Alternate Perceptions Magazine, December 2024
My working with John Mack
by: James Edward Carlos
To deliberate about John Mack, I must first describe how our acquaintance occurred. I then try to label the divisions listed below. I hope this helps to your wishes about John Mack being briefly in my life.
INTRODUCTION:
My wife, Sarah, and I attended a local dinner for summer workers in an art program at Saint Andrew’s-Sewanee School. During the dinner discussion around the table after eating, I told of an unusual experience I had with a “lightfall” while on a mountain summit that summer on Iona Island (1 mile by three miles). Iona is off the coast of Scotland and known as “the light place between heaven and Earth.”
Before completing my story that night, another gentleman, Jim Weiner, kind of interrupted to say he had an important encounter with light, too. Anxious to share his story, Jim proceeded to tell of his summer camping spot in a forest surrounding the Allagash Lake site in Maine; Jim had been with his twin brother and two other male companions. The brother could not invite him into his apartment to speak, because his girlfriend at the time was apparently sick of hearing about this occurrence, which is understandable. I think about close encounters constantly, and probably I am too repetitious over and over. My visiting Jim in his home, however, in Vermont, was exciting because of the correspondence between our experiences...duplications of event in several instances, including our artworks, even as to where and how they were displayed in our homes.
While these four men were fishing at night while using a large bonfire of limbs and twigs on the shoreline as guide in the darkness, a huge light flew up and over the four men in a fishing boat from the forest. One of the men joked, “That’s a hell of a lot of swamp gas.” That phrase was what the military (and related government, USA) used to dispel interest in UFOs, one of several distracting commentaries without themselves disclosing anything very real or actual. I was told by the time the four men returned to the beach after their encounter, the fire was by then merely embers.
The Weiners’ and friends’ story is in a published book, “The Allagash Abductions.” They sought help from the author, Raymond E. Fowler – a known “researcher of ufology.” I personally never sought any kind of notoriety, (nor income), still feeling that I am still too innocent about the wide range of complexities, over-lappings, fore-shadowings, etc., concerning Close Encounters. But, I am willing to share whatever realizing probably that death is near and that the encounters were one of, if not the most, formidable experiences of my entire life. Of course, my creativity, mentors and teachers, plus friendships, and most importantly my beloved family (wife, children, grandchildren, my basic family and history of family pets are the essential discovering of this life.
I remain skeptical of all such researching thinking the stories expounded are stereotypical and repetitiously superficial but seemingly looking for some level of notoriety by anyone involved. I accept however everyone involved as such are sincere in their deliberations and sharing. I accept what it is as it is. I have no reason or sufficient insight to argue about any details or consequences that may differ from each other. I do wish though for a deeper understanding and sharing about these surreal and often bizarre experiences, involving things out of the
Not much attempt at reasoning about the experiences, seemingly satisfied to just tell the anecdote as being enough. To me, layers of consciousness are involved and revealed in the encounters so the beings and human interpretations and hypotheses deserve whatever level of depth we who experience the encounters might muster. The four men camping in the Allagash had a close encounter with a UFO craft in which they were undressed and their bodies each, separately, examined by other beings.
FOLLOW UP:
The Allagash men have not continued a correspondence, interestingly. I have experienced another two or three other people with encounters happening, but mine seems to have continued far past any of theirs. But one in particular is brilliant in terms of mathematics, health, psychics, and understanding of the encounters....and has at least monthly since the 1990s written to me and is writing a book about the haunting psychological experiences. She is always supportive.
Later that summer, I felt I needed to talk with someone about the visionary experiences I was having, needing some assurance that my mind was normal, so a mutual friend, Robbie Moore, of the Weiner brothers and me, who grew up in Sewanee where I was living (and still am). I spoke to Robbie of my concern about these surreal experiences, and he reminded me of Jim Weiner’s story. I phoned Jim and began the next morning driving north from Sewanee, TN to meet the twins at their places of residence. Although our rendezvous was interesting, I proceed here to say that they recommended I contact John Mack, Harvard University. I did and was invited to the Mack home to relate my story about the experiences with Light.
INTERVIEWING AND HYPNOSIS SESSION:
Dr. Mack and I spent at least three hours, maybe four, in an interview with my telling about the visions and dreams, the narrative story lines involved, and my 48 or more hours under hypnosis with Dr. Fred Wright of Chattanooga. I felt a good bit about his writing about me and my experiences concerned Wright’s time with me; I appreciate deeply his entire book, and how the chapter on me has been stated; Dr. Mack has always been fair about our discussions and his conclusions. Another day went by and I returned to the Mack home for a morning breakfast, and then a few hours of hypnosis. Sally Stahl Mack was a wonderful, beautiful, woman and discussed with me prior to John’s coming to the breakfast table. Sally Mack told me of John’s excitement about my encounters (they used the term abductions which I refuse to think the term misleading, and erroneous), and about his personal excitement (and hers) that we would write a book together. When John arrived at the breakfast table, he concurred that my story concurred with the idea of the experiences being SPIRITUAL and wanted to work with me that we should co-author a book on the subject centering around my personal close encounters. His notoriety and professional teaching history at Harvard (where my son Aaron was studying) made this an exciting venture for my working with him. The day was spent with hypnosis, perhaps again for three or four hours. Mack was attempting to follow up after my work with Fred Wright. That book, however, never materialized, and I was disappointed, but I did get to proof and edit his final conclusions for my chapter, “A Being of Light”
DISAPPOINTMENTS:
Although under hypnosis I had deeper insights with his various pursuits regarding his questioning and my responses, especially with his asking about sexuality, which became a deep orgasmic state on the single bed in his upstairs office. The orgasm brought movement to the bed (and to me on the bed). I came to realize how much breathing is an essential basis for all sexual orgasms.
However, I felt resentment at one point of the hypnosis with John Mack’s intrusion, as if interrupting my depth of consciousness with his (to me) foolish acceptance of Stanislaw Grof’s ideas about a psychiatrist entering into the client’s hypnosis being physically close and actually breathing over my face. I was repulsed by both the proximity of the man and his body odors, and more intrusive the smell of his breath in my nostrils and open mouth for breathing. This was an insistent intrusion into my personal privacy. I resented the interruption to my consciousness, too, there in bringing me up to a level of subconscious bordering on regular awareness.
SENSIBILITIES: EXPECTATIONS PERHAPS:
MY JUDGEMENTSS OF THE AGENDA I FELT OCCURRING THROUGHOUT:
Mack’s kindness and interest in my thoughts on the visionary episodes was reassuring and I felt gratitude, close encounters having been part of my entire life from infancy onward. But in comparison to Dr. Wright, I felt Dr. Mack had an agenda for notoriety whereas Dr. Wright cared about my responses and experiences and his pursuit during hypnosis was telling and admirable. I felt only comfort ever with Dr. Wright. When I objected to his title (already published without my knowledge at all), Mack’s response was that the publishing company insisted on the word Abduction because it would sell more books. I found that offensive. Still do in 2024.
I also thought strange Dr. Mack’s not ever following up on my concerns or expanding on his own after the visit, as to how I was doing, had I had more recent encounters concerning wellbeing, changes in my psychological state at all, and general health or gains in personal intellectual awareness about the encounters. Instead, his only inquiry was asking to use my photograph of the lightfall taken during an encounter on Iona Isle...for their Christmas Card. I refused because I felt the request was trivial and treated my encounters superficial by his asking.
MY ARTWORK AFTER THE VISIT WITH THE MACKS:
After that day, I drove to an eastern, northern, summer conference site where Beau Hwang was in a rehearsal with the Boston Symphony. I was visiting the Hwang family then to pursue an approval of my daughter, Malia, and Leo Hwang, who were intending marriage. I accompanied Beau to a rehearsal that day in their Tanglewood Music Center, Lenox, Massachusetts. Sitting in the front row of a huge auditorium I was literally, loudly, surrounded with symphonic music, and near where Beau as second chair violinist was seated. I presumed to sketch while listening and made several rough sketches of information gained from the hypnosis session the day or so before with John Mack.
RETURNING TO THE HARVARD PSYCHIATRY DEPARTMENT:
Dr. Mack asked me to return to Harvard and speak to around 200 students and others crowded into the lecture lab. The people there asked good questions at various levels, being highly intelligent about their interests. Because of Mack’s insistence on using the word “Abduction” in place of Encounter, and knowing of my resistance to that term, I began my speaking by saying, “First I have to say to you all that I have never been abducted. I consider my experiences with these beings as encounters. My lecture involved my telling that I saw Encounters of mutual interest (between myself and the encounter-beings) with emphasis on being compatible and empathic in nature. That I considered the experience of encountering to be spiritual in nature, and that they have always continued feeling these experiences were a blessing in my current life (even when fearing them when in my mid-early adult years) and that the encounters were essentially lessons for my soul. I saw these experiences as expansive in terms of insights and conceptual realizations, like any expectations gained from the ritual of benediction, the attributes listed as being high telling.” That understanding is why I eventually offered my tales (the telling) to you for your impressive masterful AP Magazine et al. Thank you.
SORROWS PERHAPS:
I wish that I had asked to meet other ‘encontrants’ mentioned in John Mack’s first book, but they were all listed under artificial names. I would like to have had conversations with each of them eventually. But nothing of any kind of professional or social possibility ever emerged. I did appreciate being mentioned kindly in his other book, but I did not even read the first book in totality until this past year, I remained shy of the possibilities of knowing others’ interpretations. Nor have I purchased the second book that I feel veered highly toward Shamanism and away from Encounters. I do not see these experiences as in anyway the same, but I have had shaman experiences, too, stemming from studies in psychological counseling regarding the Expressive arts (at Leslie University, Cambridge).
I always, always, had no wish to intrude by any kind of questioning unless given consent. And because of teaching, I never spoke about my encounters publicly for fear I would lose my teaching position, until the last year or two before retiring (then 2003-2005) hinting only about having seen UFOs that might be adjacent to the university mountain land. After retiring and building my studio-art barn three miles from our home in Sewanee, I have been totally open about visitor’s questions or sharing, other than not wanting to share anyone else’s privacy et al.
So, Brent, if I have not included something you would like to ask me about, please do so. I hope this offers something of what you were looking for, and I tried to both expound my concerns about the hypnosis sessions with Dr. Wright and Dr. Mack. I only ever knew him beyond that brief period in Cambridge.
RENEWALS: EXPANSIONS:
At that point, I had not experienced hearing Rabbi Dan Word on televisions, nor did I know about Ezekiel and his experiences (encounters) with Light. My life changed substantively with now having read probably around 60 books on the Kabbalah and Zohar’s own twelve volumes. And that has a lot to do with reaching out to you once I reached my 80s. Thank you for your interest.
