John E. Mack | UFO Physician | Life, Death, & Personality

well this is Dr Grande today's question is can I analyze the life death and personality of John Edward Mack just a reminder I'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel consider supporting me on patreon and check out my podcast bellagrande media on YouTube I will put the relevant links in the description for this video so first I'll look at the background of John Edward Mack then I'll move to my analysis John Edward Mack was born in New York City on October 4 1929 his father Edward was a professor at a university in New York his mother Eleanor died when Mack was eight months old his father remarried this time to Ruth pmack she was an economist this gave Mac a half-sister Marilee ingbar who would later become a well-known Professor herself Matt graduated from a prestigious Preparatory School in 1947 from college in 1951 and from Harvard Medical School in 1955. he trained to become a psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center during his time there as well as later in his career his training centered on psychoanalytic theory a modality developed by Sigmund Freud but expanded on by many other different theorists it essentially features the role of the unconscious mind as a prominent figure so this is where defense mechanisms come from they're part of psychoanalytic theory Mac married a social worker named Sally Stahl around this time and took her with him to Japan where he was stationed after enlisting in the Air Force in 1959. Mack worked as a medic eventually he would reach the rank of Captain the couple would have a son while in Japan they would have two more Sons later on Mack returned to the Massachusetts Mental Health Center after his time in the Air Force was over in 1961 he went to work at Harvard Medical School in 1964. he became a full professor in 1972. five years later he would become the head of Psychiatry for the school a position he maintained for the rest of his life even though John Mack would become famous for his unusual beliefs in the areas of aliens hypnosis and so-called repressed memories he researched other areas as well including adolescent counseling and heroin addiction his main work at Harvard was actually exploring the effect of a person's perceptions of their environment on their relationships during his career Mack would publish over 150 articles as well as 11 books Mack became active in trying to convince governments around the world to dismantle nuclear weapons and he had an interest in trying to figure out what caused the Cold War he was involved in several acts of civil disobedience Mac did not develop an interest in alien encounters until July 10 1990. it was on this day he met a man who claimed to have seen a UFO on Cape Cod in 1964. Mack was fascinated by the story and started interviewing people who claimed to have encountered aliens he would go on to conduct research on this population traditionally mental health professionals had discounted these individuals as having Psychopathology and there was really no effort to study the population from the perspective that they could be telling the truth before Mac took a real interest in this population he believed the same thing he thought these individuals had mental disorders over time Max started to change his mind he noted that a wide variety of people made these reports and he was impressed at how many of their stories had similarities for example abductees reported waking up paralyzed with a strange sense that there was a person in the room the people were hit with a beam of light and transported into what appeared to be a spaceship the aliens tended to be very interested in reproductive systems the abductee sometimes had a sensation of flying they often experienced missing time they would have scars they could not explain and that did not appear to be self-inflicted UFO sighting sometimes occurred in a community around the same time the participant reported the abduction many of the participants described their encounter with aliens as having a spiritual component and it changed the way the participants viewed the world Mac tended to believe that the participants were telling the truth he would say that the UFOs were observed by the participants and they were abducted however he believed they were having some type of psychological and spiritual experience the source of which was another dimension he was implying that the aliens were real but perhaps the abduction was some type of transcendental experience and not something that physically happened like there was no spaceship that came down in the atmosphere and no beam of light that actually transported the people to that ship he would later imply the participants had something similar to a Vision Quest an experience featured in some Native American cultures during one interview Mac tried to walk a fine line between supporting the people he interviewed and remaining non-committal to the idea of alien visitors he claimed that he would never say that aliens are abducting people but he went on to say that there was a compelling powerful phenomenon that he could not account for in any other way Matt gained a reputation for believing in Aliens and believing people who claim to encounter aliens to make Mac's situation worse a woman who claimed to be posing as an abductee share the details of her time being treated with Mac and Time Magazine featured the story it was clear that Mack believed her story about the alien abduction even though she had completely fabricated it at least according to her account she had said that during the Cuban Missile Crisis she had been taken on board a spaceship along with Khrushchev and John F Kennedy her report would further cement Mack's reputation as a gullible clinician and scientist Mac tried to redeem himself by going on the Oprah Winfrey show a well-known refuge for pseudoscientist and spiritual gurus all this attention landed him in trouble in May of 1994 when an investigation was launched into max clinical activities by Harvard Medical School the concern that many of Mac's colleagues had about him was this whole situation where he believed people were encountering aliens the committee that was put together to investigate Mac's Behavior felt as though it was professionally irresponsible to tell a person who claimed to have a close encounter with an alien that their experience could be real one Committee Member wrote quote if these stories are believed as literal factual accounts they contradict virtually all the basic laws of physics chemistry and biology on which modern science depends unquote other committee members accused Mack of bringing about a new Dark Age of superstition and Magic about four months into the Harvard investigation Mack would travel to Zimbabwe to investigate an alleged UFO sighting that would become notorious at the aerial School in ruwa Zimbabwe 62 children ages 6 to 12 reported seeing a UFO and aliens on September 16 1994. Mack interviewed the children and believed their stories even though the most probable explanation was mass Hysteria going back to the Harvard investigation the total duration of the investigation was 14 months the committee had accused Mack of three offenses he had not done enough in his evaluations of the so-called alien abductees to rule out mental disorders he put pressure on the participants to convince them that they had actually been abducted by aliens and he prevented them from getting treatment delivered by a competent mental health clinician the conclusion of the committee was that Mack had the academic freedom to study whatever he wanted and offer his opinions without interference although they cautioned him against violating ethics no official adverse action occurred against Mack based on these findings even though he was technically Vindicated the investigation and the information it brought to light was devastating the John Mack's reputation Max marriage to Sally Stahl would end in 1995. John Mack had written a biography about T.E Lawrence otherwise known as Lawrence of Arabia Mac was in London on September 27 2004 to give a lecture at a conference sponsored by the T.E Lawrence Society Mack was walking home to where he was staying by himself after dinner in the area there was a silver Peugeot driven by a 50 year old computer technician named Raymond chikowski Raymond had just left a military charity event in North London where he had consumed five or six pints of beer John Mack exited the underground station at totteridge and Whetstone not long after 11 pm before crossing the street he looked to the left he walked directly into the path of Raymond who was coming from the right as an American Mack was not accustomed to drivers on the left side of the road Raymond slammed on the brakes but could not stop in time Mack Flew Over the hood into the windshield then over the roof and landed on the ground back would be pronounced dead a short time later he was 74 years old Raymond would later plead guilty to careless driving while under the influence of alcohol he spent six months in jail and was not allowed to drive a vehicle for three years now moving to my analysis John emac is undoubtedly the most notorious mental health clinician and Professor who believed in Alien Abduction many clinicians and academics who are skeptical about aliens believe that Mac legitimized the whole alien and counter phenomenon and misled people fueling their delusions others who believe in Alien Abduction have declared John Mack as a hero who stood up against an academic establishment that promotes scientific materialism Mac was somewhat troubled by the whole idea of alien encounters he did believe in them but he was not a hundred percent sure one thing in particular that really bothered him was the fact that he had never been abducted seen a UFO or encountered aliens in any way Mack wondered if there was something wrong with him perhaps he didn't believe enough to attract the attention of the aliens interestingly Mack was raised as a scientific materialist his father believed that life was meaningless and when people died that was it Mac was satisfied with this understanding of the world for many years but would eventually come to believe that there was something more to life there must be a spiritual component Mack thought that perhaps alien encounters could shed light on this spiritual component as Mac became more sure about aliens he still tried to make it appear as though he was somewhat skeptical in reality he believed in Aliens and had a number of theories about them they were coming from a parallel universe to engage in a breeding program that would create alien humid hybrid offspring so I guess he believed to some extent in Alien lizard humanoids he also believed the aliens would warn people about dangers to the planet like the spread of nuclear weapons and pollution people who were abducted would come out of the experience with a commitment to change their relationship to the Earth I find this interesting because Mac had been an activist against nuclear weapons long before his interest in Aliens it's almost like he was recruiting the aliens to spread his message Mac was such a True Believer in Aliens the other people who believed in Aliens were critical of him even the guy that he met who reported seeing a UFO at Cape Cod in 1964 believed that John Mack was gullible I think the bottom line with John Mack is that he simply believed in the stories that people were telling him about the alien encounters he found this population to be highly credible he didn't think there was any reason they would lie about the experience they didn't have anything to gain and as I mentioned he found many similarities in their stories Mack did not believe there was an alternate explanation he claimed that he ruled out not only mental illness like delusions but also sleep paralysis and deception let's take a look at a potential personality profile for Johnny Mac when I conceptualize personality I often use the five Factor model I remember the five factors through the acronym ocean openness to experience conscientiousness extroversion agreeableness and neuroticism as far as openness to experience it seems like John Mack is very high he invested in fantasy he was creative and he appeared to experience emotions intensely we see that he was highly conscientious he was fairly cautious and deliberate he had a great work ethic he was perhaps a little bit above average in extroversion he was friendly and outgoing I think he wasn't too high in that trait though because he was also analytical as far as agreeableness he was high in agreeableness he was altruistic trusting perhaps a little too trusting and he was fairly modest we see with neuroticism that Mac appeared to be quite low he did not seem to be fearful depressed anxious or vulnerable in a sense I think the manner of John Mack's death was a metaphor related to the way he approached the investigation of alien abductees he simply wasn't looking the right way there was a whole direction that he was missing he didn't think he was missing anything because he thought he understood the framework but he made a fundamental error which led to other mistakes he dismissed a traditional explanation in reality there are naturalistic explanations for alien abduction experiences in my opinion awareness of sleep paralysis probably explains most alien abduction stories I talked about this in detail in a video I did about alien abduction but I will offer a summary of that theory here during rem's sleep muscles are paralyzed sometimes a person is consciously aware of it this is called awareness of sleep paralysis about 25 to 40 percent of the population has experienced this a person could feel pressure on their chest during this they have an increased heart rate they have trouble breathing they have feelings of anxiety or dread they have a sense of floating spinning or being out of one's body they may also have hallucinations both Visual and auditory like lights demons footsteps and buzzing noises the alien abduction narrative is a way to explain all these experiences but even still most people who have sleep paralysis do not think they had an Alien Encounter The crucial element here is how personality fits in people who claim to have been abducted by aliens tend to be creative distrustful and tend to have cluster a personality features like magical thinking and odd beliefs alien abduction stories are really probably just a combination of awareness of sleep paralysis and certain personality traits so one of my final thoughts on John Mack I think John Mack was frustrated with the limits of the scientific method like he wanted to prove something theological using science which of course is a mismatch because by definition science always comes up with a materialistic explanation it does not have the ability to comment on anything theological no matter how many stories of alien abductions John Mack collected no matter how similar they were the determination from the scientific method would always be something other than aliens many clinicians and scientists dismiss smack out of hand to them there's just no place for believing that aliens abduct people they assume that Mac just desperately wanted to believe in the stories and suffered from a confirmation bias so he only saw the evidence that supported the conclusion that he drew in the beginning they think that he was only believed by anyone because of his ivy league affiliation people were Star Struck believing that Ivy League schools are somehow better than other schools I think the John Mack was just trying to figure things out I don't think he was trying to be a bad clinician or a poor scientist after watching an interview he did with Charlie Rose I was left with the impression that Mack was trying to be authentic he was willing to be proven wrong he just wanted people to be open to a number of possibilities to explore this area of alien encounters with him I think the lesson we can learn from John Mack is to entertain any possibility however unlikely a lesson that we can learn from his shortcomings would be to explore personality angles before packing one's bag for an alien vacation those are my thoughts on John Edward Mack please put any opinions and thoughts in the comments section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be informative thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

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Id: VYn5lsmD6b8

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021