Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
"It's easy to imagine a TV sitcom making fun of a
character who visits psychics and astrologers and
channels Sarah Bernhardt," opines Wendy Kaminer, "but
virtually impossible to imagine it laughing at anyone
who takes the Bible literally and believes that someone
named Jonah once lived in a whale." She goes on to
demonstrate that, despite the complaints from many
religious people that the "secular media" mocks their
beliefs, American culture still shows a high degree of
respect for the faithful and pious, while popular
hostility towards atheists continues to rise. But "why
should it be socially acceptable to make fun of psychics
and not priests?" That's one of many provocative
questions Kaminer raises in Sleeping with
Extra-Terrestrials, a critical assessment of the extent
to which U.S. society has succumbed to the irrational.
Kaminer goes on to sift her way through pop spirituality
"classics" like The Celestine Prophecy and Conversations
with God and visits seminars by New Age gurus (leaving
her "amused and dismayed by the painful stupidities that
people embrace to ease their fears of death"), but
Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials is not merely an
assault on religion--Kaminer also attacks purveyors of
junk science, the influence of the recovered-memory
movement on both feminism and the American court system,
and the "cyberspacy" claims made by boosters of
technological progress. Whether she's considering the
extensive belief in UFOs and alien abductions or
wondering why so many people worshipped Princess Diana
in the hour of her death, Kaminer shows how an
unrestrained culture of faith "encourages passivity,
gullibility, and a childlike craving for authority."
Rationalists will find her skepticism a refreshing
tonic. --Ron Hogan
The New York Times Book Review, Caroline Knapp
The world, it seems, has gone to hell in a handbasket,
and Kaminer--a sharp, outspoken thinker--sees evidence
of this at every turn.
From Kirkus Reviews
A thorough examination of faith-based beliefs, from
visitations by angels to abductions by aliens, with a
detailed list of the problems these beliefs create in
society at large. Cultural commentator Kaminer (I'm
Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: The Recovery
Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions, 1992, etc.)
covers broad ground in her criticisms. Shes not afraid
to lump together established religious groups and the
followers of New Age movements in her presentation of
their influence on... read more
Book Description
In Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, Wendy Kaminer
argues that we are a society intoxicated by the
irrational: religion, spirituality, and popular
therapies threaten to replace rational thought with
supernaturalism and impassioned but unexamined personal
testimony. Ranging from our fascination with angels,
aliens, and near- death experiences to the rise of junk
science, the recovery movement, and the digital culture,
Kaminer points out the amusing and ominous effects of
our deference to... read more
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