I have to say that the more I see of the Rodwell video Alex put put up the more irritated I am by Rodwell's presumption that what she says and displays should be taken as gospel. I don't know if that's her intent, but I am bugged by claims that such and such is so, despite no supporting evidence.
I don't think that Rodwell is talking crap but I do get those who think she is. Performing to believers is one thing. Talking to a critically skeptical audience is another. Is there that other video? Let's see that.
A quick check of YouTube shows that Rodwell has a ton of stuff that has no doubt about her beliefs. How reliable? This is evidently a business for Rodwell. We must always have a healthy skepticism when people claim to be in possession of objective knowledge in a narrowly specialised domain make open and confident declarations about their schtick. Its how con artists operate.
I am not saying Mary is a con artist. I am saying the 'burden of proof' on her is legitimately strong. This isn't a case of saying extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I just want to see ordinary evidence. I am completely sympathetic to Rodwell, but, as an experiencer, I want her to demonstrate that she is legit.
IMO, She is worse than a deluded fraud. She's dangerous in that she's implanting ideas in the minds of children and adults who may be suffering from mental health issues. Take this exchange, for example:
Mary:...I ask the client to dialogue with “them,” i.e. the ET’s, and ask “them” what, and why, the procedure was being performed. The answers would amaze you.
Tony: So your clients can dialogue retrospectively? This is very interesting if true, as it would tie in with quantum theory’s ideas of the non-linearity of time.
Mary: For sure. I was very surprised when my first client was able to do this, as it seemed that the information came from either a “deep inner awareness,” or as you say a way of tapping into quantum. I am still trying to unravel how this may happen in terms of science. All I know is that they seem to tap into answers for their questions when working in the altered state, whether this comes from a higher consciousness which some call the higher self, or the ET beings have left the information to be tapped into when needed.
It is very unethical to promote the idea that troubled clients are human alien hybrids with all kinds of special attributes and abilities and challenges. If a therapist wants to explore, say, "past lives" or "ET contact" with a patient as metaphor,
with the expressed caveat that it is metaphor, then there could be some value there
if the patient has a persistent history of insisting that his/her issues stem from such sources. You
do not confirm for the patient that it's all objectively real and then go public with a mythological structure as if it is fact to attract more troubled people to your paradigm. That is being a cult leader and the consequences for the cult members will be the same as they always are.
I mean this is reckless and insane and I'm shocked that Skeptiko goes so far as to buy into it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised given Skeptiko's lack of standards of evidence for various conspiracy theories, but this situation really crosses a line. There's no evidence here at all to support what Rodwell is selling and it is fairly apparent to me that Rodwell is implanting suggestions into the psychologically vulnerable. That is not ok. She's a new age version of Dr. Mengele or just a different twist on MK Ultra. In other words, another phony guru cult leader seeking self aggrandizement and money.
Rodwell says that Melania Trump is sometimes a clone. She says that the government clones humans and downloads the consciousness of the original human into the clone. Right there with Icke's lizard people. Ah yep, nothing hinky about Rodwell. All sounds reasonable to me.
As for the argument that something must be going here because so many people are reporting it; I find it to be unconvincing. IMO, some people are truly experiencing something, but most are just mentally unstable. Borderline personality types, schizoids, psychopaths all report BS for reasons unfathomable to normal people. I witnessed one case (my first job out of grad school as a risk management leader for a psychiatric hospital) wherein a borderline personality claimed to have swallowed razor blades. There were even x-rays that showed the razor blades in his digestive track. Each day he'd be x-ray'ed and each day the razor blades had moved further down. The doctors were concerned about injury when the blades reached the colon. I doubted the whole story even though I had seen the x-rays. Common sense told me that the patient's throat would have been slashed open, as would have been his intestines. I theorized that if he swallowed the blades, he must have taped them heavily. The tape wouldn't show clearly on the x-ray. But I also figured he would have choked on the blades with the tape. Then it dawned on me....that day, when he was about to be taken to the x-ray room I had the doctors stop him and lift the back of his shirt (or maybe it was his gown - can't recall exactly). Sure enough. There were razor blades (which he shouldn't have on the unit, btw) taped to his back. Common sense is a valuable commodity when dealing with humans.
In the discussion from a 2013 Skeptiko interview with Rodwell, someone posted a video of Rodwell and her son interviewing a man who claimed to have been raped by an alien, in his sleep, who had very milky white skin. He claimed that two pubic hairs had been imbedded in the head of his penis as a result and that he had them analyzed and they were from a rare type of human with low pigmentation levels. Ok. So not an alien. Rodwell skips right past that little detail. But why would the hairs be imbedded in his penis? Makes no sense. However, borderlines are often cutting themselves and imbedding objects under the skin and then later making claims about them. Seen that too. IMO, this guy saw or knew a woman that matches the description, obtained a couple pubic hairs and worked at getting them imbedded in the head of his penis. Then he tells his story. It's so typical.
I also recall all the borderlines who had claimed to be victims of satanic cults when that was a thing. It was right there in their lengthy medical records. Years later they were claiming other events to explain their pathology. Yes, sometimes alien abduction.
25% of the population has a persistent mental disorder and are on medication for it (I know this for sure because I'm in the insurance data). 25% of the people are pretty stupid and can't understand themselves or the world very well. That's a fact of the bell curve. Just because people repeat stories means nothing. You have to know the history of these people.
Don't worry. I'm done. I won't do an emperor's new clothes on the forum discussion of the interview. Have fun, but my estimation of Skeptiko's seriousness has permanently dropped several levels.