Dr. Bridget Brown Interview: Recommended!

[Kim323]

Hello, everyone. I heartily recommend an interview I just finished listening to. It's the latest offering on a podcast called paranormalpodcast at paranormalpodcast.com The host is Jim Harold, and his podcast has its fits and starts, but is the podcast that first turned me on to the whole genre of podcasts, and of the ones dealing with the paranormal. I now listen to a host of them, and, yes, premier among them is The Paracast, and that's a "genuwyne" compliment. Anyway, back to my original point: Dr. Bridget Brown is the guest, and she is interviewed about her book from NYU Press entitled They Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves. She addresses alien abduction, and is very, very skeptical of the phenomenon, but she presents her thesis in a very self-effacing, sympathetic manner, and it's a very interesting interview. I think it blends in well with many of the ideas, etc. expressed here on the Paracast, and despite her skepticism, her views meld well with explanations presented here for paranormal phenomenon. She may certainly, and probably doesn't, have the whole answer, but her ideas are intriguing, and no doubt provide part of the answers searched for on this podcast. Kim

[valiens]

I interviewed her on my latest podcast and respectfully disagree. I think her hypothesis holds no merit and is a throw-away concept that she came up with because she needed a topic for a thesis paper in her field of study. It's clear that, while she's still holding to it, she's more open to suggestion than the book admits and now really does think "something" is going on with abductees/experiencers, whatever that something is.

The unfortunate downside to this is that she publishes a book on a topic her academic colleagues are ignorant of and they think it's brilliant. But if she's not certain she's figured it out and yet written a book claiming she's figured it out, is it brilliant or superfluous?

She is a nice person and a good interview but she is trying to jam a square world view into a round world and it doesn't work. It''s ironically instructive in that she's taking a look at abductee psychology, but the book says more about the psychology of someone who has to make a flatland materialist answer out of something far more dynamic than that.

I did plug The Paracast and use Mr. Biedny as an example of someone who is, to my mind, an unimpeachable witness to the extraordinary, so who knows? Maybe she'll listen to your show and it'll change her mind. I also hope she represents a new breed of skeptic: one that listens and is willing to change their world view when it's challenged beyond its usefulness.

[David Biedny]

I'm in pretty much total agreement with Jeremy. Here's what I just posted on his blog:

So she seems like a nice enough person, but...

I haven't read her book, so let's get that out of the way before I type anything else.

From a research point of view, she's trying to claim that she has derived a theory by sampling/interviewing people who are only from the NY area? I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and assume that she didn't score very high in her statistics class. Lazy and not very useful, IMO.

And she "doesn't believe in aliens?" Listen, I've been talking more and more about how we can't definitely state that abductions - or even UFOs - are about alien civilizations, but for someone to say that they "don't believe in aliens" is akin to stating that they don't believe in extraterrestrial life, which is ignorant beyond, well, belief. Her entire approach to deductive reasoning and logic (gleaned from this interview) is that she doesn't have one. I didn't hear anything about her "theory" of abductions, in fact, she seemed rather hesitant to take ANY kind of definitive position about ANYTHING you guys talked about. Oy.

She writes about psychology - her degree is in American Studies. And the book is published by NYU Press, a school that has it's collective head VERY far up it's ass (I've taught there, what a fucking joke of a "school" - I know, this isn't an objective statement, but I ran into the biggest asshats at that asylum). What clinical expertise does she bring to the study of this topic? Sounds to me like she chose the easiest topic to bullshit about, and took advantage of the gray area surrounding the issue. She teaches writing, she wants to write a book about Howard Stern, so she's useless, IMO. "He's an interesting cultural figure?" Oh, fucking put a sock in her mouth.

Jeremy, many thanks for bringing me up as an example of a credible experiencer of high weirdness, I get the feeling that if I spoke to Bridget, I'd burn her mind like that UV flashlight in Blade charred the bloodsuckers. You did your best to make it a good interview, but I'll take the psychic bimbos over this "researcher" any day of the century.

[schticknz]

Haven't listened to the Vaeni podcast yet but its only a matter of time, young skywalker ... but by the sound of it she already reminds me of ... horror of horrors ... (sorry about this, small children you may have to close your eyes or get an adult to do it for you) ...

Dr Susan Blackmore

Sorry about that ... and now on with the featured presentation ...