Other Side of Truth

Paul Kimball

Description

In The Other Side of Truth, filmmaker Paul Kimball crosses the Rubicon of the imagination to explore the idea that what we call the 'paranormal' is actually a form of artistic expression created by an advanced non-human intelligence to inspire us to think about who we are, where we have been, and where we are going. Using his own journey of discovery as the starting point, Kimball presents the 'other side of truth' - the world not as we have been told it is, but as we are being encouraged to imagine that it could become.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 02 avril 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780991697519
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Title Page
THE OTHER SIDE OF TRUTH
The Paranormal, The Art of the Imagination, and the Human Condition
Paul Kimball



Publisher Information
THE OTHER SIDE OF TRUTH
Published by Redstar Books, a division of Redstar Films Limited
www.redstarfilmtv.com/books
2541 Robie Street, Halifax, NS B3K 4N3
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2012 Paul Kimball (www.beyonderstv.com)
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder.
All photos are © Paul Kimball, except where otherwise indicated.
Cover image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech



Dedication
For Reg & Betty Kimball



Acknowledgments
I like to say that the journey is the destination. If true, then one always needs good company on the trip. These folks have been my fellow travelers over the years in one way or another, although they may not have realized it.
Reg & Betty Kimball, Jim Kimball, Sharon Kimball Gough, Linda Wood, Peter Black, the late Mac Tonnies, Greg Bishop, Nick Redfern, John Rosborough, Christina Cuffari, Colin White, the late Gil Latter, Dave Salloum, Jeff Sullivan, Will Fraser, Dave Sadler, Aaron John Gulyas, Andrew Mark Sewell, Ron Foley MacDonald, Meagan Crane, Denise Djokic, Kris Lee McBride, Brittany Babakioff, Walter Bosley, Findlay Muir, Jeff Drake, Sandy MacLean, Sigrid Hudson Bishop, Susan Stothart, the late Patrick Christopher, the late Karl Pflock, Stanton Friedman, Brad Sparks, Rich Reynolds, Kathleen Mendelin Marchbank, Tony Morrill, Errol Bruce-Knapp, Shahid Dadabhoy, Geoff Morrison, Glenn MacCulloch, Evangelo Kioussis, Veronica Reynolds, Holly Stevens, Benjamin Stevens, Stephanie Steele, Katie Martin, Kate Mullan, Carly Street, Joseph Gallaccio, David Jalbert, Gary & Nancy Hill, Christine Boss, Lee Thompson, Ann MacKenzie, Barry Moody, the late Gordon Watson, James Farmer, Burkhardt Kiesekamp, the late C. J. Bartlett, the late James L. Stokesbury, the late Gabriel Fischer, the Gough kids (Emily, Matt, Alex, and Will), Dana & Bob Tonnies, Kelly McKeigan, Chris MacKenzie, Heather Schmidt, Mark Winkelman, Len MacKeigan, Nan MacDonald, Wayne Paquet, Michelle Aalders, Tall Poppies, Julia’s Rain, Jeff Forbes, Antony Shearn, Tarek Abouamin, Lorrie McAllister, Andy Stephenson, Steve Mera, Graham Simms, Geof Petch, Mark Victor, Melissa Clattenburg, Dale Stevens, Tim Crawford, Tim Binnall, and Zachary Orgrot.
Last, but not least, the immortal Jack Kerouac, who wrote, “I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”
Truer words were never written.



Foreword by Greg Bishop
The Dadaist Paranormal School
It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, “objectivity,” “truth,” it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It if the principle: anything goes. [1]
- Paul Feyerabend
The UFO subject is far more interesting than lights in the sky, people from other planets, or simple hoaxes and misidentifications. Many are surprised about the verifiable connections between UFOs and other tabloid fodder such as psychic phenomena, ghosts, and liminal creatures like Bigfoot.
Most people who claim to be researchers in these subjects are often insular about their particular areas of interest, sometimes to the point of open hostility when the similarities are noted. “Ufologists” (a misleading term for an unregulated discipline) routinely bristle at the mention of any strangeness outside of supposed aliens. They have been fighting a 50-year battle for respectability, and that other “junk” might make them look silly.
What they don’t seem to realize is that the vast majority of the public, particularly the arbiters of reality (primarily the media and academia), think it’s all silly. The public face of paranormal research has done itself few favors in this regard. The loudest and craziest person in the room nearly always controls the conversation, gets on the popular radio shows, or gets the big book or movie deal.
For many years, however, there have been a few voices amongst those who think deeply about the paranormal whose study of the subject has not been reducible to sound-bites or hackneyed expeditions conducted on television shows using night-vision cameras strapped to high-strung actors and so-called “experts” (whose mantra always seems to be, “Did you hear that?”).
This iconoclastic group of paranormal enthusiasts and researchers, such as Nick Redfern and the late Mac Tonnies, has been quietly cheerleading the unheralded insights of UFO and paranormal researchers like Jacques Vallee, Jim Brandon, John Keel, Jenny Randles, Greg Little and Graham Hancock, as well as the pioneering work of scientists such as Dean Radin, Robert Jahn, Richard Strassman, and Hal Puthoff.
Most UFO buffs and paranormal fans have never heard of these people, who have recorded their insights in books that largely remain unread, mainly because they downplay or outright reject the aliens-from-other-planets idea. The scientific viewpoint of credentialed academics such as those mentioned above is also routinely ignored because it doesn’t flatter the “new age” bias of most readers. It also seems that fewer people have the patience to wade through the entire text of a book anymore, which puts readers of the present volume in rare company.
Most people have self-imposed blinders on which keep them from seeing outside the narrow viewpoint of their own personal interests, experiences and opinions. Many are also unaware of the underlying sagas that have brought them, their societies, and humanity in toto to this point in history. Our past has taught us that almost nothing happens in a vacuum, and the present is the result of a tangled fabric of interconnected and often disparate stories. The paranormal is no different. As a trained historian, Paul Kimball points this out immediately in his introduction, and keeps us aware of it throughout his narrative.
We have always lived with an awareness of forces and influences that are not apparent to our five senses, observation over time, or simple deduction. Some of these forces were eventually found to have verifiable explanations, such as magnetism, electricity, the weather, the motions of planets, the flight of birds, and so on. Others, with a long history of anecdotal evidence, like meteorites or ball lightning, took longer to solve. Other more complex and esoteric elements of our world, such as those discussed herein, are still awaiting better methods and theories to explain them.
Those who are invested in a fixed way of looking at the world declare that since we have perfected all methods of verifying reality, then anything that does not conform to the current understanding of physical laws does not exist. The truly skeptical attitude would be to reserve judgment and declare certain issues “unproven.” Anything else veers perilously close to belief, not science.
A few pioneering individuals, such as the membership of the Society for Scientific Exploration, actively use the scientific tools currently available to test issues such as ESP, reincarnation, psychokinesis, UFO sightings, and other “fringe” subjects. [2] They are aware of the pitfalls of belief and experimenter bias, as well as the issue of scientific peer pressure, the question of who pays the bills and what they want to hear, and the spectre of fundamentalist skepticism.
Then there are the rest of us, who look on and try to make sense of something that we are often told is not worth the time or effort to worry about. After many years of study, listening to paranormal radio shows and attending lectures, most either become disillusioned, or settle into some sort of belief system based on their hopes and wishes. There are a thoughtful few, however, who decide to treat the whole thing as a sort of journey of learning. Those are the voices worth listening to.
Paul Kimball is one of those people who have embarked upon this journey. The book you are about to enjoy is a detailed chronicle of his evolution from disinterested skepticism to a deep and inquisitive involvement in what is loosely called “the paranormal.” During the course of his narrative, Paul examines the issues in terms of a creative viewpoint, or even as an artistic act. In light of this, much reported witness testimony of UFOs and other “paranormal” strangeness could actually be considered surrealist stories.
Paul Feyerabend (quoted at the beginning of this introduction) was a philosopher of science, and author of the landmark book Against Method, wherein he put forward the argument that no progress can be made under inflexible rules, especially those of the scientific method. In a 1972 letter to a friend, Hungarian philosopher Imre Lakatos, Feyerabend declared his allegiance to the ideals of the Dadaist artistic movement of the early 20 th century. His words could be instructive to the paranormal researcher and fan alike:
A Dadaist is utterly unimpressed by any serious enterprise and he smells a rat whenever people stop smiling and assume that attitude and those facial expressions which indicate that something important is about to be said. A Dadaist is co