Like any normal day

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 is part of the basis of this Blog, and it’s showing on the front page so you see where it came from. And you can play a part in where it’s going if you want - just write a comment. If you don’t want it to appear for everyone to see you can make that clear.

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

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

'Scapegoating, Dissing, Abuse' see http://www.tansal.org.uk/scapegoatingabuse.html
'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com - Including tides of thought or belief and counter-reaction. Articles on 'Urban legend and ritual abuse', 'Shamanism', and 'Symbols, Realities, the Unseen'



= = = = =

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'. 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.

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




More information on Project Middle Ground - Reconciliation
is at http://middlegroundable.blogspot.com




= = = = = 



Fantasy role-playing 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'.
= = = = =