In the rarefied ufological subculture, insiders talk about certain nervous breakdowns suffered by self proclaimed experts in extraterrestrial live, cosmic civilizations, cover ups, disclosures and similar fantasies.
In a previous post we described what is called cognitive
dissonance.
The internal conflict and eventual breakdown happens when
the individual perceives logical contradictions between what he truly believes
and what he says. His public discourse becomes self-denial.
Imagine what happens inside the mind of an intelligent,
perhaps academic individual who makes a living selling nonsense and fantasies
as facts. The big problem here is that he KNOWS this.
Picture the
permanent ethical and intellectual crisis of a man or woman who knows that he/she
is living in a fantastic world which has little to do with reality. This cruel
contradiction isolates the victim not only from society, but sometimes from his
own family.
Paradoxically, the insane believes in his fantasies while
the dissonant doesn’t. His personal, private convictions are denied when he
writes, talks or debate with those who are right, those who confidentially
think like him.
Our hypothetic dissonant asks for disclosure knowing that
there is nothing to disclose. He describes the extraterrestrial visitors
knowing that there are no ET visitors, or talks about alien bases in Mars or
the Moon, knowing that there are not such bases. His life becomes a conscious,
professional lie.
When the cognitive dissonance situation becomes
unbearable, our “ET-Paranormal researcher” can go into insanity or into a total
cynicism. The positive outcome would be a courageous give up and consequent recognition
of what he already knows is the real world.
