Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Jacobs, Hopkins, Woods, Interpretations, and Getting It. . .

Everyone in UFO Land knows who David Jacobs and Budd Hopkins are. I believe that, way back when, both were sincere in their efforts to unravel a bit the mystery of UFOs. I believe Hopkins is still  sincere, but after hearing plenty of Jacob's participation in regards to Emma Woods, it just gets worse and worse. Any sincerity Jacob's might have had has turned into All About Me, and little about any UFO "truth." Woods may be fragile, may even have "issues" (for fucks' sake, who doesn't.)  If you have had a life time of weird experiences, finding no support or insights from various authorities whose job it is, presumably, to help in these matters, you too might be "obsessed" as Jacobs has called Woods. As Gary Haden at Speculative Realms said back in May:
Some of the so-called "balanced" observers maintain that the recordings Emma Woods made of her conversations with Jacobs were altered and content damning to Emma was edited out. I suspect they hope to find in the edited material evidence that exonerates Jacobs. I'll address that later in the post. The question here is whether any material could exonerate Jacobs.

David Jacob's actions as a UFO researcher -- note: UFO researcher, (and history professor), not psychologist, medical doctor or therapist of any kind -- are reprehensible. Jacobs makes it clear he isn't any of those things but his actions negate his empty explanations.  It's not about "is Emma nuts?" as so many have decided, it's, to quote Haden again, an:
"... attempt to use Emma's mental health history, in violation of confidentiality protections she is due, simply to justify belief in the existence of extraterrestrials would be a disgusting example of just how far gone certain paranormal authorities are."
Some contend that, well, it is all an even split. He's nuts. She's nuts.

No. It's not an even split. She is not nuts. He was insane.

Let's get something straight: hypnotizing someone and diagnosing them with multiple personality disorder for the purpose of evading capture by aliens was not just an act of a fruitcake. It was an insane act.
A few weeks ago Hopkins was the guest on Coast to Coast. Interesting interview but I found myself frustrated with much of what Hopkin's had to say; or rather, his interpretations of the UFO puzzle/question/enigma. . . for example, he isn't much given to spiritual religious considerations, which colors his interpretations of would be motivations and agendas of any aliens, UFOs, and the dynamic between witness and UFO/alien. And, for that matter, between researcher and witness. . .

And this is a key point. Both Hopkins, who has stood up for Jacobs throughout this disgusting Jacobs scandal, have come to conclusions about the UFO phenomena. They both have firm interpretations, -- answers -- to what UFOs and their occupants are, what they're doing and why . . .

Jacobs so much so he's created a surreal swirl of typical UFO insanity that include things like alien hybrid e-mails and requests for Emma Woods panties to be sent to him -- unwashed. (To check for DNA don't you know.)

I don't know what's going on with abductions; I don't know what missing time and other high strangeness weirdness is all about. NO idea. (A lot of possible explanations I do reject however; sleep paralysis? Can we please get past that stupid theory?)

I've had a life long experience with sightings, telepathy, "aliens" or non-human beings, shared experiences, missing time, and so much more. And I'm not any closer to answers than I was when I was younger.

Has anyone read what Woods has to say about her life long experiences? 
Most of my memories of my anomalous experiences are fragmentary and I am aware that there is much that I do not understand about them. Nevertheless, the experiences have had a major impact on my life. In part, this is because of my inability to have complete recall of them, and also because I have had no framework within which to understand, process and assimilate them.
That's what a lot of us can say about our experiences involving UFOs, aliens, paranormal and, as Emma says "anomalous."

I can thank Jacobs for something; just before the ugly nasty mess hit the fans in UFO Land, both Jim and I were discussing, kind of sort of, going through hypnosis to uncover what happened during our missing time/UFO events. Thanks to Jacobs, that's not going to happen.

Woods has said, on tape and on her website, that she questions the alien abduction scenario as explanation, at least in some cases. This has not set well with Jacobs, and this, if you listen to the tapes, is obvious. This is what has set Jacobs off; that his self-imposed role of an authority has been questioned, that his requests and theories have been rejected.

Interpretations of magnificent crazy events. That's all we have. Speculations tendril out from those events; which is also all we have, and that's an okay thing. We need speculation to inspire us, to move us forward. And to keep us honest, for all we have is speculation. 

But when two researchers well seated in UFO Land offer up interpretations as the truth, and one of them is deeply stewed in a roiling stinking mess, and the other one denies it stinks...what they have to offer doesn't seem so appealing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

">No. It's not an even split. She is not nuts. He was insane.
>Let's get something straight: hypnotizing someone and diagnosing them with multiple personality disorder for the purpose of evading capture by aliens was not just an act of a fruitcake. It was an insane act.
" - - -

This is it, in a nutshell (sorry).
A few posters (me included) wrote much the same thing in the Paracast/UFOWatchdog forum and oh my....thos posts were summarily deleted! And a least two out of the four posters, banned (no reason given).

Yet, all manner of vile attacks were hurled on Emma Woods, including swears and curses....even posters writing she had a "seductive" voice!! Huh?? [Imagine where that inappropriate opinion led in the minds of the Jacobs apologists.]

I noticed that Budd Hopkins, always the faithful friend and colleague of David Jacobs, was nearly gushing over him in the latest UFO Magazine interview. I don't have it at hand, but something about calling Jacobs the "brave" one in the abduction field because of his hypothesis (which is a terribly grim one of being 'bred out' essentially). Never mind that Jacobs nor Hopkins has one iota of proof that hybrids are being created and live amongst us.

When the big bad debunkers get a hold of the Jacobs story, they'll run with it and make all of Ufology look ridiculous! I can imagine what a Penn Gillette would do with Jacobs on tape! He's already made a fool out of hypnotherapist Barbara Lamb and her very unusual group of experiencers and their alien spouses and families(can be found on youtube).

Anonymous said...

Being an experiencer/abductee/fill-in-the-blank myself, this sort of thing is always of concern to me. I worked closely with Budd Hopkins in the early 90's and he was great. Yeah, he has some biases (like not responding/reacting to the stranger and more spiritual aspects to this) but it's not like he's hostile to it. He seems to feel that he's not qualified to address that aspect of it, so he's been trying to just work out the gist with the physical aspects.

If Jacobs messed with a woman's head unethically, then I'm surprised Hopkins would back that up. He's always been very adamant about the importance of ethics on such things. I know of at least a couple of cases where he withdrew support of bad researchers because of things like this-- so... I hope it's not true.

I've had good hypnosis and bad-- including being driven to confabulate while under and so forth simply because the

Anyway, more on my own recent blog here-- which I didn't write in response to the Emma Woods thing or anything, as I haven't heard anything of it until I saw your posts.

http://lucretiasheart.livejournal.com/697556.html

http://lucretiasheart.livejournal.com/698094.html

Budd's got his faults and blind spots-- who doesn't? But if he's wrongly siding with Jacobs, it's an error on judgment on his part, not because he's some malicious jerk.

Jacobs has some interesting ideas, some of which I can personally verify to an extent (for myself anyway), but otherwise I have no real opinion on him as I have never met him and know little of his character. I have met others who worked with him and none of them had anything bad to say about him, though, if that means anything.

Anonymous said...

Okay-- I found the website in question and I'm checking it out. I'll have a better idea of what to think when I've completed looking into this.