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Friday, January 14, 2011

From Speculative Realms: The Girl Who Saved Her Own Life

Gary Haden at Speculative Realms is one of the few out there who are diligently exposing David Jacobs. (Others include Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzman, who have received a lot of bewildering flack for bringing this story to the UFO "community" in the first place.) It continues to astound me that UFO culture remains, at turns, either silent on Jacob's methods and character, or, continue to vilify Emma Woods as [paraphrasing various pundits] a "crazy, troubled, mentally ill bitch."

Haden is an excellent writer, on top of being an excellent researcher -- his painstaking articles contain reams of analysis -- and I certainly don't want to want to take anything he's written in his current article out of context, or "high jack" his words and intent. But here's just one little something: Jacobs' outrageous, crazy, fucking straight out wrong action, in suggesting to Woods that she has Multiple Personality Disorder. This alone should be enough for others to roundly call Jacobs out, but, there's been very little of that, and a whole lot of cricket chirping.

Here's just one excerpt from Haden's article, relating to Jacobs planting the suggestion in Emma Wood's subconscious under hypnosis without permission. Again: without permission:
At no point in the four-hour tract I listened to did David Jacobs ask Emma Woods's permission to administer to her a posthypnotic suggestion she had multiple personality disorder. [bolding mine]
“I'm going to count from five to one, and just remember now, my diagnosis is that this is Multiple Personality Disorder and you should take medication for it. (nervous chuckle from Emma Woods) I have seen lots of cases of MPD, and this absolutely fits the MPD profile. And, my professional diagnosis therefore is Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“I am studying it. I am writing a book about it,” Jacobs continues. “That is my next book. I feel that the whole sort of alien business is all a matter of multiple personality disorder. It’s a much more widespread phenomenon than people think. Lots of people are walking around with it. It’s a public health problem. And that, you are unfortunately suffering from it. And, my opinion is that yours is a classic case, and that – that the only thing that will help you will be medication. And um, I am not interested in--in--your stories, I am only interested in the fact that you tell those stories, because multiple personalities are all different.”
Speculative Realms: The Girl Who Saved Her Own Life

There are so many side shoots of this nasty, weird, episode in UFOlogy, so many, and one of the many tangled, twisted, darkly gnarled and poisonous roots of Jacobs' actions is the question of the aliens themselves. Why is Jacobs now suggesting aliens are nothing other than manifestations of MPD? A big, bellowing HELLO on that one. (And do I have to note that David Jacobs is not a psychologist, a therapist, or a psychiatrist, and that his doctorate is in history?)

But, I do not want to deflect from the main issue, which is Jacobs' actions, his words, his behavior, his denials, his excuses, his justifications, his treatment of Emma Woods and others like her. Theories are one thing, as to what the aliens are, -- not one of us knows that. Well, some of us do, there are those in power we never see or hear that know damn well, but that's another issue and I digress.  What I, or you, "believe" about aliens, UFOs, ET, and the myriad of theories addressing those things doesn't change, nor negate, a damn thing just because David Jacobs has turned a very ugly corner.  No, the only issue here is Jacobs' approach to the witnesses he's interviewed. And, I'd add, the continued silence from others about that.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

'excerpt from Haden's article'

The excerpt is out of context. You and Haden take the bit out that fits a point you want to make, regardless if the point is valid.

Emma Woods behaviour, in full context, is not far from the negative words used by the pundits you mention.

Jacobs, if you talked to him or listened to him recently on the radio, does not now suggest the baloney you have put in his mouth. He stands by, to the point of being depressed, his original thesis.

This is post poor rumour mongering blog of the worst type.

Jum said...

Sorry, but you can't change the facts about Emma Woods by summoning spluttering outrage (especially when its origin appears to be gender-based). The nature, content and context of her acts give every appearance that she is an emotionally and mentally unbalanced woman who is pathologically obsessed with Jacobs. She has for many months devoted a shocking amount of time and energy to what appears to a neutral observer to be a vindictive, bizarre and apparently unfounded campaign to humiliate and destroy him professionally and personally. Her acts just are not those of an innocent, wronged person; but rather a seriously unbalanced person who got an answer she didn't like from someone who was in retrospect foolish enough to try to help her.

Regan Lee said...

purplespud:

What is Jacob's thesis? Please share.

"Rumor mongering?" What rumors? Details please.

As for myself, the points are "valid," or else I wouldn't make them. Duh.

Regan Lee said...

Jum,

Hmmm. what fun.
"Gender based" as in... ? I'm a woman? Haden is a man? Woods is a woman? and so on.. .

So, Jum, you think it is perfectly all right for someone who is not a shrink to plant the suggestion in someone's mind that they have MPD, and in need of medication for that MPD? Let's amend that: for anyone, shrink or not, to make such a suggestion?


Researcher, by definition and dynamics of the relationship, and continued behavior of researcher, in position of authority, no matter how feeble that presumed position is, contrasted with informant/client/witness. Former has "answers" based on personal assumptions and theories of his own research; client is seeking answers, questions "authority" and takes offense at:
asked for her unwashed underwear
told she has MPD
she needs meds
told to wear a chastiy belt
etc...

And she's "unbalanced?"

You said, of Woods: "who got an answer she didn't like" -- yes, from a history professor with his own theories on the alien abduction phenomena. Remember, Woods is the witness/experiencer. She is the one who came to Jacobs for answers, not the other way around. She have every right to continually question her own experiences in this context.

As a UFO witness myself, several times over going back to childhood, and one who has experienced several high strangeness events in that context, including two episodes of missing time, I am the one who decides what is germane, and what isn't... I will not allow others to interpret my experiences for me according to their personal agendas. Maybe that's why I am sympathetic to Woods' experience here.

Researher/witness, in the context of UFO (also Bigfoot, etc.) is a partnership. Or should be. Most of the time it is not: it's an imbalance of two or more people, many with an agenda and a puffed up sense of importance, imposing their ideas and egos on others.

Sigh. Did I really need to say any of this?

Emma@ufoalienabductee.com said...

Regan, thank you for your support, and for the understanding that you have shown of my position. It has meant a lot to me.

Emma@ufoalienabductee.com said...

purplespud, I have presented on my website what occurred in full context. I have provided hours of recordings of telephone conversations that I had with Dr. Jacobs which make clear what occurred.

Yes, Dr. Jacobs made it abundantly plain on Coast to Coast recently that he fully stands by his action of implanting hypnotic suggestions in my mind that I had Multiple Personality Disorder.

I would ask that you think about that. Any human being with any decency whatsoever knows that for Dr. Jacobs to have implanted hypnotic suggestions in my mind that I had MPD was serious psychological abuse. The fact that he would attempt to justify that makes it even worse.

Emma@ufoalienabductee.com said...

Jum, my allegations are not “unfounded”. I have provided on my website solid evidence to substantiate all of them.

Dr. Jacobs has deliberately tried to damage my personal reputation so that what I have made public about his abuse is not listened to. However, if you take the time to listen to what he says in the recordings on my website, and then in good faith to compare it to his public statements, you may begin to understand the extent of his dishonesty, and begin to grasp what actually occurred.

Regan Lee said...

Emma, you are welcome, thank you.