Chapter 8—Max Weber, Charisma, and the Disenchantment of the World

1 Ellenberger, 1964/1968.

The date 1913 was of the original manuscript, see Ephraim Fischoff’s appendix in Weber’s The Sociology of Religion, Boston: Beacon Press, 1964, p. 277.

Weber, 1978, p. 241.

Weber, 1978, p. 1115.

5 Weber, 1978, p. 244.

6 Weber, 1978, p. 1112.

7 Weber, 1978, p. 246.

8 Weber, 1978, p. 244.

Weber, 1978, pp. 1113-1114.

10 Weber, 1978, p. 1113.

11 Weber, 1978, p. 242.

Weber, 1978, p. 1114.

Weber, 1978, p. 400.

Turner defined the liminoid as an attenuated version of the liminal. The liminoid is found in modern Western societies, the liminal in more aboriginal ones. Turner had some difficulty in making the distinction as can be seen in his essay “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual” in his From Ritual to Theatre (1982).

Parsons, 1963/1964, p. xxxii. 16 Weber, 1904-05/1958, p. 105.

17 He adopted the phrase “the disenchantment of the world” from Friedrich Schiller. See H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills, “Bureaucracy and Charisma: A

Philosophy of History” (in Glassman & Swatos, 1986, pp. 11-15, see p. 11.)

Eisenstadt, 1968, p. liv.

For moderate exceptions see “Charisma and Modernity: The Use and Abuse of a Concept” by Joseph Bensman & Michael Givant in Glassman & Swatos (1986), pp. 27-56; McIntosh, 1970.

Davis, 1980, p. 10.

Weber, 1978, p. 401.

Davis, 1980, p. 10.

Davis, 1980, p. 11.

Davis, 1980, p. 299. Other scholars have echoed this theme; see for instance Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America (1990) by historian Page Smith.

Weber, 1978, p. 244.

Davis, 1980, p. 299.

One example is: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross & Norman Levitt, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. This book has been highly praised in the pages of Skeptical Inquirer and the authors have made presentations at a CSICOP conference. Another examples is: The Flight From Science and Reason edited by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, & Martin W. Lewis, New York Academy of Sciences, 1997. A number of CSICOP members contributed to that volume.

Chapter 9—Cultural Change and the Paranormal

1 Wallace, 1956, p. 265.

Wallace, 1956, p. 268.

Wallace, 1956, p. 266.

Wallace, 1956, p. 269.

5 Wallace, 1956, p. 269.

Wallace, 1956, p. 270. Wallace, in keeping with his times, referred to the being as a “wish … gratified in fantasy (subjectively real, of course)” (p. 274). Despite the bias, his description of the revitalization process is quite insightful.

7 Wallace, 1956, p. 273.

8 Ellenberger, 1964/1968.

Wallace, 1956, p. 271.

10 Wallace, 1956, p. 274.

11 Wallace, 1956, p. 273.

Wallace, 1956, p. 269.

Even before Farrakhan, leaders of the Nation of Islam believed in the importance of flying saucers. See An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad by Claude Andrew Clegg III (1997).

Unusual Personal Experiences, 1992.

15 Zha & McConnell, 1991.

See Rossman, 1979.

17 Turner, 1969, p. 112.

18 Hartmann, 1991, p. 121.

Raschke, 1981/1989, p. 30.

Here I am considering loss of status on a sociological level (i.e., loss of national pride). Parallels are found at the level of the individual person. Donald Warren (1970) of the University of Michigan analyzed some Gallup poll data and found that among adult white males, those with status inconsistency were more likely than average to report seeing a UFO. Status inconsistency refers to a marked difference between a person’s actual social rank and that which might be expected. For instance, an individual with relatively low income and high education would be considered status inconsistent, as would a person with high achievement and low education (e.g., Thomas Edison). Warren also noted that the status of women is lower than that of men, and they were twice as likely as men to have seen a

UFO.

Paranoia is one of the most prominent characteristics of the UFO phenomenon. In fact, it was Kottmeyer who most effectively brought this to my attention. When I first read his 1989 paper “Ufology Considered as an Evolving System of Paranoia,” I vigorously objected, but after becoming more familiar with ufology, I was forced to admit that he had made an important point. I cannot completely agree with his interpretation of the UFO-paranoia connection, but he

has unquestionably identified a central issue.

Zeidman, 1979.

Schuessler & O’Herin, 1993.

Schuessler, 1982.

Chapter 10—Prominent “Psychics”