The talk David Jacobs has planned for us will deal with the psychology of the abductees. This is how he describes what he will be discussing:We will remind the reader that Dr. David Jacobs a degrees in the liberal arts (history) and is not a psychologist. Although he played one with Emma Woods.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
David Jacobs to Speak at MUFON Los Angeles
Well. So much to say about this: David Jacobs to speak at MUFON Los Angeles and of course, I will, soon. But for now, I say, boycott MUFON and Jacobs. Here's a bit from the promo at link:
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I recently read Dark White by Jim Schnabel. In it, Jacobs admits he picks and chooses what abductee testimony is real or not, setting aside the information he doesn't believe. Incredibly, Jacobs seems unaware that he is shaping abductee reports -- and that his procedure might explain why his abductee reports are so consistent in their details.
Page 65: "whenever he heard something that was new or strange in an abduction account - something the aliens had said or an instrument that they had used or some creature the abductee had seen inside the spaceship or some symbol or diagram on a spaceship bulkhead - he would note it down, but then lay it aside, treating it as a confabulation or screen memory, until he had heard the same thing later from the same abductee - or better yet, until he heard the same thing from another abductee."
There's more of the like on p 66, where he notes the "confabulations" occur most often at the begging of hypnotic recall. So why does he use hypnosis???
There should be an investigation.
There is actually a reasonable amount of professionally qualified peer review on the work of self-described researchers such as Jacobs. The challenge is that the followers of such abduction-promoters largely refuse to acknowledge its existence, much less its academic merit. Such qualified peer review can be found in the halls of Rutgers and by researchers such as Ted Goertzel:
http://www.ufomania.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=research&thread=1053&page=1#9728
Thanks for the tip, Mr. Brewer!
Hi Terry,
You said:
"Incredibly, Jacobs seems unaware that he is shaping abductee reports -- and that his procedure might explain why his abductee reports are so consistent in their details."
From my experience of Dr. Jacobs' hypnosis with me I think that it goes even further than that. I am of the opinion that he deliberately implants "memories" into his subjects' minds under hypnosis that fulfill whatever agenda he has.
I have listened to the recordings of all my hypnosis sessions, and his use of leading and suggestion is so overt that, in my opinion, he must be doing it consciously.
As you know, Emma, most of ufology is in denial about your case. Some might allow that he erred, but they suggest this was a late mistake in an otherwise distinguished career. (The same denialism holds for Hopkins too.) Many in ufology don't want to hear about you anymore so they dismiss you with the claim that you have a vendetta.
So I think it is important to remind people of the evidence that Jacobs was shaping abductee accounts long before he met you.
In Secret Life, he defined "abductee" in such a way as to allow him to dismiss accounts that were New Agey and positive: he claimed those elements weren't reported by his subjects, therefore positive reports weren't true. Schnabel documents that Jacobs was very consciously refining testimony in a pseudo-scientific manner. Jacobs was a fear-mongerer from the beginning, picking and choosing his evidence in support of his notions. Jacobs's later behaviour was shocking but should not have been a total surprise.
But despite all this early on-the-record evidence of Jacobs shaping reports, ufology largely ignored it. Those who complained, such as Kevin Randle, were also ignored (see his book Abduction Enigma).
I wish ufology would revisit Jacobs' early work and see that it prefigures what happened with you. But for now, ufology won't have it. Skepticism of abductions within ufology seems to be confined almost entirely to non-Americans, the younger generations, and women (Randle being the rare exception).
Richard Boylan lost his medical license for similar behaviour; Jacobs gets invitations to speak.
If ufology wants to be a science, it has to act like a science, not like a club. A formal investigation of Jacobs would be a good start.
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