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ABDUCTEE BRAINWASHING? 
by Donna Higbee, CHT 

Attitudes appear to be changing as many abductees who have been traumatized,
physically abused and violated are now
saying that their abductors have only spiritual and/or benevolent motives
behind their actions. This growing new trend is a
concern to a number of researchers and healthcare professionals who work
with abductees. 

Many abductees who once reported tremendous fear of being taken repeatedly
from their bedrooms and cars by non-human
entities are now reporting being told by these entities that it was for
their own good; that their fear was unwarranted and was
simply a product of the abductee's lack of understanding. In many cases,
abductees who accept this explanation are also led
to believe that technological advancement equals spiritual advancement.
There is no logical reasoning for this, as spiritual
advancement may run parallel to technological advancement, the two may not
proceed along together at the same pace, or
they may not run along together at all. We cannot assume that where we find
one we will find the other. 

I believe the reasoning put forth by these abductees to justify abduction is
faulty. I am a hypnotherapist in Santa Barbara,
California, working with abductees. I became personally involved in this
situation when I watched two members of our
support group change their stories from one meeting to the next. These were
abductees who had been terrorized and abused
for years and had only hatred for their abductors. Suddenly, their stories
changed and they both, independently of each other,
began saying that recently they were shown that everything that had been
done to them was for their own good and facilitated
their spiritual growth. 

With regards to this, Dr. Karla Turner, in a paper she presented to the
MUFON 1994 International UFO Symposium, said
the following: "It is odd, however, that such growth seems to come to
abductees only after they are aware of their
experiences. If indeed this growth is produced by the aliens, then it should
have been there long before the abductees were
conscious of their encounters, since in almost every reported case there is
evidence of alien involvement since early
childhood. The psychic increase and growth of perceptive abilities indicate
a different genesis - -- an internal evolution of
consciousness -- stemming from our need to know what is and has been done to
us and what we can do to meet the situation
in a more empowered state. Survivors of great catastrophes such as
hurricanes, earthquakes, and war may be crushed by the
impact of these events ... or they may find a new resilience, rising to the
occasion and reacting with abilities they didn't know
they possessed. 

Given the vast intrusive activities of the abduction scenario, our species
may well feel such a threat or stress that a mutational
or evolutionary leap is occurring today...." If this is indeed the case,
then any spiritual growth is the abductee's own doing at a
deep level of consciousness and is not coming from an abducting entity. 

There can be a number of reasons why an abductee changes his mind. One that
has been put forth a number of times is what
is termed the Stockholm Syndrome, AKA the Hostage Syndrome, where a person
who has been kidnapped or captured
eventually comes to sympathize with and even grow fond of his captors. With
some abductees, I believe that this may be
occurring. However, I think we are seeing something else happening with this
attitude change that goes beyond the easy
answer of the Stockholm Syndrome. 

Because I was disturbed by the attitude change of the abductees I knew and
of many others I had been hearing about, I
wrote a letter in February to a group of abductees who were reachable
through computer online services. I also posted my
letter to a number of bulletin boards on the Internet and asked that
abductees please respond with their thoughts and feelings
about the situation. I'd like to mention a few of the points I made in my
letter and then share with all of you some of the
responses I received from people. 

In my letter, I stated that by the very meaning of the word, abduction
implies being taken against one's will with no say in the
matter. It can include experiencing painful physical procedures, being lied
to and given screen memories, being mentally
terrorized, and being paralyzed, manipulated and controlled. There is
nothing spiritual about any of these things and yet the
abductors say they are highly advanced spiritual beings. It is very
interesting that these non-human entities seem to have
learned two ways to control human beings - through fear and through
acceptance. Obviously we are seeing some abductees
who are still being controlled and manipulated through fear, but we are also
seeing abductees being controlled and
manipulated through their acceptance of these entities as spiritual beings.
By accepting these beings as highly spiritual, the
abductee gives up seeking to end his abduction experiences and instead
starts to welcome them. Instead of abductees
coming into a sense of their own power as spiritual beings who do not need
to give up their free will to anyone, what we are
now seeing is a group of submissive, controlled abductees who are passively
letting the abductors do as they want with them
in the name of spiritual progress. In my opinion, anything that keeps a
person from learning the truth and from taking
responsibility for his own growth and awakening as a spiritual being is
completely unspiritual. Anything that allows the person
his free will, responsibility for his own spiritual progress and aids in the
process of discovering his true unbounded spiritual
nature is truly spiritual. I don't think it is difficult to see into which
category the abductors fall. I believe that we have spiritual
entities in our midst, beings who are assisting humans with their evolution,
but I'm quite sure that these spiritual beings are not
the same as those who are responsible for the abductions. 

In my letter I also stated that the entire hybrid scenario could be a
fantastic cover for an agenda that is completely different
than we are being shown. As Dr. Karla Turner has stated in radio interviews,
it is almost as though abductees are shown the
same movies, as a cover for other motives completely unknown to us, or
possibly they are using the hybrid scenario to study
our emotions. Things should not be taken at face value when we know we are
dealing with entities who can implant thoughts
into our heads, manipulate our minds with screen memories and virtual
reality scenes, and who pass themselves off as
wonderful spiritual beings. We presently have no way to know the truth about
what is really happening. 

I'd like to quote part of a letter I received from an abductee, Irene Rea in
Oregon. She writes, "One of the most frightening
aspects of this phenomenon is the abductor's ability to manipulate the
abductee's perceptions. I'm frightened by the current
trend that many abductees seem to be going through in assigning the
abductors benign motives in the spiritual growth of the
abductees and planetary healing. In my experience, the abductors have
manipulated my reality over and over. In one very
telling instance, my partner and I were abducted together. He thought he was
being wooed by a gorgeous and astoundingly
remarkable woman. My view of his experience was that he was on a table,
strapped to medical gear, and staring into the
eyes of a typical "gray." I find it even more abusive to be told by my
fellow abductees that the reason I'm experiencing these
negative experiences is because I'm somehow spiritually unadvanced.... 

Another letter from an abductee, Dana Buyers of Los Angeles, California: "We
are nothing more to these beings than a crop
to be harvested. They terrorized me, hurt me and nearly ruined my health. An
abuser is an abuser. I don't care what planet
they come from or how intelligent they claim to be. So when I get the
impulse from them to start thinking that they aren't so
bad after all and are just pursuing some noble purpose that we can't
understand, I show them in my mind all that they have
done to me and I say "get real," there is no way that I'm ever going to
change my mind. These aliens are dangerous, don't
ever believe them." 

And a letter from abductee Amy Hebert of Carrollton, Texas: "As a
facilitator of an abductee support group, I have
observed abductees' reactions change from deep contempt and anger toward
their abductors to acceptance and complete
surrender. Some abductees express years and years of anger and confusion,
then suddenly announce they don't think the
aliens are really so bad after all and may actually represent some type of
spiritual experience. These reactions seem quite
surprising, considering the levels of anger and humiliation the abductee
expressed only a week before. Could these new
feelings be due to the resolution of the individual's long-term hatred and
resentment toward the abductors? Or, could this be
yet another example of alien manipulation? According to Dr. Karla Turner,
aliens have been known to lie to abductees for
their own purposes and all abductions take place in an alien-controlled
environment. These alien-human hate-love
relationships seem to reflect alien control more than any spiritually
fulfilling promise for humankind. After all, kidnapping and
forcing someone to be a guinea pig can hardly be considered spiritual." 

I want to give one last letter I received from a man who is in training as a
body-centered psychotherapist, Mark Richards of
Boston, Massachusetts. He writes, "It's of little doubt that the internal
confusion and pain resulting from one or more
abduction experiences results in some form of compensation. Just as 'screen
memory' tends to re-shape the horrific
experience into more palatable images, it's possible that this same
re-shaping occurs at many other levels, notwithstanding the
body's cellular memory. Given the infinite variety and creativity of the
whole mind, how is it that hypnotic recollections of the
victims, often including deeply felt sensory experiences, have such striking
parallels? Could it be that a 'cult' of some type is
forming and having influence upon the story? ... Culture and historical
factors may strongly influence what comes forth. Here
in our technological, educated and motive culture, when something doesn't
make sense in our head, we switch to 'faith,' to a
spirituality of some sort. Once this switch occurs, we have a 'cult,' and in
the case of abductees as a group, a 'cult'-ure built
around technological unknowns. Perhaps all semblance of reason is not lost,
just put on hold for a while as the body
(collective and individual) tries to make some sense out of stuff that
cannot possibly find correlation. This trend among the
abductee community has not been so named, perhaps out of the same denial
which seems to be increasingly prevalent in the
various stories .. stories that have begun to shift in character and
substance. Now abduction is no longer a horrible violation
but a necessary component of a great plan. Now the aliens who are beaming
into our bedrooms are no longer uninvited
violators of the human story, but welcome harbingers of our 'salvation.' The
parallels between various religious mythological
systems and the growing abductee community are striking. They spring from
the same set of unknowns, growing in the fertile
ground of fear and imagination, a set of ideas concerning the history,
purpose and future of the human race." 

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