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| − | h2. A Refutation of false Claims and Distortions by Korff
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| + | * [[The Meier Case and Its Spirituality, Deardorff, James, Wildfire Magazine, January 1989]] |
| − | | + | * [[A refutation of false claims and distortions by Korff, Deardorff, James, Internet, January 1996]] |
| − | h4.
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| − | By James W. Deardorff, Research Professor Emeritus, Oregon State University USA, (Revised Jan. 1999).
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| − | In his book, _Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story_ (Prometheus Press, 1995), Kal. K. Korff makes masses of claims against the reality of Eduard Meier�s contact experiences. Thus the reader who is unfamiliar with the research by Wendelle Stevens, Lee & Brit Elders, Thomas Welch, Jim Dilettoso and Gary Kinder on the Meier case, and unfamiliar with Korff�s background, may mistakenly think Korff�s claims are valid simply due to their sheer number. Since it requires several times the space to clearly refute a false or misleading claim as it does to make it, I can present a refutation of only a few sections of Korff�s book here, short of writing a book of my own. This will mostly involve the document called _The Talmud of Jmmanuel_ (TJ).
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| − | h3. Korff and the Talmud of Jmmanuel
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| − | *_The Talmud of Jmmanuel:___Introduction.*In his book, Korff spends 6 or 7 pages trying to debunk the TJ, which was discovered by a Greek-Orthodox ex-priest and Meier near Jerusalem in 1963 in the form of ancient Aramaic scrolls encased in resin. The existent TJ appears from my own analysis to be a translation of this original Aramaic writing from which the Gospel of Matthew was derived. The TJ is extremely heretical for Christianity, however, indicating that Jmmanuel, alias Jesus, survived the crucifixion and later traveled and taught much in Anatolia and on eastward to northern India and the Kashmir region. Hence it is easy to understand the intense motivation some persons would have to discredit it and Meier at any cost. I�ve chosen this topic to sample in detail, without skipping any ostensibly relevant charges made by Korff on it, since my own book, _Celestial Teachings_ (CT), investigates the same document. CT explores the matter in depth and finds some 200 reasons why the TJ was the source for the Gospel of Matthew rather than being any hoax based upon that gospel. Both the TJ and CT are available from Wild Flower Press, P.O. Box 2875, Rapid City, SD 57709-2875; telephone: (800) 366-0264.
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| − | On p. 36 Korff says that "Billy Meier himself wrote a book titled the Talmud Immanuel which was released in the United States by Wild Flower Press." This is not correct, however, since Meier was its co-discoverer, custodian of the translations and editor, not its author. Further, the TJ�s correct spelling is _Talmud of Jmmanuel_, where the reason why the TJ spells "Immanuel" beginning with a "J" and not an "I" is explained by Meier in the TJ�s introductory pages. It may be surprising to learn how strong a case can be made that Jesus� name had originally been Immanuel before he was renamed by Paul � see _Celestial Teachings_, pp. 29-31, 87-89.
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| − | On the same page Korff says that I became "a believer and enthusiastic supporter of Meier�s messianic claims." I would like to correct any misimpression this may give that I support Meier as being, or trying to be, any sort of savior figure or deliverer � a messiah of that sort. If he is in any sense an "anointed one," it is by virtue of having been singled out by certain extraterrestrials (ETs) as being their particular or primary contactee. This is what the evidence shows; the primary investigators of his ET experiences in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s (Wendelle Stevens, ) could see no way that his main UFO photographs and ET experiences, supported by many witnesses, could have been hoaxed. Their research has been open-minded, intensive and forthright, in contrast, as we shall see, with that of Korff.
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| − | Part of the mission Meier has taken on for himself is to disseminate the TJ, or the true teachings of Jmmanuel, to interested persons. In so doing, however, Meier has gone out of his way to avoid becoming a leader of a large cult, in actively discouraging persons outside of his small group of supporters at Schmidr�ti, Switzerland, from promoting his story in any grandiose manner or even through public seminars. And he has long discouraged visitors to Schmidr�ti from meeting him. He may be contrasted, for example, with an alleged contactee named Rael (see his _The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials_), who has actively recruited a following of several tens of thousands despite any supportive evidence.
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| − | It should be mentioned that if the ETs who contacted Meier had instead chosen a different person and allowed _him_ some 18 different occasions to take rolls of daytime color photographs of their craft, that different person, provided he were to go public, would evoke the same desperate attempts by persons like Korff to discredit him as have been directed against Meier.
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| − | *Judas Iscariot*. Taking Korff�s claims, charges and innuendo against the TJ in order of occurrence, we start with the topic of Judas Iscariot. The TJ was allegedly written by that disciple, and in the TJ one learns that a _different_ person, Juda Ihariot, son of a prominent Pharisee, was the one who pointed Jmmanuel out to the arresting party and soon afterwards suffered remorse and committed suicide. On pp. 78-79 of his book, Korff confuses the issue in an interview with Bernadette Brand, Meier inner-group member, by not distinguishing the two names. Because the two names sounded much alike, a chief priest, according to the TJ, was able to initiate a persisting rumor that it was Judas, not Juda, who had betrayed Jmmanuel and then committed suicide, thereby succeeding in casting doubt on Jmmanuel�s teachings if one of his own disciples could not accept them, while sparing Juda�s Pharisaic father of embarrassment. We don�t know if Korff quoted Brand correctly when she allegedly said, "No. This is another Judas Iscariot" in response to Korff�s question of whether the TJ�s author was the same Judas Iscariot who the Gospels say betrayed Jesus. She might instead have said, "No; this is another, Juda Ihariot." We don�t know if Korff could discern the difference between the two names if she had mentioned Juda Ihariot, or whether Brand herself for expedience did equate the two names in replying to Korff. What we do know is that Korff did not bother to state in his book the different name of the betrayer given within the TJ, and instead left the issue in a needlessly confused state for the unknowing reader.
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| − | Interestingly, the TJ�s matter-of-fact presentation of Judas Iscariot as designated writer among the twelve, and a different person as betrayer � Juda, an acquaintance of Jmmanuel and the disciples � solves some five problems concerning Judas Iscariot, ranging from major to minor, that New Testament scholars have had to grapple with in the past century. (See my book, _The Problems of __New Testament Gospel Origins,_ Mellen Research University Press (Edwin Mellen Press), 1992, chapter 6).
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| − | *Some obvious errors of Korff*. On p. 78 Korff says that the TJ "can be obtained in the form of another book called _Celestial __Teachings: The Talmud Immanuel_ by Dr. James Deardorff." This is incorrect on two counts: (a) My book contains various verses and passages extracted from the TJ, but does not begin to set the whole TJ into print; and (b) the subtitle of CT is quite different from what Korff stated.
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| − | On p. 78 Korff states that Jmmanuel was a Pleiadean, whereas the TJ indicates that it was Jmmanuel�s father who was a Pleiadean, his mother being (earthling) Mary. Although this error is corrected in a following sentence, where it is his father who is mentioned as being the Pleiadean, a second error is immediately incurred in that Korff names Jmmanuel�s father as Plejos rather than as Gabriel. Instead, according to what Meier learned, Plejos was a Pleiadean leader who prepared the overall plans for Jmmanuel to be procreated. Later in the same sentence, however, Korff then corrects "Plejos" to "Gabriel." It is evident that Korff had not read the TJ; if he had, he would have no excuse for having become so confused.
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| − | Regarding the spelling of "Pleiadean," I should explain that I prefer the "ean" ending, in analogy to "Archimedean," rather than the "ian" ending, which, however, is more prevalent. And it may be mentioned that Meier has recently been told by the "Pleiadeans" that (a) they are not really from the Pleiades but are only from that direction from here in our galaxy, some 80 light years beyond the Pleiades, and (b) this is in a region whose dimensions are slightly "shifted" in time. Earlier, Meier had been told only (b). They told him they should now be called "Plejarens".
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| − | *An irrelevancy*. On pp. 78-79 Korff expounds on why the Feb. 3rd date that Jmmanual was born on, according to what Meier was told during his contact experiences, and the Feb. 3rd date of Meier�s own birth, represents an irrelevant agreement. If this is so irrelevant, why then did Korff spend a paragraph speaking of it?
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| − | *Rashid�s translation work done in Baghdad?* On p. 79 Korff perpetuates an apparent error of Randolph Winters� book _The Pleiadian __Mission,_ though a minor error, in stating that Rashid did his translating of the TJ from Aramaic into German while living in Baghdad. Instead, the TJ�s attachments imply that the ex-priest continued to live in Jerusalem while secretly working on the TJ translation until around 1974, while Meier had already by 1970 returned to Switzerland to raise his family. He did not hear from Rashid again until September, 1974, when he learned that the TJ translation project had been discovered by authorities, causing Rashid to flee with the scrolls and translations and members of his family to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Only after they were flushed out of the camp by a devastating Israeli aerial bombardment in June of 1974 did Rashid and family flee to Baghdad. From there he mailed Meier his letter and the TJ translations (there had not been time to salvage the scrolls from the raging fires, too). However, Rashid was assassinated in Baghdad in 1976, according to what Meier was told by Semjase, his primary Pleiadean contactor, as conveyed in Meier's Contact Report #66."
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| − | *Were there no TJ scrolls?* On p. 79 Korff states that "what ...people who espouse the _Talmud Immanuel_ as being real ignore is the fact that there are _no original scrolls_." However, this is not true, because the fact that the original scrolls were lost or destroyed in 1974 and are no longer available is made clear in the letter-copy attachment at the end of the TJ, in Meier�s Contact Notes, and has certainly been emphasized by myself and Randy Winters in our writings and talks. This is the primary reason New Testament scholars typically supply as to why they cannot be made interested in the TJ � there are no originals of which they could check the Aramaic writing and send out to labs for radiocarbon dating analyses. And so this is an important reason why the TJ has not come to the attention of the general public. But all clues point to there having been a set of original TJ scrolls before their destruction.
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| − | *How ancient is the best Bible?* Next on p. 79 Korff implies that the Bible is backed up by original, ancient texts and thus has a preferred status over the TJ, which has just the German, and later English, translations to show for itself. However, the earliest complete texts of the New Testament gospels do not date earlier than the 4th century, and only scattered fragments to the 2nd century. Moreover, patriarchal evidence indicates that the Gospel of Matthew had been the first gospel written, and written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This text never survived. All we have received, centuries later, are Greek transcriptions of other earlier transcriptions. Further, according to this patriarchal evidence, which the TJ supports, the earliest Gospel written in Greek (Mark) was itself a translation (and abbreviation) of Matthew, with the Gospels of Luke and John being still further removed. Korff needs to be informed that an original to the New Testament does not exist.
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| − | The TJ, on the other hand, is in much better shape than this, having experienced only one translation leading to its 1978 version, which is still available for scholarly study from Meier in Switzerland. Later Meier gave the TJ an editorial update to correct errors and incorporate some unrevealed "code" at the behest of his ET contactors, which led to the 1992 German-English version of the TJ published by Wild Flower Press. The two versions agree in their essential content. Revently a 1996 edition of the TJ became available, in which numerous errors in the previous English translation have been corrected.
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| − | *Were the TJ scrolls conveniently lost?*In the same paragraph, Korff states that the scrolls "have never been found," and then goes on to complain that they were "conveniently lost" by Rashid. All this is a self-contradicting denial that avoids mention of the available information. This information indicates that Rashid and other members of his family who had fled with him, while hiding out in a refugee camp in Lebanon, had to again flee for their lives after a large section of the camp was burned down, according to Rashid�s letter, by the Israeli military. They barely managed to escape, but Rashid had no time to retrieve the sorolls from their hiding place to take them with him. So it cannot be said that Rashid simply "lost" the scrolls, especially if he was correct in stating that the particular Israeli raid in question was conducted for the express purpose of eliminating himself and the scrolls rather than as punitive action against Palestinian guerillas.
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| − | Thus, Korff does not begin to divulge what the story is that underlies the TJ�s discovery, translation and loss or destruction. At the time Rashid wrote Meier to tell him about this in September of 1974, he didn�t know if the TJ scrolls had burned up in the fires raging in the refugee camp, or had been recovered by Israelis. Later, Meier was told by his Pleiadean contactors (in Contact Report #7) that the scrolls had been destroyed in the conflagration. This loss was in no way a "convenience," not even to Rashid�s security, as he was nevertheless assassinated two years later, from what Meier learned from Semjase, because of his having been the TJ�s translator and a witness to the reality of the original scrolls. Thus Korff�s cavalier dismissal of all this represents a total distortion. Consistent with this brutal treatment Rashid received, one may learn that Meier himself has lived through some 13 assassination attempts since 1975.
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| − | A newspaper search reveals the most probable Israeli raid responsible for the destruction of the TJ scrolls, in my opinion, to have been among the series of June 18-20, 1974, in which several refugee camps in southern Lebanon were severely bombed. This was ostensibly in retaliation for a guerrilla incursion from Lebanon into northern Israel on June 13th in which three Israelis and all four guerrillas involved died. The raids on June 20th are most suspect, for of the four refugee camps near the coast that were struck on that day, one of them � Ein al Haluwa, some 35 miles north of Israel, suffered heavy civilian casualties: at least 12 dead and another 40 injured. Palestinians interviewed in Beirut had not expected the raids to last as long as three days (_New York Times_, June 21, 1974, p. 2), and the response does seem too highly escalated, too extensive and too long delayed (5-7 days) to have been just a retaliation for the June 13th guerrilla raid in which the guerrillas responsible had already been killed or died on the spot. _The __Washington Post_ of June 24th stated, "Contrary to published speculation, the highest officials of the U.S. government were both astonished and outraged by the overkill of Israel�s revenge last week against Palestinian bases, endangering fragile peace hopes for the Mideast." And as noted by Senator Abzourezk of S. Dakota (in the _Congressional Record_ of June 21, vol. 120, No. 91), this revenge involved the death of many civilians and non-terrorists in the refugee camps. [See Fig. 1|dearf01.gif] (in rear) for locations of these bombed refugee camps.
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| − | Moreover, the Israeli Information Minister himself offered the explanation, which would ordinarily be politically embarrassing, that they had purposely delayed their retaliatory response partly on account of President Nixon�s visit to the Mideast during June 10-18 (_New York Times,_ June 20th). If Rashid was correct, however, along with this analysis, the Israeli intelligence on Rashid�s general whereabouts became available only towards the end of Nixon�s Mideast trip. Thus the attack to destroy the _Talmud of Jmmanuel_ scrolls could be conveniently ascribed to a delayed retaliation for the June 13th guerrilla incursion, and the political embarrassment for the "delay" could be gladly accepted so that the real purpose behind these particular raids could remain hidden. The political embarrassment in mind here is Israel�s admission that it timed its raids so as to minimize the discomfiture to the visiting president of the U.S. � their key ally and advocate for financial support.
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| − | Thus if certain high Israeli officials had learned that Rashid had fled to a coastal refugee camp with the scrolls, they may have taken this opportunity to eliminate their problem, while explaining it to be a new policy of vigorous pre-emptive strikes against Palestinian guerrilla organizations (_New York Times,_ June 21, p. 1). Israeli intelligence may not have known for sure which one of several refugee camps Rashid had been heading for or seen at, so several camps were attacked; or, additional camps were attacked so that no explanation would be needed as to why one particular camp � the one where Rashid�s presence may have been determined � was bombarded. These raids took place less than three weeks after Yitzhak Rabin replaced Golda Meir as prime minister of Israel and Shimon Peres succeeded Moshe Dayan as minister of defense.
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| − | A second possibility for the raid in question might seem to be the earlier Israeli bombardment of seven refugee camps on May 16-17, causing especially great damage at Nabatiyeh; that camp was all but destroyed. However, this is still further removed from the September date of Rashid�s letter, and Israel�s swift retaliation had come within one day of the provocation. This provocation consisted of guerrillas holding 90 young Israeli students hostage for a day at Maalot, Israel, with eight of them plus eight adults being killed by the guerrillas before they in turn were killed. So in this case the retaliation, being prompt and not uncharacteristically escalatory of Israel, tends to eliminate this possibility.
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| − | A third possibility is that a bombing raid upon a "tent encampment" at Rashaya el-Fukhar in S.E. Lebanon on Aug. 9th (_London __Times,_ Aug. 10, 1974, p. 5) was responsible for flushing out Rashid and destroying the scrolls (see Fig. 1, circled x in southeast, near the Syrian border). The stated provocation three days earlier had consisted of terrorists from Lebanon abducting four or five of the many workmen (Syrian Druze) employed by Israel along the Lebanese-Golan Heights border to construct a security fence. There are some questionable aspects about the short news story of the provocation, which stemmed from Tel Aviv and for which I could find no independent Lebanese confirmation. However, Rashaya el-Fukhar was not one of the sites designated as refugee camps, which were U.N. sponsored, and unless Rashid was in error in calling it a "refugee camp," it can be ruled out.
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| − | There are no other candidate raids between Aug. 9th and Sept. 14th, the date when Rashid posted his letter from Baghdad. So in summary, it is consistent with Rashid�s letter that within three months prior to posting it there had been at least one series of Israeli raids (June 18-20th) that could have caused the destruction of the TJ scrolls and for which the official explanation for the raid is not at all convincing. See [Fig. 2|dearf02.htm] for a chronological summary. It cannot be overemphasized how serious a threat the TJ was for Christianity and also for Judaism when still in the form of original Aramaic scrolls which could prove their own authenticity, and how likely it was for leaked knowledge of its existence to have provoked a violent, immoral reaction in expectation that the desired ends would justify the means.
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| − | *Why is the TJ heretical for Judaism as well as Christianity?*One reason it is heretical is that in it Jmmanuel teaches that the Jewish God (Yahweh or El) was not the true Creator God (The Great Spirit or "the Creation"), but was an advanced human or humanoid whom we would nowadays identify as an ET alien. This of course opens the door for interpretation of angels as aliens, sky chariots & pillars of cloud or fire as UFOs, and similar identification of other elements of Old Testament Merkabah mysticism � a scenario unacceptable to mainstream Judaism and blasphemous to it.
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| − | Another reason is that in the TJ, Jmmanuel expresses the opinion that Israel should not be considered a chosen race, and that the land of Israel was acquired from others through abominable, unjust wars.
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| − | A third reason consists of Jmmanuel�s teachings on reincarnation and karma, which concepts are just as repugnant to mainstream Judaism as they are to formal Christianity (and Islam as well).
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| − | A fourth reason that could well have most influenced an Israeli political leader such as Rabin, for example, is that if analysis of the TJ�s Aramaic writing and radiocarbon dating of its scrolls were to be allowed that would prove its genuineness, the TJ�s contents would call into question the veracity of the Bible, especially the new Testament, and undermine Americans� belief in Israel as the Holy Land, thus leading to eventual loss of U.S. support for Israel.
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| − | Reasons for maintaining highest governmental secrecy about the true purpose behind the raid responsible of course entail the foregoing reasons, which bear upon the very justification for Israel�s existence. Also, no government officials would wish any of their more barbaric actions to be known to their people or to other members of the government. Hence such actions had to be covered up at all costs.
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| − | *Is the TJ worth nothing without the originals?* On p. 80 Korff claims that the existence of the translated TJ is "evidence of nothing" without the original sorolls. However, one may analyze the translations, study how overwhelmingly improbable it is that they could be any hoax, and therefore find it extremely plausible that the TJ�s originals indeed once existed. What Korff should have said is that, if the burden of proof is upon Meier to show beyond any doubt that the TJ is genuine, then without possessing the original scrolls he is unable to do so.
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| − | *The TJ�s uniqueness.* On p. 80 Korff states that the TJ "is not unique as a document." This is false, since anyone who reads the TJ will immediately note its many unique narrations, as well as its unique yet natural solutions to scores and scores of New Testament Gospel problems, both major and minor, many of which have befuddled New Testament scholars for centuries, and others of which are brought to light for the first time by the TJ�s text. Simply because the TJ supports the numerous traditions indicating that Jesus survived the crucifixion does not at all mean that it does not exhibit unique features throughout. Its narration on how Jmmanuel survived the crucifixion, for example, is unique among the 10 or so scenarios various independent scholars of the past three centuries have proposed to explain Jesus� appearances in the flesh to his disciples after his crucifixion and entombment (see my book, _Jesus in India,_ International Scholars Publications, 1994, chapter 6).
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| − | Did Jesus hide in India? On p. 80 Korff claims the TJ says that after Jesus reached India "he remained in hiding." Korff gives Winter�s book as the reference. (Of course, the TJ never refers to the man in question as Jesus, but rather Jmmanuel.) However, Winters says no such thing, but indicates what Meier had learned from Rashid�s browsing of the end section of the TJ scrolls: Jmmanuel had continued with his teachings even in northern India and the Kashmir area, as well as having married and raised a family there.
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| − | *Kersten�s book _Jesus Lived in India._*Also on p. 80 Korff mentions the book Jesus Lived in India by German author and investigator, Holger Kersten, and exclaims, "In truth, Meier had even read Kersten�s book!" Here Korff is strongly implying that Kersten�s investigations and rendering of the Jesus-in-lndia traditions gave Meier the idea of hoaxing this theme into the TJ. What Korff failed to mention, however, is that Kersten�s book first came out (in German) only in 1983, whereas the TJ first appeared in print in 1978. Thus if Meier read Kersten�s book it was years after the TJ was published. This is an example of a flagrantly false innuendo by Korff. [See Fig. 3|dearf03.gif] for the locations where "Jesus," along with Judas-Thomas and mother Mary, had stopped during their travels along the Silk Road acoording to the various traditions.
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| − | *The anonymous Swiss scholar, Ted Auerbach.* On pp. 80-81 Korff states that the "typewritten translations" by Rashid received by Meier were analyzed by several unnamed scholars in Germany and Switzerland, and that they "decided _not to publish their results.__"_ Korff did not name the source of the letter that disclosed this piece of information, noting that this source wished to remain anonymous because the conclusions were negative. However, the points that Korff goes on to mention are the same as those which Prof. Ted Auerbach of Gebenstorf, Switzerland, has discussed with me in correspondence (Auerbach Itrs. of Feb. 5, 1988; April 16, 1988; Sept. 29, 1988; Feb. 2, 1989 and March 31, 1989). In a letter of May 7, 1996, he set me a copy of his June 23, 1980, summary report, which is what Korff quotes from in his book, and openly wrote me about its background. So there is no need now to keep Auerbach�s name under wraps. The international director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) has confirmed that Auerbach is indeed the "Swiss scientist" referred to by Korff (Walt Andrus, telephone conversation of April 19, 1996). Auerbach is or was one of MUFON�s overseas consultants, and was Andrus�s key advisor in Switzerland regarding the Meier case. Thus Korff obtained the information he terms "confidential" (p. 107, footnote 54) from Andrus, and Andrus from Auerbach.
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| − | However, Auerbach actually did wish to have his summary report published. He had sent it to both Dr. J. Allen Hynek and to Andrus for possible publication by one or the other, though neither did publish it.
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| − | On pp. 80-82 Korff leads the reader to believe that the Swiss scientist (Auerbach) was a part of a group who together studied Meier�s evidence and claims. This is not the case, however, and Auerbach�s conclusions from his summary report, the bulk of which are stated verbatim on Korff�s pp. 81-83, represent his own individual views.
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| − | *Auerbach�s favorable remarks.* Possibly Korff wished to keep Auerbach�s name anonymous because the end of his summary report, not reproduced by Korff, mentions a piece of information favorable to Meier�s credibility: One morning Meier had driven with some members of his group to a wooded area where they witnessed a UFO light rising from behind the woods and disappearing over their heads. Several more documented UFO sightings connected with Meier�s contacts, as witnessed by a total of eight members of Meier�s group, are presented in Stevens�s UFO _Contact from the Pleiades: Preliminary Investigation __Report_ (pp. 127-143). These are reported in more detail by Stevens than is the event by Auerbach.
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| − | In his letters to me Auerbach has likewise indicated that he has noted realism in Meier�s contacts. In his letter of Feb. 2, 1989, Auerbach wrote: "A member of our UFO club gave me G. Kinder�s "Light Years", and I finished reading it a few days ago. The book convinced me that I had done some injustice to Meier. This goes to show that one should not judge a person until all the information is at hand. I always thought that Meier�s photos still were likely to be fakes. However, according to the book this is impossible. There may be some false ones among them, but the great majority of them, amounting to several hundred pictures, must be genuine. Also, I did not realize that he has had more than 100 meetings with Semjase."
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| − | Until 1988, Auerbach�s knowledge of the Meier case came only from materials loaned to him by Hans Jacob, an early member of Meier�s group of supporters who soon defected. (Jacob is mentioned frequently in Korff�s book.) Auerbach, who never bothered to meet Meier, kept Jacob�s materials for a month or two, took notes, and then returned the materials to Jacob, who had asked Auerbach to advise him whether or not to remain a member of Meier�s group. He evidently advised him in the negative.
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| − | *Is the TJ the New Testament verbatim?*On p. 82 Korff includes a portion of the summary report by Auerbach that states, "The Talmud turns out to be the _New Testament verbatim,_ but with a large number of _additions_ without much ethical value." This first part is not correct, as it is only the Gospel of Matthew that exhibits many parallel passages to the TJ, not the whole New Testament; and even about half of these passages, or more precisely, verses, are only poorly or moderately correlated with TJ verses (see _Celestial Teachings,_ pp. 227-232, 271-290).
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| − | As to the second half of the above quote, the task of Auerbach�s study should have been not just to see if a case could be made that the "additions" were inserted by a hoaxer, or even by Meier himself, but also to see if an even stronger case could not be made for the opposite: that the compiler of the Gospel of Matthew had had the TJ in front of him and omitted much from it, especially everything heretical at the time, when writing his gospel. _Celestial Teachings_ considers both angles, but indicates overwhelmingly that the latter is the case. It, moreover, analyzes what appear to have been the additions made to the TJ text by the compiler of Matthew and shows how those additions have been preferentially pointed out by various New Testament scholars, who had no knowledge of the TJ, as indeed being redactions or editorial additions, with still other redactions within Matthew having been overlooked by them but made apparent by the TJ text. There is no way that Meier�s limited fourth-grade education could have prepared him to be a literary hoaxer excelling over any known Gospel scholars, or could have allowed him to attract an unknown scholar of unsurpassed ability to create a literary hoax at all comparable to the TJ. However, Auerbach was proceeding on the assumption that the TJ had to be a hoax, and so did not consider this most important aspect of the problem. Korff in turn was apparently happy to accept and display Auerbach�s negative conclusions without investigating them for himself.
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| − | *The TJ�s new material � ethical or not?* As to the TJ�s "additions" not being of much ethical value, one should first notice that the compiler of Matthew had already accepted everything from the TJ�s narrations (up to the time of Jmmanuel�s entombment) that he found to be acceptable or ethical by early Christian standards, and thus ethical by today�s Christian standards. These include some genuine TJ verses concerning the Golden Rule and the advice to notice the log in your own eye before criticizing the speck in your brother�s eye. Therefore, that which the compiler excluded from Matthew, which appeared in the TJ, would almost by definition not pertain to ethical matters as seen in a Christian context. However, Jmmanuel�s teachings about the human spirit and karma do have a strong ethical content apparently overlooked by Auerbach, since these teachings emphasize taking responsibility for one�s actions and learning from one�s mistakes. These teachings could not have been included by the compiler of Matthew. Instead, the only "spirit" he wished to emphasize was the external "Holy Spirit," whose prominence traces back to Paul. And mistakes were to be categorized as sins, from which the sinner had to be "saved" if he were to make it to heaven. Hence these teachings of Jmmanuel did not get retained or show up in Matthew.
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| − | Another of Jmmanuel�s ethical teachings omitted by the compiler of Matthew, and overlooked by Auerbach, is the great guilt incurred by committing suicide. Since the TJ�s explanation for this involves the setback to the evolution of a human spirit that suicide causes, the compiler of Matthew omitted this also. Or else he omitted it from Matthew because the Christian tradition of Jesus dying on the cross means that his actions, if inexorably leading to a crucifixion he did not survive, were tantamount to suicide. One wonders if the prevalence of suicide in the Western world would be so great as it is today if the New Testament had contained teachings against suizide.
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| − | Other ethical teachings in the TJ, not in the Gospels, include the admonition to obey the natural law of the Creation. Thus the TJ does contain a goodly number of teachings of ethical value beyond those that managed to find their way into the Gospel of Matthew.
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| − | *How could Matthew show strong resemblance to the TJ?* In this same portion of Auerbach�s summary report it is stated (Korff, p. 82), "It is hard to see how the New Testament can agree _word for word_ with the original � apart from the added passages � if the latter [the original] lay buried all the time." Again I point out that the agreement is usually much less than perfect, and this agreement is not with the New Testament as a whole but with substantial portions of Matthew. Only about 17% of Matthew�s verses are very highly correlated with verses within the 1978 TJ (_Celestial Teachings_, p. 232). Even this degree of correlation can probably be attributed largely to the fact that Rashid, as an ex-priest, in translating the TJ into German must have had the German Bible in front of him as a guide in choosing optimal words in those TJ verses that closely resembled parallel verses in the German Bible.
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| − | To move on to the last part of Auerbach�s statement above, the same question restated is: "How could the Gospel of Matthew agree with substantial portions of the TJ if the latter lay buried until 1963?" It is not at all difficult to understand how the TJ likely came to be utilized by the writer of Matthew. One need only infer that Judas Iscariot, during the 40 years or so of his later life in India, had time to transcribe the TJ scrolls as well as continue to add to them, thus making an _additional_ set. According to what Meier learned from Rashid, after Jmmanuel�s death in the early 2nd century the TJ was carried back to Palestine by Jmmanuel�s elder son, Joseph, and his precious cargo would have included the transcribed copy of the TJ. (Alternatively, this Joseph may have made a transcription of the first portions of the TJ during his two-year trek from India to Palestine.) Once in the Palestinian region he no doubt released the transcription to some seemingly capable and honest person who knew of some of the true traditions concerning what Jmmanuel had taught, but eventually these transcriptions found their way into the hands of the compiler of Matthew in an unknown early church, perhaps the church in Antioch. The original TJ scrolls, however, Joseph encased in resin, if this had not been done earlier, and buried in the tombsite near Jerusalem where they were discovered some 19 centuries later. There is no shortage of possibilities of this nature on which one can only speculate, but which Auerbach either could not imagine or chose to ignore. In his letter to me of March 11, 1988, Auerbach mentioned that this whole question had struck him right from the beginning; it seems that his failure to have seen plausible solutions to it was a prime cause for his proceeding on the assumption that the TJ must be a hoax.
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| − | *The TJ and its editor�s writing style.*The same portion of Auerbach�s report claims, "both the additions and the letter to the priest are written in Mr. Meier�s characteristic style, containing all the errors in German also found in the Semjase manuscript." Some suggested examples of such errors are given further into the report, and are ones Auerbach has discussed with me in correspondence. The so-called "additional" TJ material, having no parallel in the Gospels, would have required the most editing by Meier because its content would have been strange for both Rashid and for Meier�s typist of 1974-1975 (Frau Krauer). Meier, however, had been educated in many ways by his earlier contacts with ETs named Sfath and Asket, and so was prepared for the TJ�s non-biblical revelations. Thus within his editing, some of Meier�s characteristic writing style would be expected to show through, including his use of Swiss-German. There should be no surprise that an editor�s writing style will show through sections of writing that he edits, and Meier probably felt that Rashid�s rendering of German in places left something to be desired. Such an imprint from Meier should then exhibit some positive correlation with Meier�s writing style within his Contact Notes, since the latter were all channeled through his mind before being set into typewriting.
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| − | *Were Meier�s Contact Notes and Rashid�s letter typed on the same typewriter?* This same portion of Auerbach�s summary report claims that "comparison shows the letter alleged to have been written by the priest in Iraq actually to have been typed on the _same typewriter_ as the Semjase manuscript" (Korff, p. 82). (In this and preceding paragraphs where I quote Korff, the italics within quotes stem from Korff.)
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| − | The "Semjase manuscript" refers to Meier�s Contact Notes, in which Semjase was the primary ET spokesperson. To check out Auerbach�s claim, I have obtained the first four pages each of copies of the German version of the Notes of Contacts 2, 61, 76 and 150, dated Feb. 3, 1975; July 29, 1976; May 23, 1977 and Oct. 19, 1978, respectively. These l have compared against the Rashid letter-copy in the rear of the TJ. What Auerbach noticed is that both Rashid�s letter and the Contact Notes up until about 1978 were written on typewriters having the same kind of German typeface. (Meier remembers his typewriter as having been a Remington.) This was astute observation on the part of Auerbach; however from there he apparently assumed without further checking that the same typewriter was involved in both cases. My checks, however, reveal four particular distinguishing peculiarities between the two typewriters:
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| − | (a) With the typewriter used by Rashid, the top of the "9" lies slightly too low, as seen in two out of two occurrences. In the three German Contact Notes, on the other hand, it lies at the proper height in all 10 instances available for inspection.
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| − | (b) With the typewriter used by Meier, the lower-case "w" tends to fall too low � both its base and its top. Judging from the position of its base relative to the average baseline of neighboring letters, in 61 out of the 89 occurrences in the materials on hand the w�s base was positioned 8% or more too low; in 27 more of these 89 it also fell too low to a lesser extent (within an estimated uncertainty of 2%). With Rashid�s typewriter, on the other hand, the position of the base of the "w" agreed with that of the baseline within a small uncertainty of estimation in 31 of 34 occurrences; it lay detectably below the baseline on only 3 of the 34 occurrences. This distinction is quite noticeable, and indicates that two different typewriters were involved. See Figs. 4 and 5.[ (Fig.4)|dearf04.gif][(Fig. 5)|dearf05.gif]
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| − | (c) In 3 out of 7 times where "ur" appears in the Rashid letter, the two letters lie so close together that their bases touch or merge; see Fig. 5, lowest line for an example. This does not occur in any of the three particular Contact Notes examined, where I counted 75 occurrences of "ur" properly spaced. A reason for this to have occurred in Rashid�s letter and not in Meier�s typing is that the "u" typically gets struck by the right index finger and the "r" by the left, so that inexact coordination can cause the two keys to strike too closely together in succession at times � a problem solved by later computer word processors. The Contact Notes, however, were typed by Meier using only one finger of his single (right) hand (W. Stevens, _Message from the Pleiades,_ vol. 1, p. 7; Stevens names five witnesses to this remarkably fast typing). Thus each key is then typed after the other within a similar small time interval, with no preferential tendency for any two particular letters to almost clash together.
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| − | (d) In the typescript of the Rashid letter the left side of its "�" is very weak 12 out of 12 times (see Fig. 5, 3rd line in German, for an example), and also the lower-left side of its "�" 7 out of 8 times. If not a deficiency in the functioning or structure of those keys on that particular typewriter, the flaw could similarly have resulted from Rashid failing to strike those particular keys hard enough, as they lie at the far right of the Swiss-German keyboard where the little finger is typically used (see [Fig. 6|dearf06.gif]). This peculiarity does not appear in the Contact Notes.
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| − | Since noting these differences, I have obtained a report from a forensic document examiner and typewriter expert, Dr. Philip Bouffard of Mentor, Ohio. Among a few additional differences he noted is that the "F" falls noticeably too low in the Rashid letter (this occurs 13 times out of 13 occurrences), see [Fig. 7|dearf07.gif]. On the other hand, out of the 27 occurrences of "F" in the Contact Notes I possess, the problem never occurs. This also strongly suggests that two different typewriters were involved. From the characteristics of the typeface, Bouffard concluded that a Monarch portable Remington using elite (Setag S7) typeface with a 2.1mm spacing was a likely candidate for one or both typewriters. It was first manufactured in 1965, with the typeface being made in Bassecourt, Switzerland.
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| − | In summary, the charge that the same typewriter was used in typing both the Contact Notes and Rashid�s letter collapses under close scrutiny. One does not need to be a typewriter expert, or to possess originals of the documents, to notice the differences I have discussed indicating that two different typewriters were involved.
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| − | One may also include in the comparison a copy of a letter of agreement between Rashid and Meier dated Aug. 4, 1963, which Meier managed to save over the years. The agreement provides for Rashid to retain custody of the scrolls, and Meier the custody of the German translations produced by Rashid. The typewriter used therein has a slightly different typeface than that used in the Contact Notes or in Rashid�s letter, as is best seen by comparing the J�s. Of interest is that in this 1963 agreement Rashid�s signature appears readily identifiable as coming from the same hand as in his 1974 letter, though differences in detail are also apparent. In particular, the latter signature is somewhat less well articulated than the earlier signature, as is to be expected with increasing age.
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| − | *Why would Meier�s ETs flatter him?* Moving further into Auerbach�s report, we find its mention that in the Contact Notes Semjase makes a point of bestowing lavish praise upon Meier at times. By omitting the fact that Meier just as frequently objected to this praise, which remarks were also faithfully reproduced in the Contact Notes, Auerbach was implying that Meier had inserted this within invented conversations to make himself look good. This is not to say that Meier does not indeed deserve much praise for having agreed to be the Pleiadeans� primary contactee � one who would speak out � and thereby receive continued abuse from ufologists.
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| − | Also omitted in the report was any discussion of a very plausible reason why Meier�s contactors would have spoken to him in excessively flattering terms: in order that their contacts not force unreceptive people to believe what their belief systems cannot tolerate; namely, that ETs or aliens further evolved than we exist in our vicinity, are aware of us and have interacted with selected persons. That is, aliens purposely include speech, actions and items in their contacts that can be used to discredit their contactee and/or undermine the supportive evidence they may have allowed him to accumulate concerning their existence. If the positive evidence supporting the reality of the contacts is ignored, the disinformation fed in by alien contactors can then give critics with an anthropocentric mindset an excuse to maintain their existing beliefs without "going crazy." Although this would mean that the Pleiadeans, being the ETs in consideration, are more intelligent than their skeptical human detractors and can stay several jumps ahead of them, this kind of strategy should not be so surprising if they are thousands or tens of thousands (or millions) of years more evolved than we, and are ethical enough not to force any sudden mental chaos upon society. This thought seems to be a giant stumbling block for negative skeptics � that UFO aliens would be smarter or more knowledgeable than we are � causing skeptics at times to utilize ridicule to deny observations rather than face up to reality. The ethic of not forcing skeptics to believe what they simply cannot accept as real appears to be a higher one than the ethic of never telling a lie or never being deceptive, when the disinformation is presented within a likely context of requiring us to "sift out the wheat from the chaff."
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| − | At various points within the Contact Notes, Semjase does come right out and tell Meier that they regard the individual�s free will as paramount, and also that the worst result that they must not allow to happen is for it all to be turned into another religion or cult, with either them being considered gods and goddesses or Meier becoming a world renowned guru. By feeding in some semi-obvious disinformation to what they told Meier, which would be incorporated into his Contact Notes and later seen by detractors as egoism or dumb invented remarks on the part of the contactee, the Pleiadeans and other ETs would be fulfilling all these objectives. (A person can be said to be subject to a cult, or to an unnecessary loyalty, when he unquestioningly accepts what the cult leader says as truth. If a person has to question the veracity of each statement made by a source, that person obviously is not under the cultic influence of that source.) Neither Auerbach nor Korff mentions this explanation, which seems evident enough in retrospect. Do detractors like Korff really think that aliens who can efficiently "get from there to here," and make their UFO craft perform wondrous maneuvers we can only gasp at, wouldn�t also be smarter, more knowledgeable, more experienced and more clever than we ourselves after studying us for many years?
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| − | *Have any others seen Semjase?* The same report of Auerbach (Korff, p. 82) then interjects the sentence: "No one, incidentally, including his wife and children, has ever seen Semjase." To be true, this sentence should have read, "No earth human, except Meier, has ever seen and recognized Semjase as far as we know, with an exception reported by Stevens" (in his _Preliminary __Investigation Report,_ pp. 177-179). But consider the erroneous impression this leaves by failure to mention that on one occasion four adults besides Meier�s wife and children had a daytime sighting of Semjase�s beamship.
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| − | Until about the time that Meier�s wife, Kalliope, had her sighting, she had been upset and confused or disbelieving about it all. But afterwards she told the Elders this (from _UFO____ Contact from the Pleiades,_ vol. 2, by Lee and Brit Elders, Genesis III Publishing, p. 45, as translated into English):
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| − | "In June of 1976, seven people were waiting with me for Billy to come back from a contact. He came and said to us "go with me to another point." We went and waited. It was daylight and one of the boys told us to look up into the sky. It was our first sighting in the day. The ship was very big but got smaller as it rose, and I clearly saw the detail around the top of the ship. I saw little ports, and the whole UFO seemed to be light. The children, three other women and one man saw it, too. There are many lights going across the sky at night and I cannot be sure what they are, but this I am sure was the ship of Semjase. I didn�t believe it because I had never talked about UFO�s or seen one. But after this day I believe.
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| − | "Now the UFO�s are secondary, the information from the Pleiadians come first. We have to learn to live together man and woman, different countries, different races and different worlds."
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| − | This information has been available since 1983, and for Korff to omit it from his book represents unconscionable reporting. Being a daytime witness to a UFO that Meier had previously been informed by Semjase she would expose to them is certainly relevant information indicating that the UFO�s pilot (Semjase) existed. Although Korff lists names of 21 witnesses who saw UFOs related to Meier�s contacts (Korff, p. 307), and Kalliope is included, he falsely implies (p. 306) that these were all just nighttime observations "of blobs of light."
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| − | *Alien contact strategy.* The same portion of Auerbach�s summary goes on to say (Korff, p. 82), "The manuscript [Meier�s Contact Notes] makes it abundantly clear that she [Semjase] wishes to confine her contacts strictly to Mr. Meier alone. Certainly a convenient wish." Again, the report omitted other relevant material within the contact Notes in which Semjase explained to Meier why they had to maintain this policy, since Meier quizzed her about it several times and asked permission to bring one or two others along on more than one occasion. Her explanation for this involved their need to avoid making their contacts so well attested that many people would abruptly be forced to believe in their existence before they were mentally and psychologically prepared to do so. Failure to provide this rather evident possible explanation along with the facts of alien contact can create a very misleading picture. And again, the report�s use of "convenient" here implies through innuendo that it was convenient for a hoaxer to have invented the contactconfinement theme, while ignoring the likelihood that it was part of the ETs� strategy.
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| − | *Pseudo-science.* The summary report continues with the mention of various statements Meier was told by Semjase, and which therefore appear in his verbatim Contact Notes, that sound like silly science or pseudo-science, at least to most scientists. Apparently, Auerbach and Korff as well believe that what ETs tell or show their contactees/abductees has to be truth and nothing but the truth! That is quite an assumption for an investigator or ufologist to make, and as has just been pointed out, seems unjustified.
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| − | If the ET strategy already outlined here is at all correct, the ETs would need to take special care that scientists as a whole did not catch on to the reality of the alien presence before they and the rest of the populace are psychologically prepared for it. This is because the consensual scientific view of matters dictates whether or not the news media and government bodies will accept an event as real news or as a topic deserving of being ignored or ridiculed. Thus the ETs involved need only supply their contactees and abductees with a certain fraction of pseudo-scientific nonsense, which their recipients will likely accept as true, in order that mainstream science remain oblivious to the reality of the situation. For more on this, see my paper "Possible Extraterrestrial Strategy for Earth" in the _Quart. J. Royal Astronomical Soc.,_ 27, pp. 94-101 (1986).
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| − | An ET strategy of including some disinformation is an obvious alternative to the possibility that it is the contactee, or abductee, who is not always telling the truth. Yet neither Korff nor Auerbach seems to have considered it.
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| − | However, it is not always possible for us to say with any certainty which statements from ETs are disinformation, and which are not but only seem so because of our highly limited scientific understanding, which frequently needs revision as science progresses. Think of how many ways our science has been updated in the past century, then try to imagine how many important further updates and totally new revisions and additions will have occurred by 50 centuries from now, assuming our civilization survives. Some ETs could be millions of years ahead of us in evolution.
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| − | *Meier�s time-travel adventures.* Korff then quotes Auerbach�s report as saying that Meier "had had himself transported back in time to Jerusalem" (Korff, p. 83). This is in need of correction: Meier did not order or request the trip; rather, it was bestowed upon him by his ET contactor at the time (1956), namely Asket, as a part of his ET schooling that he had accepted. Only due to a few respected scientists in the past decade having concluded that time travel may not be inconceivable after all must its possibility now be taken seriously by UFO investigators and critics alike. See _Science,_ vol. 274 (11 Oct., 1996), p. 202, for a recent example. On the particular time-travel trip in question, Meier, along with one other, was said to have been taken close to Jerusalem, near Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, to meet Jmmanuel and some of his disciples in the year A.D. 32. This evidently relates to the scene in Matthew 22:1.
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| − | *Did Jmmanuel praise Meier?* The report then states, "The Lord listens patiently to a great deal of religious philosophy on the part of Mr. Meier, and duly admires his high intelligence." Here, to start with, it is misleading to have called Jmmanuel "the Lord," as both at this point and in the TJ he made it clear through prophetic insight that he was not what he has come to be known by with the Christian title of "Lord" � a divine person, or son of God or God.
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| − | It is further misleading for Auerbach to have implied that Meier did most of the talking while Jmmanuel mostly listened. During this past-time encounter with Jmmanuel, Meier spoke 91 sentences, including many questions directed to Jmmanuel, while Jmmanuel spoke 253 sentences. This is the opposite of what Auerbach implied.
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| − | Out of these 253 sentences, few relate to Meier�s intelligence. One did speak of Meier as "wise" or "fast-thinking," and this was in response to Meier�s recognition and commendation of Jmmanuel�s precognitive abilities. In one other sentence Jmmanuel told Meier he was very educated in spirit, which is not the same, however, as mental intelligence. In another Jmmanuel told Meier that he was more discerning than he had expected, which, however, refers only to an unknown expectation. At one point he told Meier that Meier properly caught his meaning, though this is canceled by his telling Meier at another point that Meier had not interpreted him right. And once he was surprised that Meier could conceive qualitatively of how it was possible for him (Jmmanuel) to prophesy far into the future. At most, this represents only two or three sentences of "high intelligence" praise, which, however, do not seem undeserved, out of the 253, and so does not begin to justify the prominence the report assigned to it. A less biased report would have discussed some of the substance of the conversations. This actual substance included discussions of how the religion (or philosophy) Jmmanuel initiated went sadly astray from his teachings, and discussion of the degree of development of Meier�s spirit relative to Jmmanuel�s, a topic Meier was naturally interested in.
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| − | *Meier�s editing errors.*Finally, what Korff presents from Auerbach�s summary report speaks of Meier�s frequent use of characteristic mistakes in the German language. This was meant to imply that the same mistakes occur in both the German TJ and the Contact Notes and/or Rashid�s letter, with Meier supposedly having hoaxed them all. Now, as noted before, the appearance of Meier�s personal style should not be unexpected within the Contact Notes, since they are his own reproduction, through a rapid form of technologically channeled "automatic writing" from the Pleiadeans, of his own conversations with them he had held the previous night or so during a contact. They were all expressed through his own thoughts, and were thus expressed in his own Swiss-German tongue. And they are not unexpected within the TJ, since Meier edited it.
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| − | Concerning Rashid, we cannot expect that his knowledge of German, being a second or third language for him, would be independent of what German he learned from Meier. He conversed with Meier frequently in 1963 and kept in touch with him afterwards. Thus in all probability Rashid learned some Swiss-German from Meier. A few pieces of this style learned from Meier might then be expected to have appeared in his letters to him, and also in his translation of the TJ, since he of course knew that Meier was its custodian. As anyone knows, parts of a foreign language learned from someone with whom you speak and whom you respect will stick with you better than what you learn from a textbook or in class.
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| − | Three examples of these improprieties in language are mentioned by Korff from Auerbach�s report, the first being Meier�s use of "yet however," which refers to "doch aber" in the German and does not represent good German grammar. This was a perceptive observation by Auerbach. I have found this used five times in the TJ, which occurs in its verses that are distinctive from Matthean verses, and once in Rashid�s letter. Assuming it is indeed an expression also used by Meier, this could be a prime example of an expression Rashid picked up from Meier and continued to use at times when expressing his thoughts in the German language intended for Meier to read. On the other hand, one cannot be sure that Meier himself did not, in giving the 1978 TJ its initial editing, try to improve upon Rashid�s translation and, in so doing, insert "doch" before "aber" in some or all of these instances. Auerbach was apparently not open to either of these two possibilities, as they seem not to have occurred to him.
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| − | The second example is Meier�s not infrequent use of the German word "so" to mean "so that." This observation by Auerbach also seems correct, assuming the improper use of "so" did not stem from Rashid himself during translations. Again, however, it says nothing against the general validity of the TJ.
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| − | The third example given is that "Olives" is said to have been written as "Oilives," regarding the Mount of Olives. However, in the 1978 German TJ it is spelled correctly (�lberg) in both of its two occurrences, so Auerbach may have been referring to a particular Contact Note here in German that I do not possess. If in there it had been spelled as "Oelberg," Auerbach may have referred to this as "Oilives" in his English-language report. The "Oel" spelling would have been used in Meier�s Contact Notes because the typewriter he utilized then did not support capitalized vowels with umlauts. Thus "�l" would have been typed out as "Oel." Interestingly, this latter error did creep into one occurrence in the 1992 and 1996 TJs (TJ 25:6), allowing us to understand it was a simple mistake that bears no connection to the genuineness of the TJ.
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| − | Auerbach�s report then mentions that "logical" and "forms of life" are favorite expressions of Meier (Korff, p. 83). Although the point of this is not given in Korff�s book, it is clear from Auerbach�s letter to me of March 31, 1989, he was concluding that the occurrence of "logic" (some 20 times) within the TJ as opposed to its non-occurrence within the Gospels means that Meier placed it within the TJ. Again, however, Auerbach was just stating a conclusion that derives from already having assumed the TJ to be a hoax, rather than examining the likelihood that a word meaning "logic" occurred frequently within the original TJ and was then removed by the early 2nd-century Christian scribe-editor as he compiled the Gospel of Matthew.
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| − | One needs to ask a question not asked by Auerbach or Korff: If Jmmanuel had taught basic truths, or even learned some from the Pleiadeans, is it not likely this would have involved mention of logic? Although logic per se seems to have been of little or no concern within Judaic literature of that era, it was a well developed concept within Greek literature, and even many "mainstream" New Testament scholars assume that Jesus must have known Greek. The TJ itself indicates that Jmmanuel had knowledge of at least one Greek saying, which derives from Plato in the 4th century B.C. � the saying, "Man is the measure of all things," within an extended prophecy about people of the future:
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| − | "Thus they will also lose sight of the principle of the oldest wisdom, which says that humans are the measure of all things in life, because they are after all a part of the Creation." (TJ 36:25)
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| − | Thus it is only consistent that Jmmanuel urged the use of logic within the TJ.
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| − | One also needs to ask, Would the writer of Matthew have had reason to omit the word "logic" or sentences that express the concept, when editing the TJ and forming his gospel from it? The answer to this question is also affirmative. Consistent with other alterations that the compiler of Matthew is deduced to have made to the TJ, he is seen to have omitted TJ teachings that encourage the reader or listener to think for himself. This was apparently because followers of the new religion were supposed to obey the teachings of the church and its priests and scribes rather than to think independently. And if one uses logic, one is thinking independently for oneself.
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| − | An additional reason for this compiler�s omission of "logic" is that as a concept more in use in gentile lands, e.g., in Greece, than in the land of Israel, and with the compiler of Matthew being anti-gentile in his outlook (as may be seen from some 8 or 10 verses of Matthew), "logic" would not likely have appealed to him. Six of the 20 usages of "logic" occur in TJ text presenting teachings of Jmmanuel occurring well after his survival of the crucifixion, and so could not have been utilized by the compiler of Matthew for that reason alone.
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| − | As to a preference by Meier for the phrase "forms of life," this has little connection to the TJ, as it appears there only once ("Lebensformen"). One needs to keep the TJ context in mind � of Jmmanuel himself being a contactee, having received 40 days and nights of tutoring under the same general ET group (Pleiadeans) as those who contacted Meier, and who, having an ET biological father and being aware of that fact, consequently spoke frequently in terms of this "human race" and of the Creation being the maker of the universes and of all living things. No doubt the phrase occurs more frequently within the Contact Notes, where the subject must have arisen several times in conjunction with Meier�s numerous questions to Semjase, and her replies, on all kinds of topics.
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| − | In his letter to me of March 11, 1988, Auerbach also pointed out that in Rashid�s letter, his clause "Es ist mir leid" ("I am sorry") represents a mistake in grammar also present in Meier�s Contact Notes, thus implying that Meier had hoaxed the letter by Rashid. The preferred expression is "Es tut mir leid." However, this just as easily represents another idiosyncrasy Rashid picked up from Meier in 1963. On the other hand, the expression may not be so idiosyncratic after all, as the use of "ist" instead of "tut" is okayed in the Cassell�s 1978 German-English dictionary (see under "leid").
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| − | Other criticisms of Auerbach similarly seem based simply on the fact that much of the TJ�s content is different from what is in the Bible. This also likely contributed to his initial bias that the TJ could not possibly be genuine. This is despite the fact that he found the TJ "to be a persuasive document" (in correspondence to me of March 31, 1989), and found its "Epilogue and Explanation" page to be "particularly interesting" (in correspondence of Sept. 29, 1988). In summary, although the errors and false conclusions in this section are those of Auerbach, Korff perpetuated them without applying any critical analysis of his own and without looking into the TJ for himself.
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| − | *Opinions of Michael Arends.* Korff (p. 83) then mentions a so-called analysis by Michael Arends, a German ufologist, in which "similarities were noted between the typewriter used by Billy Meier to transcribe his 'contact' notes with Semjase and the 'Rashid' translations Meier claimed to have received from Baghdad. Arends identified specific letter characters which he found indicative that the same typewriter had been used." This claim that the same typewriter was used for both writings has already been discussed and shown to be false. | |
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| − | As an aid to answering this kind of question, it would have been very helpful if Meier had retained the rough TJ translations he received from Rashid. However, after overseeing the editing of the TJ manuscript and readying it for publication in 1977-78, Meier unfortunately did not retain them. From his viewpoint there was no need to, storage space being at a premium, since he knew as a personal fact that the TJ he co-discovered was genuine, and that if his many hundreds of photographs of Pleiadean beamships did not convince a person of the reality of his experiences, additional less direct evidence would not be convincing to that person either.
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| − | Korff goes on to state that Arends "discovered that entire passages had been embellished on and lifted from a standard Lutheran version of the Bible." This again goes over some of the same ground already covered. What Korff failed to say here in this unproven claim is that any priest or ex-priest who is well acquainted with the Gospels would find that, in translating those passages of the TJ that had been most faithfully carried over into the Gospel of Matthew, his translation would naturally end up sounding very much like what is in that gospel. The following question would then arise for him: Should he translate those sections into the words and language as he remembers them from his upbringing and training, or should he not use one particular, standard Bible as his guide, and use its language consistently for those parallel passages?
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| − | The latter is an evident choice, in which case the Bible he used would have been the well known and prevailingly used German Bible (which is the Martin Luther Bible), since his translation from the Aramaic was into German. The only other alternative would be to try to cast his translation into a form that would seem fresh and never before used, such as referring to the Mount of Olives as the "Hill of Olives" or "Hill of Oval Drupes," as an extreme example of the problem that would be encountered. So Rashid evidently had the German Bible on hand and used its particular German phraseology and vocabulary in familiar passages.
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| − | From the point of view not considered by Auerbach, Arends and Korff � that the TJ could be authentic � one finds that it was the compiler of Matthew who made many insertions, omissions and substitutions when utilizing the TJ as his source. And one finds a very consistent picture of the theological slant of this compiler from this viewpoint, as well as fresh and consistent solutions to the problems of Gospel priorities and interpretations of the few, terse, ambiguous sayings about the formation of the Gospels that have survived from certain early church fathers but continue to puzzle mainstream biblical scholarship. These alterations incorporated into Matthew then are what Arends refers to as "embellishments" from his standpoint of assuming Meier guilty of fraud. Thus Arends and Korff are guilty of failing even to consider the likelihood that it was the compiler of Matthew who made massive editorial alterations in rendering his source document, the TJ, into a form acceptable to the early church, namely, into the Gospel of Matthew. The interested reader may need to consult my book, _The Problems of New __Testament Gospel Origins,_ to learn how strong the evidence is that Matthew (not Mark) was the first Gospel written, and in Hebrew or Aramaic, with Mark being second (though being the first Gospel in Greek) and Luke third, just as attested by the early church fathers: Irenaeus, Origen and Augustine, and implied by the 2nd-century bishop Papias, who was the first person on record to mention any of the Gospels by name.
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| − | *Underground Video and Aramaisms.* On p. 83 of his book Korff also mentions a verbal attack against Meier by Underground Video (UV) of Beverly Hills, California. Their charges seem to be of the same nature as Korff�s � quite unsubstantiated, with few details being presented. However, in a footnote referring to a conversation with UV�s president, Korff does mention one particular charge: that UV had "discovered evidence proving that the _Talmud Immanuel_ does not contain Aramaic!" One scarcely knows what to make of this charge. Does it mean that UV or Korff thinks that after a document is translated from Aramaic into German the translation should contain Aramaic writing?
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| − | To interpret this charge in the most intelligent light, it may be that UV was claiming that the German TJ does not show any awkward language indicative of having been translated too literally from the Aramaic in places. Such indications, if present in the translated text, are called _Aramaisms,_ whose meaning Korff may not have understood. However, in the 1978 German TJ there are some Aramaisms that are sufficiently evident that even a non-scholar of Aramaic, such as myself, can identify them (with the help of some textbooks).
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| − | One set of such Aramaisms involves sentences of the type where "and he spoke" or similar words occur, seemingly redundantly, just following another verb having nearly the same meaning, such as "answered." It is an indication that the original text contained no quotation marks, as punctuation was not invented until a few centuries later. Thus, "and he spoke" served to notify the reader or listener that a quotation was commencing. One would search for these indications primarily in those portions of the TJ not having Matthean parallels, since the same redundancies persisted also into the German Bible, which stems from texts (Greek and Latin) also old enough not to have contained punctuation. An example occurs at TJ 28:41, which has no parallel within Matthew for reasons that should become obvious. A literal translation of its German, with the redundant phrase italicized, reads,
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| − | "But Jmmanuel _answered and spoke:_ 'Truly I say to you: You may succeed for a long time in accusing Judas Iscariot of treason in front of the people, but the truth will come out and be known by all in the whole world.'"
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| − | Notice the two verbs "answered and spoke." The actual English translation by Wild Flower Press omits the redundant "and spoke," which indicates how easily such an Aramaism can innocently be lost during translation. Fortunately, however, neither Rashid nor Meier nor his editorial assistant removed this and some other redundancies from their German text. (Is Meier, with no formal schooling past the fourth grade, supposed to have known about this and hoaxed in such an indication of an underlying ancient text?)
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| − | Another such instance occurs at TJ 29:27 in the 1992 German version, which is TJ 29:33 in the 1978 version. Two more occur at TJ 31: 12,13, respectively, which read, literally:
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| − | "But Mary _asked and spoke,_ 'Yet he was dead and lay here dead, how can he rise?' But the guardian angel _answered and spoke,_ 'Why are you seeking someone alive among the dead?'"
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| − | Another instance occurs at TJ 31:52, and another at TJ 33:23 (1992 version; in TJ 33:21, 1978 version). Still another occurs at TJ 23:33. Two more occur at TJ 29:45,46 (1992 version; in TJ 29:50,51 in the 1978 version). With a literal translation these latter two read:
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| − | "Slowly the screaming stopped, and a third time the governor _asked and spoke:_ 'Which one of these two shall I release?' The people _cried out and spoke,_ 'Free Barabbas!'"
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| − | Two more instances occur in the subsequent two TJ verses, and another at TJ 30:6. Still another occurs at TJ 31:51. These are 13 instances that have been pointed out here; there may well be more.
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| − | A more distinctive type of Aramaism occurs in TJ 3:31, in the passage:
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| − | "When Jmmanuel had been baptized, he soon came out of the water of the Jordan, and behold, a metallic light dropped from the sky and descended steeply over the Jordan. Consequently they _all fell on their faces_ and pressed them into the sand while a voice from the metallic light spoke, 'This is my beloved son...'"
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| − | The expression "fell on their faces" in the original Aramaic means to bow down to, or cower before, some exalted person or object. In this case the expression can be taken more literally than usual, because of the fear that a close-up UFO encounter instills in bewildered witnesses.
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| − | A still different type of Aramaism occurs in the Sermon on the Mount at TJ 5:30, a verse not in Matthew. The verse, with a literal translation of the portion exhibiting the Aramaism, reads:
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| − | "If a thought causes you annoyance, eradicate it and ban it from your brain. It is better to destroy a thought that incites annoyance _and not_ to bring the whole world of thought into an uproar."
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| − | The Aramaism here is "and not." If Rashid had been concerned to render this into better German, he would have used the common German word "als" here, which means "than," instead of "and not." And indeed, in the English translation by Wild Flower Press "than" is used, thus removing the Aramaism. It turns out that the Aramaic language lacked the ability to express this comparative sense in the manner we are used to (see M. Black, _An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts,_ 3rd Ed., 1967, Oxford Univ. Press, p. 117), not having the direct equivalent to "than," and so other language was used to put across the intended thought.
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| − | These examples show some of the Aramaisms and evidence of ancient origins exhibited by the German TJ. They demonstrate in as conclusive a manner as is possible from indirect evidence that the TJ is no hoax. Korff�s contention to the contrary (p. 84) is seen to lack any substance.
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| − | h3. []Korff and the Hasenb�l-Langenberg photographs
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| − | One of Meier's color photos from this series is among the most famous, the beautiful "sun-glint" photo showing a pair of golden rays from the setting sun reflecting off the beamship (Lee and Brit Eiders, _UFO� Contact from the Pleiades_, Vol. 2, p. 38), of which Korff (p. 205) shows a black-and-white version. ("Beamship" is what the Pleiadeans told Meier they informally called their craft.) The other reason l've selected this from among the photos Korff discusses is that in his first booklet attempting to debunk the Meier case (_The Meier Incident: The Most Infamous Hoax in Ufology_; 1981) he first suggested (Korff, 1981, p. 8, middle) that the photo was hoaxed by being a (small model) UFO in front of a real deciduous tree. But then on the same page he suggested (Korff, 1981, p. 8, lower) that it was hoaxed by a different method: overlaying the negative of a model UFO photo in front of a featureless background on top of a negative of a photo of scenic background, and combining the two images within an enlarger (double-print technique). It is even more astonishing, therefore, that in the same year Korff had instead suggested a third method by which Meier was supposed to have hoaxed the photo � by attaching a model UFO to a model tree (Korff, "The Billy Meier Hoax," Frontiers of Science, March-April, 1981, p. 31)! Thus it was of some interest to see if, some 15 years later, he had settled upon one particular method.
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| − | Korff says (p. 203) that he purchased prints of this photo series in 1991 from Meier's group for analysis, though, by his own admission elsewhere these are unknown generations (or copies) removed from Meier's original color slides. The Meier photo material Wendelle Stevens and his team utilized for their analyses, on the other hand, was 2nd-generation, with Meier's originals being the 1st generation. In early 1978 Stevens obtained permission from Meier to take some 40 of Meier's color slides to a photo processing shop in the city of Winterhur, Switzerland, with group member Bernadette Brand along to oversee their handling and to safeguard them. These 40 were selected because they appeared to be originals, often showed foreground or background features, were in good focus, and represented a variety of different sites. Internegatives were made from them , which Stevens still possesses.
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| − | These internegatives are 2nd generation, except as noted later for a few selected from one series (showing the Swiss jet making passes at the beamship at Schmarbuel-Maiwinkel); that series, Meier noted, came back from the photo developer's with left-right reversal, indicating to Stevens that someone had made emulsion-to-emulsion duplicates and kept the originals. This series was taken in April of 1976, some 15 months after his Pleiadean contacts commenced, by which time the Swiss government and perhaps others had taken notice and were trying to intercept his receipt of photos.
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| − | In addition to these 40 2nd-generation internegatives, Stevens a little later similarly had about a dozen positive-to-positive prints (color slide to positive print) made from further of Meier's originals. These were also 2nd generation. (The preceding information is from Stevens, personal correspondence of April 14 and May 15, 1995). Thus the analysis team under Stevens had the best possible photo material to analyze short of the originals themselves, which Meier had finally learned to retain close control over if he wished them not to disappear.
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| − | Stevens had the 2nd-generation internegative of the Hasenb�hl-Langenberg sun-glint photo laser-scanned and enlarged. The resulting photo clearly showed a forked branch of a deciduous tree 48 meters away from the camera to pass in front of the side of the beamship to the viewer's far left. In the black-and-white reproduction of Stevens' _Preliminary__Investigation Report _(p. 352), however, this is scarcely discernible, the contrast between the dark underside of the craft and the shaded tree branches having been very weak originally.
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| − | Korff, on the other hand, claims from certain computer image processing techniques applied to his print that the UFO was in front of the tree (Korff, p. 203). Thus of the three different methods of hoaxing he had earlier suggested for this one photograph, he has settled for the image being of a model UFO in front of a real tree. From the somewhat degraded quality of Korff's higher-generation print, the contrast between the tree branches and the underside of the craft was totally washed out. A negative or reversal of this print was then made in which the underside of the UFO craft appeared to be relatively light (Korff, Fig. 73) instead of dark. Then after that image had been enhanced so as to create a heavy line along certain edges of the UFO and of the tree's branches, the resulting image gives the impression to the unaware observer that any tree branches in front of the craft ought to have shown up against the apparently light background of the craft's underside. I find this to be a highly misleading analysis designed with only one end in mind � to produce the desired impression upon the naive reader.
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| − | In his Fig. 75 Korff presents an image of the same photo enhanced in some manner that displays a line segment off to one side and inclined 20� from the horizontal without either end being attached to anything, and never passing closer than a beamship diameter away from the craft. No such flaw was present in Stevens' 2nd-generation photo. It could not have represented a tethering line for suspending a model, as suggested by Korff, since there was nothing to hold up either end of the line segment despite the tension its linearity indicates it would have been under, no nodule on this line segment that might indicate a point of connection to a model-support tie line, and no indication of any such tie line. Perhaps for reasons like these, Korff allowed (p. 207) that it could have been a scratch on his film.
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| − | On p. 201 Korff says that Stevens is mistaken in mentioning that Meier had used up four rolls of 36-exposure film that day (Stevens, Preliminary Investigation Report, p. 343), since only 34 photos are listed in Meier's Photo Index (Verzeichnis) for March 29, 1976. However, this photo occasion also occurred long after government authorities had learned of Meier's continuing experiences and were therefore surreptitiously trying to tail him to his contact sites and also gain access to his original photos. It is naive to think that, with contacts of such an unprecedented nature occurring, this would not have happened, and that some of his film would not have been intercepted by undercover agents. In this case Stevens mentioned that two rolls were apparently so intercepted, although Meier allows that they might have been lost in processing. Korff fails to let his readers know about this, and what Stevens had learned about the frequent failure of Meier's rolls of developed film to be returned, though Korff was aware of this explanation. Quite possibly up to 38 more of Meier's photos from this series were lost due to having been loaned out to interested persons and not returned, unless Meier or Stevens were off by one roll in the number of rolls expended or intercepted, in which case two photos were subsequently lost. With so many photos on hand, Meier was not very careful with them at first; only later was a member of Meier's group assigned the task of trying to gather together all his photos, scattered around the house, and arrange them in some kind of semi-chronological order and number them, making use of Meier's log book he took with him on photo contacts.
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| − | This is an example of a Korff irrelevancy � trying to lull the reader into thinking that the photos are fakes because of a possible error in recollection by Meier or Stevens. The photos speak for themselves.
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| − | On p. 204 Korff charges, with respect to the sun-glint photo (there are three of them: Nos. 174, 175 and 164), that Meier had deliberately aimed his camera into the direction of the sun in order "to use its glare to help obscure any supportive structures or 'strings' that were used to suspend the model." This charge is without merit, however, since in his surviving 34 photos of this series, only these three show a piece of the sun next to, or near, the beamship. If Meier had been a hoaxer doing what Korff suggests, one would see the sun's glare nearby in the other photos as well. However, the beamship had proceeded towards Meier from the southwest, so that in the first 31 photos of the series the sun was off the right side of the photographs. And in the several hundred other beamship photos Meier took in other series, the sun is not in the picture.
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| − | The conclusion that the beamship image was not that of a model comes also from consideration of photo Nos. 152 and 153 of the same series, the first of which is shown on p. 36 of the Elders' Vol. II. There the beamship, smaller in angular size (i.e. farther away then), is seen through the multiple branches of a different tree, one much closer to the camera. The tree's twigs and branches, one of which cuts across one edge of the beamship in photo No. 152, are somewhat out of focus, suggesting a proximity to the camera of 2-4 meters, while the clear focus of the object in question indicates it had to have been considerably farther away. However, the tree's branches can be seen to have extended on upwards out of the top of the photograph, rendering it totally impractical for a hoaxer's accomplice to have tried to utilize a pole sufficiently long to reach up over the tree top to suspend a model UFO at a distance well beyond the tree's most distant branches.
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| − | Looking at the series of 34 photos overall, one may examine the beamship's image under a magnifying glass from its first appearance in the earliest photo when it was just a speck in the haze, occupying only 0.001% of the area of the photograph, to the sun-glint photo where it occupies 0.2% of the area, an increase by a factor of 200, and find no reason whatsoever to suspect that it was not exactly the same object in each photo. That is, there is no evidence to suggest that different-sized models were used. However, if some particular model supported by a suspension line attached to a long pole had been used, the pole would have had to be 14 times longer for use in the first photograph than in the sun-glint photograph. In the latter photograph the object, if a model, would have had to be at least some 12 feet away from the camera, judging from its good focus, requiring a support pole at least 14 feet in length. For the former photo a pole of length 200 feet would then have been needed!
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| − | In his 1995 book Korff claims that Meier used quasi-horizontal support lines to which a suspension line was attached and from which a model UFO supposedly dangled (pp. 197-200, 207). However, he never addressed the question of how Meier could do this and not have all his support apparatus be seen by the rural neighbors and passers-by. Each end of the quasi-horizontal line would need a suspension point, and in Korff's 1981 booklet it was suggested that several large tethered balloons were used for this. Such cumbersome equipment, plus the need for a storage location for it, would almost certainly have been noticed and come to the attention of Meier-case investigators and detractors, but such has never happened. Instead, the explanation that Meier received from Semjase -- that they normally kept their beamship craft invisible from all lines of sight except Meier's during his filming -- needs to be treated seriously.
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| − | None of the above photographic findings is surprising if Meier's ET contacts are treated as the reality they appear to be. Yet, apparently because he is unable to seriously consider this possibility, Korff has failed to look into, or report on, the above evidence validating the genuineness of this series of 34 beamship photos. I find his repeated omission of the evidence supporting the reality of Meier's ET contacts in his book to be just as serious a breach of competent investigative analysis as are his false claims, distortions and innuendo. The apparent genuineness of Meier's contact experiences, photos and movie film obviously adds support to the genuineness of the heretical _Talmud of Jmmanuel_, and both aspects together explain the intense fervor exhibited by detractors of the Meier case who have attempted to debunk it over the past 15 years.
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| − | ----
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| − | h3. Bibliography
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| − | Black, Matthew. _An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts_. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
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| − | Deardorff, James W. Celestial Teachings: _The Emergence of the True Testament of Jmmanuel (Jesus)_ (CT). Rapid City, SD: Wild Flower Press, 1990. | |
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| − | _----- The Problems of New Testament Gospel Origins: A Glasnost Approach._ Mellen Research University Press (Mellen Press): Lewiston, NY, 1992.
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| − | _----- Jesus in India: A Reexamination of Jesus� Asian Traditions in the Light of Evidence Supporting Reincarnation._ International Scholars Publications, 7831 Woodmont Ave., #345, Bethesda, MD 20814; 1994.
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| − | Elders, Lee; Nilsson-Elders, Brit; Welch, Thomas K. and Stevens, Wendelle C. _UFO____ Contact from the Pleiades,_ vol. 1. Genesis III Publishing, P.O. Box 25962, Munds Park, AZ 86017; 1979.
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| − | Elders, Lee and Brit. _UFO____ Contact from the Pleiades,_ vol. 2. Munds Park, AZ: Genesis III Pub.; 1983.
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| − | Kersten, Holger. _Jesus Lived in India_. Longmead, England: Element Book, 1986.
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| − | Kinder, Gary. _Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier_. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.
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| − | Korff, Kal K. _The Meier Incident: The Most Infamous Hoax in Ufology._ Korff, 1981.
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| − | _Spaceships of the Pleiades: The Billy Meier Story._ Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995.
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| − | Meier, Eduard A., ed.; I. Rashid & Meier, transls. into German. _Talmud Jmmanuel._ FIGU, 8495 Schmidr�ti/ZH, Switzerland; 1978.
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| − | ----- ed., I. Rashid & Meier, transls. into German, J. Ziegler and B. Greene, transls. into English_. The Talmud of Jmmanuel._ Rapid City, SD: Wild Flower Press, 1992 and 1996.
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| − | Ra�l, Claude Vorilhon. _The Message Given to Me by Extra-Terrestrials: They Took Me to their Planet._ Tokyo: AOM Corp., 1986.
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| − | Stevens, Wendelle C. _UFO__ Contact from the Pleiades: A Preliminary Investigation Report._ UFO Photo Archives, P.O. Box 17206, Tucson, AZ 85710; 1982.
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| − | _----- Message from the Pleiades,_ vol. 1. Tucson: UFO Photo Archives, 1988.
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| − | Winters, Randolph. _The Pleiadian Mission: A Time of Awareness._ The Pleiades Project, P.O. Box 386, Atwood, CA 92601; 1994.
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