Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD
I can personally attest to the emotional power. But aren't
powerful emotions a routine component of our dreams? Don't we
sometimes awake in stark terror? Doesn't Mack, himself the
author of a book on nightmares, know about the emotional power
of hallucinations? Some of Mack's patients describe themselves as
having hallucinated since childhood. Have the hypnotists and
psychotherapists working with 'abductees' made conscientious
attempts to steep themselves in the body of knowledge on
hallucinations and perceptual malfunctions? Why do they believe
these witnesses but not those who reported, with comparable
conviction, encounters with gods, demons, saints, angels and
fairies? And what about those who hear irresistible commands
from a voice within? Are all deeply felt stories true?
A scientist of my acquaintance says, 'If the aliens would only
keep all the folks they abduct, our world would be a little saner.'
But her judgement is too harsh. It doesn't seem to be a matter of
sanity. It's something else. The Canadian psychologist Nicholas
Spanos and his colleagues concluded that there are no obvious
pathologies in those who report being abducted by UFOs. However,
intense UFO experiences are more likely to occur in individuals
who are disposed to esoteric beliefs in general and alien
beliefs in particular and who interpret unusual sensory and
imaginal experiences in terms of the alien hypothesis. Among
UFO believers, those with stronger propensities toward
fantasy production were particularly likely to generate such
experiences. Moreover, such experiences were likely to be
generated and interpreted as real events rather than imaginings
when they were associated with restricted sensory environments
. . . (e.g., experiences that occurred at night and in
association with sleep).
What a more critical mind might recognize as a hallucination or a
dream, a more credulous mind interprets as a glimpse of an
elusive but profound external reality.
Some alien abduction accounts may conceivably be disguised
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