A self styled stranger looks homeward by John E. Mack Presented at the 25th reunion of the Harvard Medical School Class of 1955 Apparently John E. Mack ’55 was the object of some speculation during medical school. Was he, as Mitchell Rabkin put it, “simply a dreamer, or someone who would reach important heights by […]
Continue ReadingPsychiatric Arts
Biography and the Clinical Situation: What is Evidence and For What Purpose?
by John E. Mack, M.D. John Mack presented a paper by this name at a conference held May 5, 1984 in Los Angeles by the American College of Psychoanalysts. The paper itself is missing, but a summary of the presentation was printed in that organization’s newsletter. This is that summary. Summary — Biography and the […]
Continue ReadingPsychoanalysis and the Self: Toward a Spiritual Point of View
by John E. Mack, M.D. Listen to the Boston University Institute for Philosophy and Religion presentation, Toward a Spiritual Point of View in Psychoanalysis, from which this essay was developed (mp3) Not very long ago I had a dream So bright and glowing it startled me Into a great glow of transcendental joy. The dream? […]
Continue ReadingPaths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision
by Frances Vaughan, Roger Walsh et al. By kind permission of the authors, presented are a pair of excerpts from the book Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision, a collection of fifty essays by a range of contributors who apply transpersonal thinking to individual growth, psychotherapy, meditation, dreams, psychedelics, science, ethics, philosophy, ecology and service. […]
Continue ReadingNonOrdinary States of Consciousness and the Accessing of Feelings
by John E. Mack, M.D. We are seeing lately an expanded interest in psychotherapies, human growth-promoting workshops, and spiritually focused methods of inner exploration, which have in common the use of nonordinary states of consciousness to access deeper and more intense experience and emotion. At first glance, these approaches may appear new, deviant, or even […]
Continue ReadingWhat Would William James Have Thought About Alien Encounters?
by Eugene Taylor, Ph.D. Introduced by John E. Mack, M.D. Listen to this presentation (mp3) Eugene Irvine Taylor, Ph.D., (1946-2013) was a historian of psychology and an internationally renowned scholar on the life and work of William James. Taylor was the author of, among other works, William James on Exceptional Mental States and William James […]
Continue ReadingHarvard vs. the Space Aliens
by James Smart A committee at Harvard Medical School is investigating a prominent professor because of his research about people who say they have been abducted now and again by little gray folks from outer space. The medical school is part of Harvard University, which was founded in 1636 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. In those days […]
Continue ReadingDefining Academic Freedom
by Alan M. Dershowitz Should a distinguished Harvard professor of psychiatry be subject to formal investigation and potential discipline for doing research on the possibility that people who clam that they were abducted by space aliens may not all be crazy after all? This question is dividing the academic community, which is watching carefully as […]
Continue ReadingResults from the PEER Extraordinary Experience Survey
by Caroline McLeod, Ph.D. Findings from an analysis of the first 200 Extraordinary Experience Surveys returned to PEER by mail from a self-selected group who had contacted Dr. John Mack or his organization. The survey (conducted in late 1994 and 1995) reported demographics, categories of experiences, impact of experiences, gaps in memory, and the use […]
Continue ReadingA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Space Station: A Breakfast with John Mack, M.D.
by Susan Downs, M.D., MPH Imagine your patient tells you he was abducted by alien creatures with large eyes and teleported into a spacecraft for breeding and other scientific procedures. Imagine further that your patient tells you he/she has several alien offspring. Do you reach for your prescription pad or telephone to arrange a hospitalization? […]
Continue ReadingJohn Mack, Alien Abductions, and Harvard
by Keith Thompson Occasionally a story in the news stirs me to reach for the phone to call someone whose Fifteen Minutes of Fame has captured my imagination. Usually I change my mind, but now and then I follow through. Like the day three years ago this month, when I came across a newspaper story […]
Continue ReadingEmerging Renaissance: UFO Encounters, Power and Implications
Roméo Di Benedetto, M.Div. and John E. Mack, M.D. In this excerpt from the Emerging Renaissance television program, Dr. John Mack candidly discusses the investigation into his work that was launched by Harvard Medical School in 1994 and ended without censure in 1995. Listen (mp3) Roméo Di Benedetto: Welcome to another presentation of The Emerging […]
Continue ReadingDSM-IV Religious and Spiritual Problems
A coursebook by David Lukoff, Ph.D. A new diagnostic category called “Religious or Spiritual Problem” was introduced in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association) in 1994. For the first time, there is acknowledgment of distressing religious and spiritual experiences as nonpathological problems.
Continue ReadingMessengers from the Unseen
by John E. Mack, M.D., Class of ’51 Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Fall 2002 Vol. 98, No. 2 If someone out there is trying to warn us, shouldn’t we make an attempt to listen?
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