John E. Mack, M.D.
(October 4, 1929 - September 27, 2004)

John Edward Mack, M.D. (October 4, 1929 - Sep 27, 2004) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree from the Harvard Medical School (Cum Laude, 1955) after undergraduate study at Oberlin (Phi Beta Kappa, 1951). He was a graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and was Board certified in child and adult psychoanalysis.

     Dr Mack's efforts to bridge psychiatry and spirituality was compared by The New York Times to that of former Harvard professor William James. Dr Mack advocated that Western culture requires a shift away from a purely materialist worldview – which he believed was largely responsible for the Cold War, the global ecological crisis, ethnonationalism and regional conflict – towards a transpersonal worldview which could embrace some elements of Eastern spiritual and philosophical traditions which hold that we are all connected to one another.

     He researched how this sense of “connection” developed with difficulty across different cultures, including Britain and the Middle East – winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1977 for A Prince of Our Disorder, his biography of British officer T. E. Lawrence (who became known as “Lawrence of Arabia”). He interviewed political leaders and citizens of the then-Soviet Union and Israel/Palestine in the study of ethno-national conflict and the nuclear arms race. His early clinical work included explorations of dreams, nightmares and adolescent suicide.

     The theme of “connection” to other life was explored most boldly in his study of men and women who reported that recurrent “alien encounter” experiences had affected the way they regarded the world, including a heightened sense of spirituality and environmental concern. Mack's interest in the transformational aspects of these extraordinary experiences, and his suggestion that the experience may be more spiritual than physical in nature – yet nonetheless real – was largely reported in the media as a simple endorsement of the reality of alien encounters.

     In 1994 the Dean of Harvard Medical School infamously appointed a committee of peers to review Mack's clinical care and clinical investigation of the people who had shared their alien encounters with him (some of their cases were written of in Mack's 1994 book Abduction). After fourteen months of inquiry, amid growing concern from the academic community regarding the validity of an investigation of a tenured professor, Harvard issued a statement stating that the Dean had “reaffirmed Dr. Mack's academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment,” concluding “Dr. Mack remains a member in good standing of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine.”

     Mack's explorations broadened into the general consideration of the merits of an expanded notion of reality, one which allows for experiences that may not fit the Western materialist paradigm, yet deeply affect people's lives. Mack's final published book, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters (1999), was as much a philosophical treatise connecting the themes of spirituality and modern worldviews as it was the culmination of his work with “experiencers” of alien encounters.

     Dr. Mack passed away at the age of 74 in London, England.

Trivia:

Mack is a student of Grof Holotropic Breathwork, a meditative technique developed by Stanislav Grof.

Mack's life and work was documented in the film Touched by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Laurel Chiten.

About the Author (older bio, with T.E. Lawrence emphasis)

Dr. John Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Hospital, worked for 12 years on his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence. His research led him - on a camel - to the fabled Gulf of Aqaba; aboard the British rails to Oxford and its Bodleian Library; and through the winding, cobbled lanes of Delvin, County Westmeath in Ireland and to Tremadoc in Wales, where “Lawrence of Arabia” was born.
     In the text, Dr. Mack humanely and objectively explores the relationship between Lawrence's inner life and his historically significant actions. Extensive interviews, far-flung correspondence, access to War Office dispatches and unpublished letters provide the basis for Mack's sensitive investigation of the psychiatric dimensions of Lawrence's personality. In addition, Mack examines the pertinent history, politics, and sociology of the time in order to weigh the real forces with which Lawrence contended and which impinged upon him.
     Dr. Mack, a practicing psychoanalyst, has written many books that explore how one's perceptions of the world shape relationships with one another and determine how we view ourselves; most recently the chapter “Looking Beyond Terrorism: Transcending the Mind of Enmity” included in The Psychology of Terrorism, edited by Chris E. Stout. His earlier works include Nightmares and Human Conflict, and Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters.
     He is the founder (1983) of the Center for Psychology & Social Change, which bridged psychiatric and spiritual worldviews in an effort to find peaceful and productive ways of living. The organization was renamed in 2004 in his honor as the John E Mack Institute.
     Dr. Mack received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School (Cum Laude) after undergraduate study at Oberlin (Phi Beta Kappa). He was a graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and was Board certified in child and adult psychoanalysis with over 40 years of clinical psychiatric education and experience.

About the Author (older bio, with alien encounter emphasis)

     John E. Mack, M.D., is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. He is the founder of the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Hospital.
     Dr. Mack earned his medical degree at the Harvard Medical School (Cum Laude) after undergraduate study at Oberlin (Phi Beta Kappa). He is a graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and is Board certified in child and adult psychoanalysis with over 40 years of clinical psychiatric education and experience. He continues to teach trainees in psychiatry.
     Dr. Mack has devoted his career to exploring the question of how our perceptions shape our relationship with each other and with the world. He addressed this issue of “worldview” on the individual level in his early clinical explorations of dreams, nightmares and teen suicide, and in his biographical study of the life of T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in biography in 1977. He has sought out the psychological roots of collective experiences such as the Cold War, the global ecological crisis, ethnonationalism and regional conflict. Dr. Mack testified before Congress in 1983 on the psychological impact of the nuclear arms race on children, and was arrested at the U.S. government's nuclear weapons test site in Nevada.
     The Center for Psychology & Social Change was founded by Dr. Mack in 1983, and was renamed in 2004 in his honor as the John E Mack Institute. Its projects apply psychology to the process of healing and reshaping relationships in the social, ecological, political and spiritual realms. The Institute's work is designed to promote shifts in consciousness and behavior that invite sustainable, equitable, and peaceful ways of living.
     In 1992, Dr. Mack co-chaired the Abduction Study Conference held at MIT, a landmark scientific assembly on alien encounters. In 1993, Dr. Mack founded the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER) to formalize his explorations in this area. Dr. Mack and his colleagues at PEER worked with over 200 individuals from six continents who have experienced encounters with unknown intelligences. Dr. Mack's research into this controversial subject focused on the consideration of the merits of an expanded notion of reality, one which allows for experiences that may not fit the Western materialist paradigm, yet deeply affect people's lives.
     Through collaborations and meetings with clinicians, “experiencers”, psychologists, epidemiologists, historians, physicians, philosophers, anthropologists, physicists, theologians, and political scientists, Dr. Mack has encouraged members of different disciplines to bring their talents to this exploration.
     Dr. Mack is the author or co-author of eleven books, including A Prince of Our Disorder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Abduction, and Nightmares and Human Conflict. The culmination of his research into experiencers, Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters was publisned in November 1999. He has written more than one hundred and fifty scholarly articles.