Jim Sparks and The Keepers

By John E. Mack, M.D.

“Sparks is so convinced that information about alien cultures and activity of great importance for human health and the future of the Earth has been illegally suppressed by government officials that he is vigorously pursuing a National Security Information Amnesty Bill that would allow records to be opened and these individuals to come forward with what they know without fear of reprisal.”

Vast numbers of Americans are having experiences which have come to be known as the “alien abduction phenomenon.” Despite the readiness of people who are not familiar with the details of the phenomenon to offer psychiatric or other conventional explanations, none of these has even begun to account for the strange nature, richness, and awesome power of these experiences. Those who are willing to pay attention to what is going on here are confronted with an intriguing mystery of expanding scope.


Jim Sparks’ case has many of the features that have been reported now in hundreds of instances, but it is also unusual in several respects. His account provides one of our richest and most detailed documentation of an abduction history. In addition, he shows clearly how the experiences evolved, together with shifts in his own consciousness. But above all, Sparks’ recall is altogether conscious, i.e., without the benefit of hypnosis, relaxation exercises, or any of the other uses of a non-ordinary state of consciousness for the exploration of buried memories. This should help to settle what may still remain of the suspicion that these experiences are somehow the product of a narrator trying to please a hypnotist.

As for myself, I met Jim Sparks for the first time in March of 1996, and although we have had two interviews and several other conversations, I cannot be regarded as complicit in bringing forth his knowledge, as his book was far along before we ever met.

Something Important to Teach Us

Sensing that he has something important to teach us, Sparks avoided reading about abductions lest his prior knowledge contaminate the account. Nevertheless, his story is in many ways consistent with the narratives and lives of other abductees I have seen or whose cases have been published. He has the passion, curiosity, and self doubt of an authentic, truthful voice. There would be little reason to question the reality of what he has written, except for the fact that from the standpoint of the materialistic world view that still dominates our culture, what Sparks has to tell us is simply not possible. We are then faced with the choice of rejecting his story prima facie, or allowing ourselves to expand our notions of the possible by attending to what he has to say.

Jim Sparks is an Italian American in the commercial real estate business. The experiences that he remembers began [in 1988]. He has been informed by the alien beings that they are concentrating their contact now upon ordinary people (he regards himself as an “average person”) because agreements with earth’s leaders to “correct the environmental condition of your planet” were violated. Furthermore, Sparks is so convinced that information about alien cultures and activity of great importance for human health and the future of the earth has been illegally suppressed by government officials that he is vigorously pursuing a National Security Information Amnesty Bill that would allow records to be opened and these individuals to come forward with what they know without fear of reprisal.

Initially, Sparks’ experiences, which occurred as often as several times a month, were typically intrusive and terrifying, including the forced extraction of sperm that has so often been reported. Furthermore, he had been brought into a “mind boggling” world where known physical laws were broken, including passage through solid objects, shape shifting, and instant, apparently thought activated transport. Something, Sparks tells us, had “invaded my being right down to the core.” A process, totally outside of his control, had befallen him which utterly broke down his will, “probing through to the deepest fiber of my mind.” Sparks tried desperately to relate what was happening to him to familiar notions, thinking at first that he was being taken over by evil spirits.

Acceptance

Little by little, Sparks was able to put aside his rage, overcome fear, and accept that he was encountering some sort of technologically advanced nonhuman intelligence from which he could not escape; beings with the “ability to scan the deepest fibers of your soul,” before which he was quite powerless. As he was able to surrender, the experiences transformed. Sparks found that he had been inducted into a kind of “alien boot camp,” a school of training and testing that made heavy use of riddles, ambiguity, paradox and symbology, where much of the communication occurred telepathically, or via connection with the aliens’ dark, mysterious eyes.

The purpose of this schooling appears to be twofold: to create a hybrid race as an “insurance policy” for the future, and to awaken us to our mindless destructiveness so that we may halt the devastation we are bringing to the planet. The human race is “isolated” in the cosmos “by ignorance” he has learned, “not ready to join the intelligent life that exists in other realms,” and “too dangerous to be set free in the universe to do as we please.”

Never quite trusting

Sparks never becomes quite clear or trusting of the aliens’ “agenda,” wondering, for example, whether they are using us to collect “spare parts” for their own purposes. But over time he came “to feel quite fortunate to have somehow been chosen to participate” in such a great “adventure,” and he is unwavering in his conviction that we must heed the beings’ warning in order to stop the destruction of the environment and prevent the death of the planet.

The central message is stressed repeatedly and relentlessly in Sparks’ book, and is the reason for its power. Through Sparks, the beings, or whatever may be the intelligence beyond this extraordinary phenomenon, tell of our failed stewardship of this magnificent planet. In several of his abductions Sparks was shown on television-like monitors, scenes of such breathtaking natural beauty that they “left me completely mesmerized.” But these would inevitably be followed by visions of “mankind’s destructive ways,” as the monitors showed once beautiful forests “now brown gray and dead looking instead of healthy and green.” Another scene showed dead bloated fish floating on top of the water. Sparks writes, “This made me feel very sad and depressed.” Suddenly, after one of these experiences, a telepathic voice said, “YOU ARE KILLING YOUR PLANET. YOUR PLANET IS DYING” (capitalized in Sparks’ manuscript [then titled Star People]).

Dangers to the Planet

In some of his experiences Sparks was confronted with the dangers of overpopulation, breaks in the food chain, and the dangers of nuclear and biological contamination. “There are better ways,” he was told, of “deriving your energy and food needs, without causing your planet any damage.” Our mindlessness seems, in Sparks’ experiences, to have cosmic proportions. “In the galactic neighborhood,” he was taught, “there seems to be an order” which our species is violating.

Why Not Just Stop Us?

In a certain sense, the reality or truth of all this is well known, so why should we pay attention to Jim Sparks, who has been informed by strange beings we do not even acknowledge exist? And if the aliens are so concerned with the Earth’s ecology, why don’t they just stop us? These are difficult questions to answer. First, there is the emotional and transforming power of the environmental “education” for Sparks and many other abductees, which leads to a more total kind of commitment to changing our direction. Also, there is the sense in these experiences that the message coming from a higher or divine source of great potency should be able to acknowledge its authority.

Finally, as Sparks and other experiencers have been told, the changes that may result from “training” like his must occur through shifts in consciousness of the human race, especially on the part of ordinary people, rather than by direct intervention. With the failure of leaders to take responsibility for the planet’s plight, Sparks was told, “We are now concentrating our energy on the average person.

Sparks writes of changes in his own consciousness and psychic powers, an “ability to see in other dimensions,” and a “sixth and seventh sense.” These extra senses seem to lie dormant like an atrophied muscle,” he says. “One just needs the tools or technology to tap into these realms. In my case, exposure to alien technology heightens the senses.”

Leadership by Example

Sparks is to be commended for having the courage to “come out” and tell his remarkable story. Many experiencers are ridiculed privately and publicly for truths that run so counter to the official reality of our culture. He hopes that if he can provide the example of leadership in this regard, he may contribute to overcoming the denial that characterizes the prevailing reaction to the great dangers facing the earth. To the end, Sparks, like all abductees, remains mystified as to the source of his experiences, but feels that what he has learned is of immense power, importance and credibility. “What is wrong with us then,” he asks at the end of the book. “Are we blind? Maybe so, because it is taking cultures from God knows where to warn us.”

I asked Sparks to tell me how his experiences had changed him. In a letter sent to me by fax, he wrote:

Prior to 1988 (when he began to recall his experiences), about 95% of my energy was focused on business, marriage, recreation, and living as carefree as possible. I had some concern for the environment. I tried to save as many trees as possible when bought land and sold lots for home sites.

My experience with advanced cultures in the last nine years changed my life and expanded my awareness. My life has changed to the point that I am forming a foundation that will purchase and preserve valuable forest land.

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