Betty Luca's description under hypnosis of her experience of "the One" in the preceding page is instantly recognizable as the same type of experience reported by many NDErs, and even in many cases the same IDENTICAL experience.  It is a very basic kind of spiritual experience, which has also been consistently reported throughout history by saints, mystics, and various types of ecstatics.

The similarities between UFO abduction and near-death experiences have been explored by a number of writers and researchers, the most famous and credentialed of which is undoubtedly Kenneth Ring.  Dr. Ring did an extensive series of clinical studies on the near-death experience and published his results in "Life at Death" and "Heading Toward Omega". Then he did a follow-up project in which he studied UFO experiencers (primarily "abductees"), and specifically compared this phenomenon to that of near-death.  His full report can be found in "The Omega Project"; he found strong similarities between the two types of experience, and hypothesized that they may actually be two variants of a more basic underlying phenomenon.

Ring also quotes other commentators, who make the following remarks:

"According to polls, we live in an age where now most people believe that UFOs are real and that 'people like us live on other planets.'  In that context, since angels and demons are out of style, they now dress in the costume of our own epoch's archetypal figure - the extraterrestrial alien - whom we can see precisely because we can now CONCEIVE of him; he conforms to and expresses our current ideas of possibility."

"Abductions may represent a contemporary form of shamanic journey - one that fits and is phrased in terms of a highly technological society which has already turned its imaginative attention to star flight ... Perhaps the (ancient) otherworld journey motif is 'camouflaged' in the modern lore of space travel which, like the fantastic voyage legends of the past, exemplifies what might be called the lure of the edge."

"These ecological and millennial themes have been part of the canon of the UFO world and its literature for a long time, and many persons have already commented on their quasi-religious character.  Indeed, in an age where secular thinking has come to be the standard but from which the religious impulse has never disappeared, it is psychologically very understandable why traditional religious images of salvation have come to be projected onto the screen of a universe where, for some, it is easier to believe in ETs than in God."

Betty Luca does believe in God very strongly, being a devout Christian; yet a striking difference between her experience quoted on page 2 and that of NDErs is that she was escorted to it not by dead relatives nor Christian spiritual figures, but by small gray bug-eyed space aliens. Yet, at the end of this first event, which occurred when she was only 13 years old, there appeared figures of a different type: a number of entities who were human-looking except for their size, being about seven feet tall; they were dressed in long white robes, had pale-colored skin, and hair that was blond to white. In a word, they looked exactly like the Christian image of angels, except that they had no wings. Betty called these beings the "Elders", after the Christian term used especially in the Book of Revelation, denoting the angelic beings surrounding the throne of God.

After some three decades of further experiences, reported in a total of four books by researcher Raymond Fowler, there came a point when the Elders seemed to completely take over Betty's encounters.  All the earlier events, including her first experience of the One, took place in mysterious locations which seemed to be underground, or else on or near the surface of the Earth. But now, as reported in the last of Fowler's books, "The Watchers II", the small Grays came again for Betty in a saucer, and for the first time took her into outer space, where the small craft docked with a huge cylindrical mothership. This was the domain of the Elders, who apparently commanded the Grays in a symbiotic relationship. This journey climaxed for Betty in another ecstatic experience of the One, though this time the events leading up to it were very different.

Betty asked why she was here with the Elders, and they said, "Don't you remember your blessing?"  She didn't know what they were talking about, and in response they used a machine to show her a scene from earlier in her life.  It was at a church service, and what happened was this: Betty stood up and gave testimony and pledged to use her talents for the glory of God. This was probably not unusual for this type of service. But then the minister suddenly began speaking in tongues. His wife jumped up, ran down the aisle to Betty, put her hands on Betty's head, and began speaking in tongues herself. Then the minister interpreted his wife's tongues; it was a message for Betty: "You have given all that you have ... thou shalt be blessed above women ... "

This was evidently the scene as Betty remembered it from when she was younger.  But now in the strange replay on the mothership, she noticed some differences.  Some of the people had "a light around them" - these included Betty, the minister, and his wife. And two Elders were present in the room, unseen by the congregation. One of the Elders stood behind the minister and put his hand on the man's shoulder - and this is when he began speaking in tongues.  Then the Elder whispered in the ear of the minister's wife, and this is when she jumped up and administered the "blessing" to Betty.  Evidently the whole scenario had been orchestrated by the Elders.

After being shown this scene from the past, Betty witnessed "live" what clearly seems to have been an act of ritual magic performed by the Elders. Three of them stepped into a circle drawn on the floor, subdivided by straight lines into six equal parts.

They touched their hands together, and then, as they concentrated, beams of light came out of their foreheads, and formed a triangle.  At length, in the center of this triangle, there appeared a ring of light, floating in the air.

Three more Elders stepped into the circle, and they all began chanting "Oh". Three more beams of light appeared, forming a perfect hexagram.  A larger circle of light formed around the heads of the Elders.  Then this light-ring moved upwards, shrank to the same size as the ring in the center, and floated down and interconnected with it, forming a revolving spherical object which finally condensed into a beachball-sized orb of lavender-purple light.  This was then taken and placed in a four-pronged stand which had obviously been designed specifically to hold such spheres.

The term "Elders" is Betty's name for these beings. When on an earlier occasion she had asked them who they were, they had answered that they are "the ambassadors of Oh, masters of rings, cycles, and orbs."   Now, after witnessing the creation of this magical orb, Betty asked an Elder:  who is "Oh"?  He replied that Oh is "the internal, external, eternal presence."

The next thing that happened, to Betty's extreme startlement, was that the Elders induced an out-of-body experience in her.  This is similar to what happened in her experience at age 13, before she entered the Great Door and saw the One.  Now, on the mothership, as soon as she emerged in her subtle body, one of the Elders handed her the orb of purple light, and another led her through a portal made of rippling waves of energy.

On the other side of the portal, Betty and the Elder seemed to be on Earth, in a woods at night. Some hobos were sleeping on the ground. One of them awakened and approached the two visitors; he glowed with light. The Elder wore little rings of light on his fingers. He allowed the hobo to take some of them, and they turned into a single tiny ball of light, which the man kept. Meanwhile, the larger orb in Betty's hands changed color momentarily, evidently in resonance with the transaction. Every once in awhile, Betty's attention was drawn into the ball:  "Oh," she said, "it's just so beautiful!  Something in it keeps on moving ... "

Now the Elder touched Betty's shoulder. There was a little explosion of white light, and then they were in a different place: a hospital room, where a very old man lay in a bed, with a nurse keeping vigil beside him. And there was more:  two small entities which seemed to be made of darkness where tugging at the man, as if trying to pull his soul out of his body - this was Betty's impression.  But there was also present a light-being;  this was a type of entity Betty had encountered before in her experiences - it had no visible human features, but appeared as a bodily form made of white light. This being was also tugging at the dying man; it was clearly a battle for his soul between these opposing entities. The Elder resolved the conflict: he threw two tiny balls of light at the black entities, and they flew away.

The Elder and Betty next transported to a woods again, where a small saucer and two of the Grays awaited them.  They went on board, and evidently flew up into the sky. Betty asked where they were going now, and the Elder replied that they were going to see the One.

Betty had to give the purple orb to one of the Grays; she was very reluctant and sorrowful to give it up. The craft came to a stop, and they emerged into a place filled with bright light. Above them was the Great Door, which was the source of the light.  The Elder touched one of the Grays on the shoulder and spoke to him, and he came along with the Elder and Betty as they walked toward the Light. Their walk turned into a run, as they moved swiftly into the pure radiance. Betty was overwhelmed with the ecstasy of the One, which she re-experienced on the hypnotist's couch, and the several people in attendance were all profoundly moved by the visible effects of her transformation.

Betty, the Elder, and the Gray all turned into light-beings as they went into the One.  Each was a different hue: the Elder's light-body was pure white, the Gray alien's was light blue, and Betty's was golden.

Betty said: "Oh, there is such love ... Oh, there is such peace ...  I'm just engulfed in light and blending into that light.  Oh! ... Oh, this is everything, everything, everything ...  I cannot explain the wonder and beauty and love and peace."

And then came a heartbroken cry as Betty realized that she would have to leave this beatific state of Oneness:  "Oh, I'm going to have to go back.  I have to go back for others so that they too will see, will understand and know ... " And Betty, the Elder, and the Gray emerged back out of the Light, turning back into their normal forms in the process.

The Elder gave three of the tiny balls of light to Betty; then she was escorted into the saucer and taken home by the Grays. She found her physical body sitting up on the side of her bed next to her sleeping husband, and re-entered it. The experience had ended.

            Send Joseph Kerrick a comment.

The four books by Raymond E. Fowler about Betty Andreasson Luca are available from Blue Water Press: BlueWaterP@aol.com
1-800-366-0264

(C) Copyright 1997 Joseph Kerrick
MilkyWave7@aol.com
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