Alien Spirituality

23.07.2008 18:07 UFO - Source: UFO Digest

C.L. Talmadge, author of the Green Stone of Healing® series, is familiar with the intimate link between spirituality, energy, and healing. In 1999, C.L. published non-fiction she co-authored about emotional and spiritual healing resolution based on the Sunan method of working in the energy of human consciousness. In this book, C.L., an energy-therapist, provides an expanded definition of energy that demonstrates the connection between matter, spirit, heart, and mind. To write her multigenerational novel, the author delved into her own past lives and those of her family, friends, clients, and acquaintances. The fictionalized result is the Green Stone of Healing® series. You can email C.L. at author@greenstoneofhealing.com
Alien Spirituality

The Vatican's top astronomer has suggested there is no conflict between believing in God and believing in intelligent non-human beings, also known as aliens. But most science fiction-fantasy, chock full of intelligent non-human life, never directly addresses the issues of aliens, spirituality and faith. Here is a look at some exceptions that do tackle the topic from different perspectives.

by Candace Talmadge

Posted: 21:00 July 2, 2008

Is spirituality a uniquely human attribute and experience? Do intelligent non-human beings exist and, if so, do such beings have religious beliefs or even souls?

At least one major world religion has indicated that its answer to such questions may well be no, yes, and yes, in that order. In a recent interview with Italian newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s chief astronomer, the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, said there is no conflict between believing in extraterrestrial intelligent life and believing in God.

“How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere?” Rev Funes asks, a point based on faith and logic, given the extraordinarily high number of planets with suns and atmospheres similar to those of earth.

But the Catholic Church’s top astronomer goes even further, implying that some aliens might not have been subject to the separation from God described in Genesis. “There could be (other beings) who remained in full friendship with their creator,” Rev. Funes adds.

While the premise of intelligent non-human life is one of the driving themes of science fiction and fantasy, most creative works in these genres eschew any direct talk of alien spirituality, religion, or faith. There are some notable exceptions, however, that are worth exploring because they help us examine our own spirituality and the limitations we may have placed on it, however unconsciously.

Enemy Mine, a 1985 science fiction film derived from Barry B. Longyear’s award-winning 1979 novella, depicts an intergalactic war between human beings and an alien race called the Drac. Marooned by their battle-damaged space fighters on an isolated, inhospitable planet, a Drac and a man start off as enemies. Out of survival necessity, however, they make a wary peace.

Eventually, the two become the dearest of friends. The Drac has a faith and a sense of his own spirituality and the divine that his human counterpart can readily identify as such. The Drac reads frequently from a small book of religious/philosophical text that hangs around his neck, and often sits outside at sunset, pondering the larger questions of life and meaning and speaking about them with his newfound human companion.

Ultimately, the alien’s faith and friendship motivate the human being to consider something other than his prestige as a top-scoring fighter pilot focused solely on advancing his military career. The alien reminds the man that life is so much more than just a scramble for conquest and material success. The Drac even rescues the man from being eaten by one of the planet’s preditors, and suffers for it later. The human being is much better off for having learned to respect and even love an alien as a being of great faith and courage.