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eNewsletter
- January 2003
TOUCHED premieres: Film reveals lives 'touched' by alien encounters
A new film by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Laurel Chiten, TOUCHED, premieres at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts on February 20. TOUCHED is much more than a look at alien encounters. It is about the human condition - about longing for connection and fear of separation.
"Following the lead of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell the audience will witness an archetypal 'Hero's Journey.'" Chiten explains. "For the subjects of our film, their experiences have resulted in a kind of Holy Grail search for truth. Beneath the sensational aspects of alien encounters, these are real people looking for answers. TOUCHED will follow a human quest to solve a mystery - perhaps only to find that the answer is the quest itself."
Dr. John Mack, the founder of the Center and a leading authority on the traumatic and transformational elements of alien encounters, invited the Emmy-nominated filmmaker to document the lives of several "experiencers" in the faith that she would see that the phenomenon - regardless of whether aliens are as real as they seem - is ultimately one that profoundly affects people's lives.
The experiencers, Mack observed, were being forced to reevaluate their sense of the world, and how they relate to it. As one put it, "It makes you feel. It makes you move - sometimes violently - through things you don't want to move through in your psyche and your ego and any of the other words you choose to call yourself." At a Center event in 1999, an overwhelming majority of experiencers supported the position that their alien encounters are acting as a catalyst for their own - and humanity's collective - evolution. The personal challenges that such an evolution entails for four experiencers, their friends and loved ones, are now laid bare in Chiten's new film.
Chiten's earlier films include The Jew in the Lotus, which explores the intersection of Buddhism with Judaism, and the Emmy-nominated Twitch and Shout, which focuses on people with Tourette Syndrome. Both of her earlier films have been shown nationally on PBS; TOUCHED is now on offer.
TOUCHED premieres at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts
Thursday February 20, 2003 at 8pm
with reception following. The filmmaker and Dr. John Mack will be present.
Three additional screenings of TOUCHED are planned:
Sunday March 9 at 12:20 (film only);
Friday April 11 at 8pm (filmmaker and Dr. Mack expected); and
Wednesday April 16 at 6pm (filmmaker and Dr. Mack expected).
For advance tickets and for more information visit blinddogfilms.com
WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT: ECOPSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE
The Center's Ecopsychology Institute is offering a workshop on Ecological Consciousness: Exploring our Connections within the Earth Community, on Friday, January 31, 2003. In this day-long experiential workshop, we will introduce principles of ecopsychology and methods that connect human consciousness and identity with the earth as living system. The setting will be the Showa Boston Institute. For information
Click to read more
SUPPORT CHANGE - AND IMPROVE YOUR SELF
New Book of Interest:
The Psychology of Terrorism (available as a set of four volumes, or individually).
Outstanding academics, clinicians and activists worldwide contributed to this new multi-volume, peer-reviewed set edited by Chris E. Stout, previously an advisor to the White House and representative to the United Nations. Authors in this unprecedented collaboration include scholars from Harvard University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Disaster Mental Health Institute, as well as National University of Colombia, Comprehensive Medical Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the Maagalim Institute of Psycotherapy and Counseling in Tel-Aviv. Volume One includes a chapter by John E. Mack, M.D.
Click to read more
THE JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY & SOCIAL CHANGE
The Center's online Journal features contributions from some of the leading experts in the fields of psychology, spirituality and social change. Submissions are welcomed. The latest articles include:
Deceptive Memory
by Reinarto Hadipriono
Man has never had and will never have to undergo "the past," "the present" and "the future." As Albert Einstein once said, "Time does not exist. The only 'time' that exists is an eternal moment of Now."
Click to read more
For Life in the Trees
by John Brandenburg, Ph.D., and Monica Rix Paxson
A meditation on trees in the context of our ongoing assault on Earth's atmosphere, excerpted from Dead Mars, Dying Earth.
Click to read more
Visit our website's community discussion area: www.centerchange.org
SEND CROSSROADS TO A FRIEND (OR YOURSELF):
Crossroads is sent once per month. To add or delete a name to our mailing list, please send your request to info@centerchange.org
About the Center for Psychology & Social Change
Founded in 1982 by Harvard professor of psychiatry John E. Mack, M.D., the Center runs programs in a wide variety of areas, such as ecopsychology, spirituality and health, therapeutic counseling and extraordinary experience research. The Center's efforts are designed to invite a new way of looking at the world that could lead to sustainable, equitable, and peaceful ways of living.
If the links in this email are not working properly due to variations in service from internet mail services, the online version of this newsletter with fully functional links is available at the Center's wesite, www.centerchange.org
To suggest items for future issues of Crossroads, please email the editor at info@centerchange.org.
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