What do we mean when we say a crop formation is ‘genuine’, asks BARBARA WADDELL..?


Crop circles are a recognisable physical phenomenon. What people think about them – if they think about them at all – is that they fall into one or other of the categories “genuine”, natural or person-made. By genuine, they mean metaphysically created – where metaphysical simply means beyond the physical. By natural is meant that they are the result of physical forces at least some of which are not yet scientifically identified. Formations that are person-made may be hoaxes intended to deceive or sincere efforts to demonstrate what humans can achieve in the genre. It is probably fair to say that most people see the categories as mutually exclusive.

If we believe that we are MORE than our physical bodies – and it is difficult to see how our BODIES could do the believing, one way or the other – then it is with our MINDS that we perceive the possibility of meaning in crop circles. If there is in fact no meaning in them, then those of us who believe there is are creating that meaning.

But then we are gradually learning that we create ALL our own reality, or - as I prefer to put it – all our own experience of reality. So those who believe there is no meaning in them are creating that absence of meaning for themselves! Indeed, if we believe there is no such thing as a crop circle, then for us they do not exist. We create our own experience of reality through our beliefs.

I owe that realization to the description of reality – the only adequate description of reality that we have – to be found in the Seth material. There, we are persuaded that there is no such thing as chance, for we cannot sometimes create our own experience of reality and sometimes not. Nor can some of us create our own reality while others do not.

It follows that we must at some level be in agreement with others as to what reality we are jointly creating – just as we are obviously in agreement with another team when we play them at football. In other words, we cannot compete unless there is co-operation. So the purpose of the game, surely, must be learning to co-operate rather than winning. Ditto for wars. That means we are primarily a co-operative species, not a competitive one. If we are all co-operating in experiences of all kinds, we are co-creating the whole of physical reality. So it also follows that there is no event on the face of the earth in which we have not played some part, however small.

If there is something beyond the physical, it must be non-physical – ie. mental or psychic – psychic only means mental. We cannot see the non-physical – ie. mind – only its physical effects. While it is possible that some simple crop circles are the outcome of as yet unrecognised physical forces, there is not really any doubt (in anyone’s mind) that complex patterns must have been created by mind – it’s a question of whose.

If all but the simple formations fall into the person-made group, then what is meant by the term “genuine”, of which the person-made group must be a copy? I suggest that it means “made by minds, some of which are of a type unspecified”, minds that must have a purpose in creating them. And those minds must be working in co-operation with human minds; otherwise, we humans would no longer be free to create our own reality. We co-create the physical universe, including crop circles; and our co-creators are our fellow humans and extraterrestrials who co-operate with us – and, contrary to superstition, do not interfere.

Serious researchers involved in creating their own crop formations sometimes observe accompanying events (such as balls of light) that have previously been seen as identifying characteristics of the “genuine” variety – ie. an indication of the involvement of extraterrestrials. While this would seem to some to confirm a metaphysical source, to others it merely conflates the two categories, person-made and natural. In other words, it can appear that, by working in conjunction with the natural order of things, humans can create paranormal effects: it’s just a question of more scientific research into how nature works – there is no need to look for answers beyond the physical universe.

It is because of the possibility of this more sophisticated kind of debunking that believers in the “genuine” variety can get even more angry than they did with the crude efforts of the hoaxers. For the “believers” ascribe meaning to the circles and this suggests that no such meaning exists. Since they cannot define that meaning in terms acceptable to orthodox science, it appears to be “merely” a creation of their own minds – ie. they appear to be deluded.

Well, let’s remember that there is no scientific explanation of the MEANING of a poem or a painting or a tree – or, indeed, of anything else: it is not the job of science to explain meaning. It is poets and painters who crystallize meaning for us – the meaning, for instance, of a tree, which they “copy” from nature, using natural means. Similarly, a group creating a crop circle are, to my mind, creating a work of art. Indeed, hoaxers do the same – their’s is just very bad art, a copy created without attention to meaning.

So the believers in “genuine” formations need not go on the defensive. And the human circlemakers need to consider the possibility – some of them do – that they have in fact been co-creating formations in co-operation with metaphysical helpers, and that this applies not merely to those they claim to have made on their own, but to all the others as well. Not only will the believers in genuine formations have agreed at some level with the human circlemakers that the person-made formations be made, but they will also (albeit unconsciously) have contributed at some level to their construction. Both groups are interested in what can be learnt from the exercise – like both teams in a football match.

The meaning of the formations is the important thing. And it is probably not possible for us to put the meaning into words. If it were, the message would have been put to us that way. Part of the meaning, I suggest, is simply for us to learn that the way we create our reality is by projecting our ideas into physical matter.

To say that matter is a projection of mind and is, accordingly, not solid, we are certainly saying that it is an illusion. But that does not mean it is not real. It does not mean it is a DElusion. We find ourselves in agreement with physics teaching, whereby we understand that there is proportionately as much space between the molecules comprising a solid object like a table as there is between the stars we see in the sky.

But the fundamental meaning is, surely, that we are not the cleverest beings in the universe – that there are cleverer ones who are prepared not only to work with us, but to help us learn to realize our own potential, so that we can consciously turn our world into the place we want it to be. And the signs are that more and more of us are learning just that.