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From the Edge of Experience: A Pearl
by Christopher Lydon, John E. Mack, M.D., and Guests
This conversation has been excerpted from The Connection,
a radio program hosted by Christopher Lydon that aired on WBUR 90.9
FM, Boston, Feb 29, 1996. The caller was an unexpected highlight of
the program and we are honored to present her story here.
 Click
here to listen to an MP3 audio of this presentation
CHRIS LYDON (HOST): People say they've been abducted by aliens.
They say small grey beings with huge liquid black eyes have kidnapped
them, and in some cases used them in breeding experiments. Among the
people who work with the so-called “experiencer community,” and who
believe their claims should be taken seriously, is the Harvard psychiatrist
John Mack. … We've invited Dr. John Mack to talk about his work. We
wanted to give him a chance to respond to the criticism. We wanted also,
you, Connection listeners to have a chance to give him a call this hour.
Do you believe those aliens are real? Do you believe the whole idea
is nonsense? Do you believe there could be a nuanced, more mysterious
reality, somewhere between obvious physical truth and nonsense? Do you
believe in John Mack's academic freedom to explore those questions?
Give us a call… [name] is calling from [location].
CALLER: Hi, I'm a forty year old woman and when I was thirteen
years old I had what I've considered to be an abduction experience,
and for years I was in denial about it even though it was one of the
most powerful experiences of my life. But as I grew older and I read
other people's accounts of abductions, I came to feel a commonality
in my experience. The point I want to make is that if people or beings
from another planet or another dimension wanted to get in touch with
us, they would choose people that are vulnerable, people that are free
thinking, people [who] might think in ways different than people who
have very rational minds. Somebody from another place would not be able
to really reach somebody who had a very rational mind.
CHRIS LYDON: But then again, how would they know, caller? How
would they know to select free thinkers?
CALLER: Oh, these beings know EVERYTHING. I mean, I know that!
CHRIS LYDON: There's a bit of a leap right there. Caller, what
was your own abduction experience, can you describe it?
CALLER: My, yes. It was very powerful. I was sitting down between
two friends my own age, we were sitting at a sea wall, I looked up in
the sky and saw a plane. I heard a loud beep and I blacked out. And
my friends later told me that my eyes were open the whole time. Um,
I, they were... I didn't see beings but I was very aware of their presence.
Maybe a male. I was being communicated to telepathically for sure, and
the most important thing that happened is — and this is, it is like
I'm describing a dream, it makes no sense — they took a pearl and put
it into the top of my head! And I could see it falling down inside me
to the bottom, the bottom of my being. And um, I don't talk about this
to a lot of people, I can't believe I'm calling up on the radio to tell
you about this but it's very exciting... Maybe I'll never figure it
out. One other thing I wanted to tell you...
CHRIS LYDON: Had you been reading War of the Worlds comic
books in the hour before this happened?
CALLER: No (laugh), no.
CHRIS LYDON: John Mack, please comment, and caller stay on the
line.
JOHN MACK: Quickly, well the fact that it makes no sense to the
people themselves, that's why it isn't right to call these people “believers,”
because they often feel isolated like that. Her case is atypical in
some senses in that often when people are having these experiences,
children for example will witness that the parent is actually missing.
In other words, in some situations the physical body is missing, in
other situations as in the caller's, other witnesses can see that they
have not been physically removed. Again, that grey nuanced range of
penetration of this phenomenon into our physical world. Her suggestion
that they choose people who are vulnerable — I don't know about that.
We haven't found any consistent personality characteristics and it is
very hard to know what shows up in the personality after having these
experiences as opposed to [being present] from the start, because if
these [experiences] begin in infancy they've lived with this their whole
lives. But I think that choosing people, communication and what gets
communicated is quite interesting. In addition to the traumatic reproductive
aspect, this is occurring in the context of the destruction of the planet's
living systems, and that fact gets communicated to people telepathically
in these experiences over and over and over again.
CHRIS LYDON: This is something I've always wondered about. You
say that one of the bottom line messages in all of these visitations
is a sense that the world as its currently going is destroying the planet,
environmentally and otherwise. A couple questions here. First of all,
this again takes me back to the Biblical prophets, saying “the end is…”
it's another reminder of “the end is near.” It's the universal warning
of God to Israel or to the world that shape up or I'm going to blow
you away again.
JOHN MACK: Chris, the analogy with prophetic traditions isn't
necessarily wrong, it just means we have to maybe rethink how prophetic
matters would show up at this time and this culture.
CHRIS LYDON: Absolutely, absolutely.
JOHN MACK: Since we only know the material world, it might have
to show up materially for us to even pay any attention to it.
CHRIS LYDON: Ok, that's one question, but I just want to compound
it with the other question that I always want to ask John Mack, is what
if the message from outer space were something you profoundly did not
like. Like, “Nuke the commies now before it's too late,” or...
CALLER: Can I say something here...
JOHN MACK: Look I don't like the message — I'm sorry caller,
you come in next right after this — I don't like the message we're getting
now, which is that the human species as we've known it has failed, that
the planet needs to be under some kind of receivership because we have
gotten out of control, we're a malignancy on the Earth, we're destroying
things, the whole political game is off, I mean I don't like this message
at all, it's a scary message.
CHRIS LYDON: Of course you like it. No, it's a scary message
but it's the oldest message in Judaeo-Christian thinking, which is sort
of “shape up, you're God's children and you're blowing it.” That's why
it's the Tower of Babel all over again and I'm going to flood you out.
JOHN MACK: Caller, what do you think?
CALLER: I think the message that I got when I was twelve or thirteen
was I was very nervous but excited too, and I felt absolutely safe,
they told me that they had gotten in touch with me before, they will
get in touch with me again in my lifetime, I felt very connected to
them...I mean I don't even think of them as outer space beings, it's
more like wise beings, and the message I got loud and clear is “there's
a lot more here than meets the eye.” A heck of a lot more.
CHRIS LYDON: Caller, that's good!
CALLER: Ok, great. I'm so glad I called! Feels great to verbalize
this in public. Thank you.
CHRIS LYDON: Thank you very much.
Christopher Lydon has been a distinctive voice in print, television
and radio journalism for more than 30 years. A national political correspondent
for the New York Times, he covered the McGovern, Humphrey, Reagan
and Carter presidential campaigns in the 1970s. For nearly 15 years
he was the host of "The Ten O'Clock News" on WGBH, Boston, public television.
In 1994 with producer Mary McGrath he inaugurated "The Connection" on
WBUR, public radio in Boston. Widely cited as the best talk on the air,
"The Connection" was carried by National Public Radio and more than
75 public stations around the country. He and the original Connection
team are developing a new program for syndication and are continuing
to broadcast online via their independent website.
Please visit ChristopherLydon.Org
for more information.
John E. Mack, M.D., is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor
of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mack is the founder of
the Center for Psychology & Social Change. He is the author or co-author
of ten books, including A
Prince of Our Disorder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of
T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and most recently, Passport
to the Cosmos.
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