by Sean Esbjörn-Hargens PhD

In September 2018 I read Colm Kelleher & George Knapp riveting Hunt for the Skinwalker (2005). Towards the end of the book I came across this passage:

In the future, an adventurous sociologist might consider writing a paper that examines the “caste” system in anomalies research. The “nuts and bolts” UFO research people regard the “psychosocial” UFO researchers with disdain. UFO researchers in general regard the cryptozoologists with contempt. Crytpozologists who embrace the possibility of a paranormal connection to Bigfoot sightings are generally viewed with derision because of the prevailing view that Sasquatch is an undiscovered primate species, not an interdimensional playmate of alien beings. Likewise, the paranormal researchers view the UFO researchers with disdain, while the ghost hunters keep their distance from everybody else. And all of this hostility and contempt is a vain and so far unsuccessful attempt to earn a small measure of respect and acceptance (and maybe funding) from mainstream science, a lofty but unlikely goal.

So how does one go about modeling the range of more than one hundred phenomena that occurred on the ranch between 1994 – 2004? (Kelleher & Knapp, 2005, p. 207-8)

Upon reading this passage I had a moment of silent clarity. I immediately felt the calling to create an integrative metatheory of anomalist realities, what I am now calling exo studies.  I heard the clarion call and I’ve been answering it over the last 2 years slowing building the intellectual and academic architecture of exo studies. At the heart of this integrative approach is what I call metadiscliplinarity.

The true nature of reality is quite elusive. Regardless of your preferred exo phenomena (UFOs, encounters with non-human intelligences (NHIs), the paranormal, cryptids, ghosts and poltergeists or some other Fortean wonder) the royal road to understanding reality is via the study of anomalist phenomena. Thus, to really make sense of this dizzying kaleidoscope of phenomena I believe you need a metadisciplinary approach that draws together in an integrative fashion the hard-won insights from over a 150 fields, domains, and disciplines. In this excerpt, I provide an introduction to the ways exo studies takes a metadisciplinary approach to UFOs and in so doing makes over a dozen unique contributions.

The excerpt below is from the article I’m working on currently entitled “A Metaview of the Ontological Status of Non-Human Intelligences (NHIs): An Exo Studies Exploration of the Mutual Enactment Hypothesis”

Metadisciplinarity

Exo studies draws on multiple integrative metatheories (e.g., Ken Wilber’s integral theory, Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism, and Edgar Morin’s complex thought) to develop a “complex integral realism.” This integral approach to “what is real?” weaves together the primary insights from over 100 distinct fields of discourse from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. This is what makes exo studies metadisciplinary (opposed to merely inter-, cross-, multi-, or transdisciplinary): it draws on the valid knowledge from dozens and dozens of domains of research and analysis connecting the dots using an effective set of integrative principles. As a result, exo studies sheds new light on UFOs by drawing on multiple academic, scientific, and esoteric disciplines that are typically not included in UFOlogy today.

In particular there are three main camps of disciplines I draw on for Exo Studies (see table below for a more in-depth overview of specific fields associated with each “camp”:

• The mainstream academic and philosophical literature (e.g., philosophy, sociology, religious studies, media studies, anthropology, and psychology)
• The UFO and space studies literature (e.g., abduction studies, astrotheology, exopolitics, astrobiology, the experiencer literature, exosociology, and whistleblower testimony)
• The esoteric and paranormal literature (e.g., subtle energy sciences, Fortean studies, cryptozoology, parapsychology, occult cosmologies, and out of body (OBE) and near-death experiences (NDE) studies)

Thus, at the heart of an exo studies is a metadisciplinary approach to making sense of the cosmos and our place in it. We need to draw on many disciplines – traditional and mainstream academic, UFO and the emerging exo sciences, and esoteric and fringe. We cannot in good scientific conscious ignore or leave out any domain of knowledge that might help shine a light on the mysteries of the Kosmos and our place in it.

So, while exo studies includes what has historically fallen within an UFO/NHI context it goes beyond this by taking a metaview of the dynamic interplay between mind-meaning-matter often drawing on source materials that traditionally has not been connected to the study of UFOs/NHIs. As a result, exo studies is able to make unique contributions to UFOlogy and mainstream academic efforts. Below I provide a high-level overview of over a dozen unique ways this metadisciplinary approach can pioneer new understandings of UFOs/NHIs. Within each example, I use parenthesis to list various schools of thought and key disciplines that would be involved in each exploration.

• Posthuman models of subjectivity: The new field of posthumanism and the study of sentience across the evolutionary spectrum – plants, cephalopods, birds, cetaceans, and primates (plant intelligence, cognitive and affective ethnology, panpsychism, animal studies) can help us understand exobiology from a nonanthropocentric perspective and help us better imagine alien and extraterrestrial subjectivities.
• New ontological approaches: The recent ontological turn in philosophy (speculative realism, object oriented ontology, and new realisms), anthropology (Amerindian perspectivism, new animism, paranthropology) and science and technology studies (actor-network theory, material semiotics, ontological pluralism, assemblage theory) can help us reintegrate ontology into the discussion in a sophisticated way that overcomes the epistemological bias that has dominated Western discourse since Kant.
• Feminist cosmologies: The various feminist process ontologies and metaphysics and new materialisms (agential realism, feminist science studies, gender and queer studies) that can enable new cosmological visions of enactment and entanglement that are more capable of including aspects of reality that masculine and modernist dominated forms of discourse have systematically prevented.
• Faery seers: The study of individuals who are faery seers or have second sight (magical arts, occult practices, esoteric development, theosophy, shamanism, folklore studies) and who can see clairvoyantly and with other psychic senses the nature spirits, elementals, and other various faery beings so as to better evaluate the ways folklore (2nd-person cultural data) does and doesn’t account for first-person UFO and abduction experiences. This comparison of 1st-person experiential “psychic” data with 2nd-person cultural “folklore” data is important for doing a more sophisticated evaluation of the parallels and differences between 18th and 19th century faery folklore and 20th and 21st century UFO/abduction narratives. This could be part of a larger effort to study siddhis and psi abilities (e.g., clairaudience, claircognizance, clairsentience) that enable people to perceive and experience NHIs.
• Cognitive distortion: The inclusion of cognitive biases, false memory dynamics, and manipulation dynamics (anomalist psychology, philosophy of mind, conspiratorial psychology, dark psychology, heuristics) that contribute to skeptical and true believer mind sets so we can better account for the various way’s individuals distort, confuse, or misinterpret anomalist experiences.
• Quantum models that include consciousness: The engagement with cutting edge theories of physics that include consciousness and subtle energies in a multiverse context (Claude Swanson’s Synchronized Universe Model, Alex Wendt’s Quantum Mind, Lex Neale’s Integral Relativity, Jack Sarfatti’s approach to quantum physics and consciousness, Paul LaViolettes Subquantum Kinetics, Vernon Neppe & Edward Close’s Triadic Dimensional-Distinction Vortical Paradigm) so that we can really have a Theory of Everything (TOE) that includes mind and matter (and meaning).
• Paranormal hotspots: The systematic study of paranormal hot spots and UFO window areas (e.g., Yakima, WA, Sedona AZ, Hudson River Valley, NY, Uintah Basin, UT, San Luis Valley, CO, Rendlesham Forest in the UK, ) to develop a metaview of the shared ontology of these anomalist phenomena and the role certain geographic features play in their manifestation.
• New types of investigative methods: The engagement and development of new paradoxical and integrative methods (e.g., Jack Hunter’s ontological flooding, Jeff Kripal’s comparative practices, Jacque Vallee’s recursive unsolvability, Karan Barad’s agential cuts) to invite doubleness, synchronicity and the trickster as core components of the research and data.
• Contact modalities: The study of DMT and psychedelic entities to see how they compare to the NHIs in the UFO experiencer literature and shine a light on the role that different contact modalities (OBEs, NDEs, meditation, psychedelics, remote viewing, channeling) have in the variety of documented entity encounters throughout history.
• Postmaterial science: The development of a postpostivisit and postmaterial integral science of mixed methods (1st-person, 2nd-person, and 3rd-person) to inform new types of metadisciplinary research. In conjunction with this is the development of new metamaps of what counts as evidence (philosophy of science, legal studies, systematic reviews) in what circumstances so that we can do a better job of thinking through and debating what is “real” and how do we know what is real and what kinds and amounts of evidence are needed to take a claim seriously.
• Cultural shadow: The study of cultural taboos and social secrecy around UFOs and the paranormal and how this plays out in terms of alterity and xenophobia (psychoanalytic, cultural studies, anthropology, intersubjective theory, media and film studies) to deal with the “alien” other.
• Living on Mars: The exploration of what it will mean for us to be a multiplanet species living on Mars and beyond (transhumanism, space psychology, exosociology, genetics, physics).
• Exophilosophy: Develop an exophilosophy by mining the history of philosophy for commentary by philosophers (e.g., G. W. F. Hegel, Emmanuel Kant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Henri Bergson) on extraterrestrial and paranormal topics as well as applying philosophical thinking and principles to paranormal and supernatural topics (e.g., Jeff Kripal, Jason Reza Jorjani)
• Post-formal adult psychology: The application of the fields of adult developmental and post-formal psychology (Kegan’s subject-object theory, Fischer’s model of hierarchical complexity, Cook-Greuter’s ego development theory) to understand how worldviews and levels of consciousness shape our perceptions and values. This exploration would include the study of how different worldviews enact and interpret exophenomena and the emergence of a new galactic worldview that follows worldcentric and planetcentric orientations.

In summary, exo studies is an emerging integrative metafield committed to exploring the psychological, sociological, and scientific implications of living in a multidimensional multiverse.  This includes three major areas of focus with various subdomains of exploration:

1. The cultivation of multidimensional awareness to facilitate the conscious perception of the larger realities we are embedded and embodied in.
2. The development of a galactic-centric humanity through the exploration of the cultural dynamics that make this topic so taboo and by cultivating compassion and connection to a wide range of non-human intelligences.
3. The establishment of an integrative metascience capable of making non-reductive sense of the wide range of exophenomena that we have evidence for.

411 Missing cases
Anomalous research
Anomalist psychology
Astral travel
Bigfoot studies
Cryptozoology
Channeling
Consciousness studies
Comics and graphic novels
Indigenous cosmologies
Earth energies
Esoteric anatomy
Esoteric history
Faery tradition
Fortean studies
Folklore
Gnostic studies
Goethean science
Hermeticism
Imaginal realm
Illuminate & secret societies
Life between life studies
Magical arts
Mythological studies
Near-death experience (NDE) research
Occult science and practices
Out of body (OBE) research
Paranormal
Paranormal hotspots
Poltergeists & ghosts
Parapsychology
Psi research
Pyramid and portal science
Psychedelics
Remote viewing
New Age culture
Nephilim/giants
Shamanism
Sacred geometry
Spooklights & orbs
Soul studies
Subtle energy science
Synchronicity
Theosophy
Yogic traditions and siddhas (psi capacities)
Weird/edge science
Wicca & witchcraft