On Speculative Realms: The Girl Who Saved Her Own Life

Gary Haden at Speculative Realms is one of the few out there who are diligently exposing David Jacobs. (Others include Jeremy Vaeni and Jeff Ritzman, who have received a lot of bewildering flack for bringing this story to the UFO "community" in the first place.) It continues to astound me that UFO culture remains, at turns, either silent on Jacob's methods and character, or, continue to vilify Emma Woods as [paraphrasing various pundits] a "crazy, troubled, mentally ill bitch."

Haden is an excellent writer, on top of being an excellent researcher -- his painstaking articles contain reams of analysis -- and I certainly don't want to want to take anything he's written in his current article out of context, or "high jack" his words and intent. But here's just one little something: Jacobs' outrageous, crazy, fucking straight out wrong action, in suggesting to Woods that she has Multiple Personality Disorder. This alone should be enough for others to roundly call Jacobs out, but, there's been very little of that, and a whole lot of cricket chirping.

Here's just one excerpt from Haden's article, relating to Jacobs planting the suggestion in Emma Wood's subconscious under hypnosis without permission. Again: without permission:

At no point in the four-hour tract I listened to did David Jacobs ask Emma Woods's permission to administer to her a posthypnotic suggestion she had multiple personality disorder. [bolding mine]

“I'm going to count from five to one, and just remember now, my diagnosis is that this is Multiple Personality Disorder and you should take medication for it. (nervous chuckle from Emma Woods) I have seen lots of cases of MPD, and this absolutely fits the MPD profile. And, my professional diagnosis therefore is Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“I am studying it. I am writing a book about it,” Jacobs continues. “That is my next book. I feel that the whole sort of alien business is all a matter of multiple personality disorder. It’s a much more widespread phenomenon than people think. Lots of people are walking around with it. It’s a public health problem. And that, you are unfortunately suffering from it. And, my opinion is that yours is a classic case, and that – that the only thing that will help you will be medication. And um, I am not interested in--in--your stories, I am only interested in the fact that you tell those stories, because multiple personalities are all different.”

Speculative Realms: The Girl Who Saved Her Own Life

There are so many side shoots of this nasty, weird, episode in UFOlogy, so many, and one of the many tangled, twisted, darkly gnarled and poisonous roots of Jacobs' actions is the question of the aliens themselves. Why is Jacobs now suggesting aliens are nothing other than manifestations of MPD? A big, bellowing HELLO on that one. (And do I have to note that David Jacobs is not a psychologist, a therapist, or a psychiatrist, and that his doctorate is in history?)

But, I do not want to deflect from the main issue, which is Jacobs' actions, his words, his behavior, his denials, his excuses, his justifications, his treatment of Emma Woods and others like her. Theories are one thing, as to what the aliens are, -- not one of us knows that. Well, some of us do, there are those in power we never see or hear that know damn well, but that's another issue and I digress.  What I, or you, "believe" about aliens, UFOs, ET, and the myriad of theories addressing those things doesn't change, nor negate, a damn thing just because David Jacobs has turned a very ugly corner.  No, the only issue here is Jacobs' approach to the witnesses he's interviewed. And, I'd add, the continued silence from others about that.