The Uneasy Relationship Between Science Fiction and the Paranormal Featured on The Paracast
So Why Do We Ask for Donations? Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never sufficient, not even close. But we don't want to overwhelm the show with spots, so we hope you'll be willing and able to fill the gap, if you can, to help us cover increasing server costs and other expenses -- or perhaps provide a little extra cash for lunch.
No contribution is too small (or too large . We have a Donate link on our home page, below the logo and audio player. There's also a Donate link on our forums, right below our logo. Or just send your PayPal donation direct to sales (at) theparacast (dot) com or use this direct link: The Paracast Community Forums - Welcome.
You Can Now Order The Official Paracast T-Shirt: You asked, and we answered. We are now taking orders for The Official Paracast T-Shirt and a collection of other specially customized merchandise. To get your T-Shirt, just pay a visit to our new online store at Welcome to The Official Paracast Store to select your size and place your order. We now also offer a lineup of other premium merchandise featuring The Paracast logo.
Sunday, April 18, 2010: The Paracast covers a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions across the planet.
Set Up: The Paracast hosts interview long-time researchers in the field, to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join us as we explore the realms of the known and unknown, and hear great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This Week's Episode: Co-Host Paul Kimball presents a roundtable featuring science fiction author and filmmaker Paul Davids and paranormal writer Nicholas Redfern to discuss the dysfunctional relationship between Sci-Fi, UFOs and the paranormal.
Paul Kimball's site: The Other Side of Truth
Paul Davids' site: PAUL DAVIDS.COM
Nicholas Redfern's site: Nick Redfern
Coming April 25: We continue to explore the mystery of Earth-based UFOs and the frontiers of our reality, as expressed by the late Mac Tonnies and others, with co-host Christopher O’Brien and Walter Bosley, Mike Clelland, T. Allen Greenfield, and William Michael Mott.
Christopher O'Brien's site: Home - Our Strange Planet
Mike Clelland's site: hidden experience
T. Allen Greenfield's site: Assembly of the Knowledge and Wisdom of Solomon
William Michael Mott's site: SUBTERRANEAN MYTHS AND MYSTERIES - Wm Michael Mott
Reminder: Don't forget to visit our always-active Discussion Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal (and note our new Internet address): The Paracast Community Forums. We recently completed a major redesign to make our community even easier to access, with more convenience features to boot.
Of Abductions and Hypnosis
When I was maybe 18 years old, I experimented with hypnotizing one of my friends. He had developed a smoking habit, so I gave him a post-hypnotic suggestion that the cigarette would leave an extremely bad taste in his mouth when he lit up.
Well, my humble efforts at therapy paid off for a short time, until his friends kept egging him on to begin smoking once again. The suggestion faded, and the habit resumed in short order.
Understand that I was just having fun, with the enthusiastic cooperation of my friends. I had read a few books on the subject, and mastered a few simple techniques to induce a trance.
In the UFO field, hypnosis has become a sore point with many of you, because of its frequent use to unearth alleged UFO abductions. A common example involves someone reporting one of those missing time incidents, where time seems to jump minutes or hours unaccountably. Just wait happened during those times, or did the victim somehow black out, even though they managed to remain alert enough to drive to their destinations without getting into an accident?
You know the scene. Someone hypnotizes the potential experiencer, and suddenly they begin to remember all sorts of horrific episodes involving capture by the alien pilots of a flying saucer and perhaps undergoing some sort of weird experimentation.
Now some advocates of this investigative approach claim that the UFOnauts are not just causing those memory lapses, but creating screen memories to hide the actual event, whatever it might be. You’d think that a supposed advanced alien race would be smart enough to devise methods to block those memories so our primitive methods can’t recover them so easily.
I have a some concerns, the most prominent of which is that a lot of this hypnotic regression is being done not by trained therapists but they laymen. Sure, they may have been tutored in the appropriate techniques by professionals, or taken some courses on the subject, but are they qualified to handle a situation where something goes wrong?
Consider that long-simmering controversy involving a woman from New Zealand, known by the pseudonym “Emma Woods,” who claims to be a UFO abductee, and American abduction researcher Dr. David Jacobs.
Now apparently on the advice of a former therapist, “Emma” sent boxes with huge amounts of material to Jacobs and a fellow abduction researcher, Budd Hopkins. I don’t know about you, but if someone sent me that much material unsolicited, I’d treat it with extreme skepticism and concern.
Those of you who have followed this affair realize the fine details are extremely complicated, and I’ll just cover a few of the highlights.
ith the approval of her ex-therapist, “Emma” worked with Dr. Jacobs over an extended period of time to unearth memories of her abductions via telephone-based hypnotic sessions. Yes, they never met in person, not even once. Supposedly this remote therapeutic technique is perfectly acceptable behavior, but those boxes of written material should have lit some warning signs. This was an accident waiting to happen.
After several years of these sessions, there was the inevitable falling out. Depending on which version of the story you believe, the patient was treated badly by Dr. Jacobs, while he maintains she began to stalk him and he was advised to disengage himself from the investigation.
While quite possibly sincere, “Emma” definitely comes across as disturbed and unduly obsessed with the whole affair. Dr. Jacobs understandably regrets his involvement in this case.
As far as I’m concerned, the barn door was closed after the horses left. Now fans of the TV action procedural, NCIS, no doubt recall those comedic scenes where one of the agents gently smacks another in the head as an act of discipline. In my opinion, Jacobs deserves similar treatment. He should have stayed away, maybe written her a letter expressing his regret over her distress and suggesting she continue getting the therapy she needs from people in her city.
Unfortunately, the “Emma Woods” episode has become a major distraction. It is high time for abduction investigators to work with mental health professionals to devise a scientific investigative method to determine what’s really going on. Yes, ET may be involved, and maybe hypnotic regression is a useful tool. But the present scattershot approach does little but vindicate the biases of a specific investigator, and, at times, creates needless controversies.
Not that I really expect that things will soon get better, but it’s also true that Hopkins and Jacobs seemed comfortable with developing such a method when we interviewed them on a recent episode of The Paracast. So I remain optimistic that a proper research technique may eventually be devised.
So Why Do We Ask for Donations? Although ads help cover a small part of our expenses, the income they produce is never sufficient, not even close. But we don't want to overwhelm the show with spots, so we hope you'll be willing and able to fill the gap, if you can, to help us cover increasing server costs and other expenses -- or perhaps provide a little extra cash for lunch.
No contribution is too small (or too large . We have a Donate link on our home page, below the logo and audio player. There's also a Donate link on our forums, right below our logo. Or just send your PayPal donation direct to sales (at) theparacast (dot) com or use this direct link: The Paracast Community Forums - Welcome.
You Can Now Order The Official Paracast T-Shirt: You asked, and we answered. We are now taking orders for The Official Paracast T-Shirt and a collection of other specially customized merchandise. To get your T-Shirt, just pay a visit to our new online store at Welcome to The Official Paracast Store to select your size and place your order. We now also offer a lineup of other premium merchandise featuring The Paracast logo.
Sunday, April 18, 2010: The Paracast covers a world beyond science, where UFOs, poltergeists and strange phenomena of all kinds have been reported by millions across the planet.
Set Up: The Paracast hosts interview long-time researchers in the field, to shed light on the mysteries and complexities of our Universe and the secrets that surround us in our everyday lives.
Join us as we explore the realms of the known and unknown, and hear great stories of the history of the paranormal field in the 20th and 21st centuries.
This Week's Episode: Co-Host Paul Kimball presents a roundtable featuring science fiction author and filmmaker Paul Davids and paranormal writer Nicholas Redfern to discuss the dysfunctional relationship between Sci-Fi, UFOs and the paranormal.
Paul Kimball's site: The Other Side of Truth
Paul Davids' site: PAUL DAVIDS.COM
Nicholas Redfern's site: Nick Redfern
Coming April 25: We continue to explore the mystery of Earth-based UFOs and the frontiers of our reality, as expressed by the late Mac Tonnies and others, with co-host Christopher O’Brien and Walter Bosley, Mike Clelland, T. Allen Greenfield, and William Michael Mott.
Christopher O'Brien's site: Home - Our Strange Planet
Mike Clelland's site: hidden experience
T. Allen Greenfield's site: Assembly of the Knowledge and Wisdom of Solomon
William Michael Mott's site: SUBTERRANEAN MYTHS AND MYSTERIES - Wm Michael Mott
Reminder: Don't forget to visit our always-active Discussion Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal (and note our new Internet address): The Paracast Community Forums. We recently completed a major redesign to make our community even easier to access, with more convenience features to boot.
Of Abductions and Hypnosis
When I was maybe 18 years old, I experimented with hypnotizing one of my friends. He had developed a smoking habit, so I gave him a post-hypnotic suggestion that the cigarette would leave an extremely bad taste in his mouth when he lit up.
Well, my humble efforts at therapy paid off for a short time, until his friends kept egging him on to begin smoking once again. The suggestion faded, and the habit resumed in short order.
Understand that I was just having fun, with the enthusiastic cooperation of my friends. I had read a few books on the subject, and mastered a few simple techniques to induce a trance.
In the UFO field, hypnosis has become a sore point with many of you, because of its frequent use to unearth alleged UFO abductions. A common example involves someone reporting one of those missing time incidents, where time seems to jump minutes or hours unaccountably. Just wait happened during those times, or did the victim somehow black out, even though they managed to remain alert enough to drive to their destinations without getting into an accident?
You know the scene. Someone hypnotizes the potential experiencer, and suddenly they begin to remember all sorts of horrific episodes involving capture by the alien pilots of a flying saucer and perhaps undergoing some sort of weird experimentation.
Now some advocates of this investigative approach claim that the UFOnauts are not just causing those memory lapses, but creating screen memories to hide the actual event, whatever it might be. You’d think that a supposed advanced alien race would be smart enough to devise methods to block those memories so our primitive methods can’t recover them so easily.
I have a some concerns, the most prominent of which is that a lot of this hypnotic regression is being done not by trained therapists but they laymen. Sure, they may have been tutored in the appropriate techniques by professionals, or taken some courses on the subject, but are they qualified to handle a situation where something goes wrong?
Consider that long-simmering controversy involving a woman from New Zealand, known by the pseudonym “Emma Woods,” who claims to be a UFO abductee, and American abduction researcher Dr. David Jacobs.
Now apparently on the advice of a former therapist, “Emma” sent boxes with huge amounts of material to Jacobs and a fellow abduction researcher, Budd Hopkins. I don’t know about you, but if someone sent me that much material unsolicited, I’d treat it with extreme skepticism and concern.
Those of you who have followed this affair realize the fine details are extremely complicated, and I’ll just cover a few of the highlights.
ith the approval of her ex-therapist, “Emma” worked with Dr. Jacobs over an extended period of time to unearth memories of her abductions via telephone-based hypnotic sessions. Yes, they never met in person, not even once. Supposedly this remote therapeutic technique is perfectly acceptable behavior, but those boxes of written material should have lit some warning signs. This was an accident waiting to happen.
After several years of these sessions, there was the inevitable falling out. Depending on which version of the story you believe, the patient was treated badly by Dr. Jacobs, while he maintains she began to stalk him and he was advised to disengage himself from the investigation.
While quite possibly sincere, “Emma” definitely comes across as disturbed and unduly obsessed with the whole affair. Dr. Jacobs understandably regrets his involvement in this case.
As far as I’m concerned, the barn door was closed after the horses left. Now fans of the TV action procedural, NCIS, no doubt recall those comedic scenes where one of the agents gently smacks another in the head as an act of discipline. In my opinion, Jacobs deserves similar treatment. He should have stayed away, maybe written her a letter expressing his regret over her distress and suggesting she continue getting the therapy she needs from people in her city.
Unfortunately, the “Emma Woods” episode has become a major distraction. It is high time for abduction investigators to work with mental health professionals to devise a scientific investigative method to determine what’s really going on. Yes, ET may be involved, and maybe hypnotic regression is a useful tool. But the present scattershot approach does little but vindicate the biases of a specific investigator, and, at times, creates needless controversies.
Not that I really expect that things will soon get better, but it’s also true that Hopkins and Jacobs seemed comfortable with developing such a method when we interviewed them on a recent episode of The Paracast. So I remain optimistic that a proper research technique may eventually be devised.