Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD the Church, and at Garabandal, Spain, in 1961-5, where the end of the world was threatened unless conservative political and religious doctrines were adopted forthwith. I think I can see many parallels between Marian apparitions and alien abductions, even though the witnesses in the former cases are not promptly taken to Heaven and don't have their reproductive organs meddled with. The beings reported are diminutive, most often about two-and-a-half to four feet high. They come from the sky. The content of the communication is, despite its purported celestial origin, mundane. There seems to be a clear connection with sleep and dreams. The witnesses, often females, are troubled about speaking out, especially after encountering ridicule from males in positions of authority. Nevertheless they persist: they really saw such a thing, they insist. Means of conveying the stories exist; they are eagerly discussed, permitting details to be coordinated even among witnesses who have never met one another. Others present at the time and place of the apparition see nothing unusual. The purported 'signs' or evidence are, without exception, nothing that humans couldn't acquire or fabricate on their own. Indeed, Mary seems unsympathetic to the need for evidence, and occasionally is willing to cure only those who had believed the account of her apparition before she supplied 'signs'. And while there are no therapists, per se, the society is suffused by a network of influential parish priests and their hierarchical superiors who have a vested interest in the reality of the visions. In our time, there are still apparitions of Mary and other angels, but also, as summarized by G. Scott Sparrow, a psychotherapist and hypnotist, of Jesus. In I Am With You Always: True Stories of Encounters with Jesus (Bantam, 1995), first-hand accounts, some moving, some banal, of such encounters are laid out. Oddly, most of them are straightforward dreams, acknowledged as such, and the ones called visions are said to differ from dreams 'only because we experience them while we are awake'. But, for Sparrow, judging something 'only a dream' does not compromise its external reality. For Sparrow, any being you dream of, and any incident, really exists in the world outside your head. He specifically denies that dreams are 'purely subjective'. Evidence doesn't 140
On the Distinction between True and False Visions enter into it. If you dreamed it, if it felt good, if it elicited wonder, why then it really happened. There's not a sceptical bone in Sparrow's body. When Jesus tells a troubled woman in an 'intolerable' marriage to throw the bum out, Sparrow admits that this poses problems for 'advocates of a scripturally consistent position'. In that case, '[u]ltimately, perhaps, one could say that virtually all presumed guidance is generated from within'. What if someone reported a dream in which Jesus counselled, say, abortion - or vengeance? And if indeed somewhere, somehow we must eventually draw the line and conclude that some dreams are invented by the dreamer, why not all? Why would people invent abduction stories? Why, for that matter, would people appear on TV audience participation programmes devoted to sexual humiliation of the 'guests' - the current rage in America's video wasteland? Discovering that you're an alien abductee is at least a break from the routine of everyday life. You gain the attention of peers, therapists, maybe even the media. There is a sense of discovery, exhilaration, awe. What will you remember next? You begin to believe that you may be the harbinger or even the instrument of momentous events now rolling towards us. And you don't want to disappoint your therapist. You crave his or her approval. I think there can very well be psychic rewards in becoming an abductee. For comparison, consider product tampering cases, which convey very little of the sense of wonder that surrounds UFOs and alien abductions: someone claims to find a hypodermic syringe in a popular soft drink can. Understandably, this is upsetting. It's reported in newspapers and especially on television news. Soon there's a spate, a virtual epidemic of similar reports from all over the country. But it's very hard to see how a hypodermic syringe could get into a can at the factory, and in none of the cases are witnesses present when an intact can is opened and a syringe discovered inside. Slowly the evidence accumulates that this is a 'copycat' crime. People have only been pretending to find syringes in soft drink cans. Why would anyone do it? What possible motives could they have? Some psychiatrists say that the primary motives are greed 141
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On the Distinction between True and False Visions<br />
enter into it. If you dreamed it, if it felt good, if it elicited wonder,<br />
why then it really happened. There's not a sceptical bone in<br />
Sparrow's body. When Jesus tells a troubled woman in an<br />
'intolerable' marriage to throw the bum out, Sparrow admits that<br />
this poses problems for 'advocates of a scripturally consistent<br />
position'. In that case, '[u]ltimately, perhaps, one could say that<br />
virtually all presumed guidance is generated from within'. What if<br />
someone reported a dream in which Jesus counselled, say, abortion<br />
- or vengeance? And if indeed somewhere, somehow we<br />
must eventually draw the line and conclude that some dreams are<br />
invented by the dreamer, why not all?<br />
Why would people invent abduction stories? Why, for that<br />
matter, would people appear on TV audience participation programmes<br />
devoted to sexual humiliation of the 'guests' - the<br />
current rage in America's video wasteland? Discovering that<br />
you're an alien abductee is at least a break from the routine of<br />
everyday life. You gain the attention of peers, therapists, maybe<br />
even the media. There is a sense of discovery, exhilaration, awe.<br />
What will you remember next? You begin to believe that you may<br />
be the harbinger or even the instrument of momentous events now<br />
rolling towards us. And you don't want to disappoint your<br />
therapist. You crave his or her approval. I think there can very<br />
well be psychic rewards in becoming an abductee.<br />
For comparison, consider product tampering cases, which convey<br />
very little of the sense of wonder that surrounds UFOs and<br />
alien abductions: someone claims to find a hypodermic syringe in<br />
a popular soft drink can. Understandably, this is upsetting. It's<br />
reported in newspapers and especially on television news. Soon<br />
there's a spate, a virtual epidemic of similar reports from all over<br />
the country. But it's very hard to see how a hypodermic syringe<br />
could get into a can at the factory, and in none of the cases are<br />
witnesses present when an intact can is opened and a syringe<br />
discovered inside.<br />
Slowly the evidence accumulates that this is a 'copycat' crime.<br />
People have only been pretending to find syringes in soft drink<br />
cans. Why would anyone do it? What possible motives could they<br />
have? Some psychiatrists say that the primary motives are greed<br />
141
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