Unseen Aspects of Behaviour

INTRODUCTION

2008-08-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Some ideas have been milling round in my head for a long, long time. If I had a Ph.D type mind and the time, perhaps I would have done things that-a-way.

It always seemed to me that what we regard as orthodox or acceptable ways of examining or explaining human behaviour don't actually do the job too well. They can be good hypotheses but isn't there something else? I thought so 30 years ago with my new psychology degree, and I think so now with many more books under my belt and Internet access besides.

I used to fancy being a hacker getting into libraries and books all over the place but thankfully don't have to - it's much easier to find all-sorts now and so much good stuff and hard work 'up there'. So where does one start in this welter of information, word-processing for anyone with a computer, and instant publishing available for free?

In the early 80's I wondered whether photography would be able to show the same sorts of phenomena that clairvoyants describe. I wasn't sure whether clairvoyants tended to see roughly the same sort of things in the same setting, or what. Somehow I came into contact via letter with Cyril Permutt who wrote 'Photographing the Spirit World' and 'Beyond the Spectrum'. I passed his letter with a rather fine signature at the bottom to a friend called Leslie who saw extra things in people's photos which they felt were significant. Many many times he did this.

Leslie took one look at Cyril Permutt's signature and 'saw things' which he described to me. I forwarded his comments on and received an enthusiastic reply from Mr Permutt, who exchanged correspondence with Leslie for quite a while, often sending him photos for comments and insights. I remember writing a puzzled letter to Mr Permutt saying I didn't know how Leslie's gifts worked although he did seem to need time to tune in to people and take things from there. There's a thing called cold reading which is effective but not the same phenomenon - that is more like reading body language, watching pupils of the eyes and so on.

Mr Permutt replied along the lines that clairvoyance was as much due to 'association of ideas' as it was to do with actually seeing pictures in the mind. That comment has come to my mind over the years in a number of settings. Psychoanalysis apparently works on free association and linking things, whatever else may (or may not) be involved. I can't help feeling that when we get an intuition about someone we are with, it's often along the lines of association of ideas in some form.

There's something called a Meissner field which apparently has implications for hypnosis in that the person undergoing hypnosis may pick up what is expected within the mental framework or belief system of the hypnotist. My view is that this happens more than just in that setting. Some people naturally seem to project outwards towards other people. Some may aim for it deliberately. How much individuals pick up of that probably depends on their susceptibility and/or how firm their own beliefs or needs are.

I came across a book by Ormond McGill called 'Secrets of Stage Mindreading' which really is worth a read! He outlines what seems to be a form of self-hypnosis by which he persuaded himself he could read other people's minds (rather than cues or trickery in stage magic), and also 'noisy telepathy' or Yogi mental broadcasting. He says 'A group or crowd with similar interest/purpose is very susceptible to telepathy'.

And then there came a book called 'Hungry Ghosts' by Joe Fisher, a psychic researcher who feels he got his fingers burned by his beliefs.

Beliefs that come and go

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This not only applies to individuals who are free to change their minds or they should be! It can be a natural process within the individual; it can be natural within a small or large grouping, even national; it can be projected via advertising; a communication could be inadvertent yet effective; or it could be informed and deliberately designed.

Some comments on social engineering or pretexting, con tricks and scams are on the first page of Norman's Toukanalia Blog on 'Out-of-Character Behaviour' - now pasted in further down this Blog for reference.

To return here is http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com

People differ about hypnosis and what it can or cannot do. For instance it is usually said that people can't be made to do things that would be in conflict with their usual behaviour or belief system. Clearly the way round that would be to change the belief system. That doesn't necessarily have to be under hypnosis, but more in the ordinary way of things with the type of impression management or propaganda used.

NLP or neuro-linguistic-programming also gets a mixed reaction in people. There are plenty of books on how it can be used ethically as a part of therapy, and plenty more on how to get underneath a person's usual barriers with advertising or confidence tricks, or by just being smart. One book I'll mention briefly is 'Never be Lied to Again' by David J. Lieberman. He is suggesting that one sets up what's called an anchor to reinforce people telling you the truth, i.e. you don't get lied to again... This isn't quite the same thing as subliminal messages in supermarkets which encourage shoppers to buy more or to discourage them from shoplifting, but they are connected.

Then there's something called a 'convincer' which can be an object, an idea, a piece of information or disinformation, with the aim that a person is more likely to follow a belief or instruction if there is something to hook it on. Ever watched a stage magician and listened to the actual wording too? I spent a virtual fortune of £120 on a set of CDs about it. Clever, expensive, and how did I get talked - or talk myself - into that?

Project Middle Ground was started in America by Dr Paul Simpson, a therapist who wrote 'Second Thoughts: Understanding the false memory crisis and how it could affect you'. Perhaps Dr Simpson's approach of working with families involved in the controversy is not directly applicable in the UK, but that does not mean there may not be an alternative approach to suit our culture.

Various academics at UK universities have written papers about bridging what might seem an impossible divide. Sadly people tend to fight a particular corner, but Dr Simpson showed that it is possible to try for a middle ground, with some considerable effect. Several books shedding light on how some misunderstandings could have arisen have been written in America since 1995. It seems a pity to let all of that, plus what has been achieved in the UK, remain unattended for the most part.

http://www.youtube.com/user/middlegroundable

More information at http://middlegroundable.blogspot.com

A Singular Yarn - A tale with a difference about ritual abuse
Written for
- those who wonder whether ritual abuse is ever real
- some who wonder if their therapist really helps

Symbols, realities, the unseen

2008-08-22T08:51:00.001-07:00

We may not believe in clairvoyance or clairsentience ourselves, but many people admit to a few instances in their lives when something tipped them off to potential danger, an event involving someone close, or something like that. Sometimes when joggling along on a bus or train thinking nothing in particular, an image pops into my head which I'm sure is not mine. Once I felt a chap opposite me was boring a hole in my calf with his eyes. I got off at the next station and ran to another carriage! Another time, in a peaceful frame of mind on a nice sunny day I felt suddenly panicked and squeamish and clutched my bag over my stomach. When the chap next to me got off I looked closely and saw nothing but an ordinary young man in smart casual clothes. I've no idea why there was that reaction in me. Another time I sat next to a woman and felt incredibly depressed which vanished as soon as she left.

To return to the INTRODUCTION where I mentioned photography and phenomena that appear on some photos or only to people with heightened abilities, I think the old plate-type method of capturing images was advantageous, but digital methods along with enhancement techniques in readily available software probably work well.

What ran through my mind was that areas of the spectrum like ultra-violet or infra-red might show things that most of us can't see. Having known a number of people who seemed consistently psychically sensitive, I realise they don't all get similar impressions or symbols, unless there is something like a group-mind phenomenon, or something is perhaps closer to the physical realm, or there is some other variable.

It seems certain symbols, constructs or psychological constellations, occur idiosyncratically to people, and their train of thought takes them towards something they interpret in ways that may be meaningful to others. Some people can be accurate for a significant percentage, then go off on some sidetrack which proves meaningless or just wrong.

The reason for listing some books written by those who are better writers than I am and experienced in their field, is so that you can follow up anything mentioned. I do not have the time or inclination to attempt explaining all sides of arguments, or to claim to be doing so then coming to roost on one side of some fence. I don't ask people to believe everything here but I do feel some of the points are valid.

Years ago I got hold of books written by Dion Fortune and was fascinated by her claim that sensitives can see or pick up complexes or aspects that people shut off from themselves. She said these dissociated parts could take on independent life of their own. To see or sense those would be a lovely time-saving way to carry out counselling or therapy, I thought, and what if you could photograph them? (This subject is mentioned in 'Healing Approaches' towards the end of the Blog, more specifically in connection with Pranic Healing and Pranic Psychotherapy.)

Another concept is that of auras or chakras, and we may be picking up on those in some way even though not seeing or believing in them. They may be the mechanics of how we become affected by others, how we affect other people, and even how we could be affecting ourselves. It's complex so here is a link to a talk by Phoebe Bendit at the Theosophical Society in London in 1953: http://www.theosophical.ca/SacredFlame.htm She was married to Dr L.J. Bendit a psychiatrist with knowledge of Jungian and depth psychology. In her talk she comments on unrecognised parts of ourselves with an autonomous life of their own.

You may prefer a different framework such as Chinese or Ayurvedic Medicine, but there are many common themes.

Although I became somewhat disenchanted with some of her approach, Dion Fortune wrote a classic book about psychic attack and methods of defence, which caught my attention because of experiences I had while moving around different work-places and environments, particularly where another person was not acknowledging a problem for them. I am not psychic but quite empathic. She describes problem areas, or attack, as taking the line of least resistance, the more sensitive people being first to be affected. It's like a circuit: remove the most sensitive person or the 'weakest link' and the next most sensitive is likely to suffer. Make of it what you will or find useful, but basically if you feel someone is putting psychological or psychic pressure on you, find a mental strategy to fend it off. Or wear leather round your waist, or on the feet, hands etc.

Before I close I'd like to mention a point relating to Asperger's Syndrome which is often described as being at the less extreme end of a continuum of Autism. I don't know, and don't wish to offend anyone here but it may help someone. I knew someone with Asperger's for a long time till it became apparent she suffers problems with psychic flashes or visions when meeting people. When I followed this up it seems this sometimes goes along with other aspects of Asperger's. I feel this type of experience of my friend has quite a lot to do with psychic sensitivity, or not being able to filter out as much as most of us do naturally.

Dr Arthur Guirdham wrote similarly about his own psychic sensitivity and many of the other things he writes on seem to fit. There will be more on these areas under 'Possession approaches', 'Influence approaches', 'Spiritual approaches'.

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John Keel writes on UFO's and other phenomena, and see his writing on the Mothman for ideas about people's fears or expectations affecting their experience

'Unseen Beings: Unseen Worlds' by Tom Dongo gets into a variety of scenarios, some of which you may find far-fetched

See quantum physics relating to observer effects on experiments

See 'Natural Symbols' by Mary Douglas, an anthropologist

See 'Daimonic Reality: Understanding Otherworld Encounters' by Patrick Harpur
As far as I recall the author suggests people tend to see or experience things in terms of their frame of reference and expectation. There's a similar concept in a book by some psychic researchers who experienced entities appearing along the lines of what they'd been seeking in the first place. Some crop circle researchers have tried to influence future designs or make contact with other levels in this way.

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Shamanism

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Nowadays people are more familiar with this concept which was used in the field of psychic research or Anthropology but was not so much in general usage.

In the so-called Western world we tend to think in linear fashion for want of a better description. Something either is or it is not. It either did or did not happen. That makes for scrutiny and analysis but not any 'space-between', the different ways things get experienced where it's hard to tell any more than that. If we say something happened and someone else says 'It can't have because ...' they may make a valid point. The danger of an overly analytic or sceptical approach is it can generalise to a claim that something never happens at all if there is any doubt or an alternative explanation. Truth can be relative, in the eye of the beholder or experiencer. Psychological experiments testing people's observations are well-known for showing how inaccurate the process is, and people in a group setting often experience a group event very differently.

A divide or split in arguments can happen around any subject, and people may use this to distance themselves or deny something they prefer not to think possible. Therefore they claim it could not happen, or it does but only in specific situations, or only if people aren't smart enough to avoid them. And so on.

So there tend to be beliefs and counter-beliefs with maybe a few 'space-between' theories. It also depends on whom one wants to be accepted by, a reference person or group, or a mental construct of such. If the reference person or group is not accepting, there may be counter-claims of beliefs or a backlash, for instance my reality against yours or vice versa. These can also be orchestrated by someone with a vested interest, or just happen naturally.

To get back to Shamanism as a general concept, more has been learned about psychoactive substances taken as part of ritual or practice to expand awareness, see visions, contact other types of being, or experience different planes or realities. It's 'acceptable' now because many people have heard of it, tried it for themselves, or know of someone who has, and it is written up in plenty of research.

There's a concept similar to astral projection or astral travel where people may be able to commune with others in some way although their physical body doesn't budge. This is what witches in medieval times were said to achieve by smearing on fly agaric or ingesting something. And there's a word 'entheogen' describing the 'space-between' realities that people may be aiming for in seeking experiences.

On the next page (click Older Posts to the right at the bottom) are a couple of sections I'll briefly mention so you know what to expect. They deal with ritual abuse which is a difficult subject in more ways than one. The first section is entitled 'Ritual abuse' and has a trigger warning. The second section is entitled 'Urban legend and ritual abuse' which should not be taken to imply that I think ritual abuse is just a myth or urban legend. Read either or both of those sections if you want to. I feel they link to this post on the subject of 'Shamanism' and also to the one on 'Symbols, realities, the unseen'.

Other postings about Ritual Abuse or SRA, and Cults have been inserted further on.

Ritual abuse - see the trigger warning

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Trigger warning for the subject of ritual abuse and rituals mentioned below on this page and in articles on the following two whole pages.

This is not intended to upset anyone, it is not comprehensive, and you may not agree with what is written. It continues into the next sections and pages.

If you feel uncomfortable with the material, there is a list of other articles at the top righthand side of each page, or you can go to another website that you like.

...

With experiencers of ritual abuse, sometimes they may actually attend rituals but it's too hard to prove to anyone. Other times they could be being accessed to attend in a mental or astral sense, and are not likely to be believed anyway.

Other times they could be hypnotised in the usual way, or maybe they go somewhere following a post-hypnotic suggestion given earlier. They might act on a psychological trigger or association from an email or phone call, which sends them into an altered state of consciousness like floating and which sounds like descriptions of astral projection. The person might just leave their home and get collected and taken somewhere. There are various possibilities, again hard to prove.

There's a similarity between the term 'altered state' and 'alter state', the latter term being used in connection with different ego states, alter personalities, dissociation, DID (dissociative identity disorder), MPD (multiple personality disorder). See also Dissociation or DID which has now been posted on this blogsite as well as at Toukanalia.

Clearly it is difficult to pin things down but these are important concepts with far-reaching implications, i.e. that someone with knowledge of triggers and association can switch people in and out of alter/altered states, or into dissociation. Some of those alter states or ego's may be religious in an orthodox sense, some may be quite the opposite, some are likely to remember certain things while others are unaware or in denial. One of the issues concerning ritual abuse relates to whether people are actually remembering from the past, or some other process is paramount. As implied above, people may still be attending rituals in one persona or state, while the rest remain unaware or know a little about it. And if this is happening to them, it isn't memories from way back that we're talking about.

All or any of these aspects can be used to confuse not only those involved, but also people working to understand and help. If you're not happy with concepts like astral projection, they are just a way of describing things that are meaningful to some people but not to others. Sometimes an experiencer of ritual abuse describes an event in some detail, subsequently saying it was a dream (this could be a natural defence mechanism or one instilled into them). Other times they get a waking-dream or vision, which could be a form of psychological access, or something suggested beforehand which now comes into play.

You may not consider remote psychological or psychic access possible and I won't go into it here: There are plenty of books and references on remote viewing or mental influencing. An interesting book from over thirty years ago 'Experiments in Distant Influence' by L.L. Vasiliev describes hypnosis at a distance. See also experiments conducted by Dr Rupert Sheldrake on the phenomenon of sensing that one is being stared at, and on morphogenetic fields.

The point about Shamanism is that people tend to accept that shamans 'visit' or experience in other ways from mundane consensus or conscious reality, whether due to ingestion of plant substances, the trauma of initiation, or a different basic way of life.

You may not feel comfortable that people might act on triggers or associations, because that would imply an unknown or scarey area. There is some consensus that hypnosis is a meaningful term, and that post-hypnotic suggestion works sometimes. Ask hypnotists about rapid induction techniques - they probably know a few even if they don't use them. Or ask about 'convincers' which can be an actual physical object, or something they say to convince people that something is true or likely, which then can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And remember that advertising is probably used so much because it works.

All of the comments on this Blog, and particularly in this section and the next one below on 'Urban Legend and Ritual Abuse' are intended to open up discussion on things that a lot of people don't believe in. They may not have come across it, or it is too hard or confusing, or maybe they read something by someone that persuaded them against it or encouraged scepticism or disbelief.

I feel we should be taking the stance that 'If this phenomenon happens, surely we should take note'. One of the inherent problems is that someone may be accused rightly or wrongly, taking things into a different arena.

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'May 33rd'

Pasted below is text from a BBC press release about a drama shown in Spring 2004 called 'May 33rd' by Guy Hibbert

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/02_february/19/may_33rd.shtml

19.02.04

TV DRAMA

May 33rd - a film by Guy Hibbert for BBC ONE

In Guy Hibbert's film May 33rd, Lia Williams stars as Ella, a young woman whose disturbing and tortured upbringing forces her into a living nightmare.

The film is an exploration of the consequences of repeated ritual abuse as seen through the eyes of a young woman whose personality has fragmented into five different people.

A fictional drama based on extensive research, May 33rd follows Guy Hibbert's previous film No Child Of Mine, a true story about child prostitution and abuse, supported by child protection agencies, which caused much controversy when it was screened in 1996.

It is directed by David Attwood (Fidel!) and produced by Hilary Bevan Jones (State of Play) for BBC ONE.

While trying to escape her family - a small group of relatives and their friends who have abused her since childhood - Ella visits an osteopath to relieve the pains in her body.

When Edward (Soren Byder) applies pressure to certain parts of Ella's body, it triggers her into different personalities.

Through Ella and her other identities the drama explores the chilling and shocking condition Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, which is a condition associated with ritual abuse.

Writer Guy Hibbert says: "Five years after writing No Child Of Mine, I learnt of the condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder and the real life cases of young women from all over the UK who had suffered from it as a result of ritual abuse.

"The research led me to professionals working in this field and the victims of this horrific cruelty."

He continues: "One of my reasons for writing this drama is to encourage a greater understanding of both the condition of Dissociative Identity Disorder and its causes.

"Through my research I discovered that because these causes are so cruel, society prefers to disbelieve the victims because it cannot cope with the truth."

Producer Hilary Bevan Jones says: "This story describes a personal nightmare. As Ella herself says, 'It's like living in a world that doesn't exist in anyone else's world, like it's May 33rd or something and everyone else is in the real day'."

Jane Tranter, Controller of Drama Commissioning, says: "May 33rd is a bold and subtle exploration of a condition that affects many women in the UK yet remains shrouded in mystery and fear.

"It follows dramas such as Care, Out Of Control and England Expects – risky films which examine contemporary issues in an uncompromising way."

May 33rd is an Endor production for BBC ONE. The executive producers are Guy Hibbert and Julie Gardner, Head of Drama, BBC Wales.

Notes to Editors

Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.

Dissociative disorders are often referred to as a highly creative survival technique because they allow individuals enduring 'hopeless' circumstances to preserve some areas of healthy functioning.

Over time, however, with a child who has been repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted, defensive dissociation becomes reinforced and conditioned.

Repeated dissociation may result in a series of separate entities, or mental states, which may eventually take on identities of their own. These entities may become the internal 'personality states' of a DID system.

For more information about dissociative disorders, visit the Sidran Foundation website - www.sidran.org.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

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End quote
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Urban legend and ritual abuse

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As well as the concept of urban myth or legends you may have come across the notion of folk devils or moral panics, where analysis and research appear to indicate that what people accept as reality or the cause of something, is due to other factors of a sociological or anthropological kind. This work is clearly important because it's easy to fall into a belief system that we actually know something whereas it is something we have come to believe.

Some people attempt to track the path of beliefs or trends in a similar way to the approach of aetiology in ascertaining the development and spread of disease, and it can make fascinating reading! But like any 'scientific' method, much depends on the information being processed and what is not taken into sufficient consideration. Again this can be a natural process, or it can be engineered by people with a vested interest, financial or otherwise, or it can be part of a denial system - perhaps because it is simply too hard to believe, or it's inconvenient to try to fit it into other parts of our belief. There is a dissonance and we'd have to change other beliefs we hold dear.

Then there's 'splitting' which is a concept used in psychoanalysis to describe a developmental stage, or it can describe a process where for instance a group splits in its opinions or behaviour. This can be a natural process as part of the group's development or process, or it seems that one or more individuals act as a catalyst and set things off. Here's a tip from a group course I did where I raised this issue because it was on my mind: To get the situation into a non-splitting one, move things into a more introspective ('depressive') mode so that people accept more responsibility for themselves and take others into consideration; then you can get people really angry at you - and move things on.

The point of mentioning this is also to draw in the fact that our political and legal systems are largely adversarial with expertise and rhetoric, propaganda and denials along the way. What can happen then is a split on a large scale.

What we believe will naturally hinge on the sort of people we are, the sort of individual experiences, and the setting or situation now. We also need to take into consideration beliefs that are around at the time, and beliefs that are being projected. This can happen with literally anything.

Here I am touching on urban legends or myths and what are sometimes called moral panics, and more particularly on ritual abuse and what is said about it. I'm not going to call it satanic ritual abuse or SRA. To my mind it's XRA for extreme ritual abuse. For whatever reason, a belief system, an addictive need, a paraphilia, sadism, a fetish or what-have-you, some people engage in practices designed for their own needs. That means other people get induced or forced into activities they either don't want or can't avoid. And that means there's a power-thing going on.

More problems arise with a wider airing, and people tend to take up positions to try to fit everything into one category or another:

It did happen (because I believe the survivor or expert)
It didn't happen in case 'A' so throw out all cases (i.e. a claim that it never happens)
It happens but only as part of pornography, sadism, paraphilia

And so on. You get the drift.

I have a 'what if' kind of mind and take that into consideration when making up my mind, because I know how easy it is to follow a train of thought up blind alleys. I'll mention some useful books in passing here and continue below:

'Out of Darkness: Exploring Satanism & Ritual Abuse' by David K. Sakheim & Susan E. Devine

'Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right' by Sara Diamond

'Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social & Political Considerations' editors Randy Noblitt & Pamela Perskin Noblitt

'The Secret World of Cults: Inside the Sects that Take Over Lives' by Jean Ritchie (Chapter 12)

'The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse Beyond Disbelief' by Sara Scott

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Continuing here:

Writing in 1991 around the beginning of the 'satanism scare' Jean Ritchie, mentioned above, gave an excellent outline of the rise of interest in the phenomenon - and the ensuing likely backlash of disbelief.

'Out of Darkness' contains a selection of writings looking at various aspects of this phenomenon, and you could read the first two chapers 'The History of Satanic Religions' by Martin Katchen, and 'Satanic Beliefs and Practices' by Martin Katchen & David Sakheim.

Chapter 3 is' Alternative Hypotheses Regarding Claims of Satanic Cult Activity: A Critical Analysis' by George B. Greaves

Also by Martin Katchen is a chapter in 'Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-First Century' entitled 'Interrelated Moral Panics & Counter-panics: the Cult Brainwashing Panic and the False Memory/Ritual Abuse Moral Panic' which is a summary of social history and movements, beliefs and systems.

See too a book by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins 'Misunderstanding Cults' dealing with differing attitudes towards the phenomenon of cults or new religious movements/NRM's, and hypnosis, brainwashing etc.

Go to the section of this Blog entitled 'Groups, cults, indoctrination, exiting' for some links on cults and groups in general.

Booklist

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Some concepts mentioned in the Blog or that are closely allied are mentioned in the following books. Many subjects are not covered or are just briefly mentioned, more specifically on chakras, healing, shamanism, soul rescue, possession, exorcism, western magic or magick, earth energies, astrology, paranormal/psychic research, and much more. Depending on one’s viewpoint they seem to fit in, but the aim is to simplify without protracted discourse on subjects and approaches which vary widely but with some common threads which may be of use.

‘World of the Spirits’ by David Burnett

‘Folk Devils & Moral Panics’ by Stanley Cohen

‘Subtle Energy’ by Dr William Collinge

‘Subtle Energy’ by John Davidson

‘Out of Darkness’ by David K. Sakheim & Susan E. Devine

‘Unseen Beings – Unseen Worlds’ by Tom Dongo

‘Space, Time & Medicine’ by Larry Dossey

‘BodyMind’ by Ken Dychtwald

‘Hungry Ghosts’ by Joe Fisher

‘Archaeology of the Mind’ by George Frankl

‘The Psychic in Medicine’ by Dr Arthur Guirdham

‘Daimonic Reality’ by Patrick Harpur

‘Portals’ by Lynne Hume

‘The Healing of the Gods’ by Peter Lemesurier

‘Sinister Forces by Peter Levenda

‘Never be Lied to Again’ by David J. Lieberman

‘Body Time’ by Gay Gaer Luce

‘Not All in the Mind’ by Dr Richard Mackarness

‘Secrets of Stage Mindreading’ by Ormond McGill

‘Mysteries of the Hopewell’ by William F. Romain

‘Between the Gates’ by Mark Stavish

‘Shaman, Healer, Sage’ by Alberto Villoldo

More books are listed throughout the Blog, and also under 'Booklist for Healing approaches' near to the end

Reciprocal links

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Middle Ground at http://middleground.20m.com or http://middlegroundable.blogspot.com outlining work by Dr Paul Simpson on mediation and reconciliation, false memories, theories
. . .

Cultwise at http://cultwise.blogspot.com
. . .

'Doc Matrix' at www.docmatrix.me.uk
Site with information linking Cults , Beliefs , Con-tricks/scams , Social & psychological pressures
. . .

HelpLinks for Missing-from-home/runaways ; Human rights & injustice, Discrimination - Disabilities, Mental health; Questionnaires about help
. . .

TANSAL Abuse Links - abuse survivors, domestic violence, bullying, human rights, injustice, at http://www.tansal.org.uk/ includes pages on Human Rights
. . .

Toukanali a - Norman's site on OUT-OF-CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR which includes some of the posts which appear on here and vice versa.
. . .

A Tour of Personality at http://xtrinsic.myblogsite.com
. . .

Magentine Daze at http://magentine.angelfire.com
. . .

Speak of the Devil at http://speakofthedevil.myblogsite.com
. . .

'A Singular Yarn'
- A story with a difference about ritual abuse and confusing therapy
- For those who wonder if ritual abuse is ever really real
- For those who wonder if their therapy really is helping
www.yarntangled.net

The story began with being taken from home - or wherever she was - on days when her children were elsewhere. If she managed to get work, it would allow for attendance at cult meetings when required. Then she was safe for 2 years till it all began again.

People used her ability to dissociate, and apparently implanted some personality alters as a control mechanism, and for reporting back to the cult. The cult needed something from her and the alters. The wonder is that they treated her so badly, but that was all part of their sadistic game-plan.

. . .

To return to Unseen Aspects of Behaviour use http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com

Further on are relevant postings written by some other writers. There are two pages following this one with some information and views about Ritual Abuse and Cults in general. Click on Older Posts.

Groups, cults, indoctrination, exiting

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Please scroll down this page for further articles including -

'Supporting a survivor of cult ritual abuse'
'Dissociation or DID'
'A garden analogy of personality'

More articles appear on previous and following pages
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Groups, cults, indoctrination, exiting
Post by Kaytrin

During life we go through periods of being a part of some grouping, in a family, at work, in the neighbourhood. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not! But we gain knowledge about ourselves and others, and have a tendency to seek situations which offer us something meaningful. Perhaps that is a role we can play, or a general feeling of being accepted.

Without that, we can feel alone in the world, and some groups take advantage of that. They may home in on people, offering what they want to hear, that they will be liked or taken care of, that the group provides answers of a philosophical or religious nature. We won’t be just zizzing around without a clue or a base, because there’ll be someone to act as friend or family.

This can work to mutual advantage. I recently ordered a book written by someone who spent 20 years living in different communal settings, and await that with interest. However, books and advisory centres range in their attitude about particular groups, or on the phenomenon of cults as a general principle and how harmful they are likely to be.

I think it’s good to have an enquiring approach, but recently I came across a book in an Oxfam shop where the author had joined some groups or cults that he found strange, amusing, stupid, awful. He seemingly implied that neither he nor anyone else actually got hurt in the process. How can he know that? That is an interesting phenomenon in itself. It would be interesting to undertake research into how groups such as juries come to a consensus opinion - or not.

If we are on our own in the world, to some extent we can make up our own minds and not get swayed into something different by another person, or in a group setting of a natural or contrived kind. Once we are involved with other people, there has to be some give-and-take or negotiation, and there are likely to be subtle changes that can be built on or further altered, becoming quite profound. Some businesses work on this in terms of team-work, company ethos and so on. It always used to be like that up to a point, but I can’t help thinking it has become more deliberate and invasive. One may find oneself not fitting in – and not being able to do much about it!

Bullying in the workplace (and elsewhere besides) has become an issue to the extent that both the Samaritans and Joseph Rowntree Foundation have prepared information on it. Without harping on about ‘the old days’, perhaps we had more respect for each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and the boundaries surrounding another person’s job, and personal or working space. Perhaps the decrease in physical area around someone’s workstation plays a part in how things have changed. In many places there isn’t even a personal desk with a little drawer one can lock or that no-one would think of going through!

A couple of other observations and I will aim to wrap this up. Firstly, if you’re in a supermarket and there are say 20 other shoppers and trolleys, maybe you don’t cross paths too closely too often. Increase the number to 40 and maybe it’s a bit harder. Increase it to 60 and the shopping process doesn’t work so well. Walk around a small town during a weekday and you might not meet many people. You may recognise some faces and even greet a few. Walk around a large town or city when people are heading to work or leaving, or racing around in their lunch break, and people are much less likely to stand back and smile. It becomes a survival situation – they need their job or to catch a train, and pit their survival against anyone else’s.

So we tend to think we’d rather be in a group than on our own, in this maelstrom of humanity, because there’s safety in numbers plus we’d like some personal recognition. Personal recognition can indeed still come with a job situation, but perhaps less than years ago, and less when job security is so decreased. Perhaps this is why workplace bullying increases, but it seems to have spread wider through society and neighbourhoods. It’s not as cosy and supportive as ‘Coronation Street’, although there’s plenty of that around.

I caught a comment by a psychiatrist on a radio show some years ago. He was of the opinion that his work would be reduced by 80 per cent, if people had another person they could confide in. The fact that Samaritans and other organisations have helped so many people through difficult times in their lives seems to bear this out. Sometimes people ‘go it alone’ either because they need to or have to, but at other times they need contact. They may seek it in a close personal relationship or in more of a group setting.

One of the things about groups is that we like to identify with certain things about them, or some of the people in them, at the same time as needing to retain some of our individuality. Unless that can be negotiated there can be difficulties.

In a cult-type setting, people may find their days mapped out and may be told what to believe, how to behave with their partner – even if that is allowed, children may be cared for by others, and contact with the outside world is restricted. If someone tries to buck the system and do their own thing, pressures are brought to bear on them to conform. If they want to leave, some cults will allow this and some don’t. However one of the main problems is that, living in a situation which is isolating in some way, members may not see the invisible walls around them, and that they even could still access the outside world.

This is why it is important, if you can, to maintain some form of contact with someone you know who has joined a group or cult, so that a part of their reality is that there is someone who knows them and will talk to them. And if the person manages to leave, depending on how they have been affected, it can take several years for their thinking to gradually get back onto other tracks. That process may never completely ‘undo’ all the changes, so one does need to be realistic and do what one can.

Sometimes people have attempted to 'rescue' someone from a cult and forcibly change their attitude and beliefs back. This was called deprogramming and it fell into disrepute, sometimes involving legal battles for kidnap. The term now used is exiting a cult with perhaps the facility of some exit counselling. As is often the way of things though, this has also been called into disrepute by those who say it's just a euphemism for the deprogramming of the past that could be quite a violent process.

Find out what form the exit counselling will take and see what options there may be. It is tempting sometimes to want to extract someone from a group which seems harmful, but it may not be possible or advisable.

Something you could perhaps explore is the concept of what is termed intervention, and this approach sometimes gets used with an addiction or other problem. Family or friends arrange to meet in a neutral setting like a hotel room, and invite the individual to join them, along with a professional who takes control of the interaction. The dynamic seems to be that the individual with the problem is faced with an irrevocable choice: to give up their problematic behaviour, or never to see their family and friends again.

It can be highly emotional, but the tug of family and friends and their promise of continuing support can just swing the balance.

Intervention can also be taken more generally to describe anything which breaks, or might break, into a cycle, pattern, or mode of thought or behaviour. It may be a matter of waiting until the person starts to question for themselves.

Certainly battering your own reality up against theirs is unlikely to be productive, and they have rights about leading their lives as they feel they want. The problems are more that we have known the person when they were very different, or we believe what has happened to them is wrong. 'Someone else' has entered the scene and had a devastating effect so the individual does not seem in control - and may in fact not be in control because 'someone else' or some other 'reality of belief' is.

Some links leading to further information can be found HERE.

Supporting a survivor of cult ritual abuse

2008-08-22T08:43:00.004-07:00

Posted here with permission

Some of the information below may be triggering for survivors of abuse - Perhaps you can get someone to read through it with you

NOTE: These guidelines are simply an attempt to outline some of the issues involved in offering support, so that people can consider them in relation to their own situation involving a survivor of some form of ‘cult ritual abuse’ or ‘mind control’. They are not categoric or comprehensive, and the author/s will accept no claim of any kind regarding them. Each person is deemed to be responsible for themselves and their actions.

For anyone supporting in some way a survivor of ‘cult ritual abuse’ or some form of ‘mind control’, whether or not there is an apparent ‘satanic’ element, only you can tell where/how to draw the line over difficult, changeable, demanding circumstances and behaviour.

If one tends to believe in the validity or possibility of just one-quarter of what the survivor is going through, one may give of oneself until there is hardly anything left. Be careful, because that may be what the perpetrators want, or what the survivor has been conditioned to do - to you or to anyone who tries to help. That conditioning could go back many, many years, or it may be actively encouraged now if the survivor is thought to be revealing ‘cult secrets’.

It is always difficult to know whether or not to involve the Police or other agency in situations which appear to threaten someone’s safety, or would be downright illegal. It seems one of the problems is that people with a tendency to dissociate may find they simply do not remember something when it’s required of them. They may actively deny that something like this could possibly have happened to them, or that they know anything about a particular issue, even when you have their written account or they said they wanted to expose it. They may prefer to categorise a bad experience as if it were really a nightmare or bad dream.

A survivor, who has been somehow traumatised and confused throughout much of their lives may even turn against you, or allege that you are the person who put such ideas into their head in the first place. Another possibility is that the survivor is still, knowingly or unknowingly, in contact with key perpetrator/s, and being given instructions to find your ‘weakest link’ or anything that could be used to denigrate you, or to stop you helping this person or anyone else in need. While desperately needing help and support, some seem also to have an innate information-gathering agenda, about one’s personal life, one’s contacts, organisations one may be involved with, or simply any support person or organisation which could then become a target for cult attention or harassment. They may test the support system, with a view to bringing it – or you – down in some way. They play people and concepts against each other in any way they can, leading to a ‘Heads they win, tails you lose’ situation, or call it a double-bind where you think there’s no crack or cranny even to peep through.

Some survivors have an extremely complex system of sub-personalities or alters, with many and varied needs. This can be very difficult to understand or to deal with. You may find yourself being pulled from pillar to post helping out day after day, only to be told that you have been unavailable to help for days or weeks.

Please bear in mind that survivors, or certain alter parts, may need time away from you, however helpful you have been or could be to them in future. They may even have an overwhelming need at times, to return to the cult or to abusive circumstances or perpetrators. This may feel a much easier option for them. The part of the personality whom you have grown to know, like, and respect for themselves, is not likely to be the only active part of the personality all of the time. (Most human beings are like this to some extent, so it is not exclusive to people who dissociate.) See if you can engage with other parts of the personality of the survivor, however difficult you may find that. You may be able to negotiate to a degree, or to learn information otherwise not available to you. However, I do not suggest that you manipulate the personalities too much. This is what the cults and perpetrators do.

For the most part, the survivor has his/her/their own ways of dealing with things and getting through to live another day. This does not mean you have to put up with any and every behaviour, and you can be quite firm at times; in fact you may need to be. You can ask if certain alters are available or wanting to talk, and you can stipulate that you personally prefer to engage with the survivor or any parts on certain conditions. You can make it up as you go along, negotiating between you where that seems advisable or is possible. The survivor needs to maintain and expand survival skills in the general world, as well as their own.

Cults may encourage self-harm or suicide in members or ex-members. This means that the survivor is not necessarily acting of their own free-will if they feel the need to harm themselves, but more as a response to some social or specific psychological conditioning. Cults seem to want the survivor to solve things for them, by ‘dropping out of life’ altogether (which one could actually look at as a remote form of murder). An alternative is for the survivor to be institutionalised in a mental hospital, or involved in some way in the mental health system. In that way, the cult can claim that the person is mentally unstable, probably always has been, and that therefore (by inference) anything the survivor says is due to his/her instability or ‘psychosis’. If people take this line with you over anyone, watch out for possible hidden agendas.

Bear in mind that situations are very fluid, and cults or perpetrators can change their plan of action, so that whatever theory or basis one is working on may become invalidated overnight. They may be in contact with part/s of your survivor’s psychological system, giving them instructions to do something such as harming themselves, or they may instruct the survivor that whenever a supporter says ‘No’ to them, it will feel like a physical stab to their heart. Instructions can be induced or reinforced via a complex triggering system of association of ideas, often appearing in emails or via ordinary mail, or a brief telephone message with perhaps just a tone or some clicks.

If you sense any kind of threat to yourself personally, make sure that someone else knows about it, and convey to the survivor that you are no real threat to the cult or any individuals involved. If you are contacted by cult members, keep all copies of communications between you, plus a note of dates and circumstances. This will help you to keep track of the dynamics and work on options to follow. Some cult members may even try to flatter or befriend you, or else behave as if they are a member of some support organisation for survivors.

Cult organisers or perpetrators can and do make mistakes, and you may be able to demonstrate this with a little thought and note-taking. At least you will know what happened - for your own peace of mind, and for how best to proceed with or on behalf of a survivor of such types of experience.

. . . . .

Note: You may have arrived on this part of the Blog from another site so the following may help to find your way around. There are 10 pages here, each with 4 articles. The first 4 pages consist of an Introduction and lead-in to subjects relating to ritual abuse on the next 3 pages:

Pages following those are from Toukanalia which is on the subject of 'Out-of-Character Behaviour' full Blog at http://toukanalia.blogspot.com

. . . . .

Dissociation or DID

2008-08-22T08:43:00.003-07:00

Post by Kaytrin

I wanted to add a few ideas in here because they seem relevant. Norman who writes on 'Out-of Character Behaviour' here, mentions a book by Adam Crabtree entitled 'Multiple Man' which I won't go into in detail but the full title is 'Multiple Man: Explorations in Possession and Multiple Personality'. It was published in paperback in 1988 by Grafton Books but you may be able to pick up a copy.

Whether one feels there is any validity to the concept of possession, or of multiple personality (which now gets called DID indicating dissociation) the author makes an interesting point about his experiences taking groups through a technique called Psychodrama where people act out different roles in a scene. He found that, not only did people with little acting ability or inclination often do well at it, but they managed with little information on the personality and role they were asked to play.

He says (p.337) 'There seems to be within people a natural ability to take on a personality other than their own and to act from within that assumed personality. They appear to actually become that personality and to some extent, leave their own personality behind. The English word which most closely expresses this phenomenon is 'personation'. My experience with psychodrama shows me that human beings may be said to have the innate capacity to 'personate', to take on full-blown personalities and act from within them.'

He goes on to describe personality as a tool (p.339) concluding 'I think there is reason to believe that the whole of man's emotional life is centred around the invention and utilization of those tools that we call 'personalities'.'

Psychosynthesis and various broadly similar approaches use working with parts of the personality, or subpersonalities, perhaps giving each one a name and looking at how useful or otherwise they are for our overall functioning.

Another theme which could have relevance is the concept of the 'shadow', or darker side of ourselves which we may be disinclined to acknowledge - but which others can sometimes see perhaps because of their own acknowledged or unacknowledged parts. It's a strange old world and that includes humans!

I think it's fair to say though that most of us, much of the time, have some idea what happened in our lives this week, last week, this year, last year, going further back with some chain of connection. For people who tend to dissociate to a significant degree as part of their psychological make-up, it doesn't happen that way, and they may literally be unaware of things which happened while they were in quite a different state of mind.

I've known people who are naturally like that anyway, but it can happen too if they have been through bad experiences that they need to keep mostly shut away, or if someone encouraged or forced them to be like that. It can make it hard to plan things properly if they don't remember a bad outcome to something and take steps to avoid it again. And it can be hard for those around them if they don't know enough of the circumstances to understand.

It would be inappropriate of me not to say that I have doubts about some of the therapeutic approaches used with people who have been severely traumatised. No-one can know all the answers for each situation, and care needs to be taken so that a process which is aimed at helping someone does not cause unnecessary problems - for them, for you, for others close to the situation. If we take on board Adam Crabtree's work mentioned above on Psychodrama, and work undertaken on 'confabulation' we need to be careful that expectations or some other factors don't come into play as being factual, which doesn't mean people are deliberate liars either!

Often we can only get nearer to the truth without having a bias, and it does damage to vulnerable people to impose a bias on them in any direction, and whether it is subconsciously passing from us to them, or is somehow more tangible.

On this Blog you can also read 'Supporting a survivor of cult ritual abuse' if you feel that is relevant. On a similar theme is 'A garden analogy of personality' which I feel has relevance for the way ordinary people we know can change, or appear to change. Certainly I have known people who became quite different over the years, as if some parts or modes fell away for a time and others came to the fore. Perhaps that is due to specific events or circumstances, perhaps due to chemical changes in the brain, or perhaps we do indeed use personality modes as vital 'tools' to get us through.

- - - - -

Note: You may have arrived on this part of the Blog from another site so the following may help to find your way around. There are 10 pages here, each with 4 articles. The first 4 pages consist of an Introduction and lead-in to subjects relating to ritual abuse on the next 3 pages:

Pages following those are from Toukanalia which is on the subject of 'Out-of-Character Behaviour' full Blog at http://toukanalia.blogspot.com
. . . . .

A garden analogy of personality

2008-08-22T08:43:00.001-07:00

Posted here with the author's permission

It seems to me that higher cult members regard the cult as their territory, and each cult member as a small garden for them to manipulate or harvest in some way according to some overall plan. Picture a garden with some indigenous plants, personae, of one person. Decide which ones you want to nurture, cut back, dig up, and which ones you actually want to implant. You have an overall garden plan, which needs to be adaptable to how plants develop, and outside circumstances such as the weather, the neighbouring gardens and their influence. In any garden, some plants tend to grow and obscure or kill other plants. You work with what you have according to what you want to achieve. It becomes ‘yours’.

One could also use an analogy of a house. It was built in a certain way, different inhabitants altering it, with the concept that they own it and it is an extension of themselves with some character of its own. The colours and shapes and utilities in the rooms are set to complement the owner and purpose of the room, and how the owner wants to present to themselves, and to others who may visit.

Another useful concept is that of the family or tribe or nation. Fred West said that he owned his children so he could do what he wanted with them. Many cultures have a strong sense of extended family and behave in an adaptive and congenial way towards each other’s needs. I believe in Ireland the culture exists that one not only belongs to a family but is owned by it. Nations have certain national identities and traits which may come into conflict with other nations for any real or inferred reason. The English system of manors and farm-workers meant that during the First World War, the lord of the manor could feel he had the right to enlist the men ‘under him’ to war because they were his to command. The concept of the feudal system is also relevant here.

According to theories of Jung, psychosynthesis, parts therapy and others, we all have several personae or alters, partly influenced by the social or other circumstances at the time, how we feel, or which someone else can evoke in us. Cults build on all these to suit their own purposes, also using psycho-analytic theory, not to help people, but to control them, and behavioural techniques such as positive and negative reinforcement.

To return to the garden concept, imagine it has a wall around it with a gate, although probably places where someone can enter the garden and have their way with it. This is how most of us are, with a general concept of personal boundaries and free will where possible. Cults have a very different notion, that the person belongs more to them than to themselves as individuals, and that members must follow the cult’s will both overall, and of the specific moment. One could also use the analogy of communist culture where the individual is said to exist for the purpose of the state, rather than the state being there to assist them.

Being in contact with a cult member can be like any other interaction up to a point. One forms a relationship with a particular part or parts of the personality, and regards them as being the main ‘owners’ there. When other parts surface with different ways and needs, we do what we can with those too, but obviously there can be conflicts where it is hard to know what is appropriate overall. Cults induce and encourage conflicts to suit their purposes.

So the garden gets modified, certain personae come and go or remain dormant, some are cut back perhaps to allow others to grow or spread, or because there is too much of them to suit the purpose. Some plants will seed themselves naturally, and some will be deliberately planted. Some get weeded out although may re-seed themselves somewhere. Some personae may be grafted onto others. Some get totally extinguished. If the cult decide to extinguish the main persona or personae, eventually there is nothing substantial left of the original person, i.e. it is totally theirs, the cult’s.

I think the cult get into difficulties when links are forged with people who are not cult-oriented, such as in therapy or a friendship or partnership. The cult does all it can to break that link, and it may be that they cannot use the ‘garden’ as their own and actually harvest it, or whatever it is that they do.

Note from Cilla
The following page contains some further posts on Cults and Ritual Abuse/ SRA - click on Older Posts

Social dynamics of cult or satanic ritual abuse

2008-08-22T08:42:00.001-07:00

On this page are some personal observations about experiences of some people involved in ‘satanic’ cults. Some comments may apply to cults or groups more generally. There are other posts on here around this general subject.

If you have followed a link from another site the home page for the Introduction etc. is http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com

'A Singular Yarn'
- A story with a difference about ritual abuse and confusing therapy
- For those who wonder if ritual abuse is ever really real
- For those who wonder if their therapy really is helping
http://tansal.50megs.com/mediation/thread

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

At the risk of sounding like a cheap novel with witches on broomsticks or a Dennis Wheatley yarn, things got worse after she had stormed out of her therapist's office demanding to know what had happened. How much connection there was with the cult remained to be seen when things settled. What happened through her involvement with this therapist seemed specific to the prevailing cultic situation, and there were other aspects, not all included or known to me.

Go to Book Two
Go to Book Three

A different path

Posted here with the author's permission

I tried to get glimpses of the thinking behind cult ritual abuse and ‘satanism’ as well as other cult-like groups, where these seem to impinge/take over the life of those involved. If one chooses a so-called left-hand-path of development in a selfish way, that is one thing. To cause pain to others, emotional suffering and confusion, ruination and even death, was altogether something else. I looked at sadism and narcissism, Voodoo and anything else, and joined email groups of people proudly calling themselves satanists and joking about their attitude and practices.

For whatever reason, I like to satisfy myself that someone really does have a choice in their decisions and actions. Because, if someone else is calling the shots through bullying, intimidation, violence, seduction, involvement in drug-taking, then something needs doing. That is what our basic legal system and human rights are about, the right to freewill and action, at least in theory.

People who have trouble controlling themselves and their lives, may seek to control others via any means whatever. If they don’t believe in reincarnation, spirits of ancestors, or the concept of returning to our source, they may be out for anything they can get in this lifetime at the expense of other people. They could be robbing people of their worldly goods and living off the proceeds. Or they could be syphoning off their physical time and energies in some way, not so much to obliterate, but more to use.

I hope nothing like this ever happens to you, but if it does, there are also books on how to protect yourself psychically, just as you would put locks on your doors and windows to keep people out of your house, or at least deter them. Just because you don’t believe these things happen, that no-one would do them or it wouldn’t work if they tried, doesn’t mean that other people don’t believe, or would put their intentions or their very souls into giving you a bumpy ride.

Most of us are similar in that once we were children and not so strong as the adults around us, and not having awareness of options for later in our lives. Perhaps this is one reason why children gang together in the playground, or as adults we join things or get drawn into things, either with friends or by seeking out people to be with in a pairing relationship or group. Safety in numbers, no longer small, alone and not being listened to or able to fight back.

Suppose now, if you will, a society or subculture which makes it their business in some way to control their own children, children of others, weaker members, and gain continuity of their beliefs and practices in that way. There’s nothing unusual about this when it happens naturally via families and their practices, culture and belief systems, or on a wider scale in a region or whole country. Writers such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, B.F. Skinner have written about different ways of controlling society in a wider sense.

Suppose you really do think the end of the world is coming, except certain people only will survive such as you and your descendants or fellow-travellers, and you want to ensure your survival over and above any others. Or suppose that you think you are stuck with this world, and will do your damnedest to maintain your position, economically, socially, or in terms of control. Then one might opt for a system of social and mental control, creating an under-class of vulnerable people who would be expendable or transferable.

The possibilities are endless and I don’t have the whole picture. You only have to witness a stage hypnotism act with genuine post-hypnotic suggestion being acted upon by subjects, to see these things are possible, not just with years of conditioning but just a little, acting on the subconscious of those who are susceptible. Increase the length of time and the indoctrination process, and the more of us could become susceptible very easily!

All these things and more, make me suspicious of those detractors who deny, sometimes vehemently, that there ever can be any kind of ‘satanic’ or cult ritual abuse. We all like to think we are discerning and can winkle out the possible from the impossible, the likely from the unlikely, the appropriate from the inappropriate.

I believe the use of the word ‘satanic’ or ‘satanism’ is a bit of a red herring. There are plenty of satanists who are not involved in cult ritual abuse. Quite why they feel bound to insist that, because they don’t do it, no-one else does, I have no idea. Maybe it’s their idea of an in-joke. I would respect them and their beliefs more if they looked into it properly and were not so emphatic.

Other writers whom I admire for their critical thinking and approach sometimes dismiss this whole subject in a brief paragraph in an otherwise excellent book. That is on their conscience not mine, but it seems a pity they even mentioned the subject. We can surely look further than that.

Themes and underlay – Cults and SRA

Posted here with the author's permission

A common theme in fairy tales is for people to be given the chance of a wish, but there may be a price for it. Aesop’s Fables have a ‘moral of the story’ and literary censorship used to require the baddies suffered for their actions. People have always been fascinated by the tale of Faust who gave up his personal autonomy in exchange for rewards and safeguards, the price he paid!

Many of us watch films about the darker side of human nature, reality TV, soaps or self-revelations, without getting involved in committing those acts, perhaps like a release valve. We may both sympathise and distance ourselves, compartmentalising and filing parts away. Dissociation can work for all of us. Some people use it to help their own mental functioning. Some people utilise it in others - in order to get and to maintain control over them.

We are all mortal, feeling physical or emotional pain, fear, or insecurity about losing our home, income or loved ones. Those in supportive families reinforce each other, or there may be a good community spirit. We may believe or not that we live in an ethical universe, making recompense for our actions in this lifetime or a future one.

A modern writer on esoteric subjects, Dr. Douglas Baker, recommends people do the best they can in this lifetime in their dealings with other people, as a route to improving things for this life – or future lives if one believes in them. Caroline Myss writes about contracts we may have made, and there is a current trend in psychotherapy, after examining our hurts, to take an attitude of forgiveness towards those around us or now departed.

Some people work with ‘higher energies’ in clearing up troublesome areas. If you are interested in this area, there is a book entitled ‘Spirit Releasement Therapy’ by William J. Baldwin giving the underlying principles. There are also books by people termed shamanic healers along broadly similar lines of soul rescue and extraction, and some methods have been adapted for Western readers. If these concepts make you uneasy, just learn about what feels all right for you and take time to heal more naturally.

People in a geographical area may join together for psychological and cultural convenience, believing the cult practices would provide business contacts as well as extra powers. Concepts of group minds, thoughtforms and egregores may come in here, how they can form naturally or by design, and can be manipulated by those with knowledge and intent. Whatever we or ‘they’ believe about angels, demons, rituals and special powers, it is what ‘they’ do that has an effect on others. Just because we do not believe something, does not mean it is impossible or it can’t be experienced somehow. We take in situational cues, and people who engage in ritual put themselves into a certain setting and frame of mind, an altered or ‘alter’ state in which anchors or reinforcement play a part.

A disturbing trend is when people group together against someone who stands out through being older or weaker or just on their own. Some people join something to lessen risk as a kind of insurance or guarantee. The group can sink to a low common denominator, doing things ‘because they can’, i.e. they are strong and likely to reap benefits with no risk. As I wrote this, a newspaper reported on a woman with deformed fingers due to Thalidomide, whose co-workers coerced her into a bowls match - then ridiculed her. This is child playground behaviour at its worst, and children often behave better towards their less fortunate peers, accepting them as they are. A business culture of competition and deception does not foster acceptance and co-operation. Many people are bullied in a work setting beyond what can be described as teasing. See Tim Field’s book ‘Bully in Sight’ or check out website www.bullyoffline.org

People involved in a cult may think they can make themselves immune to responsibility. I believe there is a social structure in place to maintain control. There is research into situational or social psychology, and into cultural reasons for behaviour. Perhaps someone with relevant interest and expertise can study the phenomenon of cult ritual abuse just like they would undertake other social or anthropological studies, but from the outside rather than from within.

There is also the aspect of denial about these subjects, and the fact that people often use alternative reasons or labels does not mean they are not actually happening or that someone else could be behind them.

Each one of us probably has some degree of dark-side, which is what makes us human and able to understand and empathise with others. Some people have more of the dark and less of the light. We are all different, and people have different individual beliefs and purposes in their lives. Societies and cultures develop their own ways to view or handle this. The margin or dividing line may be put in different places on a continuum, or simply considered differently.

Many people watch films or go to the theatre, and deal with deep or dark issues of human nature in that way. Some people are loners in their lives. Some people collect together and act out some of their dark-side or their fantasies ‘for real’. When that involves other people who get hurt or killed, it becomes a human rights issue. Like everything else, we can chose to ignore it, to listen and learn, or try to do something about it.

If most people do not believe something can happen, whether it actually does or not, how would anything get changed? That is what ‘they’, the people involved in perpetrating cult ritual abuse on those further down their pecking order, hope for. If ‘they’ put out enough denial or dis-information in an attempt to brush it under the carpet of awareness, to make anyone feel foolish for speaking out, threaten them in covert or overt ways, or simply make it impossible for them to change things, then ’they’ will do. It’s as old as time itself.

Cult or ‘satanic’ ritual abuse is merely an extreme form of hierarchy or feudal system – not one of physical ownership, but more psychological. One only has to look at the ‘frat’ system in some US colleges, to see how important belonging to a specific group is, and adhering to their ways above all other, and sometimes secretly and subversively. There are sanctions against transgressors.

It could be that human beings, much as animals do, have a system of psychological survival of the fittest. There are those who will naturally (or unnaturally) take a leadership role, and those who are not suited to that, or are not allowed to by ‘the system‘ – whatever system is prevailing or enforced. It is my belief that cult ritual abuse simply takes what works, to keep people in an ‘us and them’ situation, either being at the top end and commanding those lower down, or in terms of in-groups and out-groups. Somewhere deep down, each one of us has needs to belong, and also to remain separate in some way from the rest of society, even from the rest of their group.

In cult ritual abuse there are no options. That is what has been taken away. But why? Perhaps to create a structured society like ‘Brave New World’, 'Nineteen-Eighty-Four', ‘Beyond Freedom & Dignity’, 'Opening Skinner's Box', or ‘Stepford Wives’. The name of the game seems to be compliance by any means that can be fathomed such as conditioning or force, or large components of drugs and hypnosis, so that people’s wills and lives are not their own any more. Some kind of a territorial or moral take-over bid.

I suggest looking in whatever directions you as an individual find suitable in seeking out some useful explanations, because hopefully we are free enough to do that. I found it useful to think in terms of psychological manipulation and control, including societal or cultic influence, voodoo, or whatever other elements seemed to be present. The rewards would be at the top of the tree and punishments at the bottom, with many, many people playing a witting or unwitting part in between, perhaps caught because of a basic need to feed, clothe and house themselves.

We all have ways of trying to maintain some kind of ‘status quo’ in our lives, some of which we may not be too proud of or even accept. If someone were to offer us sufficient real or imagined benefits in terms of money, security, prestige, power/s, legal immunity or whatever, any one of us may get drawn in via something smaller than the tip of an iceberg. And that can lead to a multitude of issues.

One of the problems with cultic situations, is that people are often not able to leave if they wish, or are not even able to see that perhaps they can or should consider it. It takes a very long time to talk things through with people, so that they can realise for themselves, without forcing or lies, what has been happening, how and why.

Most people have faculties in their brains to help with co-ordinating memories and thinking things through. Someone cunning can obliterate or obfuscate awareness or memory so that the subject is unable to avoid other dangerous or fraught situations. For readers who think mental obliteration strategies to get people to forget or be unaware would not work, try books written by stage hypnotists of any repute or look at confusional techniques of NLP or ‘street hypnosis’. Add the dissociation induced by ‘perpetrators of the game’ so that other alters are effectively in place and operational, and perpetrators really think they have it made and can carry out their will with no backlash.

Professionals involved in a situation may not be part of some cult or cover-up, but might be following what they are told or feel is best for a situation. They might close ranks to save a ‘split’ or manipulation, or else they find what someone tells them too far-fetched and assume they are saying them because they are mentally ill.

I learned that vehicles for ‘rounding’ on cult nights went round the neighbourhood collecting people for meetings. Another word was ‘harvesting’ but that could also be used in a different sense regarding gaining energies etc. from them. Survivors may use phrases about ‘getting hurt’ or ‘getting taken’ which obviously can be used in a more usual sense but can be pointers to someone’s continuing involvement.

There are various spiels of denial which get swallowed by intelligent and otherwise discerning audiences. I have the tee-shirt for sitting through them. It is not enough for people to cite similar allegations from down the ages as proof that people are being duped by those who believe they endured or still endure horrific experiences.

I persisted with trying to find out anything I could about the ideology of cults of a ‘satanic’ nature, and how it is that so many people find it impossible to credit their existence. It is a double con-trick because:

1. People belong to the cults often without knowing it, and without being able to do anything about it;
2. Society in general and academics in particular are led to disbelieve it can or does go on.
3. There must be a reason or a belief system behind putting people through the experiences; a reason or reasons for the denials and denigration of those who speak out; and reason/s why the denials have effect.

Clearly there is some ideology, but why the brutality? Why do cult members usually not recall any of these things? Why do they have no choice? Do people with power in the cult have a choice, or what happens if they refuse to play their role? Where in their spiritual development do people make these decisions and vows, and with what consequences for other people?

Cult rituals can happen around any particular saint’s day or other day, concepts taken from Buddhism, Voodoo, or anything that they, the cult, choose, including angels and white light, channelling and any New Age or spiritual philosophy, and members may attend orthodox churches.

Cult meetings vary in size, timing and purpose. Some may happen in smaller more private settings, Drugs, pornography, rape and sadism seem to be the glue binding much of it together, but some people in the cult surely believe in the cult philosophy and practices. I do not think the main reason is to cover for paedophilic groups but it can be relevant, including filming of the sadism, to sell on and for blackmail and control.

No-one has to believe any of this. Not all of these things happen to people involved in ‘satanic’ or other cult ritual activity. I am trying:

* To de-mystify the otherwise unbelievable
* To show these things can happen
* That they are basically an extension of other aspects of human behaviour, however inhuman, crass, ridiculous, stupid, unnecessary, and unbelievable, it may all seem

In many cultures there are practices and beliefs that people outside those cultures write off as different or irrelevant for themselves. Recent TV programmes have shown how strongly people can believe in ideologies and get drawn into practices that, in another frame of mind, they might consider stupid or damaging. For some reason/s we humans often have an innate need to believe in something, or to carry out various types of ritual, mundane or otherwise. Or there is a need to deny what is strange, incomprehensible or abhorrent. We all have our different mind-sets, and polarisation or splitting can happen easily.

Alongside books and websites dealing with cult-like behaviour, social psychology, anthropology and religion, I looked at profiling of violent and sadistic behaviours. The writings of Lacan and Melanie Klein could be useful. Perhaps we are looking at splitting, idealisation and denigration/demonisation, intertwined with complex behavioural conditioning. It might be worth looking at psychodynamics of the Mafia or of extremists where people can be family-oriented, caring and religious, as well as acting aggressively and destructively.

A book recently coming to my attention is ‘Inner Alchemy’ by Taylor Ellwood (publ. 2007 by Megalithica Books). You might draw other conclusions than my swift appraisal, but it seems relevant to some practices and principles involved – which is not to say he is describing ‘satanic’ ritual abuse. People have their own views on whether magic is feasible at all, but many people find the concept meaningful. If ‘it’ works, Ellwood describes some of the ‘how’, the psychodynamics. If we can do that, there would not be such blanket denial that organised ritual abuse cannot happen and that 'it' must be something else altogether.

You are free to consider anything that may be useful - and to discard the rest

More on these themes is at http://tansal.50megs.com/mediation/thread

Not falling for the tagline

Posted here with the author's permission

Many cultures and societies place great emphasis on family history, the ancestors, the family values of parent being passed down to their children in myriad ways both seen and unseen. People often take a pride in these things, but like anything else they can be taken to extremes.

I believe that people should have free will and choices as far possible within normal constraints of general life. People who are at the top end of cults think oppositely. Often people at the bottom end have no idea about the purported ideology at the top, or of hidden agendas belying any public face presented. The main problem is double standards, made more dubious when drugs, hypnosis, altered states of consciousness, chanting practices or indoctrination methods, are utilised to render people unaware of basic things in their lives.

Just because people do not believe in a particular theology or they have no experience of it, does not mean other people do not believe sufficiently to carry out practices you personally cannot envisage existing. You only have to read relevant historical or anthropological accounts to know they have been done and, in some places, still are being carried out.

The line gets drawn for me when people draw the lines for other people’s lives, providing ‘answers’ or ‘rules’, reducing choices, extinguishing the ability to see what choices have been made for them, to be adhered to under threat of punishment, ridicule or death.

People may cite examples of attempts to examine some ritual abuse cases and the tagline is usually that ‘there is no evidence’. Cases may be chosen quite selectively, and there are things we may never get to hear about or have a chance of examining for ourselves.

Please, don’t just fall for the tagline. More is at stake than palpable, universally acceptable evidence. What evidence is totally acceptable to both sides in a court of law, plus to everyone else whose lives are touched by the case?

Someone can usually come up with a different tale to account for things, and that could be a person with a vested interest in standing on a public soapbox of denial, or with a personal need not to believe that something as awful as this could happen, which is a perfectly natural reaction.

Most of us like to feel in some control over our own lives, even if that is a feeling rather than actual reality. It’s like driving a car to a destination, where we may take in various places en route, but are heading somewhere in particular. So if we have various parts of our personality not in accord with that destination, the ride may not be so straightforward, or other parts or alters may have to take a back seat for that trip. Another day, one of those alters may be in more of a real or moral position to take the wheel.

With people who tend to dissociate as a way of handling their lives and its different situations, it can become difficult when there is conflict or confusion. An outside person becoming involved may find it hard to work out what is going on. Our own ‘rules’ for behaviour don’t apply. Some people believe in the concept of integration, but many survivors or people who dissociate, find this inappropriate or even harmful.

How can someone control their own life if someone else is blotting out large chunks deliberately, sometimes adding in other parts which are simply not true, manipulating to portray the insidious purpose that fits the bill? How can people thus manipulated manage to explain to police, other authorities or individuals, what has happened so that it is ‘provable’?

. . . .

Note by Cilla

The following is copied in here with the original author's permission because it makes some useful practical points.

. . . .

Regarding what follows
Anonymous reader

Not all of these things happen to all Survivors

Some of the material may be triggering. It is not meant to upset you

The aim is to show how easy it is for some people to manipulate other people

It is not your fault if things happened to you

If it happened to someone you know, it may help to read about it

Search on the Internet and find books or sites that suit you

Be careful when following up on information or help for yourself or someone you know

. .

My friend whom I will call Lindsey, had not had a carefree childhood playing with children her own age. She always seemed to have been looking after someone else, which transferred to her present situation as a mother to two young children.

She was an apparently ordinary and good mother. But her life was far from ordinary. If I had not been around when she needed to talk, I would not have realised the full extent of what she was trying to cope with.

Lindsey felt she did not cope well at all. I think you will see why she felt like that. None of what happened was her fault. She did everything she could to help her children and anyone else who needed help.

When things got too much for Lindsey, a young part of her personality chatted to me, and I call her Maisie. She was a lively and intelligent young person, and I could imagine her stamping in frustration when I could not understand her.

Lindsey did not have many alters. She dissociated into different alters sometimes, or simply withdrew from our chats for a while. Maisie was the alter who fronted for Lindsey when it was too hard to talk, or she was not sure if I would still help.

An older alter often came through, saying she was just an interpreter of Lindsey's feelings, or if Maisie couldn't explain something. I call her Jasmine. She was rather quaint and formal, and said she didn't know what it was like to be 'human', but when she was stressed she did express her needs.

Then there was a Robot alter. He was a complete opposite to Lindsey and we used to get into arguments during which he revealed some of the cult's secrets. So I got him angry deliberately!

Lindsey herself often did not know what was going on in her life. This was a naturally occurring protective mechanism - that she dissociated away from her difficulties. We are all a bit like it, but not so clearly defined.

When I wondered why Lindsey was not around when we'd arranged, or she could not explain something, it helped having input from young Maisie, interpretations from Jasmine, or the Robot who swore at me and made awful jokes. Robot's function was to make me give up trying to support Lindsey. One day he simply vanished, being replaced by others of his type.

Who was putting these Robot types in place? I believe it was cult-related, an attempt to infiltrate Lindsey's small DID system with a control mechanism to report back to the cult. Robots could send emails to the cult or to other people. They handled straightforward tasks, sometimes involving being very devious. When challenged by argument or logic or a new situation, they couldn't handle it and a new updated version would appear.

Apart from Lindsey, young Maisie, Jasmine and some Robots, there would be occasional adult alters who appeared to carry out a specific role almost like a temporary office worker, cook or cleaner.

There were also some teenage and younger alters who filled in gaps about Lindsey's past. Lindsey did not remember whole areas of her past, some of which seemed relevant to the present. It helped when the cult tried to scare Lindsey or to get her to go somewhere, because the teenagers were not a part of that situation and they could carry on chatting so Lindsay was safe.

Sometimes I encouraged Lindsey or Maisie to take an active step to avoid cult meetings and was told 'It's not Lindsey who goes'. Sometimes it seemed to be the Robot who attended as he played a specific role in what took place.

There were times when Lindsey would visit a friend, or she tried to sleep through attempts to get her to attend meetings such as various sounds being played, triggering emails, or direct threats shouted through her door.

On occasion I believe the cult would have let Lindsey leave it, but other factors came into play, other people involved in the drama and lifestyle who said that she couldn't do that.

The Robots were cult alters, the term Robot or Bot coming from computer jargon.

There was another cult-compliant alter who opened the door to go to meetings. Maisie said that person was like a doormat because she did what she was told. 'Doormat' wanted to know what I was offering because in some strange way the cult offered a feeling of security, despite everything.

Lindsey lived in the same general area most of her life. She knew there was a cult and that it involved ritual abuse. She sensed things about some of the people involved or could recall a detail like a ring someone wore. The cult met well away from habitation. Local people told Lindsey they knew there was a cult but that nothing could be done about it.

She knew little about the cult's ideology so we could not discuss it. It seemed she would have nothing to do with them unless coerced or tricked. Sometimes they tricked her that there was a full moon when there wasn't and she began to check it out for herself.

People like Lindsey have no say in their lives. The fly in the ointment is people like you or me. Cult people can't do entirely what they want if we persist; they may have to change some of their ways. They fear exposure.

They blocked my emails and told me that Lindsey was in hospital, and they told Lindsey I was going to live abroad. A constant theme was that no-one would believe Lindsey because she was confused. I was told that some of the people that we both knew were in the cult were merely part of Lindsey's DID system, created by her.

Young Maisie was tricked into spying on Lindsey and manipulating her in some double-game. But Maisie saw through it and changed allegiance. Lindsey herself could often see through the double-binds imposed, and avoided them without my intervention or with just a little back-up.

The cult can only work with what they have. They don't hold all the cards, however much they cheat and deceive. A number of people in the locality were emotionally supportive towards Lindsey, and she to them. Other things can also work in favour of a survivor.

Lindsey had a period of being relatively cult-free and she gained strength and confidence. The cult then 'reclaimed' her as if she had no rights herself. People like Lindsey are told they don't have any rights, and it is hard for them to believe otherwise.

They are told that bad things happen to them 'because they are bad'. Lindsey and those like her are not 'bad' or 'weak'. Support from others is helpful.

These cults are like an outdated feudal system designed to maintain the 'status quo' of their society. Drugs, blackmail and threats go a long way towards helping them maintain control, as well as providing an income and contact with people who are useful to them.

What is described on these pages is an attempt made by many people to control Lindsey and other vulnerable people. Their aim is to get other people to believe they aren't doing any of it, and make it all seem too ridiculous or impossible.

So it will help if it is discussed more openly and people can see it for what it is, a manipulative system.

If you are reading this and doing your best to keep clear of a similar cult or helping someone else, it may help to see how things happen in everyday terms.

The following are some examples:

Lindsey would not know how she ended up at cult meetings. She would be shopping or at an evening class, and not remember further.

Something might frighten Lindsey, and she was conditioned to go to hospital or to the police. The cult arranged for police cars to drive past her house, upsetting and scaring her.

If Lindsey went to hospital some of the staff there contacted someone from the cult, who came and whispered to her, or took her away for hours despite hospital regulations against it, and which she remembered little about.

The employment Lindsey obtained seemed to be arranged via the cult, leaving her free on cult afternoons or evenings. I might assume she was cult-free, only to hear how she was tired out, with bad bruises and torn clothing.

Much of the conditioning on Lindsey was carried out using hypnosis. It was hard to offset that by talking to her normally. That worked eventually but took some time. I did not feel it appropriate to use hypnosis in return.

Lindsey's children spent part of the week with her husband who was not cult-involved, but this was an arrangement that suited the cult. Sometimes custody days were changed and the cult were not always up-to-date and would turn up when the children were there and leave quickly.

The cult relied on keeping each other informed, dovetailing things so that Lindsey was not clear in her mind. Her clocks and computer date were often changed and she missed appointments. People entered her home and changed her medication so she became confused or hyperactive. Credit cards were applied for in her name with limits too high to manage. Other people spent on those cards and withdrew cash from her bank.

If Lindsey took items to a pawnbroker for cash or because they triggered her, they turned up in her home soon after. When she attended school meetings, her car was entered and triggering material was left inside by someone who knew the effect it would have, someone who had known her a very long time.

Lindsey went through periods of anger towards me or would only give one-word answers. I felt the cult had conditioned her into this. Sometimes an alter explained that it was intended to break our contact.

When Lindsey told hospital staff there was a local cult (something which other women said too) she was told her belief was 'psychotic' and she must retract it or she would not be allowed back home. This is a revealing dynamic with the inference that no-one would believe other things she said either.

The cult went from actively discouraging my involvement, to pressuring Lindsey into contacting me again. Lindsey would then make unrealistic demands on my time and what she wanted. I am satisfied it was not Lindsey making the demands but that they were implanted to throw a spanner in the works. Lindsey was neither demanding nor vindictive, no matter what happened. But she did take things literally.

A main factor in control is inducing fear. Cult members were told their lives were due to end, or the world would end but they would be safe if they went along with the cult. These strategies are used in other cults too, not just ritual or 'satanic' ones..

If someone says they will speak about the cult they are told 'You shall not talk about the cult and live'. If they do speak out, someone tries to ensure they are thought psychotic or too flaky to take seriously.

When I suggested to Lindsey that the cult would make an obvious mistake, she replied 'People who make mistakes pay other people to cover up those mistakes'. I find that lucid, not flaky.

The cult works via power and dis-information, with strategies for every occasion, playing things 'ends to the middle' - what we now call 'spin'. Those lower down are not involved in decisions and strategies. When they attend meetings they cannot see people's faces, or they are in an altered state, unaware of any other 'reality' than that.

Perhaps viewed in that light we can understand it more.

Often there are counter-allegations that such ritual abuse does not happen or is only minimal, and that the ideas must have been planted in people's minds, or they came to believe them when feeling vulnerable.

Such denial or dismissal makes it harder to bear; a double-dose of hardship instead of an atmosphere that helps people to heal and move on in their lives. This all upsets the lives of vulnerable people like Lindsey, making them more confused and vulnerable.

Cult-people probably have their reasons for doing what they do, but it takes up a very great deal of their time, and it also holds them in thrall to something or to someone else. How, for instance, would they break away themselves, or tell someone? They don't have much choice either then!

Perhaps some of those people are acting so inhumanly and in-humanely in the hope that they won't end up at the tail-end of a social or power system. Cults or other groupings can also undertake their 'control' machinations as a form of bullying, which is not to deny its effectiveness, or that other factors may be involved too.

Perhaps they were brought up and conditioned so that they can function in certain ways, while being largely unaware what they do and what sometimes happens to them. Two books which I feel bring this out are:

'Satan's High Priest' by Judith Spencer - based on a true story

'Morning Come Quickly' by Wanda Karriker- a novel which incorporates a number of themes

. .

Click HERE for 'Further Dynamics' or see articles listed to the top right of each Page.

More dynamics, by Magentine

2008-08-22T08:41:00.002-07:00

MAGENTINE DAZE
http://magentine.angelfire.com

If things in your life have gone round in a circle – maybe in a triangle - sometimes the direction changes to its opposite. Makes sense? Doesn’t make sense? Seems to happen though?

Search for ‘drama triangle’ or ‘aggressor victim rescuer’ or ‘perpetrator rescuer victim’ and you’ll get my drift.
Prompted into looking at someone’s work by other people’s scepticism, I went along to his talk, discovering it just before it took place. A friend and I had been going to another event but had both changed our minds. ‘There must be a reason for this’ I thought – something which has got me into a lot of trouble over the years.

Probably it’s the same dynamic that took me into ‘rescuing situations’ where I felt I was ‘meant to be’ doing something because it arose in front of my eyes. Vicious triangles, you name it and I was there defending anyone who seemed to need it.

I had just defended a colleague of the speaker that night, to someone on an email group who was critical without having checked any basic facts,. He did not reply to my ’reasoned argument’ either! The strange thing – to me – was that he and the person he criticised seemed to be working along similar lines. Do I never learn what makes things tick?

Finding myself the recipient of many texts and phone calls from someone I recently met, I asked my husband why this ‘kept happening’. ‘Because people are vying for your sole attention,’ he said. ‘Plus the fact you were an only child.’ He could have made a fortune with such impromptu gems.

For several years I had been ‘rescuing’ someone who was indeed the victim of a perpetrator, actually a group of them. I felt it important to do what I could, although latterly came to believe that sadly it was not going to work unless something else entered into the situation to change things.

Briefly the victim had been severely abused and her personality would switch through various modes, some quite distinct from each other. This used to be called MPD (multiple personality disorder), but the tendency now is to call it DID for dissociative identity disorder.

Some people get into a bind, saying it doesn’t happen, i.e. not everyone agrees it does (when is that not the case about anything?). Or there is a conceptual problem because DID is often linked to trauma, sometimes of ritual abuse or satanic ritual abuse, RA or SRA. No-one likes to think about those so there’s another ‘big issue’. People may suggest that DID doesn’t happen because RA or SRA don’t happen. Ergo, they argue, if one out of DID or SRA does not exist, the other one must be invalidated, lock stock and barrel.

But what if . . . ?

That’s where I enter the scene as ‘Lady What if’ - and more besides.

The speaker I referred to whose talk I was almost unaware of but somehow was not, gave a talk on his work as a clairvoyant and healer, and I do appreciate that not everyone thinks much of this and may be diametrically opposed. As he whizzed through various concepts, a brief reference to MPD flashed on the screen behind him and was gone.

My experience with emailing speakers after a talk is that generally nothing happens. Maybe stuff goes in their spam box and stands no chance. I waited till everyone asked questions, then mentioned my interest.

He hypothesised that in some scenarios, MPD or DID can involve archetypes which lie at the root of concepts or behaviours, which I think he was saying can become ‘stuck’. My interpretation in simple terms would be a model that someone emulates, and then getting ‘stuck in role’

I do not know if I am interpreting his words correctly or rather putting things in a way I can handle, that I feel there could be some validity to this approach, having considered some other theories available to me as working hypotheses.

It does not matter that I did not interpret it the way in which he meant, because it meant something to me at the time. If we are influenced sometimes or in some ways by myths, fairy tales, or whatever belief or theme attracts us for a while, this could reflect in our behaviour. It could be a one-off event or situation, or it could run through our lives as a recurring pattern. We may or may not be aware of it. If someone else points it out to us, perhaps we accept that interpretation, perhaps not.

Some people form groups with a particular ideology and call it Satanism or something else. Whatever it is, it may or may not involve Satanism and it may or may not involve cruelty and sadism.

My own working hypothesis is that ‘It’, ‘Things’, ‘Anything’ may happen totally in a physical sense, being enacted in a reality structure that is there for people to see, photograph, gain evidence from. Alternatively, could it also be that sometimes it is not 100 per cent physical, and that some is a scenario played out as a mental or emotional strategy? The aim would be to scare people, keep them under control, and confuse them and other people in the process.

Cilla’s Blog also touches on Shamanism, the Unseen, Symbols, Realities, Urban Legend & Ritual Abuse, and Social Dynamics of Ritual Abuse. I do think we need to look at things a bit differently or we won’t get anywhere that could be helpful to people.

Whenever someone tries to address these issues it can fall into a problematic pit, because not everything will fit every situation, or person, or experience. Does one stop trying to achieve something?

Some people – scientists even – think we live in a universe where we affect ‘reality’, how things actually are, and how they might become. That is out of my field, and you can find plenty of information on it in books and on the Internet.

Regarding archetypes and myths, again a lot of work has been done by psychotherapists, anthropologists, and people from other disciplines. Perhaps one of the problems is that we are different, each in our own ways. Someone like Jung can lay his theories out for us, and if they are not meaningful for us, then they are not. But other people may interpret them in some way that strikes a chord.

You may or may not think it possible that some people at least can reincarnate. You can find work by authors and therapists on this and related issues. My reason for mentioning the concept is that someone working as a Jungian therapist, writes that he has to deal with each person and their imagery individually, in a way that is meaningful for them.

Sometimes people make money from all kinds of concepts without recognised qualifications. Fashions in thinking can come and go over centuries with many of the same basic themes and controversies. I think there is a place for analysis and scepticism, but not to the exclusion of anything which could be helpful or valid for some people.

Dare I speculate that some of us are simply in-fighting over beliefs or ‘reality’ because of a relevant past life experience! We could be in one camp or the other because of something we believed before, or something we now choose the opposite of for some reason, perhaps someone we wish to identify with.

Sounds crazy? That does not matter at all

It takes the theme back to swings and roundabouts, reversals of direction, of emphasis, belief or action. I wonder about Catastrophe Theory, where events seem to go smoothly along a continuum and suddenly there is a kind of switchback effect. I believe that prisons have used this model to try to predict when an eruption of violent behaviour is likely to occur.

There’s a saying about it always being darkest before the dawn, as if whoever said it knew a thing or two about life’s rich mysteries and dynamics. The I-Ching takes into account changing lines, which cater for this aspect of existence.

In the last 25 years or so there have been swings in belief and massive increases in the amount of information available to people, with access to the Internet particularly but also in TV and other media. Where there used to be a few different Tarot packs there are now many more in a wide range of styles. But many of them reflect the original designs and concepts based on the same archetypal concepts.

I have known people with no prior experience of working with archetypes or tarot cards, virtually pick up a pack and start giving meaningful readings. For other people including myself, they never found anything that really clicks with them to get to first base, which does not of itself invalidate the concepts or processes involved in gaining insight.

Some people theorise that tarot cards represent all the different types of personality and all types of event that can happen during life’s struggles, and this seems to make more sense than attempting to tie people into one of just a few categories.

These days, whether people are drawn to tarot, astrology, past lives, or any other approach, more of us are in some way aware of what the concepts relate to, such as sun signs and personality, or what the Hanged Man card may mean.

I wonder whether -

The phenomenon of ritual abuse or SRA occurring towards the end of the last century could be a particular phase that humanity is experiencing, with relevance to the path through the tarot, where it gets to the card of ‘the Devil’. Clearly not all people are undergoing the same things, and I mean this in relation to those for whom it is their path to be involved in some way.

When people experience ritual abuse or SRA from the point of view of being victims, they would be at one point of the dramatic triangle of perpetrator/victim/rescuer, and one can see where the other people are around that particular triangle.

My concluding questions at this time, i.e. my ’reality for today’, relate to:

If there is a theme running through of the ‘poor victim’ needing help against ‘the horrible person’ or ‘people‘, that is a ‘myth’ we could be living by, in whichever setting we are doing that.

In a ritual abuse or SRA scenario, whatever other factors may be involved, there could be a ‘myth’ being lived out in a literal or symbolic sense.

Vulnerable people are like the child victims in the wood who go where they think it is safe but end up with a wicked-witch archetype who ‘gets away with it’. There is no-one to believe in the children, and no-one to help them.

Anyone attempting to help would get swiped at.

What myth or myths are any of us living out if we are involved, in whatever ways that we are?

There are people who do not come across these situations, are not affected by them and do not become interested.

There are people who take the role of detractors, making it their business to proclaim that such things have not happened. The inference to be drawn presumably would be that they do not happen, will not happen, cannot happen.

I am not sure where that fits into the drama triangle. Perhaps it just adds another corner making the figure into a square. Square it all off? Invalidate it? Round it off and what the heck?

The problem is that those who are not involved can find themselves believing the so-called ‘non-believers’ - who may not actually be ‘non-believers’.

And the ‘perpetrators’ may not actually be ‘non-perpetrators’, and they could be let off-the-hook through a thesis that ‘it doesn’t happen’.

That would not be a nice ‘myth’ to look forward to

Would it ?

= = = = = = =

Note from Cilla:

You can visit Magentine's site - see the above link - or leave a message in this section addressed for her attention.

= = = = = = =

Other or better models for DID, MPD?

2008-08-22T08:41:00.001-07:00

Post received from Harlan

I wonder whether there are other factors or explanations not necessarily exclusive to some of the views or theories, but could they complement them somehow if we let them?

In some quarters, Freudian theories have been completely thrown out or drastically questioned. Some detractors claim that nothing from anyone with a psychoanalytic approach has validity. The inference can get drawn by writers - or readers - that what people feel happened to them regarding abuse is simply the mind telling them what to think.

It does seem likely that some approaches to therapy can encourage this tendency without perhaps intending to, but I will not get into those aspects just now.

Richard Webster makes some interesting points on his website. I also read around the subject of 'anti-therapy' and so on, and admit to a sneaky feeling that some therapy spiel plays into a need that people feel for something to 'make sense' in their hour of need. I do believe we can work on a societal approach that marginalises less people, a type of society that does not make people think themselves inadequate because of what is put forward that suggests they are.

Moving on ...

Looking for something specific about MPD or DID, I came across mention of a book by Ralph Allison and his model for dissociation of different parts of the personality occurring more in some people or circumstances than the rest of the population. An expensive book but there's always background information on Google etc. so one doesn't have to purchase everything!

That led to the subject of memes and schemas, which I do not know a great deal about, only what I've read previously and now. One can search around the concepts and the term 'SocioPsychology' would clue the search engine in also. I wish I had the time to look into this more.

It all seems to take in concepts relating to social environment and even genes, along with ideas/memes having a life of their own, with a basic need to survive and propagate themselves independently of their human hosts - us or our brains.

There is a concept of 'selfplexes', a hypothetical grid of the various ways people can behave. Theoretically one could place a person's behaviour or tendencies into an area or areas, a bit like repertory grid theory for plotting attitudes or behaviour.

Although that may seem in direct contrast to some ideas about MPD or DID, and some people might take it that way, it could tie in. Someone on here mentioned Psychodrama with people showing a natural capacity to draw more things out of a scene or situation than they actually know of. There was a mention on here about people using personality or subpersonalities as tools in different situations. That would tie in with some ideas and research in Social Psychology.

I can't help feeling it could/ would/ should tie in somehow with ideas about mythology, fairy tales or nursery rhymes having an unseen but significant influence on people's lives, like the heading for your Blog maybe?

Thanks for the opportunity. I hope someone makes sense out of this and can take it further. All I'd like to add is I don't think 'truth' or the search for it, should be a money-making venture or an attempt to put-one-over on anyone else.

Fantasy role-playing

2008-08-22T08:40:00.002-07:00

by Drew

I was going to call this 'The Devil's Web' which is the title of a book written in 1990 by Pat Pulling and Kathy Cawthon about children who get involved in role-playing games or virtual realities. It is a long time since I read it, during which time some people have been critical of it, I believe along the lines of its exaggerating any risk involved.

Since then people are more aware of some of the issues around violent films that children watch, or sadistic games played on computers. There is general and governmental concern about increasing crime and violence among young people, and about spree killings occurring in colleges particularly in the United States.

What does seem to warrant attention, apart from anything else, is that fantasy enactments in violent role-playing games are along the lines that adults are trained in for combat - to desensitise them and reduce any qualms they may have about actually pulling the trigger on a gun with the aim, desire or compulsion to kill people.

I do not know the number of instances in the UK where there could be cause for concern, but recently read that the man responsible for the Hungerford murders had just prior to them been involved in a violent role-playing game and had seemed to be 'still in it'.

In the UK we used to be led to believe by researchers that there was no significant correlation between watching violence and engaging in it. Nowadays we like to listen to researchers or journalists saying that there are reasons why things occur in places like America and, by implication, reasons why they are hardly likely to occur in the UK.

There is a concept - dare I term it 'received wisdom'? - that people are only likely to be adversely affected by violent films or games if there is something a bit wrong with them already, with the oft repeated phrase about how many people are not affected and go on to 'live normal lives'.

Well, they may do, but those affected through no fault of their own, because they cannot overcome the conditioning or grooming process towards violence, or because they or a family member are a victim of such violence, do not go on to 'live normal lives'.

OUT-OF-CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR - Introduction

2008-08-22T08:39:00.002-07:00

The following selection of posts are from Norman's blog at Toukanalia

Post by Norman

With a longterm interest in human behaviour and the 'weird', I still find myself wondering what really sways a person or situation. Probably it's a combination of factors but do we really know? Do experts really know? They certainly don't agree. I recently watched a TV programme which was about scientific evidence. People on both sides of the argument put their case and were questioned. Nothing was clearcut by the end, and no-one said 'of course if I'm wrong about this aspect it could change some or all of the rest'.

What tends to happen with me is I find an author's perceptions very useful - up to a point - then they seem to go off on some idiosyncratic track that I can't agree with. Maybe I do the same! The trick is probably not to throw baby out with the bathwater, and to keep what is important.

A particular book or website can suddenly set us thinking about something, or feeling we've found an answer. Maybe that stays with us, maybe it changes the next time something useful comes along, maybe our views take a diametric turn.

The fact that we have an adversarial legal system throws up interesting questions about what is just, fair, appropriate. More importantly, it shows how some lawyers are able to sway a situation which looks hopeless for their client into an acquittal. But as the case proceeds, often the truth becomes so multi-faceted that 'reasonable doubt' enters the equation. How does that happen? How do a significant number of people get wrongfully accused and convicted? Surely our system should iron out these huge wrinkles.

Our jury system works on a principle of a group of people coming to some kind of consensus or majority about what they feel is the guilt or innocence of someone, based on the evidence available at the time. Why then is so much time and money spent in the United States on jury selection according to some kind of profiling, or information about potential jurors' lives? Why do marketing companies do likewise? It must pay off - for those on the winning side.

People say our modern businesses bear increasing similarities to religion, taking on more importance in our lives as we are expected to do more for 'the firm'. Businesses and organisations can have neuroses of their own, affecting how they interact with the world and within their grouping. Thus individuals who enter them can be affected, the more sensitive being the more affected.

The same apparently happens when people join a cult, or as they are often called these days 'new religious movement' or NRM. Views about a particular group or cult are likely to include what is in the 'eye of the beholder' but generally there's a concept of what the term means.

Could all beliefs simply be a matter of which memes get spread around the most or stay the longest?

Or is there something else at stake?

What!

See 'Like any normal day' posted below.

Like any normal day

2008-08-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

Post by Norman

‘It started off like any normal day’ is the gist of what someone was reported to say after going out with a rifle and shooting a courting couple in Wales (I believe). If anyone knows details of when, where and what was said, get in touch!

What was so different about that day? Do we all have moments that are totally ‘out of character’, changing our lives for ever with no explanation that fits the bill? Does a red mist descend, does a part of us kick in and take the reins, do we hear a voice or sense a compulsion? How do we rationalise it afterwards?

This isn’t a lengthy academic exercise. Rather some ideas that are loosely strung together – maybe not even connected. My bookshelves overflow with books on serial killers and profiling and other stuff. The point here is that most of us tend to think of ourselves or others as ‘the sort of person who’ is likely or unlikely to do certain things. It’s a kind of shorthand or a comfort zone so we don’t have to countenance every possibility. We know what’s what, what we want, don’t want, or would never do …

There are books on Jung and ‘the shadow’, on the higher self and what can come out during hypnosis. I was looking for some rationale for what goes on in people’s lives, what goes wrong and why, and what can be done. This went round in a big cycle: from believing that, if something felt possible then it was likely, to rejecting great chunks, then back to the bookshelves for another re-think.

I looked at social systems, belief systems, religions, group behaviours including situations people refer to as cults, at advertising, spin, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, stage magic, neuro-linguistic programming. I dipped into humanities courses, scouring booklists, visiting bookshops each time I went out, searched Amazon for anything that might answer my questions about ‘why people do what they do’. When I came across a book by John M. Doris ‘Lack of Character’ much of my thinking about profiling or likelihood of individual behaviour was thrown into disarray.

It seems we are creatures of circumstance more than we might think, having a wide repertoire of behaviours quite specific to the prevailing situation. Add or subtract a variable or rack up intensity and who knows what some of us might be capable of! I came to believe that extreme forms of behaviour – the ones we like to think we'd never do – are probably ‘do-able’ by a lot of us. It can be quite a small flip, turning on a pinhead, hanging on a thread, that makes for the next stage, almost as if inevitably. Catastrophe theory could be relevant here.

If something from another realm or reality layer is capable of affecting us, we may hypothesise and work something out. If I walk into a graveyard as my ‘normal self’ and come out full of doom & gloom, did something change me, a general sense of atmosphere, a specific haunting, what? When I write or speak, does it always come from just me? Am I inspired by art or nature or is some other realm or entity breaking through, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering?

Does it matter what hook we use as a belief system, so long as we behave ‘reasonably’ or within certain bounds? Or if we believe in something higher – or lower – than ourselves? Surely it could affect what we do, what we feel is appropriate or otherwise? What if people around us disagree totally with what we think and hold most dear? There would likely be a conflict of mind-sets on very sensitive issues. Maybe something will ‘blow’ and we act out.

Do actions simply continue on from natural events in our past, from family/work environment, or from wider society? Could we be affected by some ancestral influence, or rather something set in motion by people with intent - these days mostly called magick with a ‘k’, so that we too are saying ‘It started off like any normal day’? In other words, what if there is discontinuity, incongruity, dissociation, because we can’t trace a pattern or reason? Not knowing why, we may rationalise or confabulate, to reduce cognitive dissonance or save face.

Will we always parrot that ‘there is no evidence’ if we don’t wish to believe something? Or do we get too caught up in beliefs without regard to their validity? Human behaviour is so varied, how can we pin everything down neatly? What if something does not ‘fit’?

There’s a lot of interest these days in various aspects of shamanism, whether as practised in its natural environment or as brought over for what is loosely termed the West. People no longer shrug off as totally irrelevant all other realities that there could be. Here's a list of a few books, websites, blogs you might check out:

‘Blood Rites: the shocking expose of the ritual of human sacrifice – practiced today, and terrifying close to home’ by Jimmy Lee Shreeve

‘Multiple Man: explorations in possession and multiple personality’ by Adam Crabtree

‘Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board’ by J. Edward Cornelius

‘Not in His Image: Gnostic vision, sacred ecology and the future of belief’ by John Lamb Lash

‘The Unquiet Dead: a psychologist treats spirit possession’ by Dr Edith Fiore

‘Spirit Releasement Therapy: a technique manual’ by William J Baldwin

‘Programmed to Kill: the politics of serial murder’ by David McGowan

‘Serial Killers: death and life in America’s Wound Culture’ by Mark Seltzer

‘Lack of Character: personality, moral behaviour’ by John M Doris

‘Going Postal: rage, murder and rebellion in America’ by Mark Ames

‘The Sociopath Next Door: 1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty’ by Martha Stout

‘The Dark Gods: do they haunt us still?’ by Anthony Roberts & Geoff Gilbertson

‘The Dark Worship’ by Toyne Newton

Also

http://rigint.blogspot.com
Plenty to read and ponder but we suggest 'The Deep Ones and the Madness of Crowds'

‘Scapegoating, Abuse & One-upmanship’ article at Topaz Postline

‘America's Subversion: The Enemy Within’ - free online book by Sonny René Stermole at
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/america_subversion_index.htm

'To thine own self be true'

2008-08-22T08:38:00.001-07:00

Quote from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'

Why do YOU do what you do?

2008-08-22T08:37:00.003-07:00

Post by Norman

Can YOU be manipulated?
Do you think you should be?
Do you always know if you are?
Can you manipulate others?
What do YOU think?

Why do you think you behave as you do? Is it always the same?

Perhaps it is because one of your parents behaved like that, or it was someone you admired, or even disliked!

Have you ever acted ‘out of character’? Or only when you’ve been to the pub?

Have you got home and wondered why you bought something, lost your temper and don’t know why, done something unusual or ridiculous – for you?

We all behave differently in different circumstances. The person who is hyper-serious at work may be a comic in private. They could be mean and miserable, yet a super-parent or spouse, or mean at home and jovial elsewhere.

Would you ever go to see a stage show of hypnosis? Would you go up on stage?

Would you go to a hypnotherapist if you had a problem, or a habit you wanted to break?

Do you feel you know more about yourself than anyone else does? Maybe your best mate knows you better than you know yourself.

Are there people you would trust with your life? Or let them persuade you to take a risk?

Could a stranger reach those hidden depths, by inspired guesswork or manipulation?

Do people get caught up in the heat of the moment, or in a group or crowd?

Would you join a cult or movement? What is one anyway?

In-Character/ Out-of-Character

Do you think politicians can put spin on things and make a difference?
Can you see the spin coming and deflect it?
Have you honestly never been influenced?

Do you think you can be manipulated?
Do you think you can manipulate others?
How do you think it works!

Can one ‘manipulate oneself’ to change behaviour etc?
How might that work?
Have you done it?

Make up a questionnaire for yourself or other people – you may be surprised at some of the answers

Are you an independent thinker?

Do you believe in character profiling?

Do you believe in astrological types?

Can you pigeonhole a person’s behaviour for all circumstances?
Does stress make a difference?

What effect might stereotyping or labelling have on you? Or on someone else?
Is it fair?

Can you copy someone’s behaviour?
Can you influence someone?
Do others colour your moods?

Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in ESP?
Do you believe in past lives?

Are people responsible for all their actions?
Is there such a thing as ‘normal?

Any other questions?

In-Character/ Out-of-Character

2008-08-22T08:37:00.001-07:00

Post by Norman

Do you think politicians can put spin on things and make a difference?
Can you see the spin coming and deflect it?
Have you honestly never been influenced?

Do you think you can be manipulated?
Do you think you can manipulate others?
How do you think it works!

Can one ‘manipulate oneself’ to change behaviour etc?
How might that work?
Have you done it?

Make up a questionnaire for yourself or other people – you may be surprised at some of the answers

Are you an independent thinker?

Do you believe in character profiling?

Do you believe in astrological types?

Can you pigeonhole a person’s behaviour for all circumstances?
Does stress make a difference?

What effect might stereotyping or labelling have on you? Or on someone else?
Is it fair?

Can you copy someone’s behaviour?
Can you influence someone?
Do others colour your moods?

Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in ESP?
Do you believe in past lives?

Are people responsible for all their actions?
Is there such a thing as ‘normal?

Any other questions?

Social engineering, pretexting, con tricks, scams

2008-08-22T08:36:00.003-07:00

Post by Norman
from http://toukanalia.blogspot.com

These definitions of 'social engineering' and 'pretexting' appear at http://memes.org

Social engineering is a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or computer system access and in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim.

Social engineering techniques and terms
All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases. These biases, sometimes called "bugs in the human hardware," are exploited in various combinations to create attack techniques.

Pretexting
Pretexting is the act of creating and using an invented scenario (the pretext) to persuade a target to release information or perform an action and is typically done over the telephone. It's more than a simple lie as it most often involves some prior research or set up and the use of pieces of known information (e.g. for impersonation: date of birth, Social Security Number, last bill amount) to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target.

Search 'social engineering' etc. at Google or on Wikipedia
Basically this is any form of impression management or 'information' which is designed with the aim of creating a desired behaviour or outcome from a 'mark' or 'patsy' - which could be you!

Confidence Tricks & Scams
Some other relevant concepts are Con tricks or scams
See also the books mentioned below.

Note - 26th August 2008

ITV1 are starting a 3-part series from 26th August on 'Fiddles, Cheats & Scams' showing at 9.0 pm. Do you think people get their ideas from watching too much C S I !

-----

Social engineering etc. can be as simple as driving an expensive car, portraying an image, acting a role, or it can be elaborate with several co-conspirators setting up a convincing scene or skit. Social Psychologydemonstrates how we tend to behave according to how we view or experience a particular setting, almost like acting out a part. It's easy to believe what is presented - how someone looks possibly using disguise, what they say which probably contains elements of truth, something to convince people known as a 'convincer', and they may also have found things out about you to make it easier.

Skit is a word sometimes used in the form of harassment known as Gangstalking or maybe Gaslighting where someone is targeted by a group to scare or demoralise them, but where anyone they confide in are likely to be disbelieving - that's part of the 'set-up' or design. See the link below:

Gangstalking or Gaslighting are an extreme form of psychological harassment see
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=psychological+harassment+gangstalking+gaslighting&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

More extreme still would be Psychotronics.

Check out some of the following Books
'The Blue Nowhere' by Jeffery Deaver
'Tourist Trap: when holiday turns to nightmare' by Patrick Blackden
'The Sting' by Nigel Blundell
'More Scams from the Great Beyond' by Peter Huston
'The Con Artist Handbook: the secrets of hustles and scams' by Joel Levy
'The Art of Deception' by Kevin D. Mitnick & William L. Simon
'Vital Lies, Simple Truths: the psychology of self-deception' by Daniel Goleman
'We Know What You Want: how they change your mind' by Martin Howard

Scapegoating, projection, denial, etc

2008-08-22T08:36:00.001-07:00

Post by Norman

Click HERE for some issues relating to:

scapegoating
territorial behaviour
projection
status quo
one-upmanship
abuse
manic defence
denial or disbelief

Links suggestions

2008-08-22T08:35:00.001-07:00

Post by Norman

Page under construction. See also the section on 'Personality Research Links'. And you can search at www.google.com or any of the main search engines along the following lines:

Logical fallacies
Cognitive dissonance
Crowd behaviour
Group behaviour
Mental influence
Hypnosis
Subconscious
Hive Mind
Control freaks
Narcissism
Mind control
Cults
Cult dynamics
Egregor
Psychology
Sociology
Social Psychology
Critical Psychiatry
Psychological Reversal
Psychological Profiling
Obsession
Psychometric Testing
Catastrophe Theory
Systems Theory
Psychosynthesis
Dissociation or DID
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Motivation

Follow where it leads you; see whether you change your mind on anything, or confirm your beliefs.

It is said that, in order to change one’s behaviour, one’s beliefs need to change first.

Do they? HOW?

Does one ALWAYS know about it?

Personality research links

2008-08-22T08:33:00.001-07:00

Some of these lead to online personality testing - Don't believe it all!

http://library.stmarytx.edu/acadlib/subject/psych/prsnlty.htm
St Mary's University, Blume Library: Personality Tests & Resources

http://www.queendom.com/tests/personality/index.html
Online personality testing

http://www.ylcf.org/you/
Click on Personality Types for a list of tests, books, articles

http://www.issid.org/issid.html

http://heraclite.ens.fr/~roy/GDR/moral_significance.htm

http://www.philosophy.ucf.edu/pi.html
Site of Shaun Gallagher

http://www.socialpsychology.org/social.htm
Go to the Links Page

http://www.workingpsychology.com/intro.html
An Introduction to Social Influence

http://www.ctyme.com/bwash/bwash.htm
Dick Sutphen's 'The Battle for Your Mind'

http://intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/welcome.php
Website of Stephen Downes on logical fallacies

http://www.apa.org/books/4318830s.html
Chapter of a book on cognitive dissonance, self-image, behavioural consistency etc.

http://www.reversaltheory.org
Reversal theory

www.enio.aaanet.ru/indexe.html
Downloadable chapters on Eniology
Main site http://www.eniology.org/E_Enibook/e_ebook00.htm

http://maxwell.lucifer.com/virus/alt.memetics
Memetics, memes

'Secrets of Stage Mindreading' by Ormond McGill
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904424015/t/026-3367497-5893224
Crownhouse Publishing ISBN 1904424015
If you thought ALL stage mindreading or influence were trickery

http://www.tranceworks.com/stage.htm
List of books on stage hypnotism & magic

http://www.csj.org
AFF site with information & resources on cult influence

http://www.caic.org.au/zpsyche.htm
Cult Awareness & Information Centre, Australia.
Psychological issues of involvement in cults/general persuasive techniques; exit counselling.

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/e00.html
Apologetics Index searchable resources on cults

http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/bibcult.htm
Cults & sects bibliography

Physiology and the brain

2008-08-22T08:27:00.001-07:00

Post by Norman
from http://toukanalia.blogspot.com

From the end of July 2008 and through much of August ITV Channel 5 television in the UK showed a series of programmes, each showing about 4 people who had suffered some change in brain functioning through things such as accident, stroke, illness, being struck by lightning. I only saw the last few but pasted below is text from the Channel 5 website for the first episode.

The last episode was about OCD - Obsessional Compulsive Disorder. A moving section was about two men, one in the US and one in England, who each suffered a stroke after which they became compulsive painters of pictures. Each felt very alone but it was arranged for them to meet, it meant so much to them and it seemed like they were brothers and no longer alone. Another man became a compulsive piano player in middle life after (I think) being struck by lightning. None of these people had any inclination to these things beforehand.

Doctors working in the field described human behaviour as a mixture of activity and inhibition. If something happens to prevent the usual inhibitory processes, there is then a perpetual need to perform some activity or behave in a certain way with nothing to intervene. It may be possible to use some form of cognitive exercise to recognise better when a situation is likely arising. Some people manage to adapt to their 'new self' to some extent but it does seem clear there has been a fundamental change from the 'old self'. Some of those affected manage to work around it for themselves, or with expert help or support from friends and family.

I'll just mention Alzheimers Disease here. One of my uncles appears to have developed this at around age 45 and it can happen at any age. For the last few months at work he went in and fiddled with his pen. He was pretty clever and could still write a brilliant letter - but only when 'in the mood' for it. The rest of the time he just sat around, sometimes in mental hospitals and sometimes at home.

Hopefully one day there will be medication that is more helpful, and I believe breakthroughs are being made for this and other illnesses previously thought hopeless. For most families this is devastating and some people get by better than others. It is as if the soul has gone, leaving the body. With some illnesses it can seem as though the body or mind has been taken over, destroying relationships as well.

Some of the books on the Books section deal with this subject. Sometimes people's lives and personalities change dramatically with devastating effects for them and those around them. Dorothy Otnow Lewis in 'Guilty by Reason of Insanity' details her work with a colleague that physical examination of people who carry out murder or violent crime often shows they have suffered significant relevant brain trauma. (Note: See 'Battle for the Mind' article later in the Blog on some work by William Sarjant about how certain conditions, including whether someone has had food or drink, can have a significant effect on their mental condition, actions or memory.)

Work by Dorothy Otnow Lewis and her colleague also looks at the phenomenon of different personalities operating within the same individual and, in some States in the US, filmed episodes of personality 'switching' goes towards mitigating some of the sentence. The theory behind this is that the individual cannot be held responsible for certain periods in their lives when another personality part was uppermost to the exclusion of the 'real person' in court.

I think this has implications for all of us and takes me back to a point I made earlier about profiling. Obviously profiling can be very relevant and useful, the idea that certain types of personality or some experiences affect us so that perhaps much later on we carry out an extreme act. When we watch CSI or 'Criminal Minds' we see the loose ends being tied up in a meaningful way, like a children's story. But what if we can't see that and there is no apparent sense? Does that make it senseless? There's a lack of continuity or an incongruity - in our minds - but maybe there is not in the mind of the person affected and it makes good sense to them. Can we necessarily hold them 'responsible'? Would we be, if we could only see all the reasons for something we cannot explain?

We may think things like this only happen if someone is on certain medication or has taken hallucinatory or other drugs or just alcohol. People working with those who have suffered extreme psychological trauma in their developing years report this also has physical effects on parts of the brain with far-reaching consequences which these days can show on an MRI scan.

So we can't rule out brain trauma whether we know what actually happened or not. Nor can we rule out psychological trauma or PTSD. Nor can we rule out behaviour which we may see no valid reason for - because it may be that we literally just cannot see it.

- - - - - - -

'Fiddles, Cheats & Scams'
ITV series of 3 programmes August/September 2008

Article from 'The Guardian' Monday January 19 2004:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2004/jan/19/insurance.business

Insurer introduces psychological tests to prevent fraud

Insurance giant AIG has become the latest group to introduce psychological testing in a bid to cut down on fraudulent claims, it emerged today.

The US group, which operates in 130 countries, is piloting the system on motor and travel insurance claims that it believes may be fraudulent.

It has employed Absolute Customer Management, which uses an interview technique developed by criminal psychologists in the US and used in Holland by psychologists working with children, to look into any suspicious claims.

Staff at Absolute ask claimants to talk them through the claim, analysing the language they use, the level of detail they give and the emotions they display.

The group's centre in East Grinstead, West Sussex, looks into claims for 15 insurers and banks, including Fortis and esure. It handles around 400 claims a month with a collective value of £1.5m, and estimates that 30% of the claims it looks into are potentially fraudulent.

An AIG spokeswoman said: "We are convinced that the vast majority of our policyholders are honest. We are evaluating this new method on less than 1% of the claims we receive."

Car insurer Admiral recently said the use of lie detectors had led to a quarter of policyholders withdrawing claims over vehicle theft.

Britain's biggest mortgage lender, HBOS, uses voice stress analysis technology to try to detect if people are lying when lodging claims under household insurance, while Highway Insurance a syndicate of Lloyds of London, has been using it to detect fraud on motor insurance claims for more than a year.

The Association of British Insurers estimates that fraud on motor and household insurance costs the industry more than £1bn a year.

- - - - - - -

And taking things even further!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/nov/20/neuroscience.science

'The brain can't lie'

Brain scans can reveal how you think and feel, and even how you might behave. No wonder the CIA and big business are interested.

By Ian Sample and David Adam
The Guardian
Thursday November 20 2003

Earlier this year, a group of American students volunteered their brains for a cutting edge neuroscience project at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The research used a technique that could watch their brains at work as they made decisions. At first glance, this seems nothing extraordinary: brain-imaging tools have been used routinely for years to assess damage caused by stroke, to hunt for brain tumours, and even identify the grey matter associated with language, love and memories. But this study was different. As each volunteer took their turn to slide into the coffin-like cylinder of the scanner, sticky fluids were squirted into their mouths. As unlikely as it sounds, the students were using multimillion pound medical equipment to take the Pepsi challenge.

Read Montague, the neuroscientist behind the Baylor experiment, is not alone in pushing the boundaries of neuroscience beyond the clinical. In recent years, a growing number of researchers have used brain-imaging equipment to try to reveal our innermost thoughts and feelings in less conventional "social neuroscience" experiments. As well as brand loyalty and consumer choice, neuroscientists are probing violent tendencies, moral reasoning, feelings of love and trust, and notions of justice. Just this week, researchers claimed to have used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain activity associated with racial prejudice.

While standard MRI machines like those still found in many hospitals take a snapshot of the brain, functional MRI is newer and more powerful because it takes lots of these snapshots one after the other, revealing how thoughts unfold over time. But the trend for using fMRI to probe social and behavioural issues is prompting some scientists to ask big questions about where this may all lead. Could it only be a matter of time before neuroscientists have techniques that can reveal secrets we would rather keep tucked under our skulls? According to some leading scientists, this isn't a paranoid over-reaction. "The CIA has been interested in fMRI for years as a means of doing lie-detection tests," says Bob Turner, an fMRI expert at University College London. After all, he says: "The brain can't lie."

As scientists unravel the links between how the brain looks and how it functions, some believe we will also be able to use images of the brain to see how people will behave. "There's no scientific distinction between prediction and understanding how the brain works," says Stephen Smith, associate director of the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain at Oxford University.

The suggestion that brain scans could reveal not just our future health, but the intricacies of our personalities and how we might behave in a given situation, is unsettling enough to some scientists that they want legislation to stop brain-scan records falling into the wrong hands. "We're starting to get detailed information from these brain-scan experiments and soon people are going to be able to use it to predict an individual's behaviour," says Paul Glimcher at the Centre for Neuroscience at New York University. "That information has got to be proprietary to the individual."

The explosion in social neuroscience has been driven by the tumbling cost of scanning equipment. Brain scans used to be the preserve of medical and clinical experiments, because they relied on complex, expensive technology such as positron emission tomography (PET), which was only available in a handful of places. PET scanners, which rely on radioactive tracer materials, cost about £3m to buy and a single scan can cost as much as £2,000. In contrast, a new fMRI machine costs about £1.5m, and each scan works out at about £400.

The fMRI machines are essentially giant, powerful magnets that are used to detect the tiny magnetic fields carried by the hydrogen atoms in water (or blood). They allow a very detailed 3D map of blood flow to be built up, and in the head, blood flow means busy neurons. Studying which regions of the brain need the most blood tells scientists where the most thinking is going on. (The original MRI technique is identical to that used by chemists called nuclear magnetic resonance but the name was changed as it was thought nobody would want to be scanned by a machine with "nuclear" in its title).

As the scanners shifted from being an expensive piece of kit for specialist neuroscientists to a practical tool for anyone with the will to work it, the scientific questions the technique was used to investigate snowballed.

Three years ago, scientists at University College London used fMRI to investigate the essence of love. They recruited people who confessed to being hopelessly in love with their partners and showed them a series of photographs of people they knew, one of which was their partner. Although brain activity was different in each individual, the researchers found that in every case, four specific regions of the brain lit up each time they saw the one they loved. The researchers announced that they had discovered the brain's common denominator of romantic love.

A year later, Joshua Greene and colleagues at Princeton University in New Jersey studied how people solved moral dilemmas. In one test, volunteers were scanned while they were asked whether they would push a person in front of a speeding train if it meant saving the lives of five others. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the question caused a flurry of activity in parts of the brain linked with emotion, leading the researchers to conclude that such moral quandaries may not be solved purely by logical reasoning, but also by emotional reactions.

The technique has also been used to delve into the murky question of how we judge people. Last year, Ray Dolan's team at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London used fMRI to see how people judged the trustworthiness of strangers. Volunteers were shown a series of faces and asked to judge whether the person was trustworthy. The researchers found that a region of the brain called the amygdala and two other parts of the brain flickered more intensely when people were shown the faces of people they thought would not be trustworthy.

But according to some scientists, such studies are the tip of the iceberg. The better fMRI systems become, and the more adept scientists get at extracting information from them, the more they will be able to piece together the neural circuits that make us who we are.

One emerging field is that of "neuro-economics". At the Center for Neuro-economics at Claremont Graduate University in California, Paul Zak is using fMRI to study how people assign value to certain products and make choices about what they buy. "If I ask you why you made a certain decision, you might not really be sure," he says. "But what if I can look directly into your brain and see how you reached that decision? That's what we want to be able to do."

Slowly, he says, researchers are homing in on the neural circuits that are activated when we make decisions - our likes and dislikes or, for example, how much different people value cigarettes over other items. Know that, and you can start feeding the data into policies such as how you tax products, says Zak. "If you know how much people value something, you can work out at what point a price hike will stop people buying it," he says.

Zak says fMRI stands to make a big impact in what has been dubbed "neuro-marketing". As an example of how fMRI might be used, Zak proposes a company that wants to increase its sales of milk. One way it might is to gather a group of people who like milk and scan them as they drink a glass. Some of the regions of the brain that buzz with activity might be triggered by any drink, but others may be triggered only by milk. Find other stimuli that trigger these regions of the brain and it could help you work out what it is that makes milk enjoyable, says Zak. Suppose objects from your childhood made those regions of your brain flicker. It might be that milk was evoking a sense of nostalgia, reminding you of when you got milk at school.

"If it turned out that milk was pleasurable to drink because it evokes memories of your childhood, you could market it as 'good when you were a kid, great when you're an adult'," he says. It's just an idea, and we're not there yet, but Zak says this is not pie-in-the-sky stuff. "A couple of years ago there was a lot of hostility to this kind of research, but now people are realising there's potential in it. Of course there will be a lot of crappy studies, but done properly, it allows us to get answers to questions we could never get before."

At Glimcher's lab in New York, progress is being made into understanding how the brain allow us to make certain decisions. Using fMRI scans and another technique that measures the activity of single neurons, Glimcher has recreated in a computer the neural programs that monkeys use to make decisions in a simple financial game. "Their behaviour is quite erratic and very similar to that of humans, but the program predicts what they will do to about 95% accuracy. It's spooky," he says. Ultimately, says Glimcher, neuroscientists should be able to use techniques like this to work out what a person will do in a specific situation, such as what he or she might buy when they walk into a shop.

At least one company, the BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences, in Atlanta, has been set up to exploit brain scans to inform marketing strategies. Instead of using focus groups, it is trying to use scans to tell companies what people think of their products and commercials.

Not everyone is convinced of the approach though. Donald Kennedy, the Stanford University-based editor of the journal Science and one of America's most eminent scientists, says: "You could just ask people what they think."

While Glimcher concedes that using brain scans to predict behaviour is a long way off, the progress is such that we should think about the implications, he says. "It raises serious philosophical questions, because it reduces us to a machine, but there's also a huge moral issue." Who should be allowed access to our brain scans, if they can reveal so much about us, he asks. "Within 10 years, we will need legislation that protects brain-scan information in the same way genetic information is protected," he says.

If using brain scans to predict specific behaviour is not on the cards, using them to judge if we will suffer from mental disease later in life is. Studies have shown that fMRI scans can be used to reveal early signs of multiple sclerosis and even go some way to predicting who might be most susceptible to dementias such as Alzheimer's. "For severe mental illness and dementias it is a serious proposition," says Sean Spence, a psychiatry researcher at Sheffield University. "There are changes in their brain before they begin to lose their memory. It's quite conceivable people could use that."

Stanford's Kennedy says it is the potential to use scans to predict people's health that is a concern. "I'm worried about fMRI scans being preserved after they have been taken," he says. "There's a push to prevent genetic information being used by companies for adverse selection, and at least equal protection should be given to brain scan data."

Glimcher says legislation banning access to people's brain scans should be drawn up to keep the data private before it's too late. "It's only a matter of time before the insurance companies come calling," he says. "It is going to happen and it's a big issue. It has to be dealt with soon."

See the full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/nov/20/neuroscience.science

- - - - - - -

From Channel Five website seach for 'My Strange Brain'

My Strange Brain - Tackling difficult neurological conditions

This new documentary series explores unusual neurological conditions. The first instalment profiles four people with different disorders that affect their memories and sleeping patterns. One woman was struck down by a virus that has erased all her recollections of the last 20 years, while another woman is unable to record new memories. The film also meets a man who loses his muscle tone every time he experiences heightened emotions.

You may also like...

. . . . .

Link added here for easy reference 12 Sept 2008:
www.spring.org.uk Jeremy Dean's Psyblog site about 'understanding how our minds work and why we think and act the way we do'.
Information & links to articles appearing in psychology journals:
social psychology, memory, non-verbal behaviour, emotions, neuroscience, persuasion, relationships. Other Psychology Blogs are listed on the site starting HERE.
Psyblog updates can be emailed to you.
. . . . .

Profiling - the company we keep?

2008-08-22T08:26:00.001-07:00

Post by Norman

Although there does seem validity in personality profiling or evaluation for some people, some actions, some situations, or just sometimes - sociological or environmental factors may overtake the individual approach or need consideration as playing a potentially significant part.

That's a sweeping statement which I'll draw in a little by mentioning a book 'Profiling the Criminal Mind: Behavioral Science & Criminal Investigative Analysis' by Dr Robert J Girod Sr. It is an introductory book outlining main themes and theories about profiling and investigation of crime from the author's experience, also mentioning the work of many others with wide-ranging views, experience and expertise.

Several chapters mention the kind of situation that people are in, such as groups they belong to where the 'group cause' could be a motivating factor in criminal or other activity. Some of the subtitles from the CONTENTS list are:

Gang motivated murder
Criminal competition homicide
Group cause homicide:
Cult murder
Extremist murder
Group excitement murder
Peer/group pressure
Group retaliation
Child/adolescent pornography
Historical child/adolescent sex rings
Multidimensional sex rings
Group cause sexual assault

The Nature of Cults:
Attributes
Attitudes
Characteristics
What are Cults

The list continues and some aspects clearly may also come under individual behaviour.

Another useful book is 'Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool' by Ronald M. Holmes & Stephen T. Holmes. There are many more, some quite expensive and some intended more for academics or for those working in the field.

My point (lest you think I wander or wonder aimlessly) is I am strongly inclined to think that sadistic, violent or extreme behaviours are probably things that most people are capable of, especially when under extreme stress or in extreme circumstances. That includes the company we keep, or are somehow inveigled into keeping.

In other words I suggest almost a continuum of behaviour, the extremity of which is shocking but where other factors can sometimes render the shock factor insufficient to prevent our involvement, willing or unwilling, witting or unwitting.

Those extreme behaviours could therefore be like an extension of 'normal people's normal behaviour'.

That is some sobering thought. Maybe I got it all wrong ...

But then I came across John Sweeney's book 'Purple Homicide: Fear and loathing on Knutsford Heath' where in the Epilogue he outlines some theories of cult behaviour and extremes such as suicide by members of a group or cult:

Page 260:
"Ashley Grossman is Professor of Neuro-endocrinology at Bart's Hospital in London. He saw a comparison between those who build and reinforce a system of lies and mass suicide cults. 'All of us from time to time tell lies. If the lie is outside the structure, then we can handle that. But if we construct a house around that lie, with eaves and guttering and drainpipes, then we are in trouble. There is a psychological theory that is called cognitive dissonance, which implies that everything must be reasonably congruent. So there comes a certain stage where you start living in that house because there isn't too much else outside. Then even the most reasonably balanced person will find it quite difficult to distinguish between truth and non-truth. They do literally live that lie and it becomes part of their self-structure. It will be hard then to say that someone is deliberately lying because, by that stage, the lie becomes self-reinforcing. The power of the lie is enhanced if there is a folie a deux, if two people are in on the lie together. At its most extreme, the lie can lead to a mass suicide, like the Heaven's Gate suicides..... Within the structure it was congruent, it made sense, they understood it, everybody said the same thing. It was the rest of the world that was living the lie.' "

. . . . .

Does that explain why some couples or families have an elaborate system of reinforcing each other's statements and beliefs, in the face of just about everything going on around them? I've often wondered when keeping my ears open on trains & buses. No doubt I am no different when push comes to shove.

Returning to a book mentioned in another article here, 'More Scams from the Great Beyond: How to make even more money off of creationism, evolution, environmentalism, fringe politics, weird science, the occult and other strange beliefs' Peter Huston:

He comments on various hoaxers or what some people call 'true believers' and comes up with some interesting ideas about dynamics. In particular he writes of rather earnest campaigners that there can be in some fields - any field really. Maybe a lot of us are basically rebels seeking a cause or something 'meaningful' to work on with other people.

In Chapter 4 on the subject of 'Environmentalism' Huston takes the mick out of the seriousness with which some people take the issues, and I'm not saying that should be an object of fun. But there's many a true word spoken in jest, as the saying goes, and he illustrates it with this on p.86 under a title of 'Canvassing' he writes:

'Choose one particular issue and declare it your cause of the day... Next get a group of well-meaning, idealistic people together... one way is to run a newspaper classified ad... 'Save the Environment' etc... The key elements are an appeal to idealism, greed, and people with lack of experience.

'Collect these well-meaning, idealistic people. Keep them in one place together for a period of time. This serves several psychological purposes. First they will enjoy one another's company and form a group of some sort. Second they will reinforce each other's willingness to do the humiliating and morally questionable work that comes later.'
. . . . .

I was fortunate to attend a talk by an author on cults, hypnosis, brainwashing and so on, who was not afraid to mince words, many of which were above my head. But something stuck in my mind and was worth the visit. He used the term 'deployable agents' to describe what some people turn, or get turned, into. In his context of cults and influence (My note: I feel it could be a group or workplace situation) he suggested that the 'deal is done' when the individual can be relied on to act on the cult philosophy without now being watched or told what to do.

Some companies openly use the words 'company indoctrination' and there's an increasing trend towards teamwork, building a group-mind, de-individualising the individual, 'you can't do enough for a good firm', 'we need 100 per cent of you' and so on. Hang on, if they get 100 percent, what's left for the individual? We are naturally affected by people we are in contact with, and perhaps the influence is benign or most of it disappears over a period of time.

Perhaps it sometimes works in favour of individuals, a group-mind or team-spirit which can be nourishing too and which they can draw from. Some suggest that we need to mix with a variety of other people to stay sane and healthy. However I guess one man's meat is another's poison so one can't generalise.

So long as no-one is manipulating a group for their own purposes, perhaps there is no need to worry too much, and there could actually be benefits to others involved. I think unease about cults in general comes in when, to the person outside looking in, there seems an agenda which only a few at the top layer know of or can do anything about, and is detrimental to the members.

Somewhere I read that people like Charles Manson were like an orchestrator or conductor of the personalities of people in his group, so that they were effectively acting out the roles of his subpersonalities or dissociations like in a DID system.

Dr William Sargant wrote on the phenomenon of conversion to religion or way of thought, and suggested it occurred a lot easier if there was high excitation of an area in the brain. In a TV interview some years ago he joked that he would not wish to attend a particular ritual or event as he 'did not want to get converted'.

Does this have relevance for large crowds, rallies, congregations, pop concerts, or even some individual or small-group practices like meditation or ritual? Can we change our own psychological reality? Can reality really get changed, or does how we perceive things change? Can someone else change us against our inclination? How would they benefit? Would we!

If about half of us have a 'religious gene' and half not, where does that leave half of us? any of us? all of us? 'in real terms'?

Will there always be some split in belief or perception which divides us humans into camps, as if somehow we have to seek differentiation? Maybe this is where the 'hissing & splitting' comes in, mentioned by Speakofthedevil in his Blog.

If someone goes in for meditation, or has a feverish illness and senses things differently, do they actually become different? If tragedy knocks harshly on your door, are you necessarily the same person afterwards? I feel we can get changed by things, sometimes so that there is no 'going back' completely. The speaker on cults and 'deployable agents' mentioned above, suggested a need to accept that people may not be able to go right back as they were before joining.

Before closing, a note about a public lecture that was held at the London School of Economics on 'Why is it Always 'Us' and 'Them': on the natural history of thinking through groups' by Professor Lawrence Hirschfeld. I couldn't make it to the lecture so looked his name up and with luck and a fair wind this Link will take you to some information on his work. The LSE holds free public lectures in term-time, see www.lse.ac.uk/events

Over to you - What do you think?

. . . . .

Summary of 'Out-of-Character Behaviour'

2008-08-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Post by Norman

This Blog has been on a back-burner and is presented as it comes and incomplete but hopefully it will give some ideas.

Everyone has their own ways of seeing the world and seeking truth or meaning. All this is trying to do is see whether something important has got missed along the way, so that things are not really as they seem, perhaps not at all.

Some people proclaim emphatically that all belief systems are due to things called memes. Certainly the approach seems worthy of consideration. We might extend it to memes that can't be analysed from a printed page such as musical, pictures or visions.

Perhaps interpersonal problems occur if our own meme-types don't fit other people's and we wander in quandary seeking better memes or meaning.

We wonder about things like servitors, magical entities, thoughtforms designed with purpose to affect the thinking or behaviour of someone else. Does it work? Would it worry us too much if it did? Should we go round protecting ourselves as if there is something over our shoulder or round the corner? Does Voodoo work for good as well as ill?

For sure, we act in accordance with our own beliefs. But might we also be acting in accordance with someone else's? You may or may not believe that magic or 'magick' works. After all, look at stage magicians and how we know that what they do is illusion. But people have been interested in magic of the other kind and things occult down the ages. Perhaps they knew a thing or two! Perhaps they just did not allow scepticism to act as a resistor and get in the way.

Or is it a natural phenomenon, that atmospheres build up in a place over time, which may get triggered by certain times, cycles, events, individuals or practices such as ritual, or a psychic tuning, or meditation?

Can we say the same applies to a group, that it has qualities which build up naturally over time - a group mind? Or does it get built by design with strong emotion and intent, so we might use the term egregor to describe it? Some might say that is not a totally correct use of the word egregor, but does that matter? A little flexibility and things can go a long way. Phenomena do not necessarily fall into a mutually exclusive Either/Or argument.

The point is, does something like this affect more than just that grouping? Affect us, for instance, like a kind of broadcast - this time of invisible memes, symbols, something?

Could there be some physical or tangible method of increasing the effect - see Appendix 1.

Is it possible?
Is it there?
What is it aimed to achieve?
What should we do about it?

We already mentioned Adam Crabtree's 'Multiple Man' which makes fascinating reading whatever one thinks.

There is a book by journalist Jimmy Lee Shreeve (whose name comes up on a Google search) entitled 'Bloodrites' about human sacrifice. Chapter 7 at the end is worth a read where he mentions work by Julian Jaynes on the so-called bicameral mind. Shreeve says on p.324:

'Jaynes argued that each hemisphere of the brain in prehistoric people worked on a separate track and that the thinking of the right brain was heard as 'voices'. He said these auditory hallucinations, which were taken to be the voices of the ancestral dead, and later the gods, had an aura of enormous authority, and if they gave instructions to the left hemisphere - the waking, daily consciousness - it would obey. Jaynes called this condition the 'bicameral mind'. These voices, he said, were not necessarily heard as if 'in the head'; they could have seemed to emanate from a point in the environment such as a tree, standing stone or waterfall (hence the belief that spirits haunted such places). Jaynes also maintained that such hallucinations are still experienced today during various forms of artistic creativity (such as automatic or 'channelled' writing), religious frenzy, hypnotic states or in unmedicated cases of schizophrenia.'

On p.325 under a heading of 'The Bicameral Mind and Ritual Slaying' Shreeve says:
'The idea that ancient cultures perceived their gods as a literal reality, their voices appearing to come from 'outside' the human mind, would explain why it was many societies performed human sacrifice - sometimes on a mass scale. The gods demanded that ancient peoples offered up sacrifices to them.'

Society naturally tends to favour some people more than others, or rather to exclude some people more than others, to marginalise. It is shocking to see how people with disabilities face more difficulties than they have to, despite measures taken to improve shopping access, living conditions and understanding. We tend to be less accepting than we should of mental problems, homelessness etc. in our own society, and may not often think of poverty and hardship in other parts of the world.

Sometimes there's an improvement, often followed by greater discrimination - whatever it is that causes us to draw some line between what we actually do something about, think we should, or simply put on the other side.

This Blog has been partly to pull some ideas together that may make some sense or warrant a further look. Why adhere to a one-and-only philosophy when people are different, experiencing things differently, making sense of things their own way - which may change according to time and circumstance?

It should be possible to create a climate encouraging flexibility of approach, making life easier for people who feel they don't fit in. Where does one draw the line? What line would that be, and why? I have been fortunate to work in places employing people who were vulnerable through their physical or mental health. My dream was to see more of this approach and sadly this seems less likely in economic downturn.

I believe attitudes and atmospheres can be more accepting and supportive as a general 'culture', decreasing stress and marginalisation, which needs an approach of at least considering views different from our usual ones. How else would we learn anyway? The saying goes that 'travel broadens the mind' and that would be good as a mental strategy too.

For me, the 'something important missed along the way' could run like this, combining some off-the-cuff remarks recalled from years back, with situations that lodged or circled in my brain waiting to find a niche or connection. University courses, TV programmes, the Internet, have all increased the amount and variety of information available to people. Before 'CSI', 'Criminal Minds' etc. I asked a friend what she meant by forensic psychology and her reply was interesting and unorthodox: 'It's the theory that whatever happens to you makes an impression on the brain like a fingerprint' she said. That's not generally how people describe it though it probably comes into it somewhere. It gives an inkling similar to the idea in forensic science that wherever one goes one leaves a trace of oneself and also leaves with something from the scene, an exchange of some sort. Taking my friend's definition, we exchange something every time we interact with someone - we are changed and so are they.

During a course I took involving group-work, a girl was distressed saying she felt she could disintegrate. Quick as a flash the facilitator replied 'If you do, you will re-integrate with parts from all of us here'. This was not a New Age training or remark; it was further back and psychodynamically based though I didn't realise how much. (Actually I did not realise it was a psychodynamic course till near the end, which shows how I jumped or got drawn into things.)

If we are picking up sensations and ideas from other people at times and also affecting some of those we meet, it suggests we are not each some closed-off system. I question whether a group of people or an organisation are closed-off either, so have trouble with systems theory.

If we may lose parts of our sensation or memories, move away from some people, get involved with others, does that not suggest we are likely to change in some measure sometimes? I am aware of regression techniques where people experience an earlier time in their life as if it is current, but these concepts do not need to be mutually exclusive.

Some people talk about soul loss or theft and retrieval, and therapy as we know it in the West is not very different taken in a broad view, but I will leave my comments there.

Searching on the Internet with something specific in mind or just following where things lead, there are so many people pounding away at the truth, their truth, and I am no different. History shows a lot of splits or great divides, and these days it gets ever more complex. Deep down there are the same things: matriarchal systems, patriarchal systems, the kind of God or Gods, the swiping at the opposite view, the Celtic versus Christian approach, the believer versus the sceptic, and on and round it goes. Maybe that's what it is all about then, this being human lark - but sometimes it doesn't seem very human.

What happens to one person today can happen to us
or to someone we know tomorrow

We may not know the reason
. . . . .

Booklist for 'Out-of-Character Behaviour'

2008-08-22T08:24:00.002-07:00

‘Going Postal’ by Mark Ames
‘Phantoms in the Brain’ by Blakeslee & Ramachandran
‘The Eternal Child’ by Clive Bromhall
‘The Wayward Mind’ by Guy Claxton
‘Multiple Man’ by Adam Crabtree
‘Lack of Character: Personality, Moral Behaviour’ by John M. Doris
‘Eccentric & Bizarre Behaviours’ by Franzini & Grossberg
‘Nature’s Mind’ by Michael S. Gazzaniga
‘Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception’ by Daniel Goleman
‘The Human Brain’ by Susan Greenfield
'The Psyche in Medicine' by Dr Arthur Guirdham
‘Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches’ by Marvin Harris
‘Mega Brain’ by Michael Hutchinson
‘Britain on the Coach’ by Oliver James
‘Transcultural Psychiatry’ by Ari Kiev
'Healing the Family Tree' by Dr Kenneth McAll
‘Programmed to Kill’ by David McGowan
‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds’ by Charles Mackay
‘The Sickening Mind’ by Paul Martin
‘Fugitive Minds’ by Antonio Melechi
'Guilty by Reason of Insanity' by Dorothy Otnow Lewis MD
‘From the Edge of the Couch’ by Dr Raj Persaud
‘The Psychology of Judgment & Decision Making’ by Scott Plous
‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ by Neil Postman
‘A User’s Guide to the Brain’ by John Ratey
‘Genome’ by Matt Ridley
‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’ by Oliver Sacks
‘Remotely Controlled’ by Dr Aric Sigman
‘Opening Skinner’s Box’ by Lauren Slater
‘The Sociopath Next Door’ by Martha Stout
‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ by James Surowiecki
‘The Call of the Weird’ by Louis Theroux
'Thirty Years Among the Dead' by Carl A. Wickland
'Misunderstanding Cults' edited by Benjamin Zablocki & Thomas Robbins
‘Soul Made Flesh’ by Carl Zimmer

ALSO try Books by -
Ann Rule, Louise Hay, Eric Berne, Anthony Robins, Eric de Bono, Tony Buzan

BOOKS & ARTICLES on -
Hypnosis; Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Advertising; Propaganda
Persuasion techniques; Mind control
True crime; Criminal profiling
Psychological profiling; Psychometric tests
Serial crime; Social control
Problem solving; Lateral thinking

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER ?

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Psychological approaches

2008-08-22T08:23:00.002-07:00

The following posts are by Cilla

From here on in this Blog is work-in-progress, some thoughts as I go along. Feel free to send any comments - making it clear if they are NOT for publication.

It is always problematic when people attempt to come up with explanations that try to cover everyone and every situation. When I write of psychological approaches to illness, it is no way intended to generalise over this, but rather to draw some ideas together for further thought or discussion.

I once saw a young man who claimed in front of an audience that he could 'tune in' to someone's psychological tendencies and suggest the kind of illnesses they would be likely to have. All I can say is, from what he and people in the audience said, he seemed to be making useful observations as if 'inspired'.

Clearly a psychological approach is not applicable to everyone and every type of illness, and maybe this type of approach can be dangerous, 'a little knowledge being a dangerous thing' or how the saying goes. My mind does not handle the approach or concepts of Greek or other mythologies. But some people suggest the Greeks and others knew a thing or two about psychology, human problems and situations. Perhaps some of that can be useful today, and perhaps some would be contra-indicated. I don't feel anything should be applied 'across the board'.

Before moving on I'll raise the issue of whether our psychological frame of mind, way of thinking, whatever one calls it or what it may be, is at least likely to affect our approach to the world, our psychological wellbeing, how 'successful' we are. Over the last 40 years or more there has been a trend towards thinking in terms of 'win-win' situations or 'can do' attitudes. People wrote a lot of books about mental attitudes and how to change them - and hence one's 'success' story or narrative.

I can't help wondering if some authors of those books implying they 'got it right' for their own lives, keep really quiet when going through hard times themselves. Sometimes they bounce back and make a success some other way, so perhaps there's a genetic tendency for robustness or innovation. Perhaps we can learn some of the techniques anyway.

It's hard to know for ourselves, and certainly we can't push ideology onto others irrespective of their tendencies. People seem to know what is best for themselves, almost with awareness of their personal pipeline or destiny, which doesn't mean one can't try to help but I don't feel one should impose.

Then there's that other thing called money. Someone might indeed have a brilliant, humanity-saving idea or ideal. Why then do some people capitalise on it in terms of their personal prowess or cash register?

What is it about other people too that they get drawn into that, forking out money for someone else's 'success story'?

It's a strange world we live in . . . And none of us really knows.

In what appears a contradiction to the theme here, there are some individuals with a natural flair for seeing what might be an appropriate course of action for someone else, and I'm not knocking that at all!

Not all in the mind

2008-08-22T08:23:00.001-07:00

'Not All in the Mind' is the title of a book by Dr Richard Mackarness written in 1976 on 'How unsuspected food allergy can affect your body and your mind'. This was before we heard much about additives in food, hyperactive children, the big rise in asthma, hayfever and so on. I won't go into it in detail but as far as I recall the author was demonstrating that some extreme and bizarre behaviours which looked like what are usually regarded as mental illness or physical illness were just those, not 'something we ate'.

There is current concern about the environment, how much things like lead in petrol, general pollution, electrical pollution, depletion of the rainforests etc. not only affect quality of life but also cause damage to ourselves and other life-forms.

Various 'New Age' and other theories aim to redress the balance in some way. Do they really, or is it just that we like to think they do, or we believe in something so much that 'it works'?

Two books

'Subtle Energy: Understanding the life-force energies that surround us' by Dr William Collinge

'Subtle Energy' by John Davidson

Body time; Body mind

2008-08-22T08:22:00.002-07:00

References

'Body Time: The Natural Rhythms of the Body' by Gay Gaer Luce

'BodyMind: A Synthesis of Eastern and Western Ways to Self-awareness, Health, and Personal Growth' by Ken Dychtwald

Battle for the Mind : Are you a skeptic?

2008-08-22T08:22:00.001-07:00

by Norman

The above is the title of a book by William Sargant whom I've mentioned briefly in relation to 'conversion syndrome' referring to a state of mind where beliefs can radically alter - or be altered. I was thinking of another book 'The Mind Possessed: from Ecstacy to Exorcism' which he wrote long before Ecstacy had any relevance for social drugtaking and mass dancing. Interestingly he writes of shamanic practices, drumming, frenetic dance etc. in relation to ecstatic conversion of beliefs. Some people have been critical of his work and I don't want to get into that controversy here. The back cover blurb for 'Battle for the Mind' reads

'The object of this remarkable book is twofold: To explain how people can be switched to arbitrary beliefs absolutely opposed to those previously held - the science of brainwashing! In detail, and with the aid of fascinating photographs, the author describes the methods used to achieve these ends by politicians, priests, psychiatrists and police forces the world over.' There's no mincing words there, neither does William Sargant in the book. He could easily have played down how effective the methods can be.

He knew what he was talking about from a clinical point of view, and also as an anthropological observer through visiting many countries observing customs and rituals. Briefly at this stage I quote from p.79:

'... those who wish to disperse wrong beliefs and undesirable behaviour patterns and afterwards implant saner beliefs and attitudes are more likely to achieve success if they can first induce some degree of nervous tension or stir up sufficient feelings of anger or anxiety to secure the person's undivided attention and possibly increase his suggestibility.' He goes on to explain that, although one might use a model of slow and reasoned belief change, the reality is that it happens a lot faster which suggests a different dynamic.

He goes on to explain how questioning or interrogation can work subtly with the outcome that eventually the person being questioned feeds back to the questioners the theories swimming round and about him.

He was writing from the late 1950's to early 1970's, which explains some of his attitude and terminology.

See also the previous article on 'Physiology and the brain' regarding work by Dorothy Otnow Lewis and a colleague into some effects of brain damage on mental functioning

Next to arrive on my bookshelf was 'The Unquiet Mind' with William Sargant describing various approaches he attempted with patients, the research of the time, and his own search to find what was appropriate, 'real' or 'right' within his role.

He describes the dilemma that he and colleagues faced over the McNaughton Rules relating to criminal responsibility, and the state of mind of some people accused of violent crime. He writes of a young man who stabbed his mother while mentally confused. Extensive testing revealed abnormal brainwaves from very low blood sugar through his not recently having eaten. The jury took his mental state into account.

Other people in the legal system did not fare so well and some were sentenced to death. Severe abnormalities in brain functioning and behaviour can occur in people with a pre-existing condition who drink large quantities - not necessarily alcohol. Plain water in sufficient quantity can put someone over the edge, and brainwaves can be tested before and after taking in liquid.

There is much more and Sarjant's books are inexpensive and easily obtainable.

In the following section 'Are you a skeptic?' I mention the inefficacy (or worse) of certain medication for instance for schizophrenia and depression. William Sargant points out that in some cases people would probably not have survived without some appropriate medication.

I believe I am right in thinking that he felt medication would eventually help with many more kinds of problem, rather than people becoming involved in psychotherapy. I can't help thinking that environment and the way people are treated matter a great deal.

. . . . .

Are you a skeptic?

by Norman

Generally I avoid publications which are openly sceptikal or skeptical or how it goes. But that is to throw the baby out with the bathwater just as much as they could be.

A recent publication of 'Skeptical Inquirer' dated September/October 2008 caught my attention and I'm glad. There is an article on stimulating the vagus nerve with an expensive gadget supposedly to relieve depression (but tests do not support that); an article on bipolar disorder/manic depression where diagnosis rate has shot up out of all proportion to the reality of the situation, in other words criteria for diagnosis have 'softened'.

Medication can produce significant side-effects, and may actually decrease the likelihood of recovery. On page 43 the article states (in relation to mood stabilising drugs) 'Indeed, these findings indicate that not receiving treatment works better than pharmaceutical intervention. Similarly, University of Illinois researchers recently found that only 5 percent of medicated schizophrenia patients recover, but 40 percent of non-medicated patients recover (Harrow, Grossman, Jobe, and Herbener 2005; also see Harrow and Jobe 2007). In other words, schizophrenia patients are eight times more likely to recover if they are not on medications!'

In the late 1960's I attended classes at a London college taught by a psychiatrist on the subject of mental health. I recall him saying that 'spontaneous remission' occurred in about 50 percent of schizophrenia cases, i.e. without drugs or therapy. There seems to be some general consistency with the more recent research figure of 40 percent.

Along with some other volunteers I became involved with a research project at a large Victorian mental hospital with a progressive approach. Each volunteer visited one patient assigned to them with the aim of forming a relationship to see whether there was significant improvement. I did not look up the results - we all knew that there was an improvement, and even some staff who were sceptical could see for themselves.

I think we need to look more to sociological and human approaches rather than thinking the cure necessarily comes from a medicine bottle. Having said that, I will add a proviso that people bear in mind the previous article 'Battle for the Mind' on the work and views of William Sargant.
. . . . .

Sociological and influence approaches

2008-08-22T08:21:00.001-07:00

In preparation but see video and links below:

Middle Ground at http://middleground.limewebs.com or http://middlegroundable.blogspot.com outlining work by Dr Paul Simpson on mediation and reconciliation, false memories, theories
. . .

Cultwise at http://cultwise.blogspot.com
. . .

'Doc Matrix' at www.docmatrix.me.uk
Site with information linking Cults , Beliefs , Con-tricks/scams , Social & psychological pressures
. . .

HelpLinks for Missing-from-home/runaways ; Human rights & injustice, Discrimination - Disabilities, Mental health; Questionnaires about help
. . .

TANSAL Abuse Links - abuse survivors, domestic violence, bullying, human rights, injustice, at http://www.tansal.org.uk/ includes pages on Human Rights
. . .

Toukanali a - Norman's site on OUT-OF-CHARACTER BEHAVIOUR which includes some of the posts which appear on here and vice versa.
. . .

A Tour of Personality at http://xtrinsic.myblogsite.com
. . .

Magentine Daze at http://magentine.angelfire.com
. . .

Speak of the Devil at http://speakofthedevil.myblogsite.com
. . .

'A Singular Yarn'
- A story with a difference about ritual abuse and confusing therapy
- For those who wonder if ritual abuse is ever really real
- For those who wonder if their therapy really is helping
www.yarntangled.net

No-one has to believe any of this. Not all of these things happen to people involved in ‘satanic’ or other cult ritual activity, and certainly not to many people in therapy. If some of the words, phrases or concepts, or sheer incredibility latch onto your curiosity or onto something meaningful, that is what ‘the Book’ is meant for:

* To de-mystify the otherwise unbelievable

* To show these things can happen

* That they are basically an extension of other aspects of human behaviour, however inhuman, crass, ridiculous, stupid, unnecessary, it may all seem

* It could happen to people close to us

*If we don't listen, we won't hear

Principles which can be used to control others can also be used to undo control

Go to Page 5 http://middleground.20m.com/thread/thread5.html

Possession or ancestral approaches

2008-08-22T08:17:00.002-07:00

To follow

Reincarnation or past lives approaches

2008-08-22T08:17:00.001-07:00

In preparation

Paranormal & psychic research

2008-08-22T08:16:00.001-07:00

The following video outlines a book by Willy Schrodter 1897-1971 'History of Energy Transference' which is as relevant today as at the time it was written:

Ideas can fit together in different ways, or some parts might fit while others get rejected. If you are unable to watch videos or YouTube - which is very frustrating! - we can try to put some of them into Acrobat format, or plain text.

HEALING APPROACHES

2008-08-22T08:15:00.002-07:00

Clearly there are varied and wide issues touched on, but I'd like to jump back to something mentioned earlier on whether it is possible to see - or photograph if you're lucky! - things which are on someone's mind and perhaps rejected, or which are affecting them in some way without their knowing.

Once-upon-a-time I had more books on auras and chakras, planes of existence and so on, but lack of space meant some had to go, and this was in accordance with what seemed a growing disenchantment about some things on my part. A lot of books on reincarnation and past lives went too because I felt I could remember the main themes and needed the space.

One small book by Choa Kok Sui entitled 'Pranic Psychotherapy' came forward again recently, and caught my attention because it is concise and 'meaningful'. On p.7 is a sketch of how a chakra or aura might look when the person is under stress, or when there are 'negative elementals' or 'cracks' or 'holes'. All these look pretty small and as if they are not too difficult to handle, whereas some books on negative/dark entities and possession imply that most of our problems are caused by something horrendous or complicated. That could be so, but it helps to start somewhere. Choa Kok Sui says from p.5:

'When a person has had a traumatic experience, the traumatic psychic energies produced are lodged in several chakras or energy centers which may in the long run manifest as stress or phobia. These traumatic energies have certain degrees of consciousness and are called traumatic thought entities. . . In more serious cases, some of the protective webs are punctured and have big holes. This makes the patient susceptible to 'psychic disturbances' or 'intrusions' by negative psychic entities or elementals. In Christian terms, these are called bad spirits. . . These negative elementals are about one-third of an inch to several inches in size. . . they are actually quite weak and can easily be destroyed by experienced pranic healers. . . by an act of will of the healer, the use of violet pranic energy, or by throwing them into a water and salt solution.'

The author suggests simple meditations to practise, and making sure one takes a rest or holiday! Obviously there is much more behind it and he draws from various spiritual traditions and many years' experience as a healer of both physical and psychological problems.

- - -

More to follow in this section

In preparation

2008-08-22T08:15:00.001-07:00

Booklist for Healing approaches

2008-08-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

Listed here are some of the books drawn from particularly for the latter parts of the Blog. Some have been 'skated over' and neither this, nor the fact that many excellent books and authors have not been included, should be taken to imply there is not a great deal more to be gained through them.

'Spirit Releasement Therapy' by William J. Baldwin D.D.S., Ph.D.

'The Healing Power of Illness' by Dethlefsen & Dahlke

'Space, Time & Medicine' by Larry Dossey M.D.

'The Unquiet Dead' by Dr Edith Fiore

'The Complete Healer: How to awaken and develop your healing potential' by David Furlong

'The Psyche in Medicine' by Dr Arthur Guirdham

'The Way of the Shaman' by Michael Harner

'The Journey to You: A Shaman's path to empowerment' by Ross Heaven

'The Healing of the Gods' by Peter Lemesurier

'Healing the Family Tree' by Dr Kenneth McAll

'Shamanic Experience' by Kennetth Meadows

'Remarkable Healings' by Shakuntala Modi M.D.

'Soul Rescuers' by Terry & Natalia O'Sullivan

'People of The Lie' by M. Scott Peck

'Psycho-Regression' by Dr Francesca Rossetti

'Pranic Psychotherapy' and 'Miracles Through Pranic Healing' by Choa Kok Sui

'Mending the Past and Healing the Future with Soul Retrieval' by Alberto Villoldo Ph.D.

'Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to heal yourself and others with the energy medicine of the Americas' by Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D.

'Treating Body, Mind and Soul: Alternative solutions for modern living' by Jan de Vries

'Soul Recovery and Extraction' by Ai Gvhdi Waya

'Other Lives, Other Selves: A Jungian psychotherapist discovers past lives' by Roger J. Woolger

Contact information

2008-08-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

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