SUBJECT: THE PHOENIX PROJECT FROM A GENIE FORUM              FILE: UFO2501



PART 4




    Filename: Phoenix4.Thd
    Type    : Message Thread
    Author  : Trevor Prinn
    Date    : 08/03/92
    Desc    : Some History on Jack Mathias 


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    I  was quite interested in the Phoenix Project stuff until I read  that 
    Paranet  had  obtained it from Jack L Mathias.  About a year  ago  Jack 
    appeared  in the Issues forum on Compuserve (CIS)  with a couple of  SF 
    stories he had written under the name Jay Lewis, and was claiming to be 
    true  stories.   They  told of how he had been abducted  by  aliens  on 
    numerous occasions and had eventually been informed by them that he was 
    himself an alien implanted into a human body and was,  in reality,  the 
    husband (or something)  of one of his abductors.  He was trying to  get 
    them published as fiction but I didn't think he was likely to succeed. 
     
    In  subsequent  messages in the forum he mentioned things  like  having 
    broken  into an underground alien base and getting into a (gun?)  fight 
    with  the  greys who occupied it.  He also claimed to have been  taught 
    some mind control and ESP techniques by the friendly aliens from the SF 
    stories.  The first of these I recognised from an early novel by AE Van 
    Vogt and when I asked him if it was called the cortical thalamic  pause 
    he  confirmed it enthusiastically and near enough asked me which aliens 
    had taught it to me. When I told him where it came from he replied that 
    he  had never read any Van Vogt,  and that that author  must  therefore 
    have  had some alien contact similar to his own.  I  didn't believe the 
    first  part  of  that because I had already noted that  the  Jay  Lewis 
    stories showed some stylistic similarities to Van Vogt.  I  thought  of 
    writing  to  Van  Vogt  to get his opinion about the  second  part  but 
    decided that it would probably just annoy him. 
     
    Later  Jack  posted some information about a further technique  he  had 
    been taught that enabled him to carry out telekinesis. This also looked 
    rather  familiar and an hour spent poking around my quite extensive  SF 
    collection turned up Jack of Eagles by James Blish.  Not only did  this 
    describe  exactly  the same thing in some detail but Blish also made  a 
    deliberate mistake when quoting the Blackett equation (a formulation of 
    Heisenburg indeterminacy),  which Jack had witlessly copied.  I   don't 
    know  if it was significant but both of these SF books were inspired by 
    Count Korzybski's exposition of General Semantics, Science and Sanity. 
     
    I posted a reply that included a reference to a scene in Jack of Eagles 
    so that Jack could, if he wished,  continue our game without letting on 
    to  the  other forum participants,  but he didn't reply and  posted  no 
    further messages in the forum. Not long after that money trouble forced 
    me  to reduce my CIS usage to just a mailbox and distribution point for 
    my  shareware business so I didn't know that he had returned with  more 
    of this stuff. By coincidence, I intended to rejoin the Issues forum in 
    a week or two anyway, so I hope he is still there peddling this Phoenix 
    stuff - he gave me a few good laughs last time around. 
     
    (Sorry  if  that  was a bit long but you know how it is  when  you  are 
    assigning someone's character.) 
     
    Trev Prinn 
   



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