Wednesdays March 8, 15, and 22, 2023
6-8 pm Eastern Standard Time
Admission: $160 Patreon Members / $175 General Admission

PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time

Disclaimer: some of the contents and materials in this class contain frightening and disturbing imagery and themes. If you feel this might affect you in a negative way, Morbid Anatomy and the instructors recommend you opt not to take this class.

“And we will all go down the labyrinth, to meet whatever awaits us there.”
—Whitley Strieber, Communion - A True Story, p. 302

This three week class—co-taught by religious studies professor Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka (UNC-W) and researcher, writer and multimedia specialist David Metcalfe—will view the UFO/UAP event through the lens of the horror genre. Whitley Strieber—author of Communion, The Hunger and The Wolfen—will join for a discussion on March 8th. On March 15th, Amanda Mariamne Radcliffe will join for a discussion of her experience working as the Occult, Ritual and Witchcraft Advisor on the film Color Out of Space.

In the history of entertainment media--as well as “real life”--UFO contact experiences have been viewed as horrific and frightening as well as sublime and transcendent. These sessions will focus on the horrific and frightening aspects to gain an insight into properties of the UFO that defy traditional categories of rationality—for example, why do they appear to be physical (seen on radar or by witnesses) yet evasive of the most common technology--the camera? Are they somehow between what we think is real, and what we think is imaginary? What happens when we cross the boundaries between objective and subjective?

Over the course of the class, we will read essays, watch movies, and engage in discussions. We will focus on emerging technologies, including the social technologies of genre media such as horror, and examine how the contact experience precedes, interacts with and at times even integrates in ways that expand our experience of this and other realities.

Each student will receive a digital bibliography of sources, including an annotated digital movie list and bibliography.

COURSE OVERVIEW/SYLLABUS:

Class 1: “the ones who have slipped into the mirror…”

Welcome to the class, introduction of instructors co-lecture: What’s so scary about UFOs?

We delve into horror as a lens through which to view the modern day “experiencer genre.” Topics include Mary Shelley’s use of alchemy/hermeticism and the form of the epistolary novel; Edgar Allen Poe’s precognition, Peter Straub’s use of ‘The Daemon,’ and Whitley’s Strieber’s Communion.

Recommended Movies:

• Communion (1988)

• Black Mirror - Playtest (2016)

• Hellraiser (1987)

Class 2: “the color of the dark…”

Social Technologies, what are they and how do they help us understand our own engagements with horror and UFO media?

We will examine meta-fiction, sound design in horror movies, use of film and media techniques to persuade, convince, inform and even create memory.

Recommended Movies:

• Nope (2022)

• They Live (1988)

• The Color Out of Space (2019)

Class 3: “the enigmatic presence of the human mind…”

How do the personal (inner/mental/emotional/etc.) states of the contact experience mirror mediated states of experience related to horror, Synchronicity, Mnemonic devices and the neurological components of Horror.

Recommended Movies:

• eXisteNz (1999)

• Nightmare on Elm Street 3 - Dream Warriors (1987)

• Curse of the Demon (Night of the Demon) (1958)

BIOGRAPHIES

David Metcalfe serves as Scholar in Virtual Residence with the Windbridge Institute and Editor-in-Chief for the Windbridge Research Center's Threshold: Journal of Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies. A researcher, writer and multimedia specialist focusing on the interrelationship of art, culture, and consciousness, in 2011 he established the Liminal Analytics: Applied Research Collaborative to focus on combining applied scholarship, digital media and social network development to build strategic transdisciplinary lines of communication.

Diana Walsh Pasulka is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Her research examines miraculous events within Catholic history to new religious movements. American Cosmic: Religion, UFOs, and Technology (Oxford University Press 2019) emerged from her research into technology and media. She is widely published, recently in Tank, Vox, Vice, and is a featured speaker at conferences, on podcasts, radio, and television. Memorable engagements include the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, a keynote speech at Rice University, and regular presentations at Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research. She is lead investigator on an ongoing study of Catholic manuscripts about saints, levitation, and bilocation, in partnership with The Vatican Secret Archive.Whitley Strieber is the author of over forty works of both fiction and nonfiction. His books The Wolfen, The Hunger, Communion, and The Coming Global Superstorm (as The Day After Tomorrow) were all made into feature films. His sci-fi series Alien Hunter became the SyFy Channel series Hunters.

In 1985, Whitley had a close encounter of the third kind. It led to the writing of the epic bestseller

In 1985, Whitley had a close encounter of the third kind. It led to the writing of the epic bestseller Communion that changed the way the world thinks about this enigmatic experience. When he eventually realized that the experience could not be attributed to known factors, he began making an effort to recontact what he calls “the visitors.” The response has been ongoing for the past thirty years, and has been chronicled in Communion, Transformation, Majestic, and now A New World. Many people have encountered the visitors with Whitley, placing it among the most witnessed paranormal events in history.

His website, unknowncountry.com, is among the largest in the world dealing with paranormal phenomena and his podcast, Dreamland, has been produced weekly for twenty years.