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John Edward Mack, M.D. (October 4, 1929 – September 27, 2004) was an American Psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School. October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 95 days remaining. ...
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ...
The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ...
Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ...
He was Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, considered to be a leading authority on the spiritual or transformational effects of alleged alien encounter experiences, sometimes called the Abduction Phenomenon. The gold medal awarded for Public Service in Journalism The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical compositions. ...
The Abduction Phenomenon is as umbrella term used to describe a number of kidnap individuals--sometimes called abductees--usually for medical testing or for sexual reproduction procedures. ...
The abduction phenomenon is an umbrella term used to describe a number of hypotheses, claims or assertions stating that non-human creatures kidnap individuals—sometimes called abductees—usually for medical testing or for sexual reproduction procedures. ...
Early career
Born in New York Cityhis middle name is actually edmond, Mack received his medical degree from the Harvard Medical School (Cum Laude, 1955) after undergraduate study at Oberlin (Phi Beta Kappa, 1951). He was a graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and was Board certified in child and adult psychoanalysis. Nickname: The Big Apple, The Capital of the World Official website: City of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area Total 468. ...
1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Oberlin College is a small, highly selective liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, USA. It was founded in 1833, and is home to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, a distinguished music school. ...
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an honor society which considers its mission to be fostering and recognizing excellence in undergraduate liberal arts and sciences. ...
1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ...
This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...
The dominant theme of his life's work has been the exploration of how one's perceptions of the world affect one's relationships. He addressed this issue of "worldview" on the individual level in his early clinical explorations of dreams, nightmares and teen suicide, and in his biographical study of the life of British officer T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in biography in 1977. [1] A world view, also spelled as worldview is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung (look onto the world). The German word is also in wide use in English, as well as the translated form world outlook. ...
T.E. Lawrence. ...
For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ...
Mack advocated that Western culture required a shift away from a purely materialist worldview (which he felt was responsible for the Cold War, the global ecological crisis, ethnonationalism and regional conflict) towards a transpersonal worldview which embraced certain elements of Eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions. Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, for many a symbol of the changes of the Western culture during the Renaissance Western culture refers to the culture of western Europe and the Americas that has developed in modern times. ...
Mack's interest in the spiritual aspect of human experience has been compared by the New York Times to that of fellow Harvard professor William James, and like James, Mack became a controversial figure for his efforts to bridge spirituality and psychiatry. William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. ...
Abduction Phenomenon This theme was taken to a controversial extreme in the early 1990s when Mack commenced his decade-plus study of 200 men and women who reported recurrent alien encounter experiences. The Abduction Phenomenon is as umbrella term used to describe a number of kidnap individuals--sometimes called abductees--usually for medical testing or for sexual reproduction procedures. ...
Such encounters had been reported since at least the 1950's (the account of Antonio Villas Boas), and had seen some limited attention from academic figures (Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle perhaps being the earliest, in the 1960s). Mack, however, remains probably the most esteemed academic to have studied the subject. Antonio Villas Boas claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrials in 1957. ...
Plato is credited with the inception of academia: the body of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations. ...
Dr. Ronald Leo Sprinkle (born August 31, 1930) is (was?) an American psychologist. ...
Mack initially suspected that such persons were suffering from mental illness, but when no obvious pathologies were present in the persons he interviewed, Mack's interest was piqued. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Following encouragement from longtime friend Thomas Kuhn (who predicted that the subject might be controversial, but urged Mack to simply collect data and temporarily ignore prevailing materialist, dualist and "either/or" analysis), Mack began concerted study and interviews. Thomas Samuel Kuhn (July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American intellectual who wrote extensively on the history of science and developed several important notions in the philosophy of science. ...
Many of those Mack interviewed reported that their encounters had affected the way they regarded the world, including producing a heightened sense of spirituality and environmental concern. In Hinduism, spiritual goals and personal experience (self-realization) through yoga and meditation are seen as the ultimate way to attain God (Moksha) and are inseparable from the religion. ...
Mack was somewhat more guarded in his investigations and interpretations of the abduction phenomenon than were the earlier researchers. Literature professor Terry Matheson writes that "On balance, Mack does present as fair-minded an account as has been encountered to date, at least as these abduction narratives go." (Matheson, 251) In an undated interview, Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove stated that Mack seemed "inclined to take these [abduction] reports at face value". Mack replied by saying "Face value I wouldn't say. I take them seriously. I don't have a way to account for them."[1] Similarly, the BBC quoted Mack as saying, "I would never say, yes, there are aliens taking people. [But] I would say there is a compelling powerful phenomenon here that I can't account for in any other way, that's mysterious. Yet I can't know what it is but it seems to me that it invites a deeper, further inquiry." The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest publicly-funded radio and television broadcasting corporation of the United Kingdom (see British television) and the world. ...
Mack noted that there was a worldwide history of visionary experiences -- especially in pre-industrial societies. One example is the vision quest common to some Native American cultures. Only fairly recently in Western culture, notes Mack, have such visionary events been interpreted as aberations or as mental illness. Mack suggested that abduction accounts might best be considered as part of this larger tradition of visionary encounters. A vision quest is a mystic search for the revelation of the unity of all things in the natural world and for the answer to a question. ...
A Hupa man, 1923 The term indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European explorers in the 15th century, as well as many present-day ethnic groups who identify themselves with those historical peoples. ...
Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, for many a symbol of the changes of the Western culture during the Renaissance Western culture refers to the culture of western Europe and the Americas that has developed in modern times. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Mack's interest in the spiritual or transformational aspects of people's alien encounters, and his suggestion that the experience of alien contact itself may be more spiritual than physical in nature -- yet nonetheless real -- set him apart from many of his contemporaries such as Budd Hopkins, who advocated the physical reality of aliens. Budd Hopkins is a central figure in Abduction Phenomenon and related UFO research. ...
In 1994 the Dean of Harvard Medical School appointed a committee of peers to review Mack's clinical care and clinical investigation of the people who had shared their alien encounters with him (some of their cases were written of in Mack's 1994 book Abduction). In the same BBC article cited above, Angela Hind wrote, "It was the first time in Harvard's history that a tenured professor was subjected to such an investigation." 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ...
Mack described this investigation as "Kafkaesque:" He never quite knew the status of the ongoing investigation, and the nature of his critics' complaints shifted frequently, as most of their accusations against him fell apart when closely scrutinized. Franz Kafka approximately 1917 Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 in Prague - June 3, 1924 in Vienna) was one of the major German language writers of the 20th century most of whose work was published posthumously. ...
After fourteen months of inquiry, there were growing questions from the academic community (including Harvard Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz) regarding the validity of Harvard's investigation of a tenured professor who was not suspected of ethics violations or professional misconduct. Harvard then issued a statement stating that the Dean had "reaffirmed Dr. Mack's academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment," concluding "Dr. Mack remains a member in good standing of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine." (Mack was censured for some methodological errors.) He had received legal help from Danniel Sheehan and the support of Laurance Rockefeller, who also funded Mack's Center for four consecutive years [2] at $250,000 per year. Alan Dershowitz Alan Morton Dershowitz (born September 1, 1938) is a lawyer and jurist from the United States. ...
Ethics (from Greek ἦθος meaning custom) is the branch of axiology, one of the four major branches of philosophy, which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to distinguish that which is right from that which is wrong. ...
Censure is a process by which a formal reprimand is issued to an individual by an authoritative body. ...
Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (May 26, 1910 - July 11, 2004) was a financier, philanthropist, and conservationist. ...
Mack's explorations later broadened into the general consideration of the merits of an expanded notion of reality, one which allows for experiences that may not fit the Western materialist paradigm, yet deeply affect people's lives. His second (and final) book on the alien encounter experience, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (1999), was as much the culmination of his work with the "experiencers" of alien encounters (to whom the book is dedicated) as it was a philosophical treatise connecting the themes of spirituality and modern worldviews. 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...
Mack was killed by a drunken driver when walking home from a dinner with friends in London on Monday September 27, 2004. London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England and is the most populous city in the European Union. ...
September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 95 days remaining. ...
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Trivia - Mack was a student of Holotropic Breathwork, a meditative technique developed by Stanislav Grof.
- Mack's life and work was documented in the film Touched by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Laurel Chiten.[3]
Holotropic Breathwork is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Stanislav Grof which allows access to nonordinary states of consciousness. ...
Stanislav Grof (born 1931 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of altered states of consciousness for purposes of healing, growth, and insight. ...
Sources - Terry Matheson; Alien Abduction: Creating A Modern Phenomenon; Prometheus Books, 1998; ISBN 1573922447
External links
References - ^ Mack, John E.. A Prince of Our Disorder: A Life of T.E. Lawrence.
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