*wscott@gate.net* (Scott Gibson) writes: > On 17 May 1997 12:52:02 GMT, eflahert@garnet1.acns.fsu.edu (Edward > Flaherty) wrote: > > > > > > >But that is not evidence of an abduction. > > > > It's not proof. I do consider it evidence. Especially when you have > highly consistent accounts coming from people all over the world. > People who have never had contact with each other and no previous > interest in ETs or UFOs. Part of the reason Dr. Mack decided the > subject deserved more attention was the great number of largely > consistent accounts. Did you happen to see NOVA's "Kidnapped by UFOs?" One of the points made in that show is that Mack and other abduction therapists "prep" their patients to let them know what the typical abduction experience is supposed to be like. They are shown sketches of the aliens, given descriptions of what others have reported and so forth. Then under hypnosis, which is nothing more than a heightened state of suggestion, the patient "remembers" events very similar to those of others. This same phenomena is present in other therapy experiments. The "lost in a mall" experiment is a good example. Therapists take a person and suggest to them they were lost in a shopping mall as a small child, and then under hypnosis prod them for recollections. The therapist then leads them by asking just the right questions. Over a wide range of patients who were never, in fact, lost in a mall as a child, the "memories" are quite similar. Moreover, the process of recovering memories with this technique produces dubious results. Perhaps you have heard of various cases in which this technique was used to "recover" memories of child abuse or satanic torture, all of which turned out to be false -- but not after innocent people were jailed and families destroyed. Most states don't even permit testimony acquired through this therapy into criminal trials anymore. In other words, the chief body of evidence in favor of the abduction hypothesis -- the number and sameness of the accounts -- is based on a very questionable practice. What this demonstrates, I believe, is that the similarities of the abduction memories have a plausible [15 lines left ... full text available at <url:http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go?choice=message&table=05_1997&mid=3223718&hilit=HYPNOSIS> ] -------------------------------- Article-ID: 05_1997&3217374 Score: 78 Subject: Re: Cult hypnotism