping and grubbing about who benefits most and how, the inexhaustible, deeply compulsive need to own and control the narrative, to be the gatekeepers of the phenomenon itself – something is missing. And that something, is the core crop circle experience. The experience of coming into contact with something beautiful, mysterious and (for many) life changing. It is in essence the ‘whole heart’ of the phenomenon – the interface between object and subject. After over twenty editions of presenting the most breathtaking formations and exploring their geometry, symbolism, placement in the landscape, and yes, their effect upon those that come into contact with the phenomenon, it feels right that I put before you some ideas I have long been thinking about. These ideas coalesce into a process of interaction with the phenomenon that I’m sure will not only resonate with many of you, but that you may also recognise, perhaps from your own experience? ‘Experience’ is the key word here, because there are a great number of people who, for want of a better description, are ‘crop circle experiencers’. That is, they are people for whom their interaction with the crop circles is a starting point for a journey into a higher, wider, deeper and more mysterious reality, and they are forever changed by it. I consider this aspect of the phenomenon to be utterly real, self-evident and incredibly important. Their experiences include encounters with the paranormal in connection with the crop circles, synchronicity, precognitive dreams, light phenomena and strange animal encounters to name but a few. Whatever is happening to these people, seems to be somehow heightened by their involvement with the crop circle phenomenon.
THE CALL
For many people the crop circles represent a beautiful art form, perhaps a mystery, something that is nostalgically evoked by sultry summer days, fields of warm golden wheat, the smell of meadowsweet on the air, the burbling chatter of skylarks in the high blue vault of the sky. Some may even take an annual summer weekend trip to the Wiltshire or Hampshire countryside to visit with whatever circles they may find. To sit in a circle is a rare experience, where you may sit in either deep contemplation alone, or in deep conversation with other fellow pilgrims – communing with the rhythms of nature – while simultaneously reaching-up to contemplate the cosmos. It’s a beautiful thing to do, almost like prayer to all that is sacred and mysterious in the world. For those familiar with the phenomenon, it’s easy to forget the visual power of the circles; their stark commanding alienness amongst our soft, curving hillsides and expansive rolling fields. Here is something that, putting it plainly, should not be here. Like a giant finger coming down from above and leaving its print on the landscape. The circles are at first encounter completely incongruent; they present us with an abstract orderliness of form, in marked contrast to the seemingly easy, rambling composition of nature herself. Here is a level of order imposed upon us, that is at once as arresting to the mind as it is alluring to the eye. Some are simply unmoved by the circles, some just mildly curious; however, for some, their first encounter with the crop circles is a completely different affair: simply put, they feel ‘A Call’. For these souls, this isn’t about a brief weekend in the sunshine, it’s a ground shaking, perspective-compromising force of energy delivered straight to the heart. In that single heartbeat they are forever changed. I have heard this story so many times I have literally lost count – for those that are naturally attuned it can annihilate the world for just a second, and return you to a reality in which your centre of gravity is altered. Forever. The circles phenomenon shocks us out of our everyday, then it casts a wide net to capture all those who hear The Call.
THE BEWITCHMENT
This ‘call’, as shocking as it is, persists and grows, moving like a germinating seed in the heart that leads us to the next stage of our engagement, ‘The Bewitchment’. This stage is subtle and it’s often missed, but it is about Eros. After the shock of seeing something that should not be there, one of the next things we may feel about the circles is intense curiosity. What are they, where do they come from, what do they mean? There is nothing as seductive as a mystery. The chase across the fields for the next new circle, or the quest for answers captivates us. Here we must pause to discuss the role of synchronicity. In all of the stages I am discussing, it plays a pivotal role both on a very personal level, but also on a phenomenological level. Synchronicity seems greatly amplified around the circles phenomenon, and it plays an alluring role in this stage. Providential events, whether in times, dates and locations, are very common, elegantly connecting points between the crop circle events and those who are drawn to them. Synchronicity is the exquisite golden spider spinning gossamer threads that connect our inner life to what is happening in the fields. A deep entanglement develops that involves the heart as well as the mind. In ‘The Bewitchment’ the beauty of the crop circles of course plays a role. A profound sense of the familiar can occur in which we feel the meaning of the circles, but cannot adequately articulate it. As time has gone on, and I have contemplated this at length, there has at times also been, for me, a recognition of the ‘beloved other’ in the crop circles; glimpses of the sacred at work in the phenomenon. The power in this grand seduction is exemplified in the sheer scale of some of the formations. Just like at Avebury or Stonehenge, where big stones equal big power, exactly the same can be said of the the crop circles. While smaller circles may charm us, or an exquisitely laid interior can astonish us, those huge majestic formations express a sense of power – they can stop us in our tracks – they simply awe us. The crop circles are meticulously placed on the landscape, often partnered with ancient landscape markers, stone circles or Wiltshire’s white horses; they have their own love affair with such places. In the Pewsey Vale, the traditional heartland of the phenomenon in the UK, the hills were worshipped as a huge reclining Goddess on the landscape. Her breasts and pregnant belly marked with round-barrows on the hill tops, her umbilical (still visible in certain light) snakes down the hillside into East Field, where so many of the most iconic circles have occurred. Visiting the circles immerses you in the intoxicating delights of nature. Ever walked into a crop circle along a tractor line, almost unknowingly your fingertips reaching out to caress the top of the sun-warmed wheat stalks as you go by? Already we are succumbing to her charms. If we didn’t know any better we might say we were falling deeply and irrevocably in love.
THE INVITATION (or gift, or first test)
The Call and The Bewitchment stages can be said to be a broad casting of a net, a generalised communication, to see who will hear and recognise the message. My great friend Michael Glickman once described the crop circles as ‘toys on the nursery floor’, placed there ‘just to see what we’d make of them’. It was an I.Q. test of sorts: would we recognise them for the invitation they were, or simply dismiss them as folly? The Invitation, simply put, is the moment you realise that whatever operates alongside/through the crop circles has noticed that you noticed it. In the summer of 1992, after two years of feeling called-to and increasingly bewitched by the circles, something happened that offered me a clear and personal invitation to deepen my relationship with the phenomenon – four crop circles (or formations of circles) appeared that summer, all about a mile or so from my house. I didn’t live in the Wiltshire heartlands, I lived in the Midlands of the U.K, where there were few crop circles. This was all the more remarkable because I don’t drive, so each was within a relatively easy walking distance. I was in no doubt this was an invitation; it was also a gift. This is by no means a unique story. I’ve heard any number of similar accounts, people who have had circles appear in the closest crop field to their house, and any number of variations on that theme. In this stage something happens in which the phenomenon turns to address you personally. It marks a turning point, from this being a subject which you passively observe to becoming a two-way street, where the phenomenon looks at you directly, in return.
THE CROSSROADS (the Trickster as Hoax)
I have often observed that with any engagement with any of the so-called paranormal subjects, there is nearly always a get-out clause available, a way to disengage. This is important because I believe it tells us something about the nature of these phenomena. Certainly in the case of the crop circles, the ability to walk away and return to life as it was is on offer – but only for a limited time. The deeper one engages, the more changed we become by our experiences. The more changed we are by our experiences the more difficult it is to return to our old life. Those that do leave, especially in frustration or disillusionment can often be left embittered. Here the danger is that the Eros we have experienced up until now becomes sublimated in a negative and harmful way – it is often experienced as raw betrayal. As a result, some may find they can never truly leave, continually returning to the community to express their ongoing unresolved feelings. It’s a form of spiritual entropy that is hard to address. It is at The Crossroads stage that most will exit their relationship with the phenomenon. This stage often accompanies our first encounter with the archetype of the Trickster in guise of the Hoax. This archetype is present in just about all fields of the paranormal. At some point it announces its presence along with its personal accomplices: cynicism, ridicule and rejection. All joking aside, the idea of the Hoax is important for the very reason that it offers a safety valve. Back in the heady days of the early 1990s the Doug and Dave story offered just that: there had been concern in some sections of the establishment that the large and mushrooming public interest in this new phenomenon could grow into civil or societal unrest of some kind. Here the story of the Hoax did the trick, it burst the balloon and quelled the public fervour. This stage can also bring fears of rejection and ridicule. A new interest in such fringe matters can have serious implications for relationships and families. Rejection by those closest to us can be hurtful and wounding on all sides, the unspoken rules of established relationships are violated by the introduction of this strange new interloper into the heart and home. Everyone needs to navigate this stage and to find their own particular and personal peace with it. Jung called such encounters the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, with good reason. The Crossroads is an entirely necessary pause-to-reflect moment before making any decision about whether to proceed, slow down, or leave. If navigated with appropriate attention, reflection and self-care, whatever your choice you can move on in peace. Like all invitations from the world of spirit, this one should come with both a disclaimer and a warning.
THE CHOICE
The Choice is the question of what happens next? This is an interesting stage because even now, after almost 30 years of involvement with this subject, I still cannot say with certainty that I know the ‘truth’ of the phenomenon. Certainly, it has it’s own gestalt, that is, that it is greater than the sum of all its constituent parts. When this phenomenon operates in the world, with all its many and complex symbioses, its effects can be miraculous. This I can say with certainty, because I’ve experienced it personally. I’ve also witnessed and heard it in the testimony of others. I see it as pretty self evident at this point. My choice was to live with the unknown, to live ‘in’ the mystery. There’s a line from a favourite song of mine that is apt here, it goes ‘I’m dying of love and that’s okay’. It’s about knowing exactly where you are and knowingly, surrendering unto it. The Choice is also a surrender to the internal conflict of unknowing and a decision to just be open and observant. There is much talk of ‘believers’ and ‘sceptics’ (or ‘unbelievers’), but I reject the dichotomy and limitation to one box or the other. Rather I see myself as an experiencer and a person who shares their experiences. If they resonate with you, great. If not, really, don’t worry about it. Finally, there is an element of trust in The Choice: do we trust ourselves, do we trust our experiences? For me the answer to that is yes.
THE INITIATION (the closer encounter)
The crop circle phenomenon has been described as one of a number of ‘transformational phenomena’, and I think there is truth in that. But I prefer the term ‘initiatory phenomena’, because while one of the side-effects of contact with the phenomenon can indeed be personal transformation, it is not the whole story. In an initiation, one is not simply transformed, but initiated into ‘something’. The Invitation often comes in the guise of a personal encounter with something ‘other’, whether it’s an encounter with a ball-of-light, or an experience of high-strangeness in and around the crop circles themselves. This is a deeper level of contact experience than The Invitation, this is where the phenomenon reveals itself to you a little more fully. For Steve, his initiation was his sighting (and opportunity to film) a ball-of-light/orb close to a crop circle in 1990. A whole series of synchronicities and circumstances had led him to that crucial juncture; being in the right place at the right time, and with a camera that wasn’t even his, all ready for a personal close encounter with the unknown. In Steve’s case, the encounter changed his life, what once had been in the realm of the impossible, had now happened and once seen, you can’t simply unsee it. The fact that the encounter was filmed, and witnessed by two other people, (his companion that day and a tractor driver in a field who saw it as it passed overhead) only adds to the veracity of the event. When ‘The Initiation’ happens it is often a direct and unambiguous challenge to our world view. It opens a door just wide enough for us to glimpse the other side. In Steve’s case it was as if something from somewhere else had temporarily entered our reality and had shown itself to him.
THE OPENING
One of the direct knock-on effects of these paradigm-piercing events is that quite suddenly, we become open to many new ideas. We are suddenly filled with expanding horizons, often multivalent and multidimensional in nature. This is an exciting, even thrilling time. To be opened up in such a way is profoundly liberating; for some, it’s almost akin to a mystical experience. It’s a shedding of old skin, to make room for a new expanded you. As we continue to engage with the phenomenon, we also begin the long task of becoming what researcher Michael Glickman called a ‘noticer-of-things’. Again, at first this is a subtle process, we do it almost without realising it. We re-tune our minds to a broader setting, we may seek to find new faculties in the hope of penetrating the mystery before us. It can be at this point that the role that consciousness plays in the phenomenon becomes apparent. It’s a time when many may experiment with meditation techniques if they have not used them before. We may make life changes, relinquishing alcohol, eating a plant based diet. We may become more aware of the environment through our contact with nature, the countryside, the ancient landscape and the farming community. Our social circles may expand to include those we have met with a similar interest or on a similar path. We might meet people from many different social backgrounds to our own. The Opening operates on many, many levels. However, as with all changes, there are potential costs. We may begin to feel a disconnect from the world we once lived in and that many of our friends and families still occupy. Like the sense of rejection some experience at The Crossroads, the fact that your world has expanded exponentially, while for others it has remained the same, begins to evoke a growing cognitive dissonance that can be hard to navigate.
THE INTERNAL RE-ALIGNMENT (upgrades)
In this stage the role of the geometry of the crop circles really becomes important. Like the Mandala, the shape and symmetry of a formation has the ability to bypass the rational mind and speak directly to the unconscious, or the heart. What is ‘magical’ and ‘sacred’ about geometry is that it is one of the organising principles of the entire cosmos, part of the ‘Implicate Order’ as Bohm called it. Geometry gives structure and order to matter and is therefore a part of a quantum holographic resonance at work in reality. We have known since at least the times of the ancient world, that architecture and music can also have a profound effect on human consciousness. The ancients built their holy places using a canon of number, proportion and ratio that was considered divine. Because these principles were first observed in the natural world, to recreate them was to walk in the footsteps of the creator, making them sacred. To walk into a huge crop circle can have a similar effect to walking into a grand temple or medieval cathedral (hence ‘Temporary Temples’); the sublime geometry at work can lift the spirit, perhaps even shift our state of consciousness. Through this universal ‘technology’, we become resonant (synchronous, or at one) with the cosmos, a state which opens the heart and expands the mind. This ‘vision’ of the implicate order of the cosmos and our inextricable place within its embrace is a powerful part of The Internal Re-Alignment stage. To contemplate the geometry, symbolism and presentation of the circles only enhances this stage.
THE PRESENCE (High Strangeness)
The Presence marks another pivotal point in our process. We have so far only been given glimpses of what may well exist behind the veil and these experiences have taken place in and around the circles themselves. However, The Presence marks the point where the the veil becomes thin enough for something substantial to temporarily step through and approach us very directly. One afternoon in the early 1990s, when I was involved in a period of particularly active work with the phenomenon, I was standing at my kitchen sink washing the dishes, when I suddenly became aware of a faint electronic buzzing sound. At first I thought that it was a distant car alarm, but as the moments ticked-over it began to get louder and louder. It aroused my curiosity because the noise was not stopping and it was getting louder, or nearer. What the hell was this sound, what could be happening?At the time I had a house guest who was taking a bath in the next room, so I called out “can you hear that?”, to which they replied “yes, what is it?”, “I don’t know”, I said. I then decided that I’d step out of the back door to see if I could see anything. As I stepped outside it astonishingly became apparent that the sound was not coming from the outside at all, it was in fact inside the house. I walked back into the kitchen, where the sound had become really quite loud, an electronic buzzing, or trilling sound. I walked around the house, there was nothing prosaic in the house that could be making the noise. Back in the kitchen, I was just starting to feel frightened when the noise abruptly stopped – the silence was deafening in its absence. I have no doubt that this experience, whatever it was, was directly related to my consciousness work with the phenomenon, and it was in fact one of a number of high-strangeness experiences reported in their own homes by those I was working with at that time. More so than with the The Invitation or the The Initiation, this contact is up-close and personal. This is the stage where more intense experiences of high-strangeness can occur, a direct encounter with ‘an Other’, not something that occurs in, or around a crop circle itself, but something akin to what is know as the ‘Hitch-hiker Phenomenon’ so often reported in the UAP world, where something follows you home.
MOVING BEYOND CONTACT
When you have looked at all the various aspects of the crop circles, the question then becomes, what’s next? This is the next threshold we reach. Until this point many may not even recognised the invitational nature of the phenomenon and now begin to feel a sense of frustration because the phenomenon doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But, it is here where we have to gather all that we think we know about the phenomenon and ask, not only what is next, but what is the cumulative purpose of this journey? Like Parzival, having watched the Grail procession (across our fields) in awe and wonder, we need to ask the question, what purpose does all of this serve? This stage marks the final distinct passage from a passive ‘reaction and response’ to the phenomenon, into a deeper relationship with it. Here we have simply reached the limit of the passive approach. Historically, there have been a handful of attempts to actively engage the phenomenon. One of the more successful comes from the testimony of individuals and groups reporting that they have had a circle appear as the result of a consciousness based request. In my own case, the Charley Knoll circle of 1993 might be said to have been a response to the work I carried out with a small group looking to engage the phenomenon more actively. However, even here, the contact is a simple request and response event. It might best be categorised as a preliminary contact event rather than true relationship. The crop circle phenomenon expresses itself in both poetry and prose simultaneously. This is an important observation. So much of the presentation of the circles is about a kind of simultaneity of opposites – both standing and flattened crop are needed to make a crop circle, the idea of both genuine and hoax circles creates the psychological drama and dynamic of the phenomenon and the creation and placement of new temporary temples alongside our ancient sacred sites, written in an ancient canon of geometry and number, but applied in a thoroughly modern way, are just a few of these seeming opposites. However, to simply attempt to transcend those dualities, as conventional thinking might suggest, is not what is being shown to us here – that would merely collapse the wave function so to speak. To rise above these seeming opposites is to negate them and in doing so we would in turn negate the whole phenomenon. I think we are being asked to hold ourselves in more of a state of superposition, in which nothing is negated, everything stays on the table – and the door is held open to gaze upon a super-state of reality that is usually hidden in plain sight.
THE WORLD IN THE WORLD (Destination)
In the China Mieville novel, The City and The City, two cities reside in the same place at the same time (in simultaneity), yet in each city their populations are conditioned not to see other city, or its people. Even though each day, they may walk, or even sit beside each other, they remain ‘unseeing’ of the presence of the other. To become seeing of both cities is a condition known as ‘breach’, and is a fearful crime. Whatever it is that speaks to us through the crop circles, it is something that sits alongside us, and has done so for a very, very long time. It is intimately familiar with our landscape, our history and our folklore. Folklorists speak of a veil between worlds that separates our consensus reality from some other seldom glimpsed reality from which a whole array of paranormal beings and events can sometimes ‘breach’ and erupt into our lives. Like in the City and the City, we have a World in the World. Like the novel, for us to become acknowledging, or perhaps even cognisant of both is treated as a fearful and appalling breach of trust that threatens our whole consensus of what reality is. But to live as we do most of the time, in a reality that excludes what is actually a ubiquitous human experience (the paranormal experience in all its guises), is an act of wilful conditioning to ‘notsee’, or to actively ‘unsee’ this other world. I believe that the next stage of our process of ascension, spiritual awakening, or evolution of consciousness (or whatever you choose to call it), is to become truly cognisant of the World in the World. It will require nothing short of an ‘un-conditioning’ of our state of consciousness, to breach the world as we know it: We have to breach the world, to reach the world. We have to be able to see the simultaneity of reality. In so many ways this world is reaching out to us. Every time we encounter that which should not exist we are being invited to see it. It is waiting for us to step into a larger, wider and deeper reality, to take the next step forward toward being a more wholly cosmic human being. This World in the World is where finally, The Invitation admits us – but only if we have the courage, in the midst of all the cynicism of our current paradigm, to follow The Call where it inexorably leads.
Copyright Karen Alexander 2021
This article was extracted from the Crop Circle Year Book 2021 published by Temporary Temples which can be purchased by following the following link https://temporarytemples.co.uk/product/crop-circle-year-book-2021