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A review by angus_mckeogh
Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber
1.0
I read this book for two reasons. I believed I had previously read it as a teenager, and Texas Monthly published an article at some point stating that The Secret School is one of the ten best reads by a Texas author written in the last 100 years. Unfortunately The Secret School is book 4 or 5 in this series so I thought I'd read it from the start.
I quickly figured out I'd never have read this book as a teenager because it's monotonously boring. It's akin to reading the transcript of The Iran-Contra Affair or the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. A large portion of the book revolves around memories from a long time ago and the phrase, "I don't remember". The book is also subtitled "A True Story" which makes it immediately unrealistic and unbelievable when you delve into it.
The crux of the book revolves around retellings of vaguely remembered "occurrences" from years past or childhood. One "proof" comes in the form of hypnosis (completely disregarding scientific evidence which demonstrates that false "memories" are easily and routinely introduced into the minds of hypnotized subjects specifically from childhood). The author also ignores that in several of the hypnotized sessions a third person, Budd Hopkins, was allowed to sit in and question the subject. Uhhhhh...Hopkins is a painter by trade who became obsessed with UFOs and turned amateur hypnotist also writing a book about "missing time". And Hopkins goes on to ask the most leading questions. Way stupid.
Another offered "proof" is a chapter chronicling the minutes of a UFO abductees’ meeting. This again produces zero evidence and is filled with a plethora of "I don't remember's" and "I just felt that's" in reportage leaving me baffled as to how this backed the author's thesis. The discussion in the meeting ultimately revolves around the sad lives of a few isolated souls and a strange cross in "cold reading" devices such as when the question is put forth, "Why was there such a lack of personality in these visitors?" Answer: "Oh I definitely felt that. Such a lack of personality. But then again they were inundated with a kind of personality!" Uh...what? You can't have it both ways unless you're just appealing to both sides so as not to be wrong.
Even further "proof" is offered when Strieber's wife is hypnotized and basically proceeds to say she remembers very little to nothing about her husband's alleged events as well as stating she thinks he has a mental problem. I'm still not sure how this was promoted as proof. Furthermore the author finishes the book with a mind numbingly dull chapter about his belief in the special nature of "the triad". He talks about the triangle for dozens upon dozens of pages and goes into diatribes about how legitimate the tarot is and even makes some predictions (which oddly enough based on the date when the book was written have not come to pass).
All in all I'll suffice it to say I'll never read The Secret School because this book was so awful. It read vague. It read false. It tried to support the debunked and unsupportable. Frankly it just sucked.
I quickly figured out I'd never have read this book as a teenager because it's monotonously boring. It's akin to reading the transcript of The Iran-Contra Affair or the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. A large portion of the book revolves around memories from a long time ago and the phrase, "I don't remember". The book is also subtitled "A True Story" which makes it immediately unrealistic and unbelievable when you delve into it.
The crux of the book revolves around retellings of vaguely remembered "occurrences" from years past or childhood. One "proof" comes in the form of hypnosis (completely disregarding scientific evidence which demonstrates that false "memories" are easily and routinely introduced into the minds of hypnotized subjects specifically from childhood). The author also ignores that in several of the hypnotized sessions a third person, Budd Hopkins, was allowed to sit in and question the subject. Uhhhhh...Hopkins is a painter by trade who became obsessed with UFOs and turned amateur hypnotist also writing a book about "missing time". And Hopkins goes on to ask the most leading questions. Way stupid.
Another offered "proof" is a chapter chronicling the minutes of a UFO abductees’ meeting. This again produces zero evidence and is filled with a plethora of "I don't remember's" and "I just felt that's" in reportage leaving me baffled as to how this backed the author's thesis. The discussion in the meeting ultimately revolves around the sad lives of a few isolated souls and a strange cross in "cold reading" devices such as when the question is put forth, "Why was there such a lack of personality in these visitors?" Answer: "Oh I definitely felt that. Such a lack of personality. But then again they were inundated with a kind of personality!" Uh...what? You can't have it both ways unless you're just appealing to both sides so as not to be wrong.
Even further "proof" is offered when Strieber's wife is hypnotized and basically proceeds to say she remembers very little to nothing about her husband's alleged events as well as stating she thinks he has a mental problem. I'm still not sure how this was promoted as proof. Furthermore the author finishes the book with a mind numbingly dull chapter about his belief in the special nature of "the triad". He talks about the triangle for dozens upon dozens of pages and goes into diatribes about how legitimate the tarot is and even makes some predictions (which oddly enough based on the date when the book was written have not come to pass).
All in all I'll suffice it to say I'll never read The Secret School because this book was so awful. It read vague. It read false. It tried to support the debunked and unsupportable. Frankly it just sucked.