Without prejudicing what anyone might wish to say about themselves or times that they or someone else acted 'out-of-character', there often does seem an interpersonal or group aspect although obviously there can be plenty of other factors.
This page reflects some of that approach towards considering 'why we do what we do' - even if it's only sometimes or just a one-off. And it implies it might make sense to watch some of the company we keep!
TELL YOUR STORY and some Excerpts are now at the bottom of Page 1 the Home Page.
-
Visit TOUK main site
Sunday, 14 October 2007
Profiling - the company we keep?
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. 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?
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.
More videos in this series at www.youtube.com/user/scillaholmes
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. 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?
. . . . .
Cults, groups, 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.
. . . . .
Posts by Kaytrin and others on similar subjects are now all located on 'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com to make space for newer articles here.
Norman's article 'Profiling - the company we keep?' (about groups) is here on this Blog.
For more on Cults and groups in general click HERE
Also see 'Doc Matrix' - A fun site with a serious purpose in mind - YOU!
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.
. . . . .
Posts by Kaytrin and others on similar subjects are now all located on 'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com to make space for newer articles here.
Norman's article 'Profiling - the company we keep?' (about groups) is here on this Blog.
For more on Cults and groups in general click HERE
Also see 'Doc Matrix' - A fun site with a serious purpose in mind - YOU!
Problems are not all Your Fault! : Outline Questions on Help
Pressures Outside or Within : P-Y-O Personality Parts
Groups & Cults : Dissing, Dissonance, Splits & Divides
Doc’s X-Files or WHY? : Beliefs & Myths We Live By
Con-Tricks, Hustles, Scams, Deception - BookList
Dissociation/ DID; Memes; Garden analogy
I wanted to add a few ideas in here because they seem relevant. Norman mentioned a book by Adam Crabtree entitled 'Multiple Man' which I won't go into in detail here 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'.'
by Kaytrin
---
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 can'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 a similar theme is 'A garden analogy of personality' (now pasted in at the end of this piece) which could have 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.
I won't list any other particular books but you can search on Amazon, Google etc. and find something which suits the kind of questions you may have.
- - - - - - -
Other, better theories about DID, MPD?
by Harlan
Reading your site, and with some interest in all this, 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.
- - - - - - -
Included below with permission -
'A garden analogy of personality'
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.
- - - - - - -
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'.'
by Kaytrin
---
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 can'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 a similar theme is 'A garden analogy of personality' (now pasted in at the end of this piece) which could have 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.
I won't list any other particular books but you can search on Amazon, Google etc. and find something which suits the kind of questions you may have.
- - - - - - -
Other, better theories about DID, MPD?
by Harlan
Reading your site, and with some interest in all this, 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.
- - - - - - -
Included below with permission -
'A garden analogy of personality'
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.
- - - - - - -
Was apparent ritual abuse basically an excuse for extreme social engineering and control, leading women - in particular - to think they had no rights, and behaving as if Hicktown was a veritable Stepford Life?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SVz2sN3qcA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SVz2sN3qcA
If you arrived here from another website
If you arrived on this page from another site
this is part of Toukanalia Blog on
'Out-of-Character Behaviour' main page HERE
~ ~ ~
'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' Blog with various articles
now all at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com
Includes: Symbols, realities, the unseen; Shamanism
Ritual abuse - see the trigger warning
Urban legend and ritual abuse
Groups, cults, indoctrination, exiting
Supporting a survivor of cult ritual abuse
Dissociation or DID
A garden analogy of personality
Other or better models for DID, MPD?
Social dynamics of cult or satanic ritual abuse
More dynamics, by Magentine
Fantasy role-playing
this is part of Toukanalia Blog on
'Out-of-Character Behaviour' main page HERE
~ ~ ~
'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' Blog with various articles
now all at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com
Includes: Symbols, realities, the unseen; Shamanism
Ritual abuse - see the trigger warning
Urban legend and ritual abuse
Groups, cults, indoctrination, exiting
Supporting a survivor of cult ritual abuse
Dissociation or DID
A garden analogy of personality
Other or better models for DID, MPD?
Social dynamics of cult or satanic ritual abuse
More dynamics, by Magentine
Fantasy role-playing
Battle for the Mind
Article 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.
Sargant was writing from the late 1950's to early 1970's, which explains some of his attitude and terminology.
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 Sargant'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.
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.
Sargant 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/psychology 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 Sargant'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.
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.
SUMMARY 'Out-of-Character Behaviour'
Written 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.
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.
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?
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 usor to someone we know tomorrow
We may not know the reason. . . . .
We may not know the reason. . . . .
BOOK LIST for 'Out-of-Character Behaviour'
‘Going Postal’ by Mark Ames
'Critical Mass: How one thing leads to another' by Philip Ball
‘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
'The Tipping Point: How little things can make a difference' by Malcolm Gladwell
‘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
'Freakonomics' by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner
'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
'The KC Factor' by D.H.S. Reid
‘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, Edward 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
'Critical Mass: How one thing leads to another' by Philip Ball
‘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
'The Tipping Point: How little things can make a difference' by Malcolm Gladwell
‘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
'Freakonomics' by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner
'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
'The KC Factor' by D.H.S. Reid
‘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, Edward 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?
Continue to Appendices, Contacting Us, Seeking Help
by clicking on Older Posts
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Continue to Appendices, Contacting Us, Seeking Help
by clicking on Older Posts
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