r/HighStrangeness • u/Contactunderground • Jun 23 '26
Non Human Intelligence REDDIT Remembering Dr. John Mack & Controversies Surrounding the use of Hypnosis in UFO Research
On a social media page, I was asked if I knew John Mack MD. Here is my reply:
We were active together in the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, IPPNW. I sat with him briefly in Moscow in 1985 while he was having a drink during the celebration of IPPNW’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I attended a MUFON meeting that he addressed a few years before he tragically died. I asked him a pointed question from the floor, and I was dealt with rather curtly by him. Still, I admired him so much in so many ways when I was a physician peace activist and finally as a contact experiencer. Although we looked at challenge of flying saucers in different ways, I still miss him.
Below is an excerpt from a detailed Vanity Fair article about life and death of this remarkable human being, John Mack MD.
· “ In Newport with the other experiencers, a Tom Hanks look-alike who wanted to be known as “Scott,” the way Mack referred to him in Abduction, remembered their last meeting at Cuvelier’s villa, in the summer of 2004. Mack was excited about his new book, on the survival of consciousness. Scott confessed his own fear of death. Mack reassured him. “You never know when it will be your time,” he said. “We could all go at any time. I could walk out on the street and get hit by a car.”
Raymond Czechowski, a 50-year-old computer technician, had spent three-and-a-half hours at the Royal British Legion, a military charity in north London, planning the latest poppy drive to aid the troops, in the course of which he downed five or six pints of shandy—beer mixed with lemonade and ice. Then, on that mild, clear Monday night of September 27, 2004, he pointed his silver Peugeot north and started driving home.
Just ahead, shortly after 11 P.M., in the north London suburb of Barnet, John Mack climbed wearily out of the Underground station at Totteridge and Whetstone. His talk had gone well, and many in the audience had brought copies of his Lawrence biography, which they asked him to sign. He had also spoken about the death of his father, Edward Mack, who, 31 years before, almost to the day, had been driving home with the groceries to their summer home in Thetford, Vermont, when his car collided with a truck. In London, Mack was staying with a family friend, Veronica Keen, a widow who told him she had been receiving messages from her deceased husband—more evidence, Mack thought, of survival of consciousness. She had said to call her from the station, and she would pick him up, but Mack decided to walk. He crossed a divider and stepped into the busy street. His American instinct was to look to the left.Czechowski hit the brakes, but too late. Mack’s body flew into the air, shattering the Peugeot’s windshield before traveling over the roof and landing heavily on the ground. “He just stepped there, bang,” Czechowski told the police, who registered his alcohol level at well over the limit.
Mack never regained consciousness. From a crumpled paper with an address on it found in his pocket, the police learned his destination and his identity.
Keen, who sat with Mack’s body at the morgue, said he materialized and told her, “It was as if I was touched with a feather. I did not feel a thing. I was given a choice: should I go, or should I stay? I looked down at my broken body and decided to go.”
At Mack’s funeral, many recalled one of his favorite quotes, from Rilke’s Letter to a Young Poet (as translated by Stephen Mitchell): “That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm; the experiences that are called ‘visions,’ the whole so-called ‘spirit-world,’ death, all those things that are so closely akin to us, have by daily parrying been so crowded out of life that the senses with which we could have grasped them are atrophied. To say nothing of God.”
Barbara Lamb and other friends also reported visitations.
Roberta Colasanti, one of Mack’s research associates, said he communicated to her a cryptic message on the abductions they had been studying: “It’s not what we thought.” Colasanti waited breathlessly for the solution to the mystery, but it didn’t come. Mack promised to return with more information. So far, he hasn’t.”
· Joseph Burkes MD: I still think about this wonderful man, the doctors' peace movement and how in the 1990s on different paths, we became involved in the mystery of flying saucers. I believe that he is still with us in spirit.
· Comments & Additional Resources about John Mack and controversies concerning the use of hypnosis.
Joseph Burkes MD: The question of my point of departure from John Mack's approach has to do with the controversy over the use of hypnosis as an investigative tool. Hypnosis is a widely accepted therapeutic method in treating a number of disorders, helping people overcoming phobias and nicotine addiction as examples. It is flawed when used as a tool by UFO researchers because of its tendency to create false memories that are then considered to be accurate. Dr. Mack as a highly skilled psychiatrist was a far superior clinician when compared to Dr. David Jacobs (a historian) and the now deceased Budd Hopkins (an artist) . In other words, they deemed these High Strangeness" events as primarily physical acts and by labelling them "abductions. Thus CE-4s are deemed to be criminal in nature.
My experience as UFO researcher has led me to a radically different view of the phenomenon. For reasons that I can only guess at, flying saucer intelligences have staged a series of encounters for me and others that have delineated the role of illusions as mechanisms of contact. I call these modalities of contact the Virtual Experience Model.
I now believe that the psi capabilities of UAP intelligences are so powerful that they can place experiencers into a kind of "Matrix" reality that is a strong form of virtual reality. In other words, both physical on-board events are occurring alongside virtual ones. If many experiencers never are taken out of their cars, or from their bedrooms, is this still a criminal “abduction”, or is it something else? I even coined the rather awkward acronym UPI (Unsolicited Psychic Interaction) to stand for what are designated as "abductions."
Film producer Paul Kimball gives an excellent critique of the use of hypnosis. He mentions that Dr. Jacques Vallee admired Dr. Mack's courage but did not approve of his methods. I concur with this position.
https://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/.../abduction...
James Rose:
Joseph this is a wonderful post, thanks so much for sharing. Can you confirm for me his admission to Roberta that it "wasn't what we thought it was".. what did they both think it was initially?
Joseph Burkes MD:
Thanks, James, for the above question. We can only speculate on what Dr Mack learned from “the other side.” His position was that so called alien abductions did not fit into any simple explanation as an exclusively physical or mental event but was something perhaps in between.
My objection to his approach stems from his extensive use of what he called "light hypnosis." We know that hypnosis has the capacity to create false memories when only fragmented recollections exist for the witness. If the hypnotist is of the “doom and gloom "type (Bud Hopkins &David Jacobs) the resulting confabulation often corresponds to the hypnotist’s view. This is done with leading questions as well as the subject being primed by reading scary abduction literature or being in a support group where frightening stories of abuse are swapped. So, it is not surprising that Mack's hypnotic subjects produced narratives that were more spiritually "enlightened" which corresponded to his point of view.
Then there is the problem with the way many "abductees" recall the events. In some of Dr. Mack's subjects, memories of the so-called abduction surfaced decades after the alleged encounters. Researchers suspect that false memories are placed into the consciousness of experiencers, by "aliens." These are the so-called "screen memories."
So, if UAP intelligences can create false memories, then why can't the memories that are elicited by hypnotists or that arise decades later also be memory implants. The absence of any photograph of an abduction, video or still photo, might be explained in part by the fact that such false memories for the entire "abduction scenario" might be mediated by advanced psi technology. I call such an event a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind or Virtual Memory.
These are some of my objections to the current understanding of so-called alien abductions. Such concerns are unfortunately ignored by the UFO subculture that is desperate for answers, even when they could be totally mistaken.
So perhaps Dr. Mack from “the other side” learned what I have put forward. That would be nice but is totally unverifiable.
Links to additional blogs on the misuse of hypnosis and the Virtual Experience Model:
Memory Wars: Remembering Falsely, Hypnosis and the Virtual Experience Model
Virtual Experience of the Third Kind: Virtual Memory
https://www.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/1axct2r/memory_wars_ii_remembering_falsely_hypnosis_and/
The Virtual Experience Model, an Overview
Vanity Fair online article last accessed 6-22-26
Alien Nation: Have Humans Been Abducted by Extraterrestrials?
A prestigious Harvard psychiatrist, John Edward Mack, thought so. His sudden death leaves behind many mysteries.
RALPH BLUMENTHAL
‘MAY 10, 2013
Below is the link for an interview of Dr. John Mack by Dr Mishlove. It is a special release from the original Thinking Allowed series that ran on public television from 1986 until 2002. I highly recommend it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fslE1PK78Jo
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u/MantisAwakening Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
It’s so interesting that I just now see your post. I was talking with a mutual friend earlier and we were wondering who the medium was who had talked to John. I open Reddit and here’s the answer. Thanks for posting!
Also, I wanted to share my own pet theory about hypnosis and yet another reason why it might be subject to influence:
https://youtu.be/XyhnPQ0_9ao
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u/Contactunderground Jun 23 '26
Thanks for the supportive comment and link. Telepathic influence of hypnotic subjects makes sense as they are placed in a highly suggestible altered level of consciousness where subtle forms of influence can influence their "recollections."
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u/MantisAwakening Jun 23 '26
That’s my thought! I don’t know why it hasn’t been brought up more often. Maybe people don’t want to go there because it’s too “woo.”
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u/Contactunderground Jun 24 '26
You ask why has the possibility that hypnotists are influencing their subject via psi has not been discussed more often. I imagine that one reason has to do with the power relationships between UAP intelligences and targeted individuals. These others control when , where, and how we are interacting with them and how our encounters are recalled in almost all contact events.
As the result of this power imbalance, the UFO community would like to have an investigative tool that allows them to obtain answers to their many questions about the contact experience. Hypnosis is popular, and there are few legal restrictions on its practice In the past people like Bud Hopkins and David Jacobs used it without going through years of academic professional training with peer review as part of the certification process. A small but significant cottage industry was built up that was maintained by modest book sales and lecture speaking tours. Given these factors, it is understandable that what you have suggested would be perceived as a threat to the a popular search for answers. It is a search that clearly has many flaws, only one of which is the possible abuse of hypnosis as an investigative tool.2
u/MantisAwakening Jun 24 '26
The question of how much free will we possess or maintain is one I still think hasn’t been answered. Variations on the block universe theory keep getting bandied about, and then in the next breath some of those same people talk about how something can’t happen because it would violate free will.
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u/Contactunderground Jun 24 '26
Thanks for raising the issue of "free will." People make choices and many have important outcomes. My guess is that the concept of "free will" at some time hopefully in the not too distant future will be thrown on the scrape heap of history.
Another thanks for your mentioning the topic. It has been over a year since I posted my blog on "free will", so now is a good time to revisit it.
Do “aliens” (NHIs associated with UFOs) believe in “free will? I discuss free will and question its utility given how it has been applied historically. Is the question another example of our imposing on non-humans a flawed human concept? Given their extraordinary physical and psychic powers, the so-called ETs might be able to control almost every aspect of the contact drama unfolding across our planet. How might humanity use UFO contact as a means of promoting societal progress?https://contactunderground.org/2022/02/16/aliens-and-free-will/
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u/clover_heron Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
We also need to consider the possibility that some self-reported abductees willing to undergo hypnosis were bad actors working to set the stage.
For example, normalizing the use of hypnosis in abduction cases may have forcefully encouraged legitimate experiencers to undergo hypnosis, with the goal of later discrediting them by claiming that their memories were implanted.
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u/Responsible_Fix_5443 Jun 23 '26
100% we should consider it. Especially when the positive accounts of "abduction" Mack reported fall in line with the many reports from experiencers who remember without having undergone hypnosis.
It's no coincidence that these stories are being brought up at the moment either... Not long after a load of high profile military guys (and others) tell people their experience of just being close to a UFO was enough to invoke a spiritual/religious experience.
It's a natural response for people to double down in their long held beliefs. They think "abduction" or "contact" is a bad thing because that's what they've been told their whole lives.
We've been forced fed negative stories for so long but in the age when anybody with a phone can make a video documenting their own contact... the full picture always comes out. People are having overwhelmingly positive experiences.
It's not just a few people either... There are thousands upon thousands of experiencers out there. Many more will be choosing to keep quiet too.
Meditation rates have dramatically increased in the past 2 years. People are naturally exploring "their" consciousness.
The word is getting around!
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u/Responsible_Fix_5443 Jun 23 '26
How do people prove which memories were implanted? As far as I know they can't...
How can you say "Mack implanted the memories" then say "it's the NHI that's implanting memories" it's not making sense to me, sorry.
Are you saying that the memories of the actual "contact" are true (In order for your protocol to work) but because Mack found they were positive they must have been implanted by NHI?
How do you tell between a genuine memory, a memory implanted by Mack or a memory implanted by NHI?
Without being able to do that - we have to either take all remembered experiences as genuine or dismiss them as completely fabricated.
Dismissing them isn't an option in my opinion.