On 29 Apr 1998 20:41:42 GMT, "Tom Ray" <Tomeleven at aol.com> wrote:
[sci.psychology.psychotherapy snipped from the distrib on request]
>I have been reading of such accounts since the 1960's, and these same
>beings have been reported since way back then.
Before the publication of John G Fuller's book?
>I use third person, because I do not want to "attack" any one particular
>person, but only those who suggest that reports from the sixties and early
>seventies were inspired by images from the late seventies.--- This suggests
>that an underlying "hysteria" on the part of those who cant handle the IDEA
>of ET's tends to adversly affect the "logic" they use to "deny" the
>reports.
Oh, I'll give you implicit permission to call me names. If I know they're
coming then they become my problem, so if you feel the need. This isn't a
debating trick, just a small amount of honesty.
> I will, however, admit that many reports( but not necessarily all) AFTER
>"CE3" (1977), and "Communion" may have been inspired by the movie and the
>book, but we still have a problem with the pre-CE3 reports which are quite
>numerous and consistent.
>CE3 also did not include the "physical exams".
Given, although my primary point of reference for this one is the John G
Fuller book. Point me towards a physical exam report before this date if
you can.
> Besides, In my previous posts, I suggest that there are MORE plausible
>prosaic "explainations" (other than space aliens) that could better account
>for MORE aspects of the reports than the standard "Pusedo Skeptic" put
>downs, of "dreams" and the " influence of the popular media".
The only reason that these become pat answers is that there are huge
numbers of people that turn-off when you mention 'psychology', thinking
there's a bit of a stigma attached in ways that provoke the response, 'I'm
not mad'.
After that point, the conversation doesn't get much farther. Personally
speaking, I received a handy viewpoint of a Hypnogogic hallucination when
a series of sleeping bags on top of my wardrobe became a rather large and
utterly convincing dragon.
I sh*t ye not.
I felt the things breath as it gently morphed back into sleeping bags.
Now classifying this as a 'dream' tends to simplify things to the point
where you can call a state of wakefulness a 'dream'.
> With "dreams" there is an unstated suggestion of the necessity of some
>sort of "paranormal" mind link so that the reports match to the sufficient
>degree.
> With the "media Image" we have to accept that many of the "victims"
>were influenced by something that wasnt widley publicised untill AFTER the
>event.
I disagree in terms that I haven't seen decent correlations of things seen
before CE3K, but this could be due to gaps in my knowledge. I plead
fallibility for the moment.
> I suspose that an emotionally driven person despirate for a quick
>"explainition" to "sweep the problem under the rug" could "buy" the
>explainations and ignore the logical inconsistancies, but "it wont fly" for
>any one who is genuinely interested in what may be really going on.
Personally, I tend to rail against the organised research undertaken so
far as it doesn't really go any farther than justifying the investigator's
viewpoint, which is the biggest problem that people facing this thing come
up against. I'm genuinely interested, but some people don't want to
accept that other people will lie, cheat and steal even if the prisons are
full.
> I can accept the idea of real "space aliens" should the need arise, but
>there is no need to do so when a prosaic explaination will account for the
>aspects of the reports. "Hoaxes" and "secret(and unethical) government
>experiments", for example make more sense than hundreds of unrelated people
>simply "imagining" or "dreaming" the SAME things.-----My point is , IF you
>are going to be skeptical, at least come up with plausible alternitive
>explainations.
Oh, there are lots, but this depend on individual cases rather than
lumping the phenomenon as a whole, which is the frequent argument set up
by those that like the idea of promotion. I agree that something is going
on, but I think that Space Aliens is pushing it when you factor in the
multivarious vagaries of the human mind and it's perceptions of the world.
I don't dismiss the idea out of hand, but I wouldn't put money on it.
In fact, the last sentance there is probably indicative of my entire
standpoint in that I've talked to 'abductees' reasonably and I can't
dismiss what they think, but often even they aren't completely sure what
happened. If the human that had the experience isn't sure, then I'm not
going to assume that they underwent something that I implicitly
understand.
L O V E L I E S S Q U E A L I N G
Oh children don't you weep and moan,
Children save your breath, You'll
draw a pretty pension, when your daddy
meets his death. - Trad. Ballad.
