Earth Light, Angel Earth, Angel or Extraterrestrial

This chapter argues that Paul Devereux’s essentially mythopoeic writings on so-called ‘Earth Lights’ show that the paranormal may be more successful than moral or political exhortation at transforming humanity’s relationship with nature and the cosmos as a whole. Devereux’s Earth Lights hypothesis is intended to account for UFO and other paranormal experiences by reference to geophysical forces. I demonstrate that his ideas in fact involve a complex interplay of forces which takes place on somatic, psychic, imaginal, emotional and spiritual levels, creating intricate reciprocal relationships which can transform the experiencer and the world itself. The piece draws on the work of Henry Corbin to argue that the UFO vision is thus a kind of sacrament, in which the witness is transfigured, the world becomes Eden, and all is shot through with the presence of the divine.

The Transfiguration painting of the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael Sanzio 1517–1520

“Fallen Angels” François Barthélemy Michel Édouard Cibot (1799–1877)

The Book of Enoch was written between the third and first centuries B.C.

Mosaics of the four archangels in the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Warminster, Wiltshire.

The three archangels Rafael, Miguel, and Gabriel. Painting by Michele Tosini, Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo de Passignano

Simon Wilson

Canterbury Christ Church University
Faculty Member

Jack Hunter, Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology Extraordinary Experience (USA/UK: White Crow Publications) 169–179, 2019