Seeing this on the shelf, you’d probably assume it was a sci-fi novel, but Communion is actually an account of strange experiences that the author, Whitley Strieber, believes to be true. He himself says that he cannot explain what happened to him and doesn’t want to assign any specific interpretation to the events that he describes… but it’s all very much in line with the classic UFO abduction scenario that many of us will already be familiar with.
I have to admit, I went in not expecting very much. Sure, I was curious, but online and in documentaries and so forth, I’ve come across accounts from people who claim to have encountered aliens and they typically all seem kind of ridiculous – not to mentioned laced with delusions of grandeur. What I found disturbing about Strieber’s own accounts, especially those earlier in the book, is that they feel hauntingly realistic. To be fair, he is an author of horror novels, so he just might be particularly good at that, but I certainly get the impression that he’s writing about something that he believes happened. He himself even acknowledges that these could all be hallucinations, but that he believes they happened.
Included between accounts of his experiences are transcripts of hypnosis sessions he has had. In general, I found that these were much less interesting than his written accounts, but I guess he was including the for an increase sense of authenticity. Little bits of them felt kind of creepy too, but ultimately these parts were significantly less interesting to me.
Indeed, by the end, there have been quite a lot of summaries of weird experiences in his life, and while they were all genuinely interesting to read – by the time you’ve read about four or five of them, the creepiness aspect completely wares off. Having said that, he does start to go down a little bit of a philosophical rabbit hole, talking about how we don’t really know anything about anything, and I found that pretty interesting and agreeable.
This book didn’t do anything to change my perspective on whether or not alien abductions are real – it’s still a subject I am enormously sceptical of. Nonetheless, not only is this an interesting and unsettling read, but it also offers pretty fascinating insights into the kind of experiences that people believe themselves to have had, and the impact it can have on they themselves and the people in their life. If that’s the kind of thing that you’re interested in, then it’ll be well worth giving this a read.
Rating: 8/10
