A Jarring Look at Unsubstantiated Beliefs. - Review - book review

Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety. By Wendy Kaminer, Pantheon Books, 1999. 279 pp., $24.

Says the author, "Belief in God need not lead to belief in the Easter Bunny (although an atheist would find no difference between the two). But religions may engender habits of belief that affect the way people function politically. It's worth nothing that the loonier conspiracy theories that circulated in the 1990s combined mistrust of government with belief in the supernatural. Consider accusations that the government has been covering up evidence of extraterrestrial visitations...."

Religion isn't the only subject covered in this book. Kaminer talks about spiritualism, the New Age, false memories of sexual abuse and Satanic rituals, 12-step recovery programs, pop psychology books and gurus, junk science, astrology, positive thinkers like Norman Vincent Peale, oddball therapies, cyberspace beliefs, and much more.

Though her avowed reason for writing the book wasn't to excoriate these various beliefs, that's the net result.

Herself an admitted believer in homeopathy--"a method of treating disease by minute doses of drugs that in a healthy person would produce symptoms similar to those of the disease"--she admits that such beliefs are hard to resist.

Kaminer was raised in an atheistic home. It's no surprise, then, that she became an avowed agnostic. She discusses the high rate of superstitious beliefs in this country, and points out that the U.S. has the highest percentage of believers in a divine God.

Worthwhile and informative, the book is also slightly jarring, what with Kaminer exposing so many (often surprising) unsubstantiated beliefs held by many folks. The only drawback to this book is its title. Though a humorous, perhaps ribald, jab at UFO and alien invasion believers, it detracts from the more serious underpinnings of the book. I was put off from reading it when it first came out because of the seemingly flippant title. Just the chapter called "Cyberspacy" is worth it.

Kaminer has written five other books, including I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional. A Fellow at Radcliffe College, she has contributed articles to The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and The Nation.

James Sullivan writes from South Bend, Indiana.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
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