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Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety Hardcover – September 21, 1999

by Wendy Kaminer (Author)

39 customer reviews

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In Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, Wendy Kaminer argues that we are a society intoxicated by the irrational: religion, spirituality, and popular therapies threaten to replace rational thought with supernaturalism and impassioned but unexamined personal testimony. Ranging from our fascination with angels, aliens, and near- death experiences to the rise of junk science, the recovery movement, and the digital culture, Kaminer points out the amusing and ominous effects of our deference to spiritual authorities and resistance to critical thinking. She questions conventional wisdom about the association of religious belief with virtue, identifying the sectarianism of efforts to establish religion in the public square. With both wit and empathy, Kaminer takes on what many people hold sacred.

Kaminer is an eloquent and incisive critic and rationalist living in a superstitious, evangelical age. In Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials she challenges us to exercise skepticism, reason, and irreverence and to appreciate the pleasures of free inquiry.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"It's easy to imagine a TV sitcom making fun of a character who visits psychics and astrologers and channels Sarah Bernhardt," opines Wendy Kaminer, "but virtually impossible to imagine it laughing at anyone who takes the Bible literally and believes that someone named Jonah once lived in a whale." She goes on to demonstrate that, despite the complaints from many religious people that the "secular media" mocks their beliefs, American culture still shows a high degree of respect for the faithful and pious, while popular hostility towards atheists continues to rise. But "why should it be socially acceptable to make fun of psychics and not priests?" That's one of many provocative questions Kaminer raises in Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials, a critical assessment of the extent to which U.S. society has succumbed to the irrational.

Kaminer goes on to sift her way through pop spirituality "classics" like The Celestine Prophecy and Conversations with God and visits seminars by New Age gurus (leaving her "amused and dismayed by the painful stupidities that people embrace to ease their fears of death"), but Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials is not merely an assault on religion--Kaminer also attacks purveyors of junk science, the influence of the recovered-memory movement on both feminism and the American court system, and the "cyberspacy" claims made by boosters of technological progress. Whether she's considering the extensive belief in UFOs and alien abductions or wondering why so many people worshipped Princess Diana in the hour of her death, Kaminer shows how an unrestrained culture of faith "encourages passivity, gullibility, and a childlike craving for authority." Rationalists will find her skepticism a refreshing tonic. --Ron Hogan

From Publishers Weekly

In this provocative collection of eight essays, social critic Kaminer grapples with the many manifestations of "irrationalism"Abelieving in something without material proofAin contemporary culture. The targets for her witty, unsparing critiques range from the New Age spiritualism of Deepak Chopra and The Celestine Prophecy, contemporary angel lore and accounts of alien abduction to the recovered memory movement, from school vouchers to the "junk science" basis for the "war on drugs." Kaminer makes clear that she is not criticizing the personal beliefs of individuals (and admits that she herself believes in the benefits of homeopathy, contrary to most scientific opinion), but rather is concerned with "the possible public consequence" of such beliefs, especially when held by a dominant or influential group in the body politic. With unrelenting logic and easy grace, Kaminer poses questions that may upset many readers. For instance, she asks why Americans were dumbfounded by the suicides of the Heaven's Gate "cult" members who presumed they would go to heaven in a flying saucer, when only a few weeks later millions of people celebrated the "irrational" belief in "Christ's ascent into heaven." Kaminer is most entertaining when debunking commonly held pieties, such as when she contends that we often ignore that organized religins "sanctify bad behavior, along with the good." Behind her cool prose and entertainingly casual manner loom important and necessary questions about what it means to live in a democracy based on justice and reason. Agent, Esther Newberg, ICM. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Pantheon; First Edition edition (September 21, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 067944243X
ISBN-13: 978-0679442431
Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 39 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,224,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8087 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Modern
- #17948 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > United States
- #32235 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Occult & Paranormal

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Mark Newbold

Cool reason vs. Overheated imagination

April 29, 2003

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Hate the title, loved the book. Every young person in the world should have this book placed in their hands as a coming of age gift, before the "world" of belief systems both secular and religious deadens their minds to free inquiry. As Wordsworth expressed, sometimes, "the world is too much with us". But let us hope that is a world of reason and not one of false imaginings that diminish us as human beings.
As a freethinker, I have attempted to test the process of reductionsim when it comes to the inherent benefits religious belief systems have provided to humanity since the first glimmerings of a need to understand the world around us, emerged in the human species. I have in my final analysis always found those belief sytems wanting and humanity none the better for their infliction upon us. Thank you Wendy for enunciating more eloquently and humorously these views better than anyone I can recall in recent memory. Even with her homeopathic confession...
If you're tired of being intellectually embarrassed by your faith in "whatever", here's the antidote for nagging religious constipation. If you're a recovering theist, and still have that urge for a little something, check out Deism, you'll be glad you did. But my god, (pun intended) do something about that title!

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Bucherwurm

The Perils Of Being A Rational Agnostic

May 29, 2000

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Ms Kaminer becomes a bit strident and her humor a bit tart because as an intellectual, agnostic fellow at Radcliffe she has become deeply concerned about some of her fellow Americans' belief systems. While understandable that 95% of the populace believes in God, it is disconcerting to the rational skeptic that over 90% believe in angels; 66% endorse ESP; 50% see value in psychic healing; 40% endorse astrology; and 25% subscribe to beliefs in reincarnation and channeling. By the same token, in another survey, 71% of those interviewed felt that atheists should not be allowed use of an auditorium to give a speech against God or religion. Freedom of religion means simply that you must believe in religion or your views not only don't count, they should be suppressed.
Today if you believe in rational thinking you are viewed as someone who is not evolved. WK states that we have forsaken logic to view sincerity as adequate evidence to establish truth. Ubiquity of belief also seems sufficient to establish truth. She refers to one book, Ask Your Angels, that asserts that the frequent references to angels in our culture constitutes definite evidence of their existence. She cringes at the unquestioning acceptance given to authoritative statements of modern gurus. At one conference an angel expert was queried about the speed at which angels travel. The response was that angels travel at the speed of light. No one in the audience questioned his response. No one asked where he obtained that information (My own personal theory -if forced to come up with one- would be that angels would not be part of the space/time continuum, and thus their movements from point A to point B would be instantaneous).
The author feels that people gravitate to pop spirituality movements because they do not understand or trust science, and the gurus give them a way of ordering their lives that is not intellectually challenging. Strangely, however, while their followers steer clear of the complex laws of science, they buy books that lay out strictly ordered formulas for living happy lives. Ms Kaminer spends some time on junk science, criticizing those like Deepak Chopra who, in meaningless ways, appropriate the language of quantum physics.
A lot of her wrath issues forth in a chapter on the recovery movement. She details the damage done by the repressed memory therapists. During the heyday of dredging up false memories of abuse 70% of people surveyed by Redbook had actually come to believe in the widespread existence of satanic cults. Her other main essay deals with cyberspace and its strengths and weaknesses as a medium of exchange of ideas.
You may not agree with all that Ms Kaminer has to say, but she makes many points worthy of consideration. Yes, she is an agnostic, but if there is room in this country for the thoughts of Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Marianne Williamson, surely we can examine the views of one Ivy League intellectual without succumbing to a fit of apoplexy.

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Lee G

Vitally important, regardless of your point of view

April 23, 2000

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

As someone who thinks that the greatest threat we face is the abandonment of critical thinking, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Written in the same vein as Tainted Truth, Cynthia Crossen's towering paean to irrationalism in the media, and similar works, Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials is a courageous indictment of all manner of muddleheaded and downright fraudulent conviction that robs us of our ability to separate fact from harmful fiction. The reason I use the term "courageous" is that Ms. Kaminer tackles religion head-on, something most other commentators on rationalism have been reluctant to do. Unabashedly atheistic, she calmly dissects traditional religious beliefs and demonstrates the many fallacies underlying their foundation. Interestingly, even while this book will undoubtedly evoke bitter denunciations from the faithful, believers will find much food for thought here, because the authors arguments are useful in separating what's truly important in religious belief from the superfluous trappings that have obscured it.

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