The Dan Schneider Interview
10: Brad Steiger (first
posted 4/8/08)
BS:
I don’t have the gift to see myself as others see me.
Judging from my emails, my identification runs from hero to heretic, from
trailblazer to trouble maker, from weirdo to wizard.
I have been asked for my general philosophy on life, science, and the
cosmos so often that I have fashioned a kind of credo which I will share with
you now:
I believe humankind is part of a larger community of intelligences, a
complex hierarchy of powers and principalities, a potentially rich kingdom of
interrelated species, both physical and nonphysical.
I believe that humankind’s one truly essential factor is its
spirituality. The artificial concepts to which we have given the designation of
sciences are no truer than dreams, visions, and inspirations.
The quest for absolute proof or objective truth may always be meaningless
and unattainable when it seeks to define and limit our Soul, which I believe is
eternal, evolving higher, seeking to return to the Source from whence it came.
I believe that technology plays a far smaller role in the lives of
nations than the spirit, for the essence of humankind is its intellect and its
Soul. Machines, associations,
political parties, and trade balances are but transitory realities that must
ultimately wither, decay, and come to nothing.
The only lasting truths are Soul, imagination, and inspiration.
DS: Let me state my overall thesis, if you will. While I am of a
rational bent, I have had experiences that one might term Fortean, or
supernatural, and I’ll detail some later. However, as someone with a creative
mind, I tend to find that most explanations for such phenomena are likely
internally generated- products of the creativity that many folk who have no
artistic bent are unable to recognize as coming from themselves, rather than
being externally generated, as the human mind is notoriously unreliable as a
recorder of events. Just ask any police detective. Similarly, I have had some
friends, also artists, who have had similar experiences, although they would
term them mystic.
So, my first question is this: do you blindly accept all claims of the
paranormal- i.e.- claims of possession, seeing a lake monster, alien abduction,
etc. Or, do you simply report and let readers decide?
BS: Basically, I take the same positions
that you have on the illustrations that you gave above.
A large share of phenomena which is labeled paranormal is a product of
imagination and is internally generated. I
always advise young researchers that their greatest asset and their greatest
enemy can be their creativity and their imaginations.
I do not blindly accept
anyone’s claim about anything mundane and the ordinary, to say nothing of the
paranormal and the extraordinary. I do not care personally about anyone’s
choice of religion, politics, or preference for a make of automobile.
And I never argue about any of the above—or anything else.
I will discuss a subject
that I find mildly interesting for hours, but I never argue—especially with
someone who knows he has the truth. Someone
who claims he or she has the one true faith or the one true path to God is like
hearing someone claim that they have the one true food.
As you might suppose,
because of the nature of most of my books, many people seem to think that they
can tell me any tale and find me gullible.
My friend, after well over 50 years in this field, I have heard it all.
I am probably the least likely audience for their remarkable encounter.
I do endeavor always to be
courteous, however, and I do listen to a person’s sighting of a UFO, a
Bigfoot, or a ghost. In most
instances, I find these to be an individual mystical experience, perhaps very
meaningful and even life-altering to the person affected, but not of a great
deal of importance to the harvest of the tribal corn crop.
In other words, the experience—if it seems genuine—may only have been
intended for the individual who witnessed it.
DS:
Also, what happens when you come across known and proven charlatans like
Uri Geller, who now has a new U.S. television
show? Or the many frauds who try to contact the dead? Don’t the
Gellers just make it less likely for real science to even look at such claims?
Do you recognize Geller as a fraud, and if not, does not that put a hit on your
credibility?
BS:
To bestow or to remove credibility is such a subjective process. It is all a
matter of perspective. If I announced right now that I am a firm believer in the
Rapture, I would gain a great deal of credibility with some of your readers and
lose some with others. Loss or gain
of credibility by association with others is even more subjective.
If I worried about people questioning my credibility because of someone
else in the field having his or her credibility questioned, then I should have
remained a high school English teacher.
There will always be individuals who trespass by deceiving others.
Because some less than scrupulous individuals lie when they claim to see
ghosts or UFOs and others assure grieving widows that they can speak to their
dead husbands, I cannot fear that their perfidy affects my credibility. As
Goethe commented, if everyone swept his own doorstep, the whole world would be
clean. I concentrate on my own
doorstep.
Getting back to Geller, I am certainly not an apologist for the man, but
I don’t know any court of law that has decreed that he is a fraud.
Some individuals hold that opinion.
Others do not.
I met Uri shortly after he came to the United States.
At that time I saw him demonstrate what I believed to be genuine
paranormal abilities. If he had
continued to conduct convincing paranormal
demonstrations for small groups of researchers, he could have made a much
greater contribution to the field of psychical research. I understand that doing
test after test in the laboratory can become extremely tedious and boring for
the subject being examined, but whenever individuals with psi abilities turn
“pro” and seek to force a sporadic ability into a show biz format, they are,
in my opinion, seeking to convert something akin to a lightning flash into a
steady electrical current. And they are setting themselves up for a fall.
Psychic abilities cannot be turned on and off like a light switch.
Sometimes you have it; sometimes you don’t.
But when you sell out theaters and lecture halls on the claim that you
can produce psychic powers on demand, you have made a contract, a promise, that
you will produce these ephemeral talents every night.
Only stage magicians, skilled performers who admit that they are
deceivers, can do that. When psychics throw in a little legerdemain to
supplement or to help “turn on” their abilities rather than admitting that
their talents are delicate and mostly unpredictable, that’s when the Amazing
Alfred will be sitting in the front row, catch them at it, and gleefully expose
them, thereby converting his former obscurity as a nightclub magician into a
world famous debunker.
I have been privileged to have sat in séance circles with some of the
greatest mediums in the field. Most
of them were wise enough not to schedule a circle when they did not feel the
“spirits” were willing. However,
if they had charged exorbitant fees and had placed themselves into situations
where they had to “perform” and had been forced to fake a little phenomena
to warm things up, they would soon have lost their credibility.
The numerous famous mediums of today have made themselves into superstars
by the power of their personalities and their ability to become experts at
“cold-reading.” Skillful
editing of their filmed sessions also make their hits appear much more on target
by eliminating their many failed attempts.
The questionable techniques of the mediumistic superstars do not dent my
credibility and my careful analysis of the paranormal.
And even if some critic should make the accusation that I have been
deceived by an alleged alien from outer space, a mystical monk, or a
5,000-year-old guru, before I don sackcloth and ashes, my accusers would have to
convince me why I should even care about their opinion.
DS:
A few years ago I reviewed a film called What The #$*! Do We
Know? It was a film
made by the cultic followers of a blond woman named JZ Knight, who’s claimed
for decades that she channels the spirit of a 35,000 year old warrior from
Atlantis named Ramtha. It was an utterly silly movie that reinforced to the
general public, yet again, that believers in things immaterial all seem to be
nuts. Is this why belief in psi and the like always condescended to? What are
your views on such claims?
BS:
Not everyone found the movie silly.
I have spoken with most of the interviewees in that film and consider
them very decent individuals with interesting viewpoints—and that includes J.Z.
I am not threatened by people espousing beliefs and theories that may be
somewhat different from mine. None
of these men and women, as I recall, preached genocide, bigotry, or condemned
others for their beliefs. None of them said the viewers of the film would go to
hell if they didn’t agree with them.
DS:
So far, I’ve mentioned some terms. So, please, if you would, clarify what some
of these terms mean, and how they differ: psi, paranormal, mystic, unexplained,
supernatural, Fortean, metaphysical.
BS:
Some mean pretty much the same thing.
“Psi” seems a more contemporary term for psychic phenomena;
“paranormal” (which I have been credited with originating, but I don’t
think I was the first) is another collective for all things psychic;
“mystic” carries more of a spiritual dimension; “unexplained” implies
the hope that one day the event will be understood. “Supernatural” appears to be a loaded term in the Bible
Belt, synonymous with Satanic worship. To
me, the term includes something not yet understood, currently beyond the
ordinary. Fortean implies a mindset
that observes the strange and unknown and recognizes that we really do not
understand a great deal about how our world really works.
Metaphysical carries more the connotation of that which is currently
unexplained by contemporary physics and blends a touch of the mystical along
with the mystery.
DS:
I mention the word Fortean,
which is an eponym- a thing named after a person; in this case Charles Hoy Fort.
Who was the man, and what is his import in things unexplained?
BS:
Charles Hoy Fort was a writer who haunted libraries and newspaper morgues
clipping stories of events that he deemed “damned” by science.
He collected accounts of fish falls from clear skies, people with the
same name disappearing in mysterious ways, individuals appearing from elsewhere
to walk strange city streets in confusion.
Fort once offered the unsettling observation that we humans may be
someone else’s property. Quite obviously, he affected greatly writers such as
John A. Keel, Jerome Clark, myself and many others.
DS:
Many artists seem to deny their own creativity, pawning it off on God, or
some other force or demiurge. I call this the Divine
Inspiration Fallacy. There is no Muse. For better or worse, it’s
all me, or you, or any artist. Comments on its existence, origins, verity?
BS:
Interestingly, Plato remarked that all good poets, epic as well as lyric,
do not compose their poems by art, but by possession.
He believed that there was no invention in the poet until he has been
inspired and out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him.
“Not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.”
I work too hard to deny my own creative contributions, but at times it
seems that I have become aware of some other intelligence or level of
intelligence providing me with a helpful thought or two.
DS:
I ask this re: creativity, because, having been a long time subscriber to Fate
magazine,
where you are a regular contributor and editor, and having read at least a dozen
or more of your books, over the years, I find your writing style generally to be
one of reportage, with little embellishment, in terms of florid writing or
affected dialogue. Do you consider yourself, then, primarily a journalist, or
more of a storyteller?
BS: In my early books I
attempted to be an objective journalist, but now I would say that I combine the
elements of a storyteller to maintain the interest and fascination of the
reader. It depends completely on
the nature of the project, however. When
Sherry and I wrote Conspiracies and Secret Societies and the three-volume
Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and the Unexplained, our editors would
not permit the slightest digression into speculative journalism.
The facts and nothing but. We
have been pleased that every single review of C and SS has praised our
objectivity when nearly all other books on that topic are promoting one
particular theory or point of view.
DS:
Along with Fate magazine, I also subscribe to Discover,
Natural History, and National Geographic. Some wonder why I include Fate
in my subscriptions, but, it is a great source for mythic information. No other
magazine comes close to charting the pulse of myth aborning than it does. What
are your feelings on that publication, and how did you get involved with them?
BS: When I was twelve years
old, there was nowhere else to go to find the “true stories of the strange and
the unknown” that I was seeking. I
found the magazine then and I have stayed with FATE ever since.
I am proud of my contributing editor status today, but nothing could
match the thrill that I experienced when I sold my first article to them.
DS:
Regarding Fate
magazine, I think that beliefs in the unexplained are sort of the seat of
religion and mythos. The Gilgamesh epic
mixes both with art. I even wrote a book on the Enkidu character from that
mythos. In fact, I tend to agree with some cultural commentators that the
UFO lore of the last sixty or so years is possibly the birth of the first
technological based religion in human history, with a new pantheon replacing
that of the Olympians, Valhallans, and Trinity. What are your thoughts on these
posits?
BS: Since those elements you mention are essential to the themes of my
books Gods of Aquarius: UFOS
and the Transformation of Man
and The Fellowship, I
would agree with you. I began
espousing this position in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.
By the way, the sequel to one of my most successful books, Mysteries
of Time and Space, would have been called The Gilgamesh Factor.
DS:
When I interviewed the National Book Award winning novelist Charles
Johnson, he stated:
What I love about [Rod]
Serling, the prolific Ray Bradbury, the pulp writers of the ‘30s who pounded
away at their typewriters for less than a penny a word until their fingers bled
(an anecdote I read about the primary pulp writer for the “Shadow” stories),
and my friends today who are pop writers, is that they are, first and foremost, storytellers.
Bradbury didn’t even bother to call himself a “writer.” For all my
emphasis on “literary art,” I was weaned on the work of pop (and pulp)
storytellers, those heroes who could whip out a new story as quickly as medieval
troubadours---journeymen all---traveling from one town to the next. (Just as I
try to do every year for Seattle’s “Bedtime stories” event.) Here’s
Johnson Rule About Writing: “All great art entertains, but all
entertainment is not art.” No
matter what we say about the greatest writers---Homer, Shakespeare, the Beowulf
poet, Dickens---they knew, as John Gardner once said, everything about
entertainment and the powerful depiction of character and event. Some of our pop
writers are better at this---plot---than our so-called literary writers, for
whom plot is a word that makes them tremble. But plot is the writer’s
equivalent to the philosopher’s argument (Gardner). All the technique and
craft exercises I’ve given my students are for one purpose: namely to give
them the means to deliver the baby undamaged when the fiction gods drop onto
their laps a rousing, great, imaginative story.
You seem to follow that dictum re: the tales you spin in regards
to whatever subject it is you are reporting on. In that sense, you seem to be a
premier pulp writer, in the best sense of the term. Do you agree with
Johnson’s sentiments?
BS: As long as you stress “in the best sense of the term.”
DS:
Before we take the deep plunge into your specialty, let’s talk about Brad
Steiger, the man. Many of your fans may know what interests you, but few know
that much about you. First off, your website
has yours and your wife’s name. She was a well known model some years back,
and has joined you in your life’s pursuit. Who is she? How did you meet? When
did you marry? Is it a first marriage?
BS: Many years before we met, Sherry was
the most popular model in the Denver area, and her agents were convinced that
she could become one of the most successful in the nation.
After a nationwide search, she was chosen as The Marlboro Girl,
but she turned down the opportunity to become an icon because she believed
smoking was harmful to peoples’ health. Actually,
Sherry turned down more jobs than she accepted (including being a Playmate of
the Month) because her goal had never been to become a famous model. Fate
just seemed to bring in the jobs to provide the money that she needed to
continue to assemble the elements for what she believed to be her true
mission—the establishment of a nonprofit school to teach people
body-mind-spirit interconnectedness with a spiritual, rather than a
denominational, dogmatic emphasis.
Later, when she was the
creative director of an advertising agency, she met Norman Lear, who was so
taken with her sense of purpose and mission, that he asked her to star in a
motion picture whose main character was a woman who seemed to be a composite of
all the facets and attributes that Sherry embodied. Sherry declined because her
Butterfly Center for Transformation was about to be launched in Virginia Beach.
Although she had no more
aspired to become an actress than she had wished to become a model, she did
appear in a couple movie of the week specials, and a number of her posters
received rather wide circulation, It was amusing to us when we began our lecture
tours that men would approach her insisting that they remembered her as one of
the Bond Girls or that they had the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue in which
she appeared. Sherry would try to
convince her fans that she had done neither of those shoots, but we usually just
got the wink, wink, nudge, nudge looks in response.
In 1981, Sherry and I met
when she stopped by my office in Phoenix on her way to London to acquire funding
for her One Foundation. Her purpose
in meeting me was to invite me to participate in the publishing arm of the
foundation. To say that I was
impressed with this lovely woman who had a mission similar to my own is to put
it mildly. Our ideas and concepts were so closely aligned, I can honestly say
that I felt as attracted to her on the spiritual level as on the physical. But I
thought that because of a number of seemingly insurmountable circumstances I
would probably never see her again.
In October of 1986, I
received an invitation from the director of a Holistic research group to attend
an evening lecture. The
well-intentioned sponsor of the event was a close friend who knew that I had
separated from my second wife and that I rarely left my apartment. I hadn't
given a firm commitment about whether or not I would attend the event, but since
the metaphysical center was only a short distance from my apartment, I decided
at the last minute to go.
Just before the evening's
proceedings were to begin, an attractive blond lady asked if the seat next to me
was taken. I told her that she was welcome to sit down. After only a few
moments, she turned to me, introduced herself as Mary-Caroline, and told me that
she brought me greetings from our very dear mutual friend, Sherry Hansen.
It had been five years
since I had met Sherry, and I was astonished to learn that she was in Phoenix.
According to the cheery blond, she and Sherry took a class together, and
when she mentioned to Sherry that she would be seeing me that night at a
lecture, Sherry had said to be certain to say hello to me and to give me her
love.
I was suddenly so
intrigued to learn that Sherry was in Phoenix that my normally rational
journalist's mind did not pause to wonder how this woman, who was meeting me for
the first time, could possibly have known that she would see me at the lecture
that evening--especially since I myself had not known until minutes before the
presentation began that I would be there.
After the lecture, I
returned to my apartment, paged through the Phoenix telephone book, and found
the listing for Sherry Hansen. It took me two weeks to muster the courage to
call her, and another four months of remarkable telephone conversations before I
asked her out on a late-night coffee date.
Early in 1987, Sherry and
I established a business and research association. One afternoon, I received a
call from Mary-Caroline, who suggested that she might be able to help get
financing for a film project on which I was working. As we chatted, I thanked her for connecting me with a good
friend of hers.
Naturally curious,
Mary-Caroline asked who. When I
told her Sherry Hansen, there were several moments of silence. Finally,
Mary-Caroline said that she didn’t know anyone named Sherry Hansen.
I was stunned. "Of
course you do. The night that we met, you told me that you were bringing me
greetings from our mutual dear friend, Sherry Hansen.”
Mary-Caroline politely
repeated that she was certain that she didn’t know anyone by that name.
I persisted:. "You
told me that the two of you were taking a class together. Sherry asked you to
say hello to me, to give me her love."
"Brad, I really do
not know anyone named Sherry Hansen,” Mary Caroline said, becoming annoyed,
“so I could not have promised her that I would bring you greetings from her.
Secondly, I have taught classes in the Phoenix area, but I have never taken a
class from anyone in Phoenix."
After I said good-bye to
Mary-Caroline, I decided that I would solve the mystery of why she had denied
knowing Sherry, and I called Sherry at her office.
"I just had a call
from your friend Mary-Caroline," I told her.
"My friend, who?”
she asked.
"Mary-Caroline.
Don’t tell you don’t remember. An attractive, tall blond lady. You took a
class with her in Phoenix just a few months ago."
Sherry was firm in her
response that she did not know anyone named Mary-Caroline.
"Sherry," I
said, deciding to admit something that I never before revealed, “It was
because you asked Mary-Caroline to greet me at the lecture that I even knew you
were in Phoenix. It was because of her relaying your message and your wishes of
love that I called you."
"That is most
interesting, Brad,” Sherry responded, “because I do not know anyone by the
name of Mary-Caroline--and I know nothing about her meeting you at any
lecture!"
And then it became clear to me. My Guardian Angel or Spirit Teacher had
temporarily “borrowed” Mary-Caroline’s consciousness and spoken through
her in order to bring Sherry and me together.
We were married in the summer of 1987.
A couple of years later, when we were lecturing in New York City, we
entered a Chinese restaurant, and I was surprised to see Mary-Caroline having
dinner with a companion. I decided
that I would test once and for all if the two women really had known each other
previously. Within moments, it was very clear that neither of them had met
before that evening.
DS: That’s a great anecdote, and it’s little fortuities like this
that I feel make up the basis of the best stories- as well as something sorely
lacking in today’s fiction, be it in print or on the silver screen. Now,
Sherry is an ordained minister. In what religion? I am irreligious, yet, to me,
were I to believe in a god, it seems polytheism is more rational than
monotheism, and a much more likely set of circumstances than a single font or
being, however minuscule the chance I would give even polytheism of being true.
Are you religious? If so, the same religion as she is? Also, what links do you
see between mythos and religion? Is myth merely expired religion, and religion
myth alive?
BS: Each evening at bedtime, we read selections from numerous sacred
tests, including the Dhammapada of Buddhism, the New Testament of Christianity,
the Qur’an of Islam, the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism, the Torah of
Judaism, the Confucian Analects, and the Adi Granth of Sikhism.
In addition, we will read from several Native American teachers, such as
Black Elk, and a number of African tribes.
I am attracted very much to Hinduism, and both Sherry and I admire the
efforts of Paramhansa Yogananda to combine elements of Christianity and Hinduism
in his Self Realization Fellowship.
Sherry attended the Lutheran
School of Theology in Chicago when the Lutherans were not yet quite ready to
make the leap for female clergy. She
was later placed on staff, but was ordained Mission Baptist, a denomination that
had already accepted women pastors. She
is no longer a pastor with a congregation, and we share the same spiritual
beliefs.
Neither of us would lay
claim to being religious, but we strive to become more spiritual in our every
thought, word, and deed.
I am a Emersonian
transcendentalist. Perhaps, as
Martin Gardner, the prolific science writer and founder of the modern skeptical
movement, described his beliefs, I am also a Mysterian.
Gardner, the author of Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
surprised your friend Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, when
he told him that he believed in God, that he sometimes prayed and worshipped,
and that he hoped for life after death.
As a transcendentalist/Mysterian,
I share Gardner’s belief that “there are certain things I regard as ultimate
mysteries. Free will is one of
those. Another is time…I don’t
think we have the slightest idea what time is…The same thing is true with
space. Time and space are the
ultimate mysteries.” [Skeptic, Vol. 5 No. 2 1997]
I am also very much a “Jamesian,”
and I could not have been more pleased when certain critics compared my Revelation:
The Divine Fire to William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience.
A quote from James that guides me throughout all my research is not to be
found in his groundbreaking book, but in a letter to a friend that Dr. Walter
Houston Clark shared with me: “The mother sea and fountainhead of all
religions lie in the mystical experiences of the individual, taking the word
mystical in a very wide sense. All
theologies and ecclesiasticisms are secondary growths superimposed.”
DS:
Here’s another aspect of what makes for good fiction- coincidences; or, as
believers might say- synchronicities. In just that last passage you mentioned
Black Elk, and the book Black
Elk Speaks,
is an old fave of mine, written by the neglected writer and poet John G.
Neihardt- a man I’d loved to have gotten for the DSI. Then, you mentioned
Sherry’s connection to the Lutheran School of Theology, and a few years ago I
worked for a company that makes alumni directories, and I recall that several
Lutheran seminary schools and religious colleges were our clients, and I got
paid to speak with folk of their lives, beliefs, and so on; although I would
have loved to have stumbled upon Sherry to call up. I also have been a fan of
Martin Gardner’s, for differing reasons, and then you mentioned Michael
Shermer, who declined a DSI after I, basically, did not agree with all of his
own beliefs, politically nor socially. But, I digress. Let me return to a query:
are you an agnostic, or atheist? Capital A ‘strong’ atheist or lower a
‘weak’ atheist? After I reviewed a film by a former Fundy, I got into this
argument with two
atheists who were as dogmatic as any theist. I finally got them to
admit that a) there were atheists who claimed there ‘could be’ no gods and
b) they could never disprove such an immaterial claim. While I disagree with
Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA posit (Non-Overlapping Magisteria) for science and
religion, I find such dogma to be counter-productive to rationalism, for there
goes, as you might claim, the ‘upper moral hand’ of the argument. Comments?
BS: I think I already
answered these queries. I might be
a Gnostic, but surely not an agnostic. And
there are no atheists in the grim foxholes of freelance writers.
You must believe in that Great Editor in the Sky who will smile upon your
manuscript to give you enough hope to continue to survive in what is a lonely
craft, primarily considered a weird way to make a living and is not considered
real work by anyone who labors nine to five.
Any kind of dogma is
counterproductive, whether in science or religion. Remember the old bumper sticker: A dog’s Ma is a Bitch.
DS: Similar to NOMA, I see a connection between art and science, as
different approaches that use different ends of the same method- i.e.- science
uses creativity in service to discovery, while art uses discovery in service to
creation. Do you see any connections between science and religion, science and
art, as those that I mention?
BS: You see, I perceive connections between everything.
When I was eleven, I suffered a near-death experience.
I could see my body below me, but my spirit, my essential self, seemed to
be an orange-colored sphere moving toward a beautiful light.
I became aware that I was dying, and I felt a twinge of regret over being
separated from family and friends. At
that time I was shown a series of brilliant geometric patterns or designs that
seemed somehow to be alive. It was
as if I was being shown an interconnectedness to all things in the universe.
For decades, whenever I
would try to picture the cosmic geometric patterns and try to remember
consciously what they had taught me, I would literally blank out, due to the
frustration of attempting to find an appropriate vocabulary to describe them.
It was not until 1987 when Sherry was led to incorporate fractal geometry
in her multimedia seminar “The Sacred Geometry of Life” that I viewed in
those patterns a close approximation to what I had seen in my near-death
experience.
DS: Have you any thoughts on such more modern religions, often
considered cults, such as Scientology- started by sci fi writer L. Ron Hubbard,
on a bet? How about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons? Both have been
plagued, like the Roman Catholic Church, with rampant charges of sexual abuse of
children. And Mormonism’s main text, The
Book Of Mormon, has often been linked to plagiarism
claims of several earlier novels and other religious works. You’ve written of
cults before. Any comments? And, have you ever written of more New Age cults,
like Est or Lifespring?
BS:
I can’t think of any that I haven’t written about.
Conspiracies and Secret Societies covers most of the ones that you
have heard about. I constantly
receive information about some incredible ones taking form as we speak. You’ll have to wait for a new book.
DS: Re: New Age beliefs; let me mention four Oprah Winfrey level New
Age charlatans: Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, and Deepak
Chopra. What do you feel about these folk? And what, if anything, makes them
different from a Pat Robertson?
BS:
I would advise you to work a bit on your people skills.
One need not label another who has a point of view, belief, or philosophy
different from his as a charlatan.
In my opinion the above-mentioned individuals are simply recycling Norman
Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, Ernest Holmes, Mary Baker Eddy and all the other
positive thinkers and exponents of visualize and it shall be so…think, and you
shall be rich. It is all basic
metaphysics 101. Every time some new enlightened New Age writer comes out with
another “Secret,” I become even more exasperated.
Under the pretense of being highly spiritual, these teachings all
emphasize achieving material goods and wealth.
Positive
thinking is wonderful and will certainly lead to a happier and longer life.
Just don’t believe that any angel, benevolent being, or even Jesus
wants you to be rich in material things. That is magical thinking, not mystical
or spiritual thinking. There just
isn’t enough wealth floating around for everyone to be a
millionaire—especially without working for it.
You are probably not going to be rich, so get over it.
Be like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof—go back to milking your cows and
working in your fields.
DS: Let us turn to mainstream religion. The first mention of Jesus
Christ, in a historic manner, was decades after his claimed death. There is
absolutely nothing contemporaneous about the figure having been recorded, even
though he was considered Public Enemy Number One. Yet, there are still bills of
sale, real estate transactions, court documents, from that area of the globe,
that predate the claimed existence of Jesus. It seems not only was Christ not a
deity, but there is not a shred of credible evidence that he was even a real,
historic figure, yet even the major news outlets refer to Christ as if he was
historically real, the way Napoleon was. Do you believe there was a Jesus of
Nazareth, or do you see the manifest parallels to many other prior mythic gods?
BS: Okay, Dan, we got it.
Jesus is not all right by you. You
were starting to sound like an unforgiving altar boy who found out that he had
been lighting the wrong priest’s candles.
Because of my interest in
history, anthropology, mythology, I came to peace with rants such as yours when
I was about 17 (that would be 1953). Sometimes,
when I am feeling like the Grinch, I distribute the details of the Christmas
story—the virgin birth, the star overhead, the angels on high--and then point
out that those same familiar ritualistic aspects apply to about a dozen other
messianic figures, from Egypt forward. And
finally, at the end of the list, I mention that the legend that we attribute as
so unique to Jesus was ancient long before he came upon the scene.
If Jesus of Nazareth was born to a poor carpenter, I doubt if all the
traditional trappings of the mythic messiahs, such as the Kings of the Orient,
the angels, and the shepherds and the talking animals were there to greet the
babe and his startled parents.
Now I think that one could
do a whole lot worse than to follow the teachings of The Way taught by whoever
this conscientious rabbi might have been. Among
his teachings that I find the most meaningful are the ones that emphasize taking
personal responsibility for our own actions, the ones that bid us not to judge
others, nor to throw the first stone at others that we decide are wrong or
“sinful,” and the ones that urge us to recognize that we can find the
Kingdom of God within us and that we can see the face of God in the eyes of our
fellow humans.
I rather suspect that there
might have been a Jesus of Nazareth, who told everyone that they were all
children of God. I don’t believe
that he declared himself to be the only child of God, and I don’t believe that
after spending all the years of his mission emphasizing one’s personal
responsibility for one’s own deeds or misdeeds that he would offer himself as
a sacrifice to atone for everyone else’s sin and let everyone else off the
hook. The motive for his
crucifixion—if, indeed it took place—would have a denial of the central
focus of his teachings, and at the same time, and a rebirth of human sacrifice
to appease an angry God.
And now, Dan, once again, I
have raised my credibility with some of your readers and lowered it with others.
DS: Me, an altar boy? Surely you jest. But, back to your wife; aside
from ministry, she was also a nurse and model. The two of you have also worked
on a number of books together. Surely, there have had to be disagreements on the
format of a book, or on the validity of material to be included. Give me a
couple of examples of where the two of you have had opposing views on a supposed
case you investigated, and how were they resolved?
BS: Why would you want to marry someone with whom you would argue?
We are with each other 24/7.
We work in a tiny office with our chairs back to back.
It is a tribute to our love and respect for one another that we do not
fight. Someone once observed that
we are not the classic soul mates. We
are the same soul expressing itself in two bodies.
DS:
Let me dig in even a little deeper. I’ve
read your hometown is Fort Dodge, Iowa, and you were born on February 19, 1936.
Correct? Your earliest memories must have been of the Second World War.
Did any of your relatives serve in it? As mentioned, a couple of years ago I had
a job that required me interviewing many types of people- from seminarians to
military veterans, and it was one of the most interesting experiences of my
life. Did you get to watch any of last year’s PBS documentary by Ken Burns, The
War?
Any thoughts or were any memories rekindled?
BS: I grew up on a farm near a little village named Bode, population at
that time, 523. I was born in Ft. Dodge Lutheran Hospital in the blizzard of
1936. It was a month before Mom and
I could come home to the farm.
Of course the War has left
many profound memories. Two of my
cousins went into the Navy. One of
my uncles was a tailgunner, who was shot down over Germany and wounded by rifle
fire as he parachuted. He spent the
rest of the war in a prison camp and was ill-treated, because he was of a German
family who had immigrated to the US from Russia.
Another uncle took part in the Normandy Beach landing and participated in
freeing the victims of the concentration camp. My cousin across the road was
shot through the lungs while reaching for an apple in France and was kept alive
by his Buddy from Brooklyn who shoved a scarf into the gaping hole in his chest.
My cousin-in-law who was based in England, was an Ace in his P-51, and is
listed in the aviation histories as the first fighter pilot (or one of the
first) to shoot down a Nazi jet. Our
young hired man on the farm was killed by a sniper on a faraway Pacific island.
In my child’s mind, he was the most handsome, kind, and gentle of
individuals. We sat in church and
had funeral rites for his photograph, because his body could not be sent home.
It seemed a regular thing for a classmate to be called out of the room and to
return crying that his or her brother had been killed in action.
The entire nation
participated in that war. We
brought our dimes to school to buy stamps toward a war bond. When we went to the
movies, the feature would be interrupted by the house lights turned on and
ushers passing among the patrons to collect money for war bonds. Everything was
rationed. Detroit stopped making
new cars. Women went to work in airplane and munitions factories.
My aunt brought home a .50 caliber slug for me as a souvenir. As a
farmer, Dad was asked to grow new crops, such as soybeans, flax, and hemp.
Even though we raised pork and beef, at maturity the animals were sent
off to the war effort and we ate Spam and eggs just like the rest of the nation.
We did not watch our soldiers being killed on newsreels, and then be told
that everything was going just fine. We
were not told by our leaders that if we must worry about something, we should be
concerned about the drug problems of some young misguided actors instead of the
fate of our brothers, fathers, uncles, and cousins who were dying faraway from
home. Sherry is amazed when we come back for Memorial Day and she reads the
honor roll of those who served and gave their lives. As she always remarks, so many young men from such a small
town.
DS:
In looking through your lengthy bibliography, the only title I could see with
any military connection was the 1990 book, The
Philadelphia Experiment And Other UFO Conspiracies. I’m surprised you have not
done a book on war experiences, for the extreme conditions one encounters there
has been a fertile ground for everything from gremlins to ghost army sighting to
claims of time slips to, obviously, NDEs (Near Death Experiences). Is a book in
the works on that fertile subject matter?
BS: I think with your analytical skills you may ascertain my feeling
toward war in the above answer. But I have included chapters about military NDEs
and interactions with angels during wartime in many books.
No book is in the works about war.
DS:
Re: the Philadelphia Experiment mythos. Like the Book Of Mormon, that myth is
also based, partly, it seems, on plagiarized material from a potboiler novel
called Thin
Air,
by by George E. Burger and Neil R. Simpson. This was from Charles Berlitz’s
titular book on the matter. What are your views on that ‘case,’ and Carlos
Allende?
BS:
No, my The Allende Letters: New UFO Breakthrough with Joan Whritenour
came out 10 years before Burger and Simpson wrote Thin Air.
You almost have to stand in line to be the first to plagiarize these
days.
The Philadelphia Experiment is either a myth or mystery that
will not die. People just want to believe it.
DS: As a child, were you always interested in the paranormal? Were
you raised religiously? Or did you simply love patterns?
BS: I grew up in a haunted
house with thumps, bumps, doors opening and closing, and men and women walking
around all night in period costume. It was only about thirty years ago that I
learned that our house was built on the original site of the stagecoach stop.
That may certainly have had something to do with the night noises.
My sister and I always went to Sunday School, and then, when I was around
9 or 10, our family began going regularly to church.
At that time I became extremely pious.
I really tried to live in imitation of Christ.
Beginning in eighth grade through my senior year in high school, I served
as the narrator of the annual Christmas pageant.
I really tried to make my Lutheranism work.
This set up tremendous inner conflicts.
When I had my near-death
experience at age 11, I was suffused with a sense of mission that I was to
testify to others that we are something other than physical beings, that there
is a dimension that lies beyond our five senses, and that within each of us is
all that is necessary to unlock life’s mysteries. For a time, I thought that I might be able to achieve this
within the framework of the Lutheran Church.
As I sat in the pew with my family, I would become physically ill as I
realized that I could no longer accept the beliefs that I would have to espouse.
I would have to excuse myself during the service and go to the restroom.
At last I realized that I
could not accomplish what I believed to be my mission within the framework of
denominationalism. I wanted to tear down walls of dogma that separated us from
one another. I did not wish to
build new barriers that would deny us a sense of our Oneness.
DS: What did you want to be when you grew up- a baseball player, a
general? Who were your childhood heroes and why? Were you raised a farmboy, or
did you eventually move to a larger community?
BS: My heroes have always been cowboys.
At least the romanticized version of the lone wolf individual who is
completely self-sufficient. My
great hero was my father—strong as an ox, but completely nonjudgmental and
accepting of others for what they were, not what others said they were. I will
always remember walking with him as a young boy outside of a tavern.
A man staggered out drunk vomited, and collapsed on the sidewalk.
I asked Dad if that man was not truly a disgusting individual.
Dad just looked down on me and said quietly, “There but for the grace
of God go I.” Now I knew that Dad
never in his whole life even sipped at a beer, so it took me a while to grasp
his meaning, but I remind myself of those whenever I begin to feel superior to
another “lesser” than I.
I must also name the mystic warriors, such as Crazy Horse, Tecumseh,
Chief Seattle, Chief Joseph as my heroes.
But I have never wanted to
be anything other than a writer. Seriously, ever since I was a small boy I have
always had the image of my being a writer firmly imprinted in my mind.
I saw myself coming to a small print shop in either England or New
England in perhaps Victorian attire, opening the door, and going in the office
to work late into the night on my new book.
I wrote my first book when I
was seven. It was written on
wide-lined notebook paper and was illustrated.
I can’t remember the plotline too well, but it was about two rabbits
surviving a winter storm. It
probably owed a great deal to Winnie the Pooh, but I remember how
accomplished I felt with that first manuscript.
I really fell in love with
comic books at that time. I came
down with scarlet fever, and Dad bought a bunch of Classics Illustrated.
I resolved to become a comic book writer/artist.
Every available moment away from farm chores, I was drawing strips on the
old desk that I had inherited from my paternal grandfather.
By the time I was in eighth grade, my teacher was so impressed that he
took a number of my strips to a friend of his in Des Moines who was associated
with their syndicate. Although the
professional was not as impressed as my teacher had been by the quality of my
strips, the fact that my work was shown to someone beyond the borders of our
little village meant a great deal to me.
I was always a farmboy. We
never took vacations. There was
always work to catch up on. Perhaps because Dad was just a competitive athlete,
we always had to be the first ones to plant, weed, and harvest the oats, the
corn, the beans. Once we had
finished first of all the neighbor, we helped them catch up.
Then, while they went on two-week vacations to Yellowstone Park or
Florida, we stayed home and looked after their livestock while they were gone.
Once, when I was about
fifteen, we spent two days at my great-aunt’s lake cabin in Minnesota, but I
don’t count that as a vacation because we went home by way of North Dakota to
help my aunt and uncle get in their wheat crop.
I slept in the bunkhouse with the hands and was teased by the men who
wanted to see if an Iowa boy could work as hard as a Dakota fieldhand.
But we did go to movies.
Our little theater had three change of bills each week.
Wednesday and Thursday, probably a noir mystery.
Friday and Saturday, an action double-feature, and Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, a class A movie. We
didn’t take vacations, but we didn’t miss a single movie.
DS: Your dad’s saying reminds me of my own Great Depression
Era-raised dad’s best quote: ‘I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a
man who had no feet.’ What sort of child were you- a loner or center of
attention? Did you get good grades? Were you a mama’s boy or a rebel?
BS: When you sit on a tractor seat for ten hours a day alone in a field,
you learn to become entertained with your own thoughts.
But I also put on puppet shows and magic shows at school assemblies. My
sister would be the “complete stranger” from the audience who would come
forward to assist me.
Because I began reading a
wide variety of subject matter at a very early age, I got good grades.
Doesn’t every boy want to
be a mama’s boy? Until it is time
to rebel, that is. Which in Iowa
farmland means when you get your driver’s license.
DS: Any siblings? What paths in life have they followed? Do they
share your views on life, the unexplained, etc.? Did you have an ‘unusual’
experience, or more, when a child that set you on your career path?
BS: I have one
sister, who became a teacher of special kids.
She was Special Olympics Coach of the Year a few years back.
They kept her on staff two years after mandatory retirement because of
her irreplaceable expertise. She
grew up in the same environment that I did.
We have both had life-long sleeping problems.
Only a few months ago did we finally decide that our problem may have its
origin in our childhood spent in that home where we were awakened several times
a night by some strange face staring at us or by some loud thudding or
scratching sound in or near our beds.
DS:
I’ve read that you have two sons, three daughters, and six grandchildren. What
paths have they followed in life? What are their interests and careers? Are any
of them writers?
BS:
The daughters have all taught English. One in Arizona; one in Japan; and one in
Italy. The two older girls have
been talking about collaborating on a novel.
The young girl has just been named the local director of Habitat for
Humanity. She is now pregnant with
a soul who shall be our eighth granddaughter.
One grandson, eight granddaughters.
Our
older son has his degree in English but elected to teach his passion, skiing,
which he has done for over 30 years at ski resorts in Colorado. He also owns a
mountain bike shop. Our younger son is an expert on food and wine who conducts
seminars all over the world. He
writes columns for several food and beverage magazines, has a television program
in Canada, another in New York, and has a book under contract.
DS: What of your parents? What were their professions? Did they
encourage your pursuit of writing, or investigation?
BS:
My parents were farmers, and they wanted me to be a teacher.
My dad was a superb athlete who had a large collection of trophies and
medals. He would have been a pro baseball player but he got beaned
just before the team got on the bus for training camp and he spent time in the
hospital with a concussion while the others warmed up for the season.
He took that as an omen and went back to the farm.
I am certain that I disappointed him in that I was no athlete, but he
never showed it. He had begun training with me about as soon as I could walk.
But then I had the accident when I was 11, and that ended my athletic
career.
My mother was a great storyteller, and she loved to sing and dance.
I think her secret dream was to be in a Busby Berkeley musical. She was also of a very mystical bent, and I believe in
retrospect that she could have become a spirit medium if that had been her wish.
She had a number of visions and visitations, some of which even left
behind physical evidence. My father, who believed only that which he could apprehend
through his five senses, was always tolerant of her visions.
DS: What was your youth like, both at home and in terms of
socializing with other children? Often children who are isolated learn to focus
on patterns. Were you a born raconteur?
BS:
I guess I was a born raconteur. Like
most immigrants, every farm as far as the eye could see was worked by a
relative. Until I went to school,
the only kids I knew were my cousins. Even
then, we all worked together, played together, celebrated holidays together.
Because they were family, my cousins were very supportive of me and my
strangeness. They believed in me.
They even believed in my puppets and my magic shows.
They believed me when I saw ghosts around us, whether they could see them
or not. The trouble was, apart from
my family, I was extremely shy. In later years, when I was lecturing and
conducting seminars across the States and the Provinces, I had to create a stage
persona, as if I were an actor playing Brad Steiger.
When I married Sherry, she loved the real shy, reserved, emotional,
nerdish me and life became less strenuous.
Through the magic of the Internet, I still email many of my cousins
several times a week and I still draw strength from their support.
DS:
What sort of books did you read? I read science books, by and large, as well as
atlases, The How, Why And
Wonder Books, bios of
scientists, dinosaur books, books on astronomy. Name some of your favorite
books- now and as a child. Were they Hardy Boys mysteries or pulp fiction? Name
some books you think among the best ever published- be they in the Fortean
realm, or just plain old novels. One of the best books in a Fortean vein is
Jacques Vallee’s Passport
To Magonia. I think it’s
a seminal book that bridges rationalism and mythos. Any thoughts on that work?
BS:
I read history books. My
grandmother had the complete set of Ridpath’s History of the World and
that got me hooked. Grandma was the
town librarian, but a good share of the books were originally from her personal
library. She still had a library
just about as large as the public one at her home.
She was proud that we appeared to be related to Thor Heyerdahl, and she
had me read Kon-Tiki, then Ceram’s Gods, Graves, and Scholars. In no time, I was as hooked on anthropology and archaeology
as I was on history—and who could deny that they are not intimately related.
She had all the National Geographics back to Ben Franklin’s printing press.
I joined the History Book of the Month Club when I was 15.
I read primarily historical novels, Slaughter, Yerby, Costain, and later
on, Vardis Fisher’s Testament of Man series.
I read very few novels until I was of college age.
I was taken with the Mountain Men, the early explorers, and works like de
Voto’s Across the Wide Missouri. I
can remember skimming a couple of Hardy Boys and a Carolyn Keene mystery, but
looking through Grandma’s collection of original Matthew Brady Civil War
photos held a greater fascination for me. Grandma
also had some forbidden books about religion that she did not place in the town
library, such as The Apocrypha, the lost books of the Bible, and volumes
about other religions.
At that time were hardly any books available on psychical research, but Grandma ordered them for me, adding the stern warning to stay balanced and not to be swallowed up by the supernatural. I entered college as a history major and an art minor. It was my dream to write historical novels and to illustrate them. Once I was a famous writer, I would reveal my fascination with the paranormal, ala A. C. Doyle.
DS:
I touched upon religion earlier, and from some of your titles, that factor in
your life could likely be surmised. So, let’s hit that other sore spot,
politics. To what extent has politics affected your career? What are your views
on politics and who are your heroes, if any?
BS: If there is any area of human endeavor about
which I am cynical, it is politics. I
do not neglect it, of course. I
follow all current events very closely. My
political heroes would be Jonathan Swift, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas
Jefferson.
DS:
Do you belong to any party, and what are your views on such current politicized
matters as euthanasia, abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research? Given
that you have reported on such things as beliefs in reincarnation, three of
those four topics can be seen as intimately tied to, or obstructing, the
transmogrification of souls. If these beliefs have an effect on ‘real world’
matters, such as politics, do you ever feel hamstrung by such beliefs? And how
do you reconcile one area of your life with another?
BS:
I have remained a
political Independent since I was able to vote. I have never been hamstrung by
any of my opinions. I cannot see
how people can believe that their philosophy need conflict with any of the other
things that they are.
Why can’t a scientist believe in God?
If it works for him, he can still believe that bacteria exists, that one
thinks with the head, not the heart, and the atomic structure of the universe
will remain the same.
We are each trying to find a way to work with a reality that makes sense
to us. We are trying to blend
Newtonian physics with the physics of Einstein and mix it all together with
hyperspace and hypertime and twelve other dimensions and wonder still if we dare
to eat a peach.
DS:
Of course, your beliefs in supernature are not the only thing that could affect
a political decision; there are other matters of ethos. What are your opinions
on such things as global warming, or the war in Iraq? Do you look to a
candidate’s opinions on conservation, global warming, etc., when voting? If
not, why not?
BS: I listen to everyone’s opinions. I have found
that by reciting the candidates’ opinions and a couple of dollars I can buy a
cup of coffee anywhere. If any elected candidate actually keeps his/her
promises, we will know that our Sodom and Gomorrah has been spared.
God has found two or three righteous people.
DS:
One final point re: your beliefs. Recently, your book titles have dealt with
things revolving about pets- dogs, cats, even horses, and ‘miraculous’
things associated with them. Where do you stand on animal rights? I would think
you’d likely be for them. If so, how strong are your views on such? Are you a
supporter of PETA? Do you support testing bans on dangerous chemicals used on
animals- especially cosmetics products, wherein no human lives can be endangered
by the cessation of such tests?
BS:
We are appalled by any mistreatment of animals—chemical testing, dogfights,
rooster fights, bull fights. We
must learn to respect all living things if we are to survive with dignity as a
species.
I doubt if I could live for
any length of time without a dog. Fortunately,
my wife and children feel the same. We are all dog owners.
Dogs are our connection with nature and the Earth Mother.
I don’t mean to exclude cats. I
have been owned by some very unique felines. And some people get that connection
with horses, cattle, birds, and reptiles. We
are all children of the Great Mystery. The
Great Spirit blew the same breath of life into all of Its creations.
DS: Do you prefer preaching to the choir or engaging dialectic? Is
the tradeoff in acceptance worth the energy wasted in such a tiring pursuit?
Have you ever had any one hear you speak, who then was ‘converted’ to
whatever belief or mystery you were discoursing on?
BS:
I engaged in intense dialectic for many years and found it a supreme waste of
time and energy. As you well
phrased it, “a tiring pursuit.”
I am not a missionary; I am not trying to convert anyone.
I am simply sharing ideas about which I am excited.
If others share that excitement, then I am pleased.
If they do not, then have a nice day, chum.
DS: Let me toss out that old question: if you could sit down and
break bread for an evening with folks from the past- scientists, explorers,
writers, or not, which folk would you most like to engage with, and why?
BS:
Ralph Waldo Emerson, so I could discuss transcendentalism; Goethe, because I
consider him one of my spiritual mentors; Mark Twain, because I share very much
his opinions and sense of humor; William Shakespeare, so I could ask him if face
to face if he really wrote all those plays; Jesus of Nazareth, so I could ask
how much the various translators distorted his words; Mary Magdalene, so I could
ask her if she doesn’t feel better now that the Vatican has finally corrected
their misogynistic mistake that she was the whore for whom Jesus challenged the
mob to throw the first stone. William
James, Fredric W.H. Myers, Rudolf Steiner, and Sir William Crookes would also be
on my list. I would also invite
Mario Lanza and request that he sing Serenade from The Student Prince.
And of course Sherry to sit at my side.
DS: Ok, let us switch gears to your fame as an investigator of things
paranormal, supernatural, Fortean, psi, etc. I love patterns, thus I’ve long
been interested in statistics, baseball, poetry, art, criminology, serial
killing, genocide, history, etc. I recall, when a young teen, going to a magic
show, and proudly exposing all the magician’s tricks, although I had no
training. I just rationally figured out how they were done. But, I failed at
exposing one, and still feel burned by that failure, because the magician seemed
to revel in stumping me once out of a dozen other tricks I exposed. When did you
get interested in things beyond the pale, and does it relate to pattern seeking?
BS:
I honestly cannot remember when I didn’t feel this way.
From the earliest years of my career, people would write to ask how I
ever thought of comparing this to that or how did I ever find that such related
to such. Sherry is the same. All
of her life, she, too, has seen associations everywhere in everything.
We call it “seeing the big picture.”
Everything is interconnected.
DS: To what degree are you a true believer in the many things you
write of, and to what degree do you feel you are impartial. And, five decades
into any endeavor, can you still be impartial? Do you get jaded? Are there signs
in a ‘case’ that tell you, ‘Fraud,’ ‘charlatan,’ or
‘possibly….’? Give me some examples of hoaxes and things you feel genuine
in the world of the unexplained.
BS: The paranormal is not my religion, my faith, so to speak, so I am not
a true believer in anything. I
accept certain things because of my experience with them.
I never get jaded and I
remain enthusiastic. I do not claim
to be invincible, but it usually doesn’t take me very long to determine if
someone is lying, hoaxing, or fantasizing.
DS:
I was a bit surprised to see noted debunker, and editor of Skeptic
magazine,
Michael Shermer, had an article in the November, 2007 issue of Fate
magazine. That publication seems antithetical to Skeptic.
It was about investing in SETI. In the December, 2007 issue of Discover magazine, there is an interview
with Canadian astronomer David Charbonneau, who plans to search for earth-like
worlds around other stars. Is this not a more sane approach than SETI? After
all, even the Drake Equation cannot predict if radio astronomy would be a viable
way any aliens would communicate, but a biological signature in an atmosphere is
far more convincing, no?
BS:
Yes, I believe a biological signature is more convincing than interpreting a lot
of static.
DS:
I mentioned Michael Shermer, and, as I mentioned earlier, he was scheduled to be
interviewed for the DSI in January of 2008, but backed out after I gave his
latest book a mixed review.
It was the second time in four years that he backed out of an interview, and
left me in the lurch, when I did not kowtow to his own set of beliefs, which I
considered to be as dogmatic re: economics as any believer in a deity or
extraterrestrial. The first was for an audio interview, and after a phone call,
in which I tried to remain unbiased, he backed out. Aside from not living up to
his word, I find such actions to be childish and hypocritical, especially
considering that he has made a career out of zinging people, rightly or wrongly,
for what he considers dogmatic beliefs. Similarly, I once got into an online
argument with a couple of atheists
who were as blindly dogmatic as Pat Robertson or some Islamic extremist. Have
you found it to be the case that many of the so-called ‘rationalists’ and
‘free thinkers’ are such in name only, that their rationality only extends
beyond their own dogmas, and that, in essence, they are simply mirror images of
the very people whose opposing dogmas they disdain?
BS:
Oh, absolutely. You hit the
nail right on the head. The will to
disbelieve is as strong as the will to believe.
DS:
How do you generally get along with the debunking crowd, skeptics like Michael
Shermer or James Randi? Do they tend to see you as an enemy, or someone ‘not
all there’? Or does it vary with the individual? And how about the most
reviled UFO debunker of recent years, the late Philip Klass? Did you have any
run-ins with him, or was he one of those folks able to argue against an idea,
but not ad hominem?
BS:
I really don’t think about them at all.
Everyone has his or her place in the universal scheme of things.
DS:
Let me toss out some other names, and if you could, give me your brief
impressions, pro or con, of these individuals, and to what extent any of their
work has affected your own: Frank Edwards.
BS:
I have been publishing since 1956, and I have never uttered a negative word (in
print) against any of my fellow researchers, so I shall not start now.
Frank Edwards affected my early work because publishers wanted my books
to be presented in that same short chapter format with little narrative.
DS:
Colin Wilson.
BS:
He is British and
seems quite bright. I have admired
a number of his books.
DS:
Jerome Clark.
BS:
I have been friends with the same group of fellow researchers that I first met
in the 60s. Among them are Jerry
Clark, Loren Coleman, Timothy Green Beckley, Gene Steinberg, T. Allen Greenfield
remain good allies in exploring the strange and unknown.
DS:
Jacques Vallee.
BS:
He is French, and he has written a number of books that are worth reviewing.
DS:
John Keel.
BS:
Much of his early research was truly groundbreaking. Keel and I used to be in
steady communication, and we would get together whenever I went to New York.
DS:
J. Allen Hynek. And what of The
Hynek Report and Project
Blue Book?