Selected valued comments from the Peanut Gallery. >From Mr. Rothwell:
> There is no likelihood that abductions are hoaxes. > There are countless other experiences in the past, > such as people who thought they were visited by witches > and succubuses and so on, which were obviously false > memories of physically impossible events. But the > people reporting these experiences believed them > sincerely. Again, psychological tests have shown that > it is easy to implant a false memory in most people. > The techniques for doing this are settled and > have been repeated in many psychological studies "Obviously false memories... physically impossible events..." ???? For someone who seems to go to extraordinary measures to maintain a strict protocol concerning the collections of observations pertaining to a broad spectrum of controversial phenomenon I find this statement uncharacteristically fundamentalist in the conclusions it seems to draw. Said differently, it seems very un-Jed of you! I would personally be a bit more cautious in implying that the mechanisms that govern how false memories are generated can somehow equally explain the abduction phenomenon – which again I gather you seem to be implying here. Mr. Rothwell continues: > My late mother was an expert in these issue (public > opinion, perception and psychology). In the last years of > her life, her mind was affected by Parkinson's and by the > drugs she was taking for it. One day she told my sister: > "I just came back from a visit with uncle Danny, upstairs." > Uncle Danny had been dead for 20 years and she was > living in a one-floor retirement home, with no upstairs. > My sister went along with it, saying "oh really, and how > is he?" A few hours later after a nap she said, "What did > I tell you before? Uncle Danny? That's ridiculous; he's > been dead for years. It must be that damned medication, > causing hallucinations," which it was. I told her that if > she were a shade more superstitious or spiritual she would > count that as a visit to heaven "upstairs," but knowing > too much about pharmacology ruined the experience for her. This is a wonderful story, Jed! Oh, how we try so valiantly not to fool ourselves! I would only want to add here the possibility that your mother may have been more perceptive than what many assume. As I'm sure you are well aware, with approaching death many individuals begin spontaneously recalling visits and conversations with loved ones who have already died. We think their mind is going. Maybe... maybe not. This brings up an issue I've often witnessed when in the presence of numerous atheists I've known. I've NEVER understood the pretext that death somehow means one's consciousness doesn't have the natural propensity to continue. It seems to me that most (not all, but most) atheists automatically link the belief in "survival-after-death" with god and religion, and as such, life-after-death automatically becomes another taboo subject. I've never understood the propensity to create such a linkage. As best as I can tell it's an independent variable. All this talk about God and religion and their attempts to make survival-after-death their exclusive right to own and control seems rather silly to me. Incidentally, I know an atheist friend who is convinced he/she experienced a direct contact with his/her dead father. As far as I know, he/she's still an atheist. Thank god! > If you think you have been abducted, that does not mean > you are crazy by any means, any more than it meant that > young native Americans who went on "vision quests" and > saw impossible things were crazy. The "vision quest" > methods were optimized to trigger delusions. Many other > rituals, dances that go for hours and other ceremonies > are also known to induce delusions or extreme emotions. > Soldiers in WWII battles often reported extreme delusions > that were more vivid than reality, such as their dead > friends walking in front of them, or a woman with scull > head trying to entice them into no-man-land (both > described by William Manchester in "Goodbye, Darkness"). > However, just because these experiences were vivid > certainly does not mean they were real! At least we can agree on the premise that experiencers are not crazy. Every one I've met seem to function in society just like everyone else. Some experiencers I like, and some I don't. Just like a normal cross-section of society. -- Regards, Steven Vincnet Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
