by Will Storr
‘No,’ says Martin.
‘It’s weird that they’ve come all this way to preach to us about eco-fuels, and yet they refuse to give us the answers,’ I say.
‘They’re more interested in our spiritual development,’ says his wife Sheryl.
‘Still, it’s a little irritating,’ I say, bristling. ‘They’re quite smug, the aliens.’
Martin leans forward with a look of endlessly patient sympathy. ‘What you have to realise is these extraterrestrials have been living on this planet forever,’ he says. ‘Most of our spiritual teachings have come from ETs. They couldn’t tell us anything that hasn’t been told before because we haven’t yet got to the point of complying with what they’ve already told us.’
Martin Gottschall is Dr Martin Gottschall, a consultant mechanical engineer with a PhD who has been studying UFO lore for thirty years. I had expected that to make a difference, that his qualification might indicate a level of simple rationality. But once more, here I am – confronted with the counter-intuitive notion that intelligence is no protection against strange beliefs.
My research into the creationists suggested something related, and equally as bizarre: simple facts and basic logic just don’t work in the way I had assumed. Before I embarked on my trip to Gympie, I imagined that it would be simple to corral a successful argument against John Mackay. After all, that is how you change a person’s beliefs, isn’t it? With facts. But facts proved entirely ineffective, and they were ineffective to a spectacular and baffling extent. To illustrate my point, here are just a few of the answers to reasonable questions that are given, typically, by Mackay and his fellow creationist thinkers.
If all of God’s people are on the earth, why did he go to the bother of making outer space? To tell the time. If Adam wasn’t born of a woman, did he have a belly button? No. Who created God? God is outside of time so doesn’t need a beginning. If there is no evolution, how do you explain those heavy-browed Neanderthal skeletons? They were ordinary humans with something called ‘Jelly Bone Syndrome’. If T. rex was a vegetarian, why did he have such huge teeth? To eat watermelons.
As you can see, reason has zero effect on these people. What I want to know is, why? Humans are rational beings. We receive, assess and assimilate new information. Superior facts replace the inferior. That is how we progress. That is how we operate. Evidence for our incredible abilities in refining our understanding of reality are everywhere – in computers and cities and advances in healthcare and all of the million tiny miracles of civilisation. But intelligence apparently isn’t the forcefield against wrongness that I had once assumed. Reason is no magic bullet.
After all these years of work, I remain mystified by how people come to believe unlikely things. I don’t think stupid is the answer. But if stupid isn’t the answer, what is?
*
Arriving home from the woods, I find myself reluctant to do any further research on UFOs. It all seems so pointless. As with God, I tend to summarily reject the idea of aliens. Even though I have no idea what a weather balloon is, I have always dismissed all UFO sightings as them. At some unknown point, I made an instant, unilateral decision that UFOs were daft and that no examination of the evidence was necessary. But then I did examine the evidence, and what I found surprised me.
The first thing was the sheer number of apparently sane people who have had an experience with them. There are hundreds of accounts of UFO sightings by people such as airline pilots, military personnel and police officers; individuals who actually know what a weather balloon is. More than that, though, I am surprised by the compelling simplicity of the argument. The existence of aliens themselves – for me, the first and most difficult claim to digest – turns out to be accepted by most astronomers and cosmologists. In describing the quantity of non-human life thought to be extant in the universe, the word often used is ‘teeming’. It has been estimated there are over a hundred thousand billion potentially life-bearing planets in the vast out-there, many in solar systems in our own galaxy that are one billion years older than ours. Physicists such as Dr Michio Kaku, a holder of the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in physics, say it is theoretically possible to travel the distances required of UFOs using shortcuts known as wormholes. He argues that it is only logical that alien scientists a billion years more sophisticated than ours could have created wormhole-capable craft: ‘You simply cannot dismiss the possibility that some of these sightings are some object created by an advanced civilisation.’
Then, with increasing fascination, I read about Professor John E. Mack of Harvard University, a Pulitzer prize–winning biographer and psychiatrist who specialised in adolescent suicide and published his research into people who claim to have been abducted by aliens in 1990. Mack initially assumed all abductees to be delusional. But then he met some. Working closely with more than two hundred individuals, Mack quickly discounted the common ‘sleep paralysis’ theory due to the simple fact that many abductions are reported when the individual was awake. He eventually concluded, ‘These people, as far as I could tell, were of sound mind, had not communicated with each other, were not getting details from the media – this is long before the great media rash of information on this subject. They were reluctant to come forth, they described similar stories in great detail and were shocked when they would hear someone else had had a similar experience. The only thing as a psychiatrist that I knew that behaved like that was real experience … I would not say that, “Yes, aliens are taking people,” but I would say that there’s a compelling phenomenon here that I cannot account for in any other way, that’s mysterious. I can’t say what it is but it seems to me that it invites deeper, further inquiry.’
Mack published his research in 1990, in a book entitled Abduction. It was an instant bestseller and Mack became a minor celebrity. And that is when things became really fascinating.
The Harvard establishment reacted to all this with profound embarrassment. They decided to act. The dean informed Mack that a committee had been appointed to ‘investigate’ his research, a move that could lead to the tenured professor’s removal, something that had not happened in the history of the institution. This was the beginning of what Mack felt to be a sustained assault on his job and reputation that was to last for fourteen months. Mack responded by going public, accusing the university of trying to silence him with tactics that were ‘Kafkaesque’. As the process took its course, Mack said the accusations against him changed frequently and details of the investigation’s progress were kept secret. Most of the complaints evaporated when inspected. It only came to an end, Mack believed, because Harvard’s administration came under public attack, for their attempts at suppressing his basic academic freedom to study what he pleased. Even when it was all over he felt marginalised by the university.
Mack, who died in a road accident in London in 2004, said of the dean, ‘He was a friend. He told me, “If you’d have just said this was a new psychiatric syndrome you wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.” The problem had to do with the fact that they didn’t like what I was saying.’ More recently, his attorney Eric MacLeish told a BBC reporter that Harvard Medical School had distorted Mack’s views. ‘It was really outrageous that he had to go through this inquiry. The idea that Mack would put his own agenda above the interests of his patients was abhorrent. There was never any proof of it, and the evidence that we mustered was exactly the opposite. He was simply willing to listen. What this really was about was Harvard saying that, “We don’t like this because you can’t show any of this through double-blind placebo controlled study,” and John was saying, “There’s some real mysteries here. I don’t know what’s going on with these people but I can’t dismiss them as mentally ill.”’
There it was again – the battle in microcosm. An apparently strange belief being voiced, this one by an authority in damaged minds, and the response of the establishment, of reason and science, being a kind of vengeful and censorious fury. It seemed like such an inappropriate reaction,
and something about it gave me pause.
Mack is clearly the underdog of this story. And yet a part of me couldn’t help but feel some sympathy with the Harvard dean. Having familiarised myself with the evidence I felt that I should accept at least the possibility of UFOs. But something underneath the level of my rational brain was unyielding in its resistance to doing so. It wasn’t even a thought, it was a feeling, a prejudice: a great, dark lump of ‘no’. No matter what anyone told me, I simply could not believe in travelling aliens. It was almost as if there were two versions of me – rival judges, battling for their preferred conclusion to win ultimate acceptance, and the one without access to any of the facts had won.
But at the same time, I couldn’t help but think of Professor John E. Mack as a kind of hero. The way he was treated by his superiors was surprising: not as an intelligent colleague whose opinions differed from theirs, but as something infinitely more dangerous and threatening and dark. As a heretic.
Over the following months, as I dwell upon my time with the creationists and the alien-hunters, little events, names, slivers of dialogue and half-examined observations keep breaking the conscious surface. I am sure that, in among the white noise of those experiences, there are clues, patterns, shapes of meaning pulling themselves together; odd moments pregnant with hinted relevance that might yet help build a final understanding of the mystery. The fact of Mackay’s angry lurch into belief; the curious reflection of his ‘road to Damascus’ moment in Nathan Lo’s early life; the bickering and hardening of stances between the UFO-fanatics; Glennys Mackay’s clean leap from alien-paranoia to Monsanto–GM-paranoia; the two conflicting versions of me; Lo’s acid judgement of Mackay; its echo in that of the Harvard dean’s fight with John Mack; the mystery of the nature of the creationist’s faith and the touching sincerity of the way he spoke of it. I don’t know if any of this might lead me to an answer or, indeed, tell me anything about what is happening. But it all adds to the powerful impression that there is a lot more to be discovered about belief and its strange engines.
Perhaps it can be done by seeking out more heretics – stubborn individuals who are driven to defy the modern orthodoxy of science in the face of censure and scorn and ostracism. What powers possess them, and compel them to fight? What causes them to take such risks?
Belief is surely one of humanity’s most dangerous forces. It ignites vast and ruinous battles; both ‘culture wars’ and real ones. It divides culture from culture; community from community; friend from friend; father from son. Belief is the heart of who we are and how we live our lives. And yet it is not what we think it is: not a product of intelligence or education or logic. There are invisible forces at play here. And I have no idea what they are.
3
‘The secret of the long life of the tortoise’
I have to double-check, about half an hour after my arrival, because it has begun to seem so unlikely: Could the true meaning of the ancient word ‘yoga’ really be ‘unity’? So far, my experience of the most highly anticipated yogic event of the year has been indicative of anything but. I had expected that my particular ticket would buy me a superior position in the hall. It did, after all, cost £251. But in front of me, many hundreds of people have secured better spots than mine, closer to the stage on which their guru will be appearing. These, I will learn, are the ‘VIPs’, the ‘VVIPs’, the ‘Corporate Members’, the ‘Founder Members’, the ‘Patron Members’, the ‘Life Members’, the ‘Dignified Members’, the ‘Respected Members’ and, at the bottom, the lowly ‘General Members’ of the Patanjali Yog Peeth Trust and all of them are busy folding out foam mattresses and fastidiously marking their territory with bags, shoes and rolled-up socks. I, meanwhile, have been directed to a space halfway down London’s vast Alexandra Palace by an assistant in a yellow sash. Trying to settle on the thin tartan rug that defines my tiny piece of land, I look at my watch. 06:20. Just ten minutes to go until the guru, Swami Ramdev, will appear.
I settle down and use the time to study my special booklet, which describes the basics of ‘Yog’ as taught by Ramdev – a vocal activist, it says here, against ‘an Indian society divided by caste’. But it is hard to concentrate above the sound of his adjutants echoing around the walls as they prowl the margins of each sector demanding, ‘Which pass are you? Which pass are you? Show me your pass. You are only a VVIP, you must move back. Let me see your ticket. Let me see your ticket. Is this a diamond ticket? This is only a gold ticket. You must move back.’
A few weeks ago, when I called the Divya Yog Trust to reserve my place, the woman on the telephone told me, ‘The last time he visited the UK, local GPs noticed the impact on numbers in their surgeries.’
‘That sounds incredible,’ I said. ‘How does it work?’
‘The science that underpins the whole thing is that the body has the wherewithal to heal itself. You don’t need external help. Breath is all you need.’
After six days, she promised, I would feel ‘amazing.’ Then she took my credit card details.
Yoga itself was being practised as long ago as 400 BC and possibly as far back as 3300 BC and, in its traditional form, it has eight ‘limbs’. Each limb is a different set of instructions that you will need to follow if you fancy the sound of being liberated from all worldly suffering and the cycle of life and death. One of these limbs is the ‘asana’, which comprises the now well-known physical postures that have been isolated and appropriated by millions of Western women who are less concerned with breaking free of the cycle of life and death than they are with having smaller bottoms. Swami Ramdev believes that people have put too much faith in these postures and are missing the real action, which lies in the fourth limb, ‘pranayama’ or ‘breath control’.
Back in India, Ramdev is held in such esteem that, on a domestic trip in 2011, four cabinet ministers were sent to meet him from his private jet at the airport. He has, he claims (somewhat unbelievably), one billion followers and two hundred and fifty million viewers of his TV show. His fame, over there, has made him almost as ubiquitous as the sun and his heat is becoming so powerful that it is now beginning to be felt in the West. This is to be the first stop on a UK tour that will also visit windily vast arenas in Coventry in the Midlands and Scotland. In London alone, three thousand people will attend daily sessions that run for almost a week. The last time he was in Europe he had a reception with MPs at the House of Commons and tea with the Queen, and addressed a United Nations conference at the request of Kofi Annan. This particular visit follows rapturous welcomes in the US and Canada. And wherever he goes, to whomever he speaks, he brings the same message – practise his seven yogic breathing exercises and your life will be transformed in myriad marvellous ways. Not only will you be happier and more respectful of your elders, Ramdev claims his regime of scientific breathing can cure afflictions as diverse as depression, baldness, obesity, asthma, diabetes and cancer. Pranayama is, in his words, a ‘complete medication’ and, in the words of one his senior assistants, ‘like a miracle.’
Despite the fact that he describes himself as a ‘swami’ – a Hindu honorific title that literally means ‘owner of oneself’, a man who has total control over his body and urges – Ramdev boasts that he is proudly ‘anti-superstition.’ He is not a healer, saint or God-man, but a student of cold, academic rationality. The megastar ascetic, who is sponsored by Tilda Basmati Rice, insists that his theories are based on sound scientific research that has been carried out at his headquarters in Hardwar in North India.
From my Western perspective, Ramdev’s claims sound impossible. And yet they represent an interesting complication. Back in Gympie, John Mackay asserted that his belief is scientifically testable. ‘God says, “I will make myself known to you,” and he did,’ he told me. When I enquired as to how, he said, ‘It’s something in me.’ Meanwhile, when I asked his accidental namesake Glennys Mackay how she could be so sure that alien ‘greys’ were, in fact, robots, she replied, ‘It’s just something I’ve been shown.’ F
or both Mackays, their conviction seems to be projected from the same place: the unconscious. Contrary to what John might insist, though, these beliefs do not represent any mode of proof. That is to say, John and Glennys might preach the reality of gods and greys, and many people might believe them. But they are not actually promising anything tangible, demonstrable or, indeed, testable to earn this faith. And yet Swami Ramdev is.
When he finally appears on stage at 06:30, we rise as one to greet him. A procession of acolytes files past to touch his skin and lay red roses at his feet. Then, accompanied by his three-piece band, he assumes a perfect lotus position and starts with his ‘Ooooooooommmmm’. His voice has an impressive timbre; it booms and unfurls and quivers your intestines. Sitting on the distant stage at the end of the colossal venue, in his orange robes with his feet on his inner thighs, he looks beguiling and beautiful.
With his theme song over, he jumps up and begins to bounce alarmingly, kicking one knee up at a time, almost to the height of his chin. Everyone copies him, beaming and giggling and panting. Then he starts walking on his hands. The crowd awkwardly drift back down to the safety of their tartan rugs. Ramdev reassumes the lotus and breathes in so completely it looks as if his stomach has been scooped out. It bulges into a giant ball, like a watermelon being pumped up. He causes it to shimmer, with little waves of contractions running through it. And then, finally, the pranayama begins.
The seven exercises that Ramdev promotes are almost as effortless as breathing itself. There is one where you lie on your fists and breathe. There is another where you breathe in and stay breathed in for a bit. And there is one which involves breathing in slowly and then exhaling abruptly with a loud ‘hhhfff’ sound. This, we are told, expels ‘toxins’ from the body. And then there is ‘the bumblebee’, which is designed to ‘balance dopamine levels’ and sharpen memory and involves us putting our hands over our faces to prevent ‘energy’ leaking out of our eyeballs.