190 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
190 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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SUBJECT: JOHN MACK ABDUCTION REPORT FILE: UFO2326
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Message #8960 - UFO Natl Echo
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Date: 08-03-92 14:40
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From: Don Allen
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To: All
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Subject: Harvard-mack 1/2
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** Forwarded from Usenet **
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The Harvard University Gazette is a publication largely internal to
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Harvard. It prints information about seminars, research and whatnot,
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along with spotlights on interesting professors and areas of study.
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In the most recent issue (July 24, 1992) a full page is devoted to John
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Mack, an MD affiliated with Harvard who believes that aliens routinely
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abduct midwestern housewives and perform strange experiments on them.
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The article is extremely generous to Mack; in fact, it could scarcely
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be more so.
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I would like to write a full response to the Gazette, and was wondering
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if anybody reading this post could point me to relevant sources of
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information about the 'abductions' and 'visitors' and so on.
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The article follows, in its entirety.
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--
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Accounting for Stories of Alien Abduction
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Psychiatrist John Mack shares his convictons [sic] that these reports are
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'authentic and disturbing mysteries'
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By Deane W. Lord
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Gazette Staff
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From Ancient Greece to the present, humankind has asked, Is there life
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beyond planet Earth? And, if so, what form does it take?
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Last month some 100 researchers and mental health professionals gathered
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in Cambridge to explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life and to
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examine and compare the experiences of abductees--men and women who claim to
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have been kidnapped by alien beings, taken aboard spacecraft, and eventually
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released.
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The four-day closed meeting drew some of the most ardent and long-term
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researchers who presented short papers on their work. Chief among them was
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conference co-organizer Medical School Psychiatry Professor John Mack, who
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became involved with the UFO question two and a half years ago. Though he
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began as a total skeptic, he admitted, he now believes that the experiences
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of abductees "are an extremely important phenomenon"-and that "we can't begin
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to understand them without a shift in our world view."
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He believes that mental dualism in the West--"we're here, you're
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there"--will prevent many from being open minded about the possibility of
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alien abductions. These experiences are shattering our world view [by
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suggesting] that we may be connected with other beings beyond ourselves....
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The proposition attacks the arrogance of our ideas and makes a mockery of our
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technology.
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Estimates vary as to how many individuals have had abduction experiences.
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According to a Roper Organization poll, one out of every 50 American adults--
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some 3.7 million people indicate that they have had an encounter with an
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unidentified flying object or an alien being.
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"It is possible that hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people
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in this country alone have undergone abduction experiences," said Mack.
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Because of the stigma attached to revealing such experiences, he believes
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many people remain underground, too ashamed or alarmed to admit the
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experience.
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"The more prominent the person, the more likely he or she will be
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reluctant to come forward as they have more to lose," he said. "Often, once
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they seek help, abductees prefer to be diagnosed as crazy."
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A well-known psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Mack reports that of the 60
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cases he has worked on he has found, -to his surprise, that after a battery
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of psychological tests, "no psychiatric or psychosocial explanation for these
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reports is evident. These people are not mentally ill." He has spent
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countless therapeutic hours with these individuals only to find that what
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struck him was the "ordinariness" of the population, including a
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restaurant
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owner, several secretaries, a prison guard, college students, a university
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administrator, and several homemakers.
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"The majority of abductees do not appear to be deluded, confabulating,
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lying, self-dramatizing, or suffering from a clear mental illness," he
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maintained. He has encountered only one person who showed psychotic features.
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The central finding of most researchers, including Mack, is that there is
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one archetypal abduction experience and that most abduction memories contain
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very limited variations on a standard scenario. A typical encounter would
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begin with uneasy feelings of foreboding, a fear-inducing appearance of small
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alien beings, transport to a spacecraft, examination and other procedures
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performed on a special table, various tests and tasks given, the introduction
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of more favorable feelings toward the aliens, and finally a return to
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pre-abduction activities and states of consciousness.
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For most of the abductees, the experience is fearful and many repress the
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details. Often, hypnosis brings back the traumatic episode and helps the
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abductee recover memories of the entire event, Mack and others have found.
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"Particularly impressive to me has been the intense resistance and
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disturbing affect, especially fear, as memories of traumatic abduction
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experiences begin to emerge under hypnosis or through conscious recall," said
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Mack. He and others find it hard to explain the marks left on some bodies
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from red triangles on the chest to incisions on arms and legs. Several have
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had implants in their ears and noses but, upon study, physicists and
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biochemists find no unearthly material.
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"Any adequate theory of alien abductions, even a useful hypothesis, must
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account for a broad range of puzzling phenomena," said Mack.
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In his inventory of occurrences, he includes narrative consistency. "The
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stories that abductees tell vary in their details, but they have a hard edge
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of narrative consistency," he found. He dismisses the argument that abductees
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influence one another and believes that "what more often happens is that when
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abductees communicate with each other about their abductions or watch
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television or film versions of abductions, they fill in details of what they
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have already experienced and are trying to clarify."
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Even though many abductions occur independent of UFO sightings, a close
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association between UFO encounters and abduction experiences has been
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consistently observed, noted Mack.
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Mack believes a convincing theory must be found for the bizarre physical
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effects, such as termination of pregnancy, sexual liaisons, incisions, and
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implants that abductees report.
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A way also must be found to account for the abduction reports of children
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as young as 2. These are, Mack said, "emotionally intense and seemingly
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authentic, detailed experiences [from young people] whose exposure to outside
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sources of information has been limited."
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The abduction phenomenon, said Mack, "confronts us with an authentic and
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disturbing mystery. There is no way, I believe, that we can even make sense,
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let alone provide a convincing explanation, of this matter within the
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framework of our existing views of what is real or possible. Our
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psychological theories do not include a way of accounting for the
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simultaneous occurrence among thousands of people, unacquainted with each
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other, including small children, of complex, elaborate, and sometimes
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overwhelmingly powerful experiences that resemble one another in minute
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detail, accompanied by equally peculiar physical phenomena."
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Mack also thinks that the current understanding of physical reality
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"whereby a population of beings from some other space/time realm can enter
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our world with such limited detection and affect so many people" defies our
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accepted notions of scientific reality.
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Like others, Mack believes the phenomenon is worthy of more inquiry. "The
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phenomenon may deliver to us a kind of fourth blow to our collective egoism,
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following those of Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud. We may be led to realize
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that we are not physically at the center of the universe, . . . we are not
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even the preeminent or dominant intelligence in the cosmos in control of our
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psychological and physical existences.
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"It appears that we can be 'invaded' or taken over, if not literally by
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other creatures, then by some other form of being or consciousness that seems
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able to do with us what it will for a purpose we cannot yet fathom."
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Sidebar:
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Research on human lives, with purpose and idealism
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About three years ago, a colleague asked John Mack to meet writer Budd
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Hopkins, the author of Intruders, a book recently made into a television
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movie on the experiences of abductees.
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Mack was highly skeptical; "there was no way I could understand the
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phenomena," he recalled. But Mack did meet with Hopkins, and became fascinated by the stories he
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heard. The conversation ultimately led Mack into abductee research; from 1990
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to January of this year, he interviewed 34 adults and children who claim to
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have encountered aliens, and will write a book about the phenomenon.
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His work with abductees impressed him "with the powerful dimension of
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personal growth that accompanies the traumatic experiences. An intense
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concern for the planet's survival and a powerful ecological consciousness
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seem to develop for many abductees. For me and other investigators, abduction
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research has had a shattering impact on our views of the nature of the
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cosmos."
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He is most proud of his work at Cambridge Hospital's psychiatry
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department, which he founded in 1962. He won a 1977 Pulitzer Prize for his
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biography of Lawrence of Arabia, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E.
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Lawrence (Little, Brown and Co.). He has also published extensively in the
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areas of psychobiography and the psychosocial effects of the nuclear arms
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race.
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As an investigator of the psychology of the nuclear arms race, Mack, 62,
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founded the Center for Psychology and Social Change, a Cambridge-based
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research organization devoted to the psychosocial study of human violence,
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conflict, and images of the enemy. The center has recently enlarged its focus
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to include the preservation of the environment.
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Mack received his M.D. from Harvard in 1955, and graduated from the
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Boston Psychoanalytic Institute in 1967 and was certified as a child analyst
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in 1969. He graduated from Oberlin College, phi beta kappa.
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He has been a professor of psychiatry at the Cambridge Hospital, an
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affiliate of the the Medical School [sic], since 1972 and was head of the
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Department of Psychiatry there from 1973 to 1977. A faculty member of the
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Boston Psychoanalytic Society, he is also currently president of the
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International Society for Political Psychology.
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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********************************************** |