Has hypnosis helped advance ufology?

[Koji K.]

I won't name names here, but my personal take is that the 'new wave' of ufologists seem to place a heavy emphasis on hypnosis, and this has heralded a new low for ufology. It seems anyone (often without any medical training) can set up shop as a hypnotist, collect a bunch of stories through tecniques which are often unethical and would never stand up in court, collect the reports in a book and publish it as a bestselling 'shocking revelations' type of book.

It seems 'mainstream' post-1980's ufology has relied way too heavily on this very unreliable practice, and we may now be drifting further and further from the truth as each abductee's tales are novelized.

Make no mistake, I am perfectly willing to believe in abductions and the like (in fact I do), but- if the aliens, EDE's, or what have you are so advanced or powerful, and have been conducting their research on human physiology for so long, one wonders why they haven't yet figured out that those memories they allegedly 'blocked' come gushing out under hypnosis? Did the medical texts they lifted from our sphere not cover psychology 101? Seems like we're either barking up the wrong tree completely or we're playing directly into the hands of who or whatever it is responsible for these 'repressed memories.'

To say nothing about the inherent problems of hypnosis- particularly when practiced by amateurs, with preconcieved notions on UFO's, on very distressed and confused individuals.

 

[CapnG]

IMO, hypnosis rarely advances anything besides the digits in the bank accounts of hypnotists.

 

[Noanswers]

I'm firmly in the Vallee control mechanism camp these days. I really believe that everything the witness sees and/or experiences is done for a reason and as form of theatre.
The hypnosis question is one aspect of this manipulation- they clearly want people (both experiencer and general publilc) to think this is some sort of mistake on their part, when in fact they are more than happy to have the whole thing come into the open.
In addition, there are folks out there hypnotizing people who really should not be doing so.
The real question is if anything the abductee thinks they are experiencing, seeing or touching is "real". Could this be a manipulation of perception itself?
I'll leave to people smarter than me to decide.

 

[Koji K.]

I'm firmly in the Vallee control mechanism camp these days. I really believe that everything the witness sees and/or experiences is done for a reason and as form of theatre.
The hypnosis question is one aspect of this manipulation- they clearly want people (both experiencer and general publilc) to think this is some sort of mistake on their part, when in fact they are more than happy to have the whole thing come into the open.
In addition, there are folks out there hypnotizing people who really should not be doing so.
The real question is if anything the abductee thinks they are experiencing, seeing or touching is "real". Could this be a manipulation of perception itself?
I'll leave to people smarter than me to decide.

Agreed 100%. I'm a huge fan of Vallee as well, and the control mechanism hypothesis seems to me (at least so far) the best starting point with which to approach the UFO phenomenon. I worry that people like him no longer seem to do much publishing these days. One of Vallee's comments sums it up best for me, something about him not being interested in the "movie" that hypnotists "reveal," but rather what's inside the projection booth.

 

[Noanswers]

Thanks for the reply, K.
I think I may have mis-voted (but so did a lot of seniors in Florida in 2000).
I voted "no", yet I think any insight, albeit a highly distorted and manipulated one, has to be of some worth.
Maybe this whole thing is like the automated rabbit at the grayhound track. This energy force/control mechanism stays slightly out ahead of humanity and presents riddles that are to deciphered.
In the case of hypnosis, maybe they are coming forth with a template that is wholly or partially innacurate, so that humanity is forced to untangle what is at its root. And, as the old saying goes. . .the destination is the journey. Quite possibly, what we are meant to uncover is not "what" they are, but a greater capacity to question and decipher that is already lying dorment in our species.
As I've no doubt stated before ad naseum (sic?), the more I think about all of this, the more we peel away, the more fascinating and perplexing it really is.
And of course, the farther I go afield for the simple ETH. Maybe ET, but maybe ET has developed to a degree whereby space/time are irrelevant.
Just a thought. . .
Ah, the Vallee quote- that's terrific. I don't know if i've come accross it before, but I won't soon forget it. He is a bright guy. . . I don't know why the hell everyone takes at face value (if one believes the accounts of abductees) what these entities are saying to them or showing them. I'm not even saying that I think there is some form a malevolence behind what they are up to, but for crying out loud, consider the possibility that there is something very different going on here.

 

[Koji K.]

I agree there is some value in a properly performed hypnosis, but these (apparently) are rare. Certainly any approach to this mysterious and elusive subject is of some use, I can't deny that. In a different thread here there was some discussion about DMT, a drug that created in "normal" (ie, non-abducted) individuals experiences practicially identical to the "standard" abduction experience, and this strikes me as a definite indication that perhaps we need more "borderline" scientific inquiries on the psychological aspect of abductions and UFO experiences in general.

What bothers me though, and the reason I voted "No" myself, was because I think too many researchers have taken the hypnosis "approach" and are milking it for all it's worth, rather than using it appropriately, under proper conditions, and as just one of a great many potential approaches to the mystery.

Vallee's actual quote was much better than my paraphrasing. It's from his book Confrontations on pages 145-46. I'll retype it here, since I love it so much (and it's classic Vallee):

Ufo encounters are complete frameworks into which the personality of the witness becomes projected. Like a movie that terrifies you, makes you cry, laugh, or perspire in anguish, the experience becomes part of the witness's reality. The ufologists behave like social researchers who, trying to understand the phenomenon of the cinema, would randomly interview people coming out of theatres and take their testimony at face value; like the UFO witnesses, these people are not lying. Some of them have seen Godzilla, others have seen Bambi. The experience, in every case, was real to them.

But the reality we should inquire about, the reality UFO researchers are often ignoring, is the movie projector high up in a small, dark, locked room near the ceiling. In that room is the technology that will give you both Bambi and Godzilla, Star Wars and, yes, even Close Encounters.

Like the technology of the cinema, the UFO technology is a meta-system. It generates whatever phenomena are appropriate at our level, at a given epoch, in a given state of the "market."

Perhaps the greatest merit of hypnosis in researching abductions is that it gives us a current, 'recordable,' 'state of the market.' (Vallee has also commented on the need to explore the UFO "mythos" as it happens, and perhaps for the first time we are finally doing that, in some small form, even if it's being done by people who don't realize they are doing it...)

 

[Noanswers]

Indeed a great quote, and I have to add my own from the same book:

Any active measure directed at interaction with the UFO phenomenon will have to take into consideration its ability to take control of the witnesses' perceptions and alter their psychic reality.

I think we are in agreement that there is no one "truth" to what this whole phenomenon is all about, nor is there one truth teller. However, Vallee's lack of dogmatism and adhearence mundane ideas, points in directions that must be considered- especially in relation to abductee reports borne of either concious memory or hypnosis. It just seems like there is a hell of a lot more here than anyone wants to acknowledge.