"The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan

Review by Don Mitchell

The Demon-Haunted World was the first book I read after losing my faith in the Mormon church, and it has had a profound effect upon my post-Mormon world-view. Sagan does a great job in this book of exposing myth, superstition, and pseudo-science for what they are, while examining what makes these faulty methods so appealing to so many people in today's world.

Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark"

I was particularly fascinated with Sagan's discussion of a 1954 book called The Fifty Minute Hour. Sagan explains that the author of that book, a psychoanalyst named Robert Lindner, had been asked to treat a brilliant young nuclear scientist whose delusional system was beginning to interfere with his secret government research. The physicist (given the pseudonym Kirk Allen) claimed that, in the far future, he had piloted interstellar spacecraft. He entertained the psychoanalyst with detailed stories of his adventures on other worlds. In fact, Allen had written over 12,000 pages (!) on his experiences in the future, including dozens of technical treatises on the geography, politics, architecture, astronomy, geology, life-forms, genealogy, and ecology of these other planets. Allen was not shy about presenting his writings to Lindner or discussing them in detail.

During the treatment, an amazing thing happened: The psychoanalyst Lindner found himself drawn ever deeper into Allen's fantasy world, and he began to reject psychological explanations for Allen's story. He began to wonder if Allen's stories might possibly be true. As Lindner wrote, "At a startlingly rapid rate . . . larger and larger areas of my mind were being taken over by the fantasy . . . With Kirk's puzzled assistance I was taking part in cosmic adventures, sharing the exhilaration of the sweeping extravaganza he had plotted."

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken."
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, page 241

Eventually, however, an even more amazing thing occurred: Out of concern for the well-being of his therapist, Kirk Allen confessed to having made the whole thing up. Therapist and patient had briefly switched places. Sagan asks the important questions, "What if the physicist hadn't confessed? Might Lindner have convinced himself, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it really was possible to slip into a more romantic era? Would he have said he started out as a skeptic, but was convinced by the sheer weight of the evidence? . . . After a few similar cases, would Lindner have impatiently resisted all arguments of the "Be reasonable, Bob" variety, and deduced he was penetrating some new level of reality?"

As a former Mormon, I think I know the answers. Former Mormons will be able to immediately recognize the fascinating similarities between Joseph Smith's stories of ancient America and Kirk Allen's stories of an interplanetary future. Of course, believing Mormons will see no similarity whatsoever. The major difference in the two situations, of course, is that Joseph Smith unfortunately never confessed to his scam. Therefore, unlike Lindner, who was able to regain his grasp on reality through Allen's confession, millions of Mormons are left without such a lifeline. They continue to this day believing that Smith's fanciful tales of ancient America somehow reflect what really happened at that time and place. They are not at all troubled by the lack of archaeological evidence or by the numerous anachronisms found in Smith's work. They readily dismiss anyone who asks them to "be reasonable" as being deceived by Satan (or is that deceived by "Sagan"?!). I know the mindset, for it was not that long ago that it was my own.

Sagan pulls no punches as he attacks the popular myths of our day: UFOs and alien abductions, faith healing, crop circles, channeling, telepathy, séances, the notion of an afterlife, astrology, imagined life on the Moon or Mars, and many other topics are addressed thoroughly and convincingly.

I highly recommend this book. It is sure to give you pause to think, and leave you better armed to recognize the next pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo that someone tries to foist off on you as reality.