Word: mackli
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Bassett participated in three hypnotic-regression sessions (she says she used method-acting techniques to fake her way through them) and eventually served as treasurer of an abductee support group that Mack organized and ran. "I've never seen a UFO in my life," Bassett says, "and I certainly haven't been inside...
Bassett, who made extensive tapes and notes of her life in the UFO cult, says Mack provided her with UFO literature to read prior to her sessions -- a practice that medical hypnotists say will almost surely influence hypnotic revelations. During the sessions, which Mack held in a darkened bedroom in his house rather than in a neutral office, he asked leading questions that reflected his biases. "John made it obvious what he wanted to hear," says Bassett. "I provided the answers." Among other recollections, she told of an encounter with John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev on board a spaceship...
Later, at a support-group session, Bassett confronted Mack about mixing research and therapy. According to Bassett, Mack billed insurance companies for some support-group sessions, claiming they were "therapeutic" rather than "research." Yet some members of the support group complained about the lack of therapy following their traumatic hypnosis sessions. "That I can't do everything that each person needs does not mean that what I'm doing is not therapeutic," Mack said. "There are too many of you, and I'm also doing research...
Bassett's account is supported by others who had close encounters with Mack. "He had a hidden agenda," says Dave Duclos, who left the experiment when he became disenchanted. "He was against anybody who said anything negative about the aliens. Once he said to me, 'If you think the aliens are bad, Mr. Duclos, keep thinking about it until you realize they are good...
...what of the surprising consistency of the stories Mack elicited? "Dr. Mack is ignoring the high level of suggestion and imagery that surrounds the way in which he deals with these people," says Fred Frankel, 70, a Harvard Medical School professor and psychiatrist in chief at Boston's Beth Israel hospital. "Hypnosis helps you regain memories that you would not have otherwise recalled . . . But some will be true, and some will be false. The expectation of the hypnotist and the expectation of the person who is going to be hypnotized can influence the result...