YSU course is out of this world
Published: Monday, January 5, 2009
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Photo by Geoffrey Hauschild
YSU Professor Stephen Graf, of Poland, teaches a class at the university addressing Extraterrestrials, Meditation, and Free Energy. Graf poses for a portrait at his Poland home.
By Harold Gwin
The professor emeritus believes in the presence of extraterrestrials on Earth.
YOUNGSTOWN — Stephen A. Graf says most people are skeptics when they come into his “Extraterrestrials, Meditation and Free Energy” class at Youngstown State University, but that trend is reversed by the time they finish the course.
Graf, a retired psychology professor, truly believes that visitors from other worlds come to Earth and monitor mankind, although he said he’s never had a face-to-face encounter with one of those beings.
He has, he said, had an encounter that involved two unidentified flying craft. This was during a training seminar conducted by Dr. Steven M. Greer, a physician who has also been described as a “ufologist” and who claims to have had personal face-to-face contact with an extraterrestrial being. Greer also claims to have devised a way to contact ETs through a process involving meditation.
Graf uses in his course a text written by Greer and has been to seven of Greer’s training sessions conducted in areas of the world where high numbers of UFO sightings have been reported. The two UFOs that appeared during one of those sessions flew at a very high speed from horizon to horizon in just four to six seconds, he said.
Greer has produced “a credible body of testimony” supporting the existence of extraterrestrials, he said.
Graf, who holds a degree in psychology from Miami University, a master’s in psychology from Ohio State University and a doctorate of philosophy in experimental psychology from Ohio State, joined the YSU faculty in 1970.
He retired in 2005 and developed the “Special Topic” course “Extraterrestrials, Meditation and Free Energy,” which he has taught twice so far. It’s also scheduled for this spring term, which begins Jan. 12. Jack Auman, his brother-in-law and a retired school teacher, assists with the three-credit-hour course.
YSU is the only university in the United States offering this particular combination of topics, Graf said, noting that most academics have avoided serious consideration of an extraterrestrial presence because of several factors, including the fear of ridicule.
The meditation portion of the course focuses on developing a frame of mind that allows humans to operate on the extraterrestrials’ level, Graf said, explaining that what is known about extraterrestrials is that they are very spiritually involved.
Free energy, he said, is the notion that the universe contains enough energy to avoid the use of other forms of energy — such as fossil fuels — if we can find out how to harness it.
Graf said he developed the course to offer something “on the cutting edge.”
He said he believes extraterrestrials have been monitoring activities on Earth for the last 40 to 60 years and are benevolent creatures, not the evil, scary type portrayed in the entertainment media. Most reported sightings have indicated the extraterrestrials have a head, two arms, two eyes and two legs, but they don’t always have a human form.
He also believes they have a policy of nonintervention and are secretive because we haven’t developed spiritually and sociologically to their level.
It would be very destructive to the world’s economy if their technology and adaptation of “free energy” suddenly became available to mankind, he said, explaining why the global military-industrial complex seeks to keep their presence here a secret.
He said he believes that there have been crashes and shoot-downs of extraterrestrial craft and that government agencies have “reverse-engineered” some of those craft. Flights of those alien reproduction vehicles may be responsible for some UFO sightings, he said.
Both traditional and nontraditional students have signed up for his course, Graf said, adding that it is usually the older, nontraditional student who is skeptical about the existence of extraterrestrials.
The course gives participants a good dose of separation of spin from fiction and trying to get at the truth, what constitutes good evidence and what constitutes believability, he said.
The lessons learned can be carried over into other aspects of one’s life and needn’t be limited to the issue of extraterrestrials, he said.
To register for the course, listed as Special Topics course number 21953, contact the YSU registration office at (330) 941-3178. Space is still available for the spring session.
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