If you are interested in the process of how people come to believe things that are very improbable, I recommend Susan Clancy's Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. Essentially, she explains how UFO abductees develop their beliefs and come to maintain them even in the face evidence to contrary and significant negative consequences. She bases her study on abductees because it is very unlikely UFO abductions actually occur, unlike sexual abuse and, unlike Satanic Ritual Abuse, is not believed to be true by a significant part of the culture.

I found her work also provides a possible explanation for miraculous claims in Mormon history, such as the Testimony of the Three Witnesses or current miraculous claims. I've included my thoughts about his below:

When I read Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens by Susan Clancy, a Harvard psychologist, it struck me that her work has a significant bearing on the process of converting to Mormonism and the witness-claims of Mormons:

• People who experience difficult or unusual things sometimes try to explain them using whatever information is available in their environment. They may continue to "try on" explanations until one "feels right" to them.

• Once they find a good fit, they begin to filter and bias information to strengthen their interpretation. Some people are willing to lose friends and endure terrible "memories" to hold on their interpretation of events and will not accept more plausible and less painful explanations.

• Although scientists don't accept anecdotal experience, it is nonetheless given great importance by most people because it *feels* real and fits their daily experience of reality.

• Imaginative people, especially those with strong visual imagination, are prone to memory errors and under the right conditions can come to believe imaginary events are real. This is particularly true when people are encouraged over a sustained period to describe visual events in the presence of an authority figure who validates the imaginary events. Authority figures can consciously or unconsciously manipulate or reinforce certain interpretations when a person is in a susceptible state.

Applying this information to the Mormon process of "gaining a testimony," it is easy to how some people can come to believe Mormon teachings and undergo a conversion experience.

• The missionaries present novel information, which the investigator then has to explain and accept or reject.

• If the missionaries' explanation ("presence of the Holy Ghost") closely matches the investigator's explanation and provides a relevant interpretation (meaning) for the investigator, the investigator begins to believe and grants authority to the missionaries.

• Additional information about Mormonism is filtered and interpreted to fit with the previous experience. The missionaries and other church authorities, who are seen as the source of this information and experience, are granted additional authority.

I was struck by the importance of *visual* imagination in this process and how much emphasis Mormons put on *seeing.* This started with Joseph Smith claiming to *see* God and Jesus and his creating visual props ("gold plates") with which persuade his converts. The big lure for the Three Witnesses was they would be allowed to *see* the gold plates. It is interesting that Joseph Smith would choose the mode of perception that is most easily manipulated.

It also occurs to me that when you look at a bit of history behind Section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants, it was created by Joseph Smith supposedly receiving a vision in conjunction with Sidney Rigdon in the presence of others. The process consisted of Smith and Rigdon essentially leading everyone in a guided visualization--the process most likely to create "false memories" according to Clancy. Smith would say (paraphrasing), "I see such-and-such. Do you see that?" and Rigdon would affirm that he did, of course.

It appears to me that Clancy’s explanation for the experience of alien abduction may well apply to the conversion experience and the witness-experiences of founding Mormons, assuming they were not simply outright frauds (which I don’t discount).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2012 10:51PM by robertb.

Good info, robert.

children were apparently 'fronted' with certain scenarios that they eventually confirmed had happened to them. I agree that confirmation bias is a huge factor, which is what you are saying I believe.

Thankfully, the Scottish Isles accusations were proven false, bringing the children involved back to their parents. This did, I understand, take a little while to put right.

The mormon church is, I agree, based on all this too.

Excellent information for which I thank you.

I believe that some folks are susceptible to the so-called experiences/imaginings of others, which are often adopted into personal memories.

Then, as you say, there is the gullibility of people believing fraudsters.

Many thanks Robert. Excellent information.

Briggy

another very well written and comprehensive source is Michael Shermer's 'Why People Believe Weird Things'.... It does not cover abuse specifically, but does bring together areas as wide as Creationism, Holocaust denial and alien abduction.

A very simplistic visual explanation of this process in todays world in my opinion would be the whole santa claus myth. Young children are introduced to this idea and led to believe that a chubby man in a red suit wiggles his way down their chimneys and delivers gifts every december. And this indoctrination is fed to them by people in authority which strengthens this process. Not to mention the false belief is supported and solidified by peer association. This also illustrates just how profound of an effect this mode of "convincing" takes on a willing and vulnerable mind as the purpetuation of this belief continues long after it has been proven to be false. Mainly, IMO because of the recollection of the "good feelings" they had at the time the fraud was being introduced. Like I said, simplistic.

I could tell a very funny story about when the UFO abductee adherents started meeting with the Satan Ritual Abuse adherents right after Liz Smart disappeared. When Liz reappeared alive it caused a huge fight/ rift between them! I could tell you why but just use your imagination, these nutcase ppl certainly did!

The UFO ppl essentially watched star trek/ space babylon 9 (whatever) and cant tell that its not real.

The Satan Ritual abuse ppl? I wish they'd finally get so desperate, and they are already pretty desperate,
for an actual real case of SRA that they'd start Satanically sacrificing each other ie a self solving problem!

One thing that I’ve noticed with the church is that they almost always tell you what to feel about something, before it happens.

For example in Conference, either in the prayer or in one of the welcome statements by the person conducting, they will say something about the Spirit etc. Monson said in his welcome this time, “…Each can be enlightened and uplifted and comforted as the Spirit of the Lord is felt”…“As you listen to the inspired words which will be spoken” etc.

So they always tell you what you should expect to feel, and then when people feel just about anything positive at all, they will conclude that it was what they were told it should be.

And as robertb’s post showed, they will base their belief that what took place was “real” or “valid” based on the evidence that it was what they were told it would be by the leaders.

Missionairies tell investigators that they will feel the spirit, and even if what they are feeling is warm fuzzies about being given undivided attention by two good looking guys, they will conclude that it was the spirit that they were feeling because they were told that they would feel such a thing.

People are easy to manipulate that way. If you had a tribal culture that had never seen a jet in the sky, and explained to them beforehand what one would look like in the sky (contrails etc.) but didn’t tell them it was a jet… you could tell them just about anything. Then when they saw it, they would conclude that they were seeing what you told them it was. Really, as kids we all believed that they were jets based solely on people that we trusted telling us that they were jets. We had no way of really knowing what they were at all as small children.

So the church always tells people what they will feel, and then miraculously they do feel it. The same thing works with evil spirits too. Tell them what they should feel and anything unpleasant like needless guilt etc. will feel like what they were told to feel. It will turn into something perhaps like, “I could feel the spirit of Satan tempting me as I was (fill in the blank with anything that they were told was evil).

It all becomes a self-verifying feedback loop of evidence that the church is true. They leaders said that they would feel it, and they did feel it. The church must be led by men who speak for God. They say something, and it happens just like they said it would. Then they look around and thousands of other people are feeling it also. More verification that what they were feeling was real.

What you seem to be suggesting here is that reports of unusual subjective experiences, for example, visions, alien abductions, etc. involve interpretations that go beyond the phenomenal experience itself. This is not always the case. What has to be explained is not the psychology of interpretation, but the psychology of the experience itself. Alien abduction reports state what was directly experienced by the subject, not how a vague "feeling" was interpreted as an alien abduction.

The fact that people hold so tenaciously to their bizzare accounts--in the face of ostracism and ridicule--emphasizes this point. They cannot accept other "rational" interpretations because such interpretations are not consistent with what they believe actually happened, i.e. the content and force of their experience. The subject's experience is NOT simply a feeling, like a Mormon testimony. Rather, it is a direct experience occuring in the mind. This is similar to what it would have been like had Joseph Smith actually had a first vision experience. The "interpretion" is the experience itself, without inferences from mere feelings.

It is much easier to explain standard Mormon testimonies as misinterpretations of "feelings" than it is to explain alien abductions, explicit visions, etc. as misinterpretations of experiences. If one concludes that the subjective experience was delusional, then deep psychological (and neurological) malfunctioning is suggested. Yet, this is very hard to pinpoint, particularly in people who otherwise appear to be functioning normally.

In short, I do not think Clancy's explanation, as presented here, works for alien abductions, or other such phenomena. I think Mormon historical accounts involving visions etc. essentially began as mere fabrications, which the subject through time, and for various reasons, became convinced actually occurred. Standard Mormon testimony can be explained simply by psychological suggestion, and misinterpretation of accompanying feelings, as you suggest.

As you might guess, I am very leary of psychological "explanations" of human phenomena that enjoy some intuitive appeal, based upon loosely defined general principles, but which are not verifiable, and, in my view fail on their face to take seriously: (1) the diversity of such experiences and the people having them; (2) the complexity of human psychology; and (3) the complexity of reality in general.

I agree that a psychological explanation is not the person's felt experience--that is pretty much true of many things we experience as real but not experienced in the same way by others. An every day example of this is a relationship in which two people are deeply in love, yet outsiders look at the lovers and say, "What does she see in him?" There is no accounting for it in terms of facts and explanations. (The same is true of peoples' attachment to their religion.)

I should point out that Clancy is much more empathetic toward the people she studied than I've reflected and she also points out that these people are *not* mentally ill. When her book came out, many expressed a feeling of betrayal. I would also mention that if a UFO abductee who is convinced of their experience came for psychotherapy, there would probably be a great deal of conversation about the meaning of the experience and its ramifications for his or her life and little about the "objective" facts.

So, I agree that psychological explanations such as Clancy's feel thin compared to the lived experienced of her subjects. At the same time, I am wondering how you would approach this, especially when you agree, for example, that Joseph Smith fabricated the experiences he relates? I would welcome a more robust or inclusive view than what I presented.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2012 08:43PM by robertb.

robertb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree that a psychological explanation is not
> the person's felt experience--that is pretty much
> true of many things we experience as real but not
> experienced in the same way by others.
>
> So, I agree that psychological explanations such
> as Clancy's feel thin compared to the lived
> experienced of her subjects.

But it is complicated when real physical experiences that are complicated by their Psychological underpinnings. I was thinking of the article that I read a while back about a Mass Hysteria type event back East somewhere. It involved high status girls in a high school. They one by one started developing physical ticks and jerks.

It turned into a big deal with parents wanting the environment of the school tested for chemicals that might be causing it, and the town thinking that something was unsafe there. People were trying to move away for the safety of their children.

It had a “real” physical manifestation. I saw a Network morning news interview of one of the girls. Her face contorted and her arms jerked around involuntarily. It involved many girls, not many boys.

In the end, it was all just Psychological. There was nothing wrong with the environment. All the money thrown at it was a big waste. So real physical experiences aren’t always a good indicator that something isn’t just Psychological in some cases.

"Why People Believe Weird Things":
http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0716733870

I don't know if that's the best title for this book, because it gives the impression its focus is the criticism of stupid people, but that's not what it is at all. I found it to be very upbeat and it has one of the best skeptic's manifestos I've read.

Shermer is very fair in explaining the whys of how people latch onto erroneous information and isn't condescending. I came away feeling like I understood the world a lot better, and I finally shed my post Mormon guilt about being a skeptic realizing at last that it's not only NOT a liability to be sketpical but is in fact a virtue.

This reminds me 'author' Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods, and subsequent volumes.

He buiilt up a community of believers around him in the ancient astronaut fraternity.

Even whe he himself came out and publicly and openelly confessed to fabricating evidence etc a sizeably number of his followets said "well, I still believe".

Yes. Forming relationships around beliefs and creating a sense of community, which includes loyal, nurturance, and a sense of shared meaning. Also, believing you and your community are keepers of special knowledge and experience, set apart from the rest of humanity, plays a part. At a point, "facts" don't matter much and, as you point out, the leader can even admit to fraud and some believers will continue because the belief system and ties are so meaningful.

I read Chariots of the Gods when I was a teen. I wonder how many who later converted to Mormonism read that or something along those lines? Later I read a debunking book, Crash Go the Chariots and that took care of that.