tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post1639625595262690625..comments2024-03-07T12:48:21.070+00:00Comments on MAGONIA REVIEW: BUDD HOPKINS - AN ARTIST'S LIFEUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-4746977061642292772009-12-21T20:45:44.648+00:002009-12-21T20:45:44.648+00:00PS to my previous post:
The full-length version (...PS to my previous post:<br /><br />The full-length version (1200 further words of incision) of Dan Schneider's review of Hopkins's memoir exists at<br /><br />www.cosmoetica.com/B852-DES678.htm<br /><br />I am just preparing to enjoy.Peter Brookesmithhttp://www.firecrest-fiction.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-86757158377541852772009-12-20T23:20:20.964+00:002009-12-20T23:20:20.964+00:00I have just come across another review of Hopkins&...I have just come across another review of Hopkins's book by Dan Schneider, at <br />http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-art-life-and-ufos/<br />which echoes Peter Rogerson's and my own view of Hopkins's memoir, but pulls out more detail than PR does. <br /><br />Schneider has a rather less benign attitude to AbEx art than I do and a much harsher assessment of Hopkins's talent and place within the movement... but it's at least interesting that he places Hopkins's move from artist to ufologist to abductologist in its context as does PR and as would I.<br /><br />This isn't IMO a matter of following Friedman's Rules of Debunking as reiterated by Anonymous Steve -- <br /><br />"A. Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.<br />B. If one can't attack the data, attack the people" <br /><br />-- rules, by the way, that dear ol' Stan is capable of following quite slavishly when batting for the other side. Hopkins does not bother anyone with too many facts that can be objectively verified, and has (as with the MUFON transcription project) refused to allow his raw data to be examined independently lest skeptics mock it or his investigative technique. The facts he does produce can be interpreted in rather different ways than he chooses. Some facts (such as the possibility of other interpretations) he denies altogether. A critique of Hopkins is not an attack on the man, but on the reliability of his findings. If he chooses, rather naively, to write a memoir that seems to some of us to reveal some of the sources and roots of his findings and proclamations, then pointing these out is not an attack on the man either, so much as a report of insights of which he himself seems astonishingly unaware.<br /><br />On top of which, may I point out, one can attack the abductologists' data, comprehensively, and many have. ("I have tried, Lord, I have tried.") Given that the data are as wonky as they are, one next question that arises is: Why do these guys think they are on to something? Hopkins in his memoir provides some answers, it seems to me, even if he doesn't realize it.<br /><br />I now await David Jacobs's retirement and perhaps equally revealing memoirs with some eagerness.Peter Brookesmithhttp://www.firecrest-fiction.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-74566837103251421032009-12-06T21:35:10.861+00:002009-12-06T21:35:10.861+00:00Saturday, 12 September 2009
Budd Hopkins: An Artis...Saturday, 12 September 2009<br />Budd Hopkins: An Artist's Life <br />Budd Hopkins. Art, Life and UFOs: A Memoir. Anomalist Books, 2009<br /><br /><br />Commenting here about Budd's new book (sadly maybe interpreted as his memoirs) - Peter Rogerson's unsympathetic review seems to take on just one more twisted tone that Stanton Friedman has often warned us about - two of the four rules that debunkers often use are : A. Don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up. B. If one can't attack the data, attack the people. It is easier.<br /><br />Rogerson's interpretation that Budd Hopkins's ordeal with polio early in his life being a large influence in shaping and selling these abduction experiences could be one interesting interpretation. But Rogerson fails to mention since it would diminish his preconceived position - it also reveals Budd's empathy for these persons claiming such abduction experiences. <br /><br />"Sculpting of other peoples memories into works of art that express his own pain." Rogerson's writes. Maybe in interpreting Hopkins's zeitgeist....perhaps Rogerson in attack is concealing Budd might actually have a great empathy to understand this phenomenon. Maybe Rogerson is concealing he really doesn't give a dam about abductees. Those 'fundamentally decent people' Rogerson closes his review about. <br /><br />These poor souls blindly following as Rogerson spins. Maybe Budd is simply investigating such incredible claims. Again we are reminded of Friedman's rules of debunking. Dr. John Mack, M.D. would become a powerful ally in encouraging further investigation into the abduction phenomenon. A stance those like Dr. Susan Clancy also from Harvard and others cannot tolerate. <br /><br />Those Rogerson often confuses as a religious following about abductions Hopkin's seems to encourage is really not true. <br /><br />('Abductionism' as Rogerson writes - now it is a 'ism') <br /><br />Hopkins's research has been taken and interpreted in many ways , each for their own narrow use perhaps. Hopkins remains focused despite this in what he uncovers about the phenomenon. I too am annoyed in how the 'New Age' people, (completely unscientific) for instance spin their own interpretation of Hopkin's and others findings. Hopkins cannot control this despite what Rogerson's claims.<br /><br />Members of the UFO community collectively continue to ignore issues that the mainstream scientific community labels as relevant, the UFO community will continue to be largely considered uninformed and irrational. <br /><br />This for the most part is true. But their is great ignorance on both sides of the isles between . The 'scientific community' also fails to understand the workings of the phenomenon. I only have to state Dr. Susan Clancy as an example. <br /><br />Her blunder that most or all abductions are the result of 'sleep paralysis'. Is this the best the posturing 'scientific community' can offer us? I am very much pro science (in all it's disciplines in addressing this), but such conclusions based on Clancy's lack of homework out in the field is completely unacceptable related to facts. <br /><br />"I am a rational person, and so are many others trying to understand this issue. I know a number of mental health professionals, that are very interested in this phenomenon. Many are ufologists too! This question requires the skills of many disaplines in addressing it scientifically. <br /><br />Mental health professionals and ufologists have one thing in common. Trying to understand and trying to make rational of the irrational. It is the most challenging area of research, an area many scientists fear to tread for a number of reasons.<br /><br />Trying to make rational of the irrational. Maybe that is why we refer to it as 'alien'. <br /><br />SteveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-35610786513765623942009-10-25T05:32:01.883+00:002009-10-25T05:32:01.883+00:00I would have to agree. Sounds like a whole lot of ...I would have to agree. Sounds like a whole lot of psychobabble. Usually an over elaborate analysis about other people shows more about the analyzer then the patient.bebopnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-80990330218389378162009-09-16T02:11:32.787+01:002009-09-16T02:11:32.787+01:00Great review from Peter Rogerson, picking up most ...Great review from Peter Rogerson, picking up most of the points I was going to make in my own review elsewhere (and now leaving me wondering how to say these things without appearing to plagiarize!). Hopkins's experience with polio as a child screamed off the page at me. And having, twice, seen him lose it when challenged on even a minor point, I think I would agree he is a fundamentalist. There are other things he gives away in passing ("my eternal weakness for women" for instance) that give one pause, and the sense one has in his descriptions of the AbEx scene that he remained an outsider to it; despite his social acceptance and his success -- deserved, for some of his work is stunning. But one always feels he was looking for some more fitting mode in which to express himself. The abduction syndrome seems to have solved that problem.<br /><br />I hope Carol Rainey's film makes it to this side of the Atlantic, because there is much known about Linda that's never seen the light of day to suggest she had several motives for going along with Budd. And it's always fun to compare theories about the "secret service" agents, ho ho. It's also interesting that while he says he's most proud of his work on the Linda case, Hopkins goes into very little detail about it in his memoir, compared to the Debbie Jordan nonsense, whose debunking he doesn't even address.<br /><br />Anonynmous: No, not psychobabble. Either you didn't know the man or you are the man, or are in his shadow. Fess up now.Peter Brookesmithhttp://www.firecrest-fiction.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-24689975954830443642009-09-14T18:03:58.266+01:002009-09-14T18:03:58.266+01:00This review strikes me as cheap, armchair, Monday ...This review strikes me as cheap, armchair, Monday morning, psychobabble. This may be too harsh, because I was too bored to read all of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-6713342974428220312009-09-12T22:00:31.987+01:002009-09-12T22:00:31.987+01:00John,
It's stunning how close you've come ...John,<br />It's stunning how close you've come in this review to a genuine understanding of a charistmatic man who has wooed many followers. Up close and personal, for 10 years, I became increasingly dismayed as I saw the fundamentalist in full bloom in Budd Hopkins. Natural-born questioners (like me) were simply not tolerated and had to be excommunicated from the subculture he has so artfully built around himself over the years.<br /><br />You rightly ask "what drives a person to such beliefs [about the nature of abductions] and such despair" and come up with some good clues from his background. There are several others equally as compelling but that are little known. In my personal documentary about The Linda Case (Witnessed), I will also explore what turned an otherwise liberal and exploratory man into a true believer -- not two hairs different in type from my own father, an elder in the strict sect of Plymouth Brethren. <br /><br />One symptom of a true believer of any stripe is exhibited in spades by both Budd and his best friend and confidente, Dave Jacobs: their black-and-white thinking. "Either this phenomenon is psychological or it is really happening as we report it. End of story." Or: "Either Linda is a fabulous actress, liar and hoaxer or this abduction near the Brooklyn Bridge actually happened exactly as she reports it, through me." <br /><br />Not really, guys. Between any polarized position and another is a great deal of grey territory, filled with an infinite amount of possibilities that are completely unknown to us. Only the person whose belief has become dogma willingly ignores that middle zone. And when he or she does, that person has thereby left the realm of even pretending to practice the scientific method and has entered the realm of religion.<br /><br />Intriguing insight. I'll tune in more often.<br /><br />Carol RaineyCarol Raineyhttp://www.carolrainey.comnoreply@blogger.com