Rubbing Salt on Old Wounds...

[Gene Steinberg]

I don't want to turn this into a flame fest.

But I've been informed that abduction researcher David Jacobs has released, after a number of years, a 30-page rebuttal to the Emma Woods allegations against him.

There are loads of details to consider for those of you on either side of this debate.

Feel free to talk about it, but, again, no personal attacks.

Without reaching a conclusion, I do see the site has a lot of information, including emails and session transcripts, which Woods has never disclosed on her own site. Make of that what you will.

A Response To Emma Woods’ Allegations

 

[Jeff Davis]

Thanks Gene! I look forward to devouring this shortly.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Keep Tums handy.

 

[Walkabout]

I don't want to turn this into a flame fest.

But I've been informed that abduction researcher David Jacobs has released, after a number of years, a 30-page rebuttal to the Emma Woods allegations against him.

There are loads of details to consider for those of you on either side of this debate.

Feel free to talk about it, but, again, no personal attacks.

Without reaching a conclusion, I do see the site has a lot of information, including emails and session transcripts, which Woods has never disclosed on her own site. Make of that what you will.

A Response To Emma Woods’ Allegations

I have another idea: rather than rubbing salt into old wounds, why don't we _not?_ Clearly, this is a situation where two people feel equally aggrieved, equally harmed by the other's public remarks. This has been going on for over nine years. There are many citations on Ms. Woods site that are never disclosed on Mr. Jacobs' site, as well.

And ultimately, don't we have to find that the buck stops with the researcher? Don't we have to say that Jacobs, in the power position of 'healer' and investigator working under the auspices of Temple University, was supposed to be the professional in charge here? He admits to making some unwise decisions in continuing to work with Woods. Things got out of his control because he had zero training in knowing how to spot incoming problems and cope with them as a professional therapist. He's clearly not a professional in that field. Which makes him automatically unqualified to publicly diagnose one of his patients as having a personality disorder. That is both unethical and immoral.

In fact, if we're asked to judge one of these people as being more mentally ill than the other, Jacobs is on very thin ice here. His own sanity is not one I'd want near me or near someone seeking help. His most revealing comments discuss his total belief in the real world reality of sexually voracious alien hybrids and hubrids that want to chase him, Jacobs, to the ground and stomp him to death. Is this good mental hygiene? Can you consider what Freud or Jung would have to say about Jacobs' hyperventilating fear of his 'hubrids?'

The esteemed researcher has not a scintilla of evidence that these terrifying (not to mention, biologically improbable) creatures even exist! What kind of a researcher writes a lengthy defense of his own feints and dodges of these imaginary beings by pulling two of his unprotected female subjects deeply into his dominant male, sadistic fantasy world?

If the Emma Woods case went badly wrong -- and it must be unanimous that it did go wrong -- do we assign blame for that to the troubled subject who came seeking help? This cannot be a 'he said/she said' event. The professor, using Temple U. letterhead was the one in charge. Unfortunately, he didn't have the training or knowledge sufficient to handle the case. And we cannot excuse the professor doing the research because he fell deep into his own dark fantasy pit. If he'd been working within proven protocols and with peer review, none of this nine year nightmare for both people would have happened.

I say: Enough. It's a deeply shameful and embarrassing episode in so-called "UFO research." Does anyone care to prolong it with "salt in old wounds?"

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Just one example how this matter has become so emotional.

A thought: Jacobs was consulting with mental health professionals who made suggestions about Woods' possible diagnosis based on her behavior. Clearly he wasn't reaching such conclusions himself, which is what he made clear.

I do hope it's over. But that's really up to just one party now. I doubt Jacobs will ever make any more comments on this topic.

 

[Walkabout]

Just one example how this matter has become so emotional.

A thought: Jacobs was consulting with mental health professionals who made suggestions about Woods' possible diagnosis based on her behavior. Clearly he wasn't reaching such conclusions himself, which is what he made clear.

I do hope it's over. But that's really up to just one party now. I doubt Jacobs will ever make any more comments on this topic.

Jacobs was consulting primarily with a fellow Temple University buddy named Richard Kluft, a so-called specialist in the field of MPD or Dissasociative Identity Disorder. Google him. He does not have a pristine reputation. A number of his fellow psychiatrists believe he's made up a factitious disorder of MPD -- that whatever Sybil-like symptoms some individuals have are largely created by their therapist. Using (wait for it....) recovered memory techniques like hypnosis.

Your comment almost implies that it's fine and dandy for a UFO researcher to consult with a psychiatrist who has never met or worked with an individual and then for the researcher to take that second-hand, off-the-cuff diagnosis based entirely on hearsay and broadcast it publicly as "the truth" about his patient. Surely you don't mean that....Or do you?

I've been around for a while and I still recall the wholesale fury of abductees and Budd Hopkins who were featured in a 1996 Nova program on abductions. In this case they were infuriated that Nova brings in Elisabeth Loftus, Ph. D., she of False Memory Syndrome fame. The Nova producer shows her some video of abductees and Hopkins at work. They were outraged that she "was allowed to diagnose them" as disturbed people without knowing them, without personally treating them. Valid criticism?

What's good for the Hopkins goose is generally good for the Jacobs gander. How now are they different, suddenly?

Who among us would want to have our own mental health publicly portrayed on the Internet? Might want to look at the HIPAA regulations established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regarding the total confidentiality of patient information. UFO research, as portrayed in his jokey, chortling way by David Jacobs, doesn't even come close to honoring such medical and scientific standards for patient protection.

But then, we all secretly know that Jacobs is no physician and that he is no _real_health care provider, either. If he is, the following principles apply to him.

187-What does the HIPAA Privacy Rule do

What does the HIPAA Privacy Rule do?
Answer:

The HIPAA Privacy Rule for the first time creates national standards to protect individuals’ medical records and other personal health information.

• It gives patients more control over their health information.
• It sets boundaries on the use and release of health records.
• It establishes appropriate safeguards that health care providers and others must achieve to protect the privacy of health information.
• It holds violators accountable, with civil and criminal penalties that can be imposed if they violate patients’ privacy rights.
• And it strikes a balance when public responsibility supports disclosure of some forms of data – for example, to protect public health.

For patients – it means being able to make informed choices when seeking care and reimbursement for care based on how personal health information may be used.

Learn more about health information privacy.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I figured this would never end.

I am not assuming that asking a psychiatrist or other mental health practitioner to give a general description about the possible meaning of someone's behavior is meant to be a diagnosis. It's no different than asking a medical talking head about the symptoms of a disease on a TV or radio interview, without necessarily concluding any individual suffers from it.

As to HIPPA, how does that apply to someone who lives across the world and is not a citizen or resident of the U.S.? Jacobs clearly indicates he is not pretending to be anyone's therapist.

I agree he had no business getting involved in this mess and, early on, he should have disengaged himself when things got out of hand, before they got way out of hand. The warning signs were there in that box of stuff she sent.

 

[Walkabout]

But Jacobs _did_heartily suggest on several forums and podcasts that his subject suffered from one, perhaps two, personality disorders. To say this out loud or put it in print in direct association with the person's name...he's implying the link. If he were a health care professional and if someone did take him to court, believe me, he'd be found guilty as hell.

HIPPA was mentioned as a federal standard for protecting patient confidentiality, just as I might mention the benefits of using "the scientific method" when considering whether "hubrids" are actually chasing one across the cornfield or sending one Instant Messages on an AOL account. It's the principle that is paramount. Not whether the subject is a US citizen or not.

The American public is largely unaware of either of these guiding principles that help make actual research valuable to us all. Using such standards, a researcher might reasonably expect that her findings will reveal a new truth or perspective on the material world. But someone who makes up his own rules as he goes along, as Jacobs does, has revealed nothing to us in the end.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I have not heard, personally, Jacobs say this. And certainly that's going over the line. You sure he didn't qualify this by saying that came from the professionals with whom he consulted? He might have said, as he's done in some statements I've read, that such symptoms, based on what they told him, appear to match her behavior, but that's not a diagnosis or an attempt at one.

I can say my stomach hurts or back hurts, and that may be symptomatic of a number of ailments. But I don't have to have a degree to say that.

As to privacy: She appears to have signed a consent form with Jacobs (I presume under her real name) in which she agreed that her remarks would be "on the record." Jacobs has continued to withhold her real name, thus fulfilling the promise to keep her identity confidential.

Your response is moving over the line too, so let's settle down. I had to clean your response a bit.

 

[Walter Bosley]

Well, so many people have been wanting 'professionals' to get involved with these topics, look what happens when they do, lol. I was not familiar with the details of the case, rather I'd heard more about the reaction to the controversy surrounding it. When I read that Jacobs was dealing with this over the phone I wondered if that's a wise practice -- whether it's common or not, I wonder if it's a wise practice. Then there's the issue of this general subject. I'm not sure what I think about this whole abduction-by-ETs topic. Not saying nothing is happening, just saying there's something questionable about the assumptions and there is something darker about it that often gets overlooked or, conversely, sensationalized in the wrong way. Anyway, the whole thing seems messy and the mess seems to me that it was avoidable. Somebody mishandled something and somebody is not being honest and the whole thing is something that isn't interesting to me because of the controversy.

But then again, I have written about men building flying machines in the 1850s.

 

[Walkabout]

Anyway, the whole thing seems messy and the mess seems to me that it was avoidable. Somebody mishandled something and somebody is not being honest and the whole thing is something that isn't interesting to me because of the controversy.

But then again, I have written about men building flying machines in the 1850s.

That does seem much more enlightening...fun, too! Let's talk about flying machines.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I have read the rebuttal and these are my personal findings.

Jacobs is in fact a professional with a thoroughly substantiated history. Most people however seem to be forgetting the fact that Jacobs, by his own sheer definitions and written claims alone concerning Emma Woods, is only a professional investigative reporter of a highly controversial subject matter. It was Woods that came to Jacobs, not the other way around. IMO, Jacobs cannot be said to have been any more morally wrong here than Emma Woods has been, solely because of a mutual lack of critical substantiation. Every written practice and presumption, in this case on both sides of the unidentified (read: not substantiated) players fence, are in fact characters in what is no less than a stage set for a controversial conjecture based play at best.

No matter which side of the argument you align yourself with, we do not even know if Emma Woods is the real person that she, or David, claims her to be or not, do we? Is it not reasonable to expect Emma Woods to substantiate herself beyond an internet identity? If she had been so devastatingly damaged by what are solely her claims of Jacob's "malpractice", are we, and he, not THOROUGHLY owed as much?

The cult of context allows for the perpetuated reporting of proposed non-fictional scenarios. Scenarios that are constructed from the formative grouping of information that cannot be falsified in many/most cases. The information is presented within a context of highly intriguing conjecture.

There is a word for this. It's called entertainment.

At this point I do not have anymore solid reason to believe *in* Emma Woods, than I do a socially reported phenomenon contextually identified as "Alien Abduction".

 

[Walkabout]

The cult of context allows for the perpetuated reporting of proposed non-fictional scenarios. Scenarios that are constructed from the formative grouping of information that cannot be falsified in many/most cases. The information is presented within a context of highly intriguing conjecture.

There is a word for this. It's called entertainment.
.

In this, we are in complete agreement: the field of so-called "ufology" has degenerated into mass entertainment. Very like what the Romans were using the Colosseum for in AD 80: they filled it with public spectacles and gladiatorial contests, mock battles, bloody executions, and the re-enactment of dramas taken from classical mythology.

Every one of those elements is present in the nine year long struggle between Jacobs (uncredentialed in any formal field related to his present abduction quest) and the woman going by the name of "Emma Woods." And for those who persist in perpetuating the, yes, non-falsifiable reports of alien abduction as a whole, welcome to "Savagery, The Game."

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Still, there are people who have reported abduction experiences. They aren't faking it, so something happened to them. It may not be related to actual contacts with aliens, but it's due to something.

Remember that Emma Woods came to Jacobs and Hopkins via her "counselor" because she had a lifetime of experiences that may have been abduction related. She appears to want to dismiss this all now as sleep-related. So is that what's happening to all these people? It would be nice to know free of the attacks and the flames.

 

[paraschtick]

Long time Woods supporter here. Gene can vouch that I am a real person, and I can vouch for Emma being a real person because I have met her, and discussed her experiences, and time working with Jacobs at some length.

So what is said here is so far from the truth, it truly beggars belief (no shock there then).

Jacobs has provided no evidence whatsoever for anything he has ever purported as happening to any of his 'research subjects'. Nothing. If you can provide me with anything that contradicts this, I would kill to see it. It would be a world changing event. All our paradigms concerning religion, and our place in the universe, astronomy, physics, and the nature of reality would be torn to shreds all in one moment.

Jacobs can in no way be seen to be a "professional investigative reporter". I believe George Knapp can be thought of as being such a thing, but Jacobs, again providing no facts, proof or evidence for anything that he has written in his prurient and violent books can only be seen as a mythologist (and that is being extremely kind ignoring his horrendous acts against vulnerable people such as Emma).

I believe that something is happening to a number of people around the globe. It may have been going on for a long time but Jacobs' work has almost destroyed any actual scientific investigation into any of it. In my opinion, he has destroyed people's lives, and muddied the waters of the so-called "alien abduction" field for many years to come.

What he is doing at the moment is nothing but a re-write of history, and trying to save his legacy as a supposed ethical researcher. His new uninformed, and astonishingly stupid ramblings on his website shows someone who is trying to gloss over, and distort facts so that he can leave a legacy of mind-numbingly bad pornographic scribbles intact.

Oh, and as for Emma going to Jacobs in the first place. This is not quite how it happened. Emma was referred to him via her (actually, qualified) therapist, and Jacobs later asked her if he could hypnotize her. His entire portrait of what happened between them is a fiction based on little if any substance. Why people give him the benefit of the doubt shows to me how people's moral compasses have gone awol. Just listen to the audio, and read what Jacobs says about it. The cognitive dissonance produced therein would blow any thinking person's mind.

Emma has shown herself in the audio to be a rational, and thoroughly reasonable person. In real life she is the same. Rational, considerate, and someone who tries to see the best in everyone. I, however, am not so forgiving about this so called, "investigative reporter".

Why other people do not see this still makes my jaw drop after all this time.

ps Jeff Davis: you do know that Jacobs is NOT a qualified therapist of any kind, and does not hold a licence of any kind to operate as a hypnotherapist? From what you say, you would think that Jacobs was a psychiatrist or psychologist working in the mental health field. The mind boggles ...

I have read the rebuttal and these are my personal findings.

Jacobs is in fact a professional with a thoroughly substantiated history. Most people however seem to be forgetting the fact that Jacobs, by his own sheer definitions and written claims alone concerning Emma Woods, is only a professional investigative reporter of a highly controversial subject matter. It was Woods that came to Jacobs, not the other way around. IMO, Jacobs cannot be said to have been any more morally wrong here than Emma Woods has been, solely because of a mutual lack of critical substantiation. Every written practice and presumption, in this case on both sides of the unidentified (read: not substantiated) players fence, are in fact characters in what is no less than a stage set for a controversial conjecture based play at best.

No matter which side of the argument you align yourself with, we do not even know if Emma Woods is the real person that she, or David, claims her to be or not, do we? Is it not reasonable to expect Emma Woods to substantiate herself beyond an internet identity? If she had been so devastatingly damaged by what are solely her claims of Jacob's "malpractice", are we, and he, not THOROUGHLY owed as much?

The cult of context allows for the perpetuated reporting of proposed non-fictional scenarios. Scenarios that are constructed from the formative grouping of information that cannot be falsified in many/most cases. The information is presented within a context of highly intriguing conjecture.

There is a word for this. It's called entertainment.

At this point I do not have anymore solid reason to believe *in* Emma Woods, than I do a socially reported phenomenon contextually identified as "Alien Abduction".

 

[paraschtick]

Still, there are people who have reported abduction experiences. They aren't faking it, so something happened to them. It may not be related to actual contacts with aliens, but it's due to something.

Remember that Emma Woods came to Jacobs and Hopkins via her "counselor" because she had a lifetime of experiences that may have been abduction related. She appears to want to dismiss this all now as sleep-related. So is that what's happening to all these people? It would be nice to know free of the attacks and the flames.

Hi Gene,

What Jacobs claims about Emma supposedly now saying her experiences are just sleep-related phenomena is completely untrue. Emma regards herself as an "experiencer", and is agnostic regarding the actual cause of what happens to her, and does not rule out anything in any way. She does not believe that it is all sleep-related. Some of it however, may be.

From her own website (Emma Woods Files):

"I am one of many people who have had anomalous experiences throughout their lives that cannot be explained in conventional terms.

My own experiences fit patterns which, in our culture, are often explained as “paranormal”, “UFO” or “alien abduction” experiences. I have an agnostic view of these cultural explanations; I am neither a “believer” nor a “skeptic”. However, I think that the underlying experiences giving rise to these explanations are both real and anomalous, whatever their actual origin."

If you have looked at her website she has even had videos of some of the phenomena she has witnessed posted up there, and none of these were sleep related in any way. They are not up there at the moment, but I believe that they will be re-posted fairly soon.

Best wishes

Harvey P.

 

[Han]

How do we move forward? Gene is very much right when he says:

"there are people who have reported abduction experiences. They aren't faking it, so something happened to them. It may not be related to actual contacts with aliens, but it's due to something."

What I have learned from this whole mess is that: If someone approached me and told me they were being "abducted" I wouldn't really know how to help them, or who to put them in contact with.

Finally regarding the jacobs/woods thing: regardless of the minutia, my judgement is that jacobs was in authority, as in: he was the person in charge, and with this comes greater responsibility.

Authority or peoples perception of it, has a massive bearing on their actions, and with the greatest respect: woods was not in a "good" place (demonstrated by her seeking help in the first place).

Like I said: the important thing is how we move forward and prevent similar situations occurring, in other words we have to talk about it, but the main focus should be on getting the best possible help for victims of "abduction".

We should remember these are people, not "cases".

 

[Gene Steinberg]

When you read the summary Jacobs offers of his interactions with Emma Woods, my impression is that he was never in control until he finally decided to tell her to get lost. Until then, she managed the agenda completely. It's easy to assume he, as the counselor or whatever he was, must be directing the process. But look again.

 

[Han]

I am struggling to put this into words without offending anyone but: If woods was in "control" why was she still being abducted? surely her situation shows that she was not in "control" of her own mind/actions.
Again without wanting to cause offence, I don't believe she was "compos mentis" (having full control of one's mind). In fact jacobs say's as much.
Also he was the Hypnotist not the Hypnotised, and I understand that: the Hypnotist steers the Hypnotised, or in other words is in "control".

I am not trying to overlook or excuse the behaviour of woods, there are two sides to every story, but I can't see past the fact that she was looking for help, and from what I have read from jacobs he seems to show no remorse or sympathy, regardless of his intentions, I think it is safe to say he did not help.

Saying he should not have got involved in the first place is very different from just saying sorry.

Poking around in peoples minds is poentialy irresponsible and dangerous, and lashing out at the messenger of bad tidings is common. In other words he should have expected and accounted for her behaviour, especially given that he helped her relive the most grotesque and harrowing experiences imaginable.

The other thing I struggle to understand is that if his belief in Hubrids is genuine, why would he not get the authorities involved? or at least attempt to? Why would he jepordise his own life and those of his family by antagonising said Hubrids? If they can negotiate deep space, and control peoples minds, why would they not take "control" a "Private detective" to track jacobs down? or easier still just use the Internet or a phone book?
I think that he even used his real name in correspondence with woods (I am not certain of this but have not seen evidence to the contrary) which would have made finding him, his place of work or his home address even easier, especially since how many DR D M Jacobs's with an interest in abductions are there?

And the very last point, why did he want the undergarments mailed directly to him? surely it would be better if they were sent directly to the Laboratory? (less risk of contamination)
I am sure that there are Labs in New Zealand equipped and qualified to do the relevant tests, and if there are not surely one could be found geographically closer? and if not why not get it mailed directly to a US lab?
I am not suggesting any foul play, but from a purely scientific stand point, it is impossible to argue against the fact that the less a "sample" is exposed or handled, the less the risk of contamination, and vice versa. But I am probably trying to make sense of a crazy situation.

Just for clarity I absolutely 100% believe that people are experiencing something, I just have no clue what it is, I haven't really got the stomach for "abduction" so I tend to avoid it like the plague.

We need look no further than nocebo and placebo to get a sense of the power of the mind and its connection to well being or ill health, and that is how I have come to my conclusions regarding what I know of jacobs/woods.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I think it's pretty clear Jacobs had no business getting involved in this case. As Emma Woods demanded more of his attention to her various abductions — remember she claimed to have been subjected to regular sexual attacks by alleged hybrids — he should have made an attempt to find someone in her country to take it over. When he requested the undergarments, it was based on her claims that they were soiled by possible alien sperm. So maybe he thought he'd get genuine evidence that his hybrid theory was true, and wanted it for himself rather than allow a third-party lab in another country to manage it. Regardless, it didn't matter. It doesn't appear she sent anything to anyone.

Remember that, shortly after Jacobs ended contacts with Woods, she went after him. She took an increasing amount of control during the sessions and when they were ended, she asserted her control by staging a worldwide campaign against him.

Yes, she was in control.

And one more thing: When you read the material at Jacobs' site, you'll see he doesn't come across well at all. I think many of our forum members disagree with his methods. It's there warts and all, which conveys the honesty of the presentation. You are also seeing material that Woods withheld from her own site and her own supporters.