
Description
Over the course of a six-year ethnographic study, D.W. Pasulka interviewed successful and influential scientists, professionals, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who believe in extraterrestrial intelligence, thereby disproving the common misconception that only fringe members of society believe in UFOs. She argues that widespread belief in aliens is due to a number of factors including their ubiquity in modern media like The X-Files, which can influence memory, and the believability lent to that media by the search for planets that might support life. American Cosmic explores the intriguing question of how people interpret unexplainable experiences, and argues that the media is replacing religion as a cultural authority that offers believers answers about non-human intelligent life.
Product Details
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publish Date | February 20, 2019 |
Pages | 288 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9780190692889 |
Dimensions | 8.3 X 5.8 X 1.2 inches | 0.9 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"From a solid base of scholarship Dr. Pasulka introduces us to the players at the frontier of biological and physical research. Her sharp insight is drawn from her research into spiritual phenomena, updated by her travels from the purported UFO crash sites of New Mexico to the archives of the Vatican. The result is a timely introduction to the revelations in our collective future." -- Jacques F. Vallée, author of Wonders in the Sky
"UFOs are a remarkable phenomenon that both believers and skeptics initially have a hard time connecting to religion. American Cosmic is a vivid and even moving account of the way this strange world works as a kind of sacred mystery for those within it." -- T.M. Luhrmann, author of When God Talks Back
"[Pasulka] approaches UFO believers with an open mind in her irresistible debut . . . lively character sketches bring the story to life . . . Pasulka gives wonderful, entertaining insight into the curious study of UFOs." -- Publishers Weekly
"Pasulka makes a reasonable case that the spirits, angels, divine messengers, manifestations of God, aliens or their spaceships that humans have been reporting since the dawn of history are too numerous to be entirely delusional, so they deserve serious investigation." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A thought-provoking book about religion today." -- Booklist"American Cosmic is a superb investigation into the birth and rise of a new religion." -- Foreword Reviews"The book as a whole is a highly sensitive, and erudite." -- Paradigm Explorer"D.W. Pasulka's American Cosmic has all the trappings of a sober ethnographic study of unidentified flying objects. Its organizing thesis holds that belief in the existence of shapeshifting extraterrestrial visitors can be understood as an emergent religion, offering communion with a higher power, reassurance of universal interconnectedness, and a simplifying explanation for a chaotic world." -- Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review
Earn by promoting books