ABOUT CULTWISE

Cults are a fascinating subject perhaps because no-one seems to agree on what they are, or the main reasons underlying why people get involved, from the viewpoint of those who get drawn in, those who look in from the outside, or those running them.

Certainly it can be hard to leave a cultic situation, partly because people find it hard to accept they may need to re-assess some things in their life. Even if they do realise something has to change, it's hard to achieve that without outside help or information.

Concerned family and friends need the right kind of information and approach for themselves and for the person in the situation. These days the Internet is a useful starting point and books are available.

Try to steer clear of anyone who is dogmatic or tries to lay down the law on one way of perceiving or proceeding. Sometimes people who have been involved in a bad experience think they also know what is right for others - which can feel too much like being in a cult or being abused again.

Keep in contact with the person who has become involved in a cult if you can and be generally supportive, without pressurising them to change before they are ready. It can take a long while.

On this and the following pages are extracts from other websites and you can follow up on links shown with the articles or in the Links section.

If anyone's work is mentioned here and they prefer it not to be, or to have it amended, just get in touch via the Comments.

Inclusion of any ideas does not necessarily mean we are in agreement but that the subject matter and nature of the work may have value.

Some of the articles may not go far enough; some may go too far. They are included for possible usefulness. If any ideas make you feel uncomfortable or uneasy, ignore them and choose what feels better.

The Blog is in its early stages but there may be something of interest to you or you can add your own comments and information. The placement of articles may be altered when information is added.

TemZone

THE STEPFORD WIVES

The following is part of the Wikipedia entry as at 11 October 2008 under title 'The Stepford Wives'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives

Plot summary

The premise involves the married men of the fictional town of Stepford, Connecticut, and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. The protagonist is Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer newly arrived from New York City with her husband and children, eager to start a new life. As time goes on, she becomes increasingly disturbed by the zombie-like Stepford wives, especially when she sees her once independent-minded friends – fellow new arrivals to Stepford – turn into mindless, docile housewives overnight. Her husband, who seems to be spending more and more time at the local men's club, mocks her fears.

As the story progresses, Joanna becomes convinced that the wives of Stepford are actually look-alike gynoids, manufactured in secret at the men's club. She visits the library and reads up on the pasts of Stepford's husbands and wives, finding out that some of the women were once high achievers, while some of the men were brilliant engineers and scientists, capable of creating such life-like robots.

In popular culture

The label "Stepford wife" is usually applied to a woman who seems to conform blindly to an old-fashioned subservient role in relationship to her husband, compared to other, presumably more independent and vivacious women. It can also be used to criticise any person, male or female, who submits meekly to authority and/or abuse; or even to describe someone who lives in a robotic, conformist manner without giving offense to anyone. The word "Stepford" can also be used as an adjective denoting servility or blind conformity (e.g. "He's a real Stepford employee") or a noun ("My home town is so Stepford") [5]. (See also; Pollyanna).

GROUP MINDS & EGREGORS

TRANCE and TRANSFORMATION

Below is an extract from website http://trance.edu with implications beyond what some cult writers feel relevant or even possible with regard to general cult phenomena:

What is trance; why it is important. Posted January 20th, 2008 by Dennis Wier in
* Questions, Experiences

What's so important about trance?

Maybe you are not clear on exactly what a trance is. What we mean is meditation, hypnosis, addictions, charisma, electronic and chemical means of inducing trance as well as brainwashing, mind control, cults, magic, music, ritual and dance, and advertising.
You might already have a good idea of what hypnosis is. But you probably don't realize all the ways that it is used on you without either your awareness or permission, a form of trance abuse. Increasing public awareness of trance abuse, and showing how to prevent it, is one of the main jobs of the Trance Research Foundation.
Our vision and commitment

The Trance Research Foundation has an ambitious vision because the problems are huge.

Realizing our vision will require the personal commitment of many people just like you. And it means a lot of work, expended over a long period of time. We know it will also require large financial investments from socially conscious benefactors. But the results will be
- a greater public awareness of how trance works
- a greater public immunity to trance abuse
- a measurable worldwide decrease in drug and alcohol abuse problems
- a more enlightened worldwide drug policy
- a greater number of people who practice meditation for personal development
- an increase in consciousness and planetary wisdom.
- And this will result in greater world peace for future generations.


What is important

Here are some of the areas we see as important:
- Trance - its use and misuse - continues to have important social and psychological effects worldwide.
- Understanding how trance works enables and empowers people to explore themselves and the world they live in.
- The lack of understanding of trance exposes people to trance abuse and can cause psychological pathologies.
- Many such pathologies can be prevented with knowledge.
- Until now there has not been a model which attempts to explain meditation, hypnosis, addiction, magic and charisma with one robust theory. We feel we can provide that now.
- To study important contemporary trances, to understand their structure, their creation, their effects, the mechanisms used to change them or to bring about their dissolution.
- To facilitate advanced psychological study through the open sharing of special known trance mechanisms.
- To provide consultation and practical training to psychologists and therapists.
- To publish in peer reviewed journals the results of research.
- To operate a virtual educational institution to make the results of trance research available as widely as possible.
- To make a strong presence in the media, including audio, video, internet.
- To promote education about trance by means of on-line courses, teacher training, having a presence and relationship in schools, organizing annual international conventions on trance.
- Staying in the news by means of publicity releases, involvment with international personalities.
- Clinical treatment programs for drug/alcohol abuse, prevention programs, individual trance analysis, workshops for medical professionals, workshops and social programs to promote the best practices of trance.


Our interests are in:

- Meditation: religious and nonreligious meditation techniques, their physiological and psychological effects. This includes shamanistic, occult, daydreaming, channeling and other practices which incorporate meditation.
- Hypnosis: advertising, sales, television, video games, virtual reality, and many other hypnotic trance phenomena.
- Addiction: drug, psychic, performance, belief and other repetitive and compulsive behaviors.
- Magic: ritual, devotional and religious magic from witchcraft to contemporary religions.
- Music: many traditional as well as contemporary musical genres including drum and bass, acid trance, goa trance, traditional voodoo, shamanistic, native and electronic forms induce trance.
- Drugs: recreational and traditional drugs create trances through the suppression or modification of cognitive functions.
- Electronics: ultrasound, microwave and electro-biologically based trance inductions have been successfully used in publicly little-known military and neurophysiological applications.
- Charisma: guru-worship, cults, political, religious and entertainment charisma.

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DOC MATRIX - CULTS & GROUPS

GROUPS and CULTS by Doc Matrix

If you sought some kind of spiritual or pastoral help perhaps that was through a well-known religion.

Or it could from what some people think of as a cult type of group.

People naturally have different needs and experiences - What suits one person may not suit another and may even be harmful.

ONLY YOU can decide what's best for you at a particular time

IF someone approaches you at a time when you are vulnerable

IF they are offering TOO MUCH friendship 'out of the Blue'

IF there is A RUSH about it

DOC says Just Be Careful
Take your Time
Don't Feel Pressurised
Step Back if You Need to!
Important Decisions can WAIT

ONE Person can be almost like a Cult just by themselves!

A GROUP can quite easily set up a Scene for YOU to walk into


Things - and People, are not always what they seem:
There may be a hidden agenda, camouflage or trick to abuse your desire to help or to be accepted

There can be a double standards or double-binds

LOOK at what's really being asked or expected of you -SEE how your concerns are dealt with


BEAR IN MIND THAT -

YOU have a right to know where your Money goes

YOU are entitled to proper Rest, Food & Friends

YOU are entitled to CHANGE your Mind or LEAVE

It can take an Instant to get drawn in but YEARS to get away - CULTS KNOW THAT

Cults Indoctrinate People AND People CAN Protect themselves with some Knowledge

Get some help from Friends or Family


Dissing has become a part of life, whether that means discounting someone, disrespecting, discrediting, disregarding, dismissing; or being rude or unsupportive.

It is a way of Scapegoating. You know the saying 'You are either for us or against us'? Groups often exclude someone - anyone - to suit the majority, as if they feel better to leave someone in the cold. It happens in families too!

It helps to see the dynamic for what it is, see if there's a reason, and if you can do anything about it for the time being.

This is why it is good to have an ally, a 'friend in court' to see some of it from your point of view. You don't need a specialist, just someone to back you up and give emotional support.

Perhaps now you know why groups serve that purpose for the members.

And how cults play on people's need to belong, not feel excluded, and feel a sense of meaning and place. Those are natural needs and they can be exploited, for money - or just for kicks.

CULT INFORMATION

People working in this field may have different opinions and approaches, so take on board what is useful - and leave the rest:

Cult Dynamics article at http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/cultdyn.htm

'Cults & Families' by Doni Whitsett & Stephen A Kent. Download http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~skent/cults.html

Cults & Sects Bibliography booklist http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/bibcult.htm

http://www.freedomofmind.com Steven Hassan's website, author 'Combatting Cult Mind Control'; 'Releasing the Bonds'

http://www.rickross.com Signs that a group might be a 'cult' and how to get out of one. Book List on page http://www.rickross.com/reference/books/reading_list.html

International Cultic Studies Association - How cults operate and their effects: http://www.icsahome.com

FECRIS European site, worldwide links: http://www.fecris.org

Cults, Sects & Heresies free course http://eomtc.com/cults/

Social Identity Theory - Insights into groups & cult behaviours

BOOKS and ARTICLES

'Bully in Sight' by Tim Field (workplace bullying)

'Cults, Secret Sects & Radical Religions' by Robert Schroeder

'Gangland Today' by James Morton

'Gangs' by Tony Thompson

'Individuals, Groups & Organizations Beneath the Surface'
by Lionel F. Stapley

'Misunderstanding Cults' by Benjamin Zablocki & Thomas Robbins

'Organisations, Anxieties & Defences' ed. R.D. Hinshelwood
& Marco Cheisa

Out of Character Behaviour website http://toukanalia.blogspot.com

'Pointed Observations' by Kevin R D Shepherd

'Profiling the Criminal Mind' by Robert Girod Sr
(included as it discusses group pressures, cult crimes, etc.)

'Programmed to Kill' by David McGowan

'Recovery from Cults' by Michael D Longone

'Scapegoating, Abuse & One-upmanship' article HERE

'Secret Societies & Psychological Warfare' by Michael A Hoffman II

'Snapping' by Flo Conway & Jim Siegelman

'Sinister Forces Book Three: The Manson Secret' by Peter Levenda

Social Dynamics of Cult Ritual Abuse click HERE

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

'The Complex' by John Duignan

'The Cult Files' by Chris Mikul

'The Dark Gods' by Anthony Roberts & Geoff Gilbertson

'The Dilbert Principle' by Scott Adams

'The Mafia' by Claire Sterling

'The Neurotic Organization' by Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries
& Danny Miller

'The Occult Tradition' by David S Katz

'The Secret World of Cults' by Jean Ritchie

'Today's Destructive Cults & Movements' by Rev. Lawrence J Gesy

'Understanding Organizations' by Charles Handy

'Working Across the Gap: The Practice of Social Science in Organisations' by Lisl Klein

People have a need to be A PART of what is going on
around them, other People and so on,
and to keep themselves APART too

And it can lead us into Trouble!

It's important to REALLY THINK for YOURSELF!

SOCIAL ENGINEERING

The following comes from http://toukanalia/blogspot.com

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

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

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

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

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

Confidence Tricks & Scams
Some other relevant concepts are Con tricks or scams

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

COGNITIVE BIAS

Before mentioning cognitive biases below, here are a couple of concepts generally used in connection with individuals but which could perhaps be applied to groups also, explaining some anomalies in how they function:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egodystonic
Egodystonic is a psychological term referring to behaviors, (e.g., dreams, impulses, compulsions, desires, etc.), that are in conflict, or dissonant, with the needs and goals of the ego, or, further, in conflict with a person's ideal self-image.
The concept is studied in detail in abnormal psychology, and is the opposite of egosyntonic. Obsessive compulsive disorder is considered to be an ego-dystonic disorder, as the thoughts and compulsions experienced or expressed are often not consistent with the individual's self-perception, causing extreme distress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egosyntonic
Egosyntonic is a medical term referring to behaviors, values, feelings, which are in harmony with or acceptable to the needs and goals of the ego, or consistent with one's ideal self-image. It is studied in detail in abnormal psychology. Many personality disorders are considered egosyntonic and are therefore nearly impossible to treat. Anorexia Nervosa, a hard-to-treat Type I disorder, is also considered egosyntonic because many of its sufferers deny that they have a problem. It is the opposite of egodystonic. Obsessive compulsive disorder is considered to be an egodystonic disorder, as the thoughts and compulsions experienced or expressed are not consistent with the individual's self-perception.
. . . . .


Cognitive Bias

From Wikipedia as at 12th October 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

A cognitive bias is a person's tendency to make errors in judgment based on cognitive factors, and is a phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology. Forms of cognitive bias include errors in statistical judgment, social attribution, and memory that are common to all human beings. Such biases drastically skew the reliability of anecdotal and legal evidence. These are thought to be based upon heuristics, or rules of thumb, which people employ out of habit or evolutionary necessity.

Contents
* 1 Overview
* 2 Types of cognitive biases
* 3 Practical Significance
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 Further reading
* 7 External links

Overview

Bias arises from various life, loyalty and local risk and attention concerns that are difficult to separate or codify. Much of the present scientific understanding of biases stems from the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and their colleagues,[citation needed] whose experiments demonstrated distinct and replicable ways in which human judgment and decision-making differ from rational choice theory. This led to Tversky and Kahneman developing prospect theory as an alternative.[citation needed] Tversky and Kahneman claim that the biases they identified are at least partially the result of problem-solving using mental short-cuts or "heuristics", for instance using how readily or vividly something comes to mind as an indication of how often or how recently it was encountered (the availability heuristic). Other biases have been demonstrated in separate experiments, such as the confirmation bias demonstrated by Peter C. Wason.

Not all of 'biases' are necessarily errors. David Funder and Joachim Krueger have argued that some so called 'biases' may in fact be 'approximation shortcuts', which aid humans in making predictions when information is in short supply.[citation needed] For example, the false consensus effect may be viewed as a reasonable estimation based on a single known data point, your own opinion, instead of a false belief that other people agree with you.

Types of cognitive biases

Biases can be distinguished on a number of dimensions. For example, there are biases specific to groups (such as the risky shift) as well as biases at the individual level.

Some biases affect decision-making, where the desirability of options has to be considered (e.g. Sunk Cost fallacy). Others such as Illusory correlation affect judgment of how likely something is, or of whether one thing is the cause of another. A distinctive class of biases affect memory,[1] such as consistency bias (remembering one's past attitudes and behaviour as more similar to one's present attitudes).

Some biases reflect a subject's motivation, [2] for example the desire for a positive self-image leading to Egocentric bias[3] and the avoidance of unpleasant cognitive dissonance. Other biases are due to the particular way the brain perceives, forms memories and makes judgments. This distinction is sometimes described as "Hot cognition" versus "Cold Cognition", as motivated cognition can involve a state of arousal.

Among the "cold" biases, some are due to ignoring relevant information (e.g. Neglect of probability), whereas some involve a decision or judgement being affected by irrelevant information (for example the Framing effect where the exact same problem receives different responses depending on how it is described) or giving excessive weight to an unimportant but salient feature of the problem (e.g. Anchoring).

The fact that some biases reflect motivation, and in particular the motivation to have positive attitudes to oneself[3] accounts for the fact that many biases are self-serving or self-directed (e.g. Illusion of asymmetric insight, Self-serving bias, Projection bias). There are also biases in how subjects evaluate in-groups or out-groups; evaluating in-groups as more diverse and "better" in many respects, even when those groups are arbitrarily-defined (Ingroup bias, Outgroup homogeneity bias).

The following is a list of the more commonly studied cognitive biases.
For other noted biases, see list of cognitive biases (link at end of this piece)

* Anchoring on a past reference.
* Framing by using a too narrow approach and description of the situation or issue.
* Hindsight bias, sometimes called the "I-knew-it-all-along" effect, is the inclination to see past events as being predictable.
* Fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior.
* Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions; this is related to the concept of cognitive dissonance.
* Self-serving bias is the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests.

Note:
A fuller list of cognitive biases including social or attributional biases appears at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

BELIEFS, THOUGHTS and BEHAVIOUR

The following appears at http://tansal.50megs.com/groupscultsscams.html regarding Social and Group Aspects of Behaviour:

WE ALL get persuaded on occasion, perhaps to buy something that we either do or don't need - the 'right' kind of advertising obviously does pay. At least we know where to get hold of something should the inspiration or need arise. Ever wonder where the inspiration or 'need' comes from? Does it necessarily benefit you, apart from that buzz and the hole in your pocket.
RESEARCH shows how people in groups tend to be rather more willing to take risks. That doesn't mean that everyone takes more risks, or even feels like it. It is simply that there is a way of showing a reasonable statistical difference between one state of affairs (making a decision on one's own), and facing the same decision with a group of others people.
YOU MIGHT be surprised how much that appears in our newspapers is simply a press release or write-up about someone's research, which may or may not be applicable to normal daily life. It could, by a small stretch of the imagination, be designed to influence you to a way of thinking.
DID YOU know that behaviour follows thought? Whose thoughts - what you read, what someone whom you trust tells you, what everyone else in the workplace thinks, what your partner thinks? This may sound like empty rhetoric and that is for you to decide. But would you want constant party political broadcasts, rousing marches, football crowds?
DO YOU want sometimes to flop in front of the tv and let it all happen around you? It lifts you out of your everyday life, the daily struggle to work when you don't feel like it, the chores, getting the car fixed. It's like a holiday, and we all need a breather. You're happy to let the show go on and that might just be when your defences are down (hence all those ads?).
FINE - because you know there's advertising. But what if you're uneasy about something, on the tv/ off the tv, what your mate says, what your boss says? Why do you think there is emphasis today on being assertive, standing up for yourself, getting advice because you don't fit a particular niche? Indeed it could be good for you. It could also be good for the people who are paid to promote ideas via books, seminars, group meetings to foster a feeling of support, and so on.
EVERYONE has to earn a living? Everyone can do their own thing? It's free and it's helpful? Could there be a hidden agenda, getting your mates involved, giving a donation, getting you to buy books, encouraging you to feel a need to seek help or comfort - at financial or human cost? We are all human: you may feel OK with yourself or at least you get by. You can build on that by yourself or with friends you trust.
BE AWARE that some people may not be what they seem. Some may simply want you to believe what they believe, or they say what you might want to hear. Something to watch out for would be a double-standard (which can be deliberate or not) where the stated objective may be perhaps an ideal to follow, but the intent may be raising money or having a form of control over others.
AS A GUIDE, if you are in a relationship or a group and you feel like questioning something or changing your mind but you meet opposition, perhaps it is time to examine things further. There is a natural amount of give-and-take in many situations. We all have our various likes and dislikes, our comfort zones and our discomforts.


DOC MATRIX - BELIEFS and MYTHS PAGE

Suppose I think that's a Dinosaur flying by, says Doc, then
I'll probably BEHAVE as if there IS one

Can I persuade YOU there's one?
Can someone convince ME there is?

Set the Scene right and I'm likely to BELIEVE Anything

Maybe I read stories when little, and Dinos were Good
Maybe someone said they were Scarey

It might seem Prudent to Believe something is Good
Or equally Prudent to Believe some things are Bad

We probably Forget where most of it began -
But we ACT as if they are True or Real

I might just Change my Mind about some of it
Someone might talk things over to Change my Mind
So Far So Good - That's Common Sense


WHAT IF one Person or a Group
can make Money out of changing
my Beliefs or changing my Behaviour?
(actually Either can work for Both)

SUPPOSE they studied Group Pressures,
Social situations, HOW to change a Belief

They could be £££'s-in or SIMPLY get some Power

When I say SIMPLY I mean it is quite SIMPLE to do

There will always be Leader Types
And People more likely to Follow a Lead

What I refer to is Something ELSE, call it Psycho-
Social Influence, Factors or What-Have-You?

Set the Scene right and I am likely to BELIEVE Anything

No-One can Blame YOU for getting SET-UP

Watch THE REAL HUSTLE on TV!

We can ALL Learn!

DOC MATRIX BOOKList on BELIEFS & BEHAVIOUR

'An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Other People's Worlds' by Joy Hendry
'A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion' ed. Michael Lambek
'Britain on the Couch' by Oliver James
'Cross-Cultural Psychology' by Berry, Poortinga, Segall, Dasen
'Eccentric & Bizarre Behaviours' by Franzini & Grossberg
'Extraordinary Popular Delusions' by Charles Mackay
'Fugitive Minds' by Antonio Melechi
'Messengers of Deception' by Jacques Vallee
'Phantoms of the Brain' by Blakeslee & Ramachandran
'Pointed Observations' by Kevin R D Shepherd
'Social Psychology' by M A Hogg & G M Vaughan
'Spying in Guru Land' by William Shaw
'The Anthropology of Religion' by Fiona Bowie
'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat' by Oliver Sacks
'The Psychic Tourist' by William Little
'The Secret World of Cults' by Jean Ritchie
'The Stargate Conspiracy' by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince
'The Supernatural' by Will Storr
'The Wayward Mind' by Guy Claxton
'Worldviews' by Ninian Smart


DOC MATRIX's X-Files BOOKList

'Ancient Energies of the Earth' by David Cowan & Anne Silk
'Archaeology of the Mind: the Social History of the Unconscious'
by George Frankl
'Beyond the Occult' by Colin Wilson
'Borderlands' by Mike Dash
'Daimonic Reality' by Patrick Harpur
'Disneyland of the Gods' by John Keel
'Earth Harmony' by Nigel Pennick
'Environmental Psychology' by Robert Gifford
'ESP Beyond Time & Distance' by T.C. Lethbridge
'Games of the Gods - The Origin of Board Games'' by Nigel Pennick
'Hidden Meanings' by Laird Scranton
'Hungry Ghosts' by Joe Fisher
'Labyrinths: Ancient Myths & Modern Uses' by Sig Lonegren
'Ley Lines' by Danny Sullivan
'Messengers of Deception' by Jacques Vallee
'Missing Pieces' by Robert A Baker & Joe Nickell
'Mysteries of the Hopewell' by William F. Romain
'Natural Symbols' by Mary Douglas
'Needles of Stone' by Tom Graves
'Out of Character Behaviour' http://toukanalia.blogspot.com
'Places of Power' by Paul Devereux
'Revelations' by Jacques Vallee
'Shamanism & The Mystery Lines' by Paul Devereux
'Space, Time & Medicine' by Larry Dossey
'Strange Creatures from Time & Space' by John Keel
'Symbols & Meaning' by Mari Womack
'The Phantom World' by Augustin Calmet (written in 1746)
'The Power of Coincidence' by Frank Joseph
'The Stargate Conspiracy' by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince
'The System in which we Live' by Arthur Oram
'The Way of the Shaman' by Michael Harner
'True Life Encounters' by John & Anne Spencer
'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' HERE


DOC MATRIX BOOKList on CON-TRICKS, SCAMS & DECEPTION

BBC TV have been running 'The Real Hustle' in 2009, information at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006m8mf
If you can watch videos you can see the Top 30 voted Hustles at
www.bbc.co.uk/realhustle/besthustles/

& see YOUTUBE

BOOKS you may find useful are:

'Conned: Scams, Frauds & Swindles' by James Morton & Hilary Bateson
'The Con Artist Handbook, the Secrets of Hustles & Scams' by Joel Levy
'The Art of Deception' by Kevin D Mitnick & William L Simon
'More Scams from the Great Beyond' by Peter Huston
'The Art of the Steal' by Frank Abagnale
'The Sting - True Stories of the World's greatest Conmen' by Nigel Blundell
'The Tourist Trap - when Holiday turns to Nightmare' by Patrick Blackden

'The Body Language Bible' by Judi James
'The Book of Tells' by Peter Collett
'The Call of the Weird - Travels in American Subcultures' by Louis Theroux
'The Dilbert Principle' by Scott Adams
'A Mind of its Own - How your Brain Distorts & Deceives' by Cordelia Fine
'The Psychology of Self-Deception' by Daniel Goleman

'Buy-ology' by Martin Lindstrom
'Decoding Advertisements - Ideology & Meaning in Advertising' by Judith Williamson
'Emotional Design - Why we love (or hate) everyday things' by Donald A Norman
'Of Cigarettes, High Heels, & Other Interesting Things' by Marcel Danesi
'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely
'Stack & Sway - the new Science of Jury Consulting'
by Neil J Kressel & Dorit F Kressel
'Techniques of Persuasion' by J.A.C. Brown
'We Know What You Want - How they change your Mind' by Martin Howard
'The Want Makers' by Eric Clark

'Body Magic' by John Fisher
'Building Blocks' by Luke Jermay
Cold Reading/Barnum Effect article
'Hiding the Elephant' by Jim Steinmeyer
'Hoffmann's Modern Magic' by Hoffmann
'Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic'
'The Psychic Mafia' by M. Lamar Keene
'Secrets of Stage Mindreading' by Ormond McGill
'Self-Working Mental Magic' by Karl Fulves
'Sleight of Hand' by Edwin Sachs
'Tricks of the Mind' by Derren Brown


WARNING !

'The Sociopath Next Door' by Martha Stout
'Without Conscience - the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among us' by Robert D Hare
'Erased - Missing Women, Murdered Wives' by Marilee Strong

Remember that some people may genuinely believe in what they are telling you

Logical Fallacies - errors of reasoning or argument -use a Search Engine or www.logicalfallacies.info/
which categorises fallacies of relevance, ambiguity, or presumption

Multiple Intelligences/ Aptitudes

Nidotherapy - changing someone's environment rather than trying to change them

Ponerology - wickedness or evil

Psychohistory website of Lloyd deMause at www.psychohistory.com - the 'science of historical motivations'; the 'emotional origin of social/political behavior of groups & nations'

Social Engineering for strategies from the computer environment and used more generally, to gain information or to manipulate - often via Social Compliance

See Public Relations, 'Spin', Salesmanship, Anthropology, Memes - or start from your own interests

SOCIAL DYNAMICS of CULTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People involved in a cult may think they can make themselves immune to responsibility. I believe there is a social structure in place to maintain control.
. . . . .

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

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

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

Perhaps there is a need to create a structured society like 'Brave New World', 'Nineteen-Eighty-Four' or 'Beyond Freedom & Dignity'. The name of the game seems to be compliance by any means that can be fathomed such as conditioning or force, or large components of drugs and hypnosis, so that people's wills and lives are not their own any more. Some kind of a territorial or moral take-over bid.

I found it useful to think in terms of psychological manipulation and control, including societal or cultic influence, voodoo, or whatever other elements seemed to be present. The rewards would be at the top of the tree and punishments at the bottom, with many, many people playing a witting or unwitting part in between, perhaps caught because of a basic need to feed, clothe and house themselves.

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

Most people have faculties in their brains to help with co-ordinating memories and thinking things through. Someone cunning can obliterate or obfuscate awareness or memory so that the subject is unable to avoid other dangerous or fraught situations. For readers who think mental obliteration strategies to get people to forget or be unaware would not work, try books written by stage hypnotists of any repute or look at confusional techniques of NLP or 'street hypnosis'.
. . . . .

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

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

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

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

EXTERNAL SOURCES

The following appears towards the bottom of the front page of www.afafa.org

NIH Physician's Statement About Mind Control
April 11, 2002

The originals of these letters were made available from, and are posted on:
Mind Justice Home Page

CORROBORATING STATEMENT by Dr. Eldon Byrd

In the mid to late eighties, while I was a practicing physician, I was working almost exclusively in the field of psycho-neuro-immuno-endocrinology, especially as concerned the new malady, called Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. I had become good friends, Health and Wellness Advisor, and personal physician to US Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. I had also become very close friends with his Special Legislative Assistant.

It was in the 1987-88 timeframe that I was introduced to an individual of authority in the US Government who talked about a strange new phenomenon. This individual wanted me to meet a special investigative reporter who had been devoting all his time to investigating this new phenomenon. He thought that with my background in the neural sciences and some of the esoteric things I had been aware of in the realm of the physics of consciousness that I might be of assistance both to victims of this phenomenon and to the investigators of it.

He told me that there was significant evidence that the phenomenon was real and viewed by those involved in trying to understand it as very dangerous. He warned me from the outset that many of the scientists who had been close to understanding the technology behind the phenomenon wound up dying from apparent heart attacks. He said that in the opinion of many who had seriously investigated this phenomenon, that it appeared to be as dangerous a threat to humanity as anything ever in history, because it was not yet traceable to a specific source, and that it was so malevolent, that it had the potential to
lead humanity to its own destruction.

I was also told that it was not uncommon for those investigating the phenomenon to become victims of it themselves, and that he considered that I should know the risks before volunteering to help. Because of my relationship to the Senator and my commitment to assist in matters affecting the health and welfare of the nation, I felt it was my duty to participate to the best of my ability.

I agreed to meet with the investigative reporter. He came to my office and gave me the first briefing on the phenomenon. I wish to preface my account with the fact that through the succeeding three or four years, I became convinced of the reality of the phenomenon, and in fact did come under attack, although in a manner not typical. What he described was as follows.

The majority of those who were victims of this "technology" would report that they had somehow received an implant of a speaker inside their head. Almost incessantly they would hear noise, as in background noise in a busy room with activity of people and machinery. They would also hear voices addressing them specifically. Often they would be harangued incessantly with exhortations to commit vile acts, such as inappropriate sexual behaviors from homosexual assaults to heterosexual rape and pedophilic acts. They would also experience the emotional accompaniment of these exhortations as urges that were hard to control. Often the urges and thoughts and voices caused the victim to experience tremendous fear and rage. Some of the victims experienced the "loss of time," in which they would be conscious, but somehow missed what happened to them for extended periods, ranging from minutes to hours at a time. They could not account for themselves during these periods.

Some of the victims made the association that these "attacks" coincided with watching television or from working at their computers. A number of victims learned that if they lost themselves in a crowd, they could frequently interrupt the "transmissions." This would lead them often to wander into crowded places in order to get some peace.

Inevitably these people would seek medical attention. The majority of these people had no prior history of psychiatric illness. Their experience of the voices had a sudden onset, and they could pinpoint the time or date the first awareness of these events occurred. Although many would be told that they had a psychiatric illness causing them auditory hallucinations, a number of eminent psychiatrists who studied some of these victims felt that the ones truly victimized by this "technology" did not fall into any psychiatric diagnosis, and that they were not experiencing auditory hallucinations. Quite a number of victims were successful well-adjusted people prior to the onset of the symptoms. Characteristically, all of the content of the voices, which was so perverse, had no reference to past character development in these people.

This reporter, who we will call M, told me that quite by chance, when one physician had prescribed a phenothiazine called Haldol without telling the patient what it was, the voices stopped almost immediately. However, when the patient found out the name of the medicine, the voices resumed. They tried this on a number of other patients, and found the same thing happened. It was as if there was something physiologically relevant to the action of the "transmission" that interfered with it, but if the monitoring agent behind the technology found out what the interfering drug was, it somehow could abort the efficacy.

[Undoubtedly a reasonable, though false theory – the deliberate cultivation of false theories.]

One has to say, as a skeptic, that an initial placebo effect was eliminated once the patient discovered that the medicine was used for psychiatric patients with hallucinations or psychosis. Yet, one has to wonder why, when Haldol is very effective in eliminating hallucinosis with or without the patient's knowledge, why there seemed to be this reproducible escape of efficacy, once the name of the medicine was introduced to consciousness of the victim.

Another attribute of the attackers according to M was their ability to learn of the victim's past medical history. One of the manifestations of the attack often was the reproduction of acute symptomatology that clinically resembled perfectly attacks of genuine disease conditions, such as acute abdominal pain associated with appendicitis, or chest pain associated with myocardial ischemia, of abdominal pain associated with pelvic inflammatory disease. When these people would seek medical attention for these symptoms, however, there would be absolutely no evidence clinically that anything truly pathologic was happening. Again, this would contribute to the judgment of the health provider that the victim was a "crock," meaning that it was all some form of psychosomatic neurosis.

M declared that his investigation of this phenomenon had taken him around the world. He had interviewed individuals in Soviet agencies, Israeli intelligence, our own CIA, NSA, and Naval Intelligence organizations. He found that many agencies in other countries had become aware of this and other similar phenomena, and although they acknowledged working on technology that could influence thought and feeling of human beings, made the distinction between their efforts and this phenomenon.

M stated that he was not able to get those assurances from the people he interviewed at NSA. I remember a specific instance in which M had gained possession of a copy of a transmission recorded from a victim's television set that was submitted to NSA for analysis. Prior to its submission, other scientists had verified that a very unusual signal had been received by some very special device they employed to monitor this victim's TV set. I was not told the nature of the signal nor was I told anything about the recording device. What he told me however, was that upon submitting it to the NSA, they were never able to get the recording back, nor were they able to ascertain from the NSA official what their findings revealed about the transmission. M was making the association that the victimization process itself could be propagated from person to person. He stated that he felt that even through telephone lines, one victim talking to another person could result in the person to whom the victim was talking become a victim themselves. He also reported that regarding his investigation, it seemed that as he got closer to answers, that the people he would speak to would irrationally shut him off, even after being initially engaged, interested and even participating in the investigation. He believed that the controlling entity or entities could sense when to interfere and actually cause people to block their own perceptions and awareness. M actually came to believe that the scope of interference could actually lead people to do things that were destructive to themselves, like cause their own automobile accidents.

He believed that Senator Pell had himself become an unaware victim of the manipulation of this force. He made this conclusion because of times at which Pell would be seriously engaged with M, it was as if a switch had been pulled and suddenly Pell would disengage, seeming to forget what the conversation was about or that he had any interest in what M was presenting at all. Yet later Pell would again invite M back for further discussion, only to have the discussion interrupted again in the same way. M was convinced it was not simply a distraction caused by being too busy or preoccupied with other things. M also took note of the fact that some of the others he had met along the way with insight into this phenomenon had simply suddenly forgotten its importance. And when reminded by M, they would deny even ever knowing about it. M felt this was a defensive maneuver by the agent or agents behind the "technology."

My wife and I began to notice peculiar things in our own life immediately after M would place a phone call to me. For reasons unknown to us we would start to argue with each other and have very bad feelings toward one another. It became such a pattern that my wife pointed it out to me. I had never told her anything about M or the content of our discussions.

There was an episode that occurred in 1991 on December 17. Things seemed to be very intense with M. One night after a particularly intense discussion with M on the phone, my wife began to experience symptoms of lower abdominal pain. She became extremely weak and felt horribly sick. She recalled that the symptoms were exactly what she had experienced after sustaining an iatrogenically caused episode of pelvic inflammatory disease, after a tubal insufflation blew a smoldering streptococcal infection in her endometrium into her peritoneal cavity. She had undergone an evaluation for infertility after coming off the BC pill and not getting pregnant after a year of trying. This acute P.I.D. almost killed her and we were told that the residual scarring could mean she would never get pregnant. Not withstanding the scarring we were fortunate to have three sons after a physician tried her on the fertility pill, Clomid. However, the fact that she had scarring in her peritoneal cavity from that infection was thoroughly documented.

That night the symptoms got worse and worse. I took her to the hospital for evaluation by her OB GYN. He agreed that she had signs of peritoneal inflammation on physical exam, but her blood work was normal. He said we should go home and see what happened. If it didn't improve we were to return in the morning and he would do a laparoscopic examination under anesthesia. As I was leaving the hospital after dropping off her miniscule urine sample, while my wife waited in the car, I had a very unusual experience. It was of a personal nature, but suffice to say that after it, my wife felt better after almost losing consciousness.

We decided that because it was already arranged for her to have the laparoscopy the next morning that we should go ahead with it. We did. We were amazed to hear the results. He doctor said she had the pelvis of a 14-year-old girl. There was no scarring, no evidence of current or prior pelvic inflammatory disease. To this day we do not know what happened to what had been thoroughly documented before. All we know is she never again has had the kind of sharp pains she would get at intervals from the "tearing of adhesions," which always was the explanation for those pains.

Shortly thereafter, I lost touch with M. About a year later I tried to reach him to see how he was doing. I was shocked to find that he was no longer working on this project, but was on to something else. When I said why would you abandon the work you were so fanatically committed to for the sake of humanity, his response was as if he had no idea to what I was referring.

Since then, neither my wife nor myself has had any further personal experience with anything resembling what took place during those years of frequent contact with M. I did see a number of patients who were afflicted with the voices and urges. I never was able to help any one of them.

It has been suggested that this horrible technology is something covertly being used by our government. Although I cannot rule it in or out, I sincerely believe that something real is going on that is not a part of normal physiology to affect these people. Not everyone who hears voices is a victim of this, just as not everyone who is a victim of this hears voices. My experience suggests to me that there is something definitely impacting certain people, perhaps at random, from the outside in.

In conclusion, further scientific investigation like the experiment of Dr. Byrd's for CAHRA to record the voices in victim's heads are needed in order to try to understand the mechanisms that are producing them. I also feel that being able to determine the type of signal itself would add valuable clues to the mechanism of transmission. For example, certain psychoactive properties have been attributed to ELF electromagnetic signals and microwaves that are modulated with ELF signals. The presence of such signal means that there is a source that is directing them at victims.

It should become possible to test the victim's home and office environments for sources transmitting the signals such as telephones, televisions, and computers. Of course, the signals may be transmitted directly by other technological means, also. If present, the source would be guilty of illegal interference with the victims' civil rights and of experimenting on them without their permission.

Brain imaging techniques are available, such as MRI and PET scans. The MRI is useful for examining brain structure, whereas the PET scan is designed to examine the metabolic activity in the brain. Unless a victim has been subjected to signals that affect the physical structure of the brain, the MRI is of limited value; however the PET scan could determine the difference between internally generated symptoms and externally generated signals. Another useful technique is the multi-channel EEG beam scan that will indicate alterations in the electrical activity of the brain as a function of stimulus.

PARANOIA or USEFUL TO KNOW

From http://www.afafa.org/AFAFA_Methods_of_Attack.htm#Thought_Surveillance


Signs and Between-the-Lines

'Signs' cover all kinds of clandestine, ambiguous or deniable semi-communications using everything from suggestive language (like homonyms, metaphors, euphemisms, etc.) to body language to object placements to visual imagery that leave the signer insulated from responsibility for the signing. A sign can be anything from flipping one's cell phone open suggestively to leaving a dead bird at a person's doorstep - ways of accusing, conveying threat, pressuring, enhancing paranoia and obliquely referring to possibly illegally obtained surveillance information about a person (and thereby show that person that he/she is a slave to surveillance and may always be), which tend to make the person look paranoid or delusional in reacting to or interpreting them or which others can pretend are products of paranoia or delusional. They may take the form of so-called ‘mirrors’ within all kinds of broadcast media – the reflecting of embarrassing information in deniable ways that may be exaggerated or mixed with provocative fiction so as to lead a subset of public opinion, accelerated by that person’s taking ownership of or attempting to refute them. Responding to them usually only appears to be self-accusation or spontaneous eruptions from a guilty conscience. One single sign deriving from the surveillance of a person in a place having a reasonable expectation of privacy can permanently transform a life into a kind of prison of the mind in terms of the assumption of being watched. George Orwell apparently had a name for them in his book 1984 - Duckspeak.

"It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise."

Everyone knows how to do it to some degree (though the culture surrounding so-called mind control has raised it to an art form) and the media has long been involved in filling their works with it in support of MC, often embedding little details about specific targeted individuals (triggers) that only they will tend to recognize. Some people are expert at it and can rattle off spoken signs in realtime. If you’ve been lead/trained to expect them, you’re more likely to interpret words as having suggestive meaning beyond their obvious connotations even when none are intended. The delivery is often so clever that you can’t be sure that you’ve been signed at all. A relative few people playing that game can make you suspicious of everyone – it is after all part of the paranoia game of so-called ‘mind control’.

Signs can take a variety of forms. Consider a harasser who is provided with surveillance information on a target. The target is in the process of being sleep deprived as part of his/her persecution. One clever sign that the attacker might deliver in support of that strategy could be an exaggerated yawn, while passing by that can't be proven as any kind of covert messaging at all.

Here’s a clever but fairly obvious one using the old monkey sign, long associated with targeted persons with its subhuman connotations. Of course, the bar code implies a monkey in a cage.
. . . . .

Entrainment

The redefining of a target's perceptions so as to read material in TV, books and other language and imagery beyond what appears at face value or otherwise self-identify with them. It is much easier to deliver clandestine messagery and information to an entrained person than a non-entrained one. Many artists have been tossing in suggestive idioms, metaphors, double-entendre, etc. associated with aspects of MC for years to enhance that process (often overtly harmless and innocent but with provocative implications) and entrainment can mean simply waking the target up to that body of material via other forms of clandestine suggestion (see below) and training. Over time, a good portion of the dictionary can be redefined in a target's mind as being metaphorical/symbolic such that everything around him/her appears to be a kind of grotesque parody of what it once was. You can entrain targets to self-identify with specific personalities (as Charles McCoy described in being entrained to identify with Michael Jackson) and around numerous established metaphors/symbols:

from the common Mountain, (elaborate) French (occupation) - to borrow from its use in the films ‘Big Fish’ and ‘War of the Worlds’, red/green/blue (A Scanner Darkly's blue flower), fat/obese, credit, stock value, etc.

to snow, candy, farmer, butterfly, Chinese, stone, elevation/elevator, high, floating, stratospheric, artificial, etc.

to target, cat, bear, alien, (Manchurian) candidate, Christ/Chris/Messiah/Jesus (often employed in the context as 'Sun' or ‘son’), monkey, wolf, crab and lobster (shell symbols), pirate, monster, astronaut, dinosaur, king, emperor, president, soldier, mummy, zombie, puppet, etc.

to hot dog, fish (such as Lost's fish biscuits), bird (often referred to as specific species like hawk, eagle, chicken, etc.), bone, steel, toys, lizard, wrestling, head, pie, slide, hamburger, clam, pipe, sailing, cigar/smoking, pole, taco, wood, lunar, moon, seat, back, behind, Greek, fruit, ice cream, hole, roses, butterfly, sandwich, horns/anters, kneeling/on the knees (often embedded in the context of prayer or supplication) - a fellatio trigger, etc. many of which are quite common and too numerous to mention

to cold, ice, popsickle, haunted, heat/hot, soak, dunk, submerge, retirement, fishbowl/aquarium, rain, weather, buried, pressure, famous (a misnomer), static, (winning the) lottery (seen in conjunction with the Charles McCoy mirror on the island called Lost and deriving from Orwell’s inclusion of the lottery in ‘1984’ or older still), dead/deceased

to an endless number of spontaneous ones (like A Scanner Darkly's shape shifter suits) that are unique. There are, of course, more provocative symbols out there, though it is left for you to find them.
. . . . .


Number symbolism is common, much as you will find on license plates mixed with letters – ways of conveying messages in a minimal space in a deniable way. In fact, suggestive license plates are apparently being used sometimes as part of chasing targeted people around on the road.

1 – ‘one’ or ‘won’
2 – ‘to’, ‘two’ or ‘too’
3 – ‘good’ or ‘right’ (reminiscent of the holy trinity)
4 – ‘for’
5 – (not sure – ‘lie’?)
6 – ‘bad’ or ‘evil’
7 – ‘good’
8 – ‘ate’ (i.e. consumed, took, partook of)
9 – A negative deriving from the German word for ‘no’

You’ll see frequent use of 3, 33, 333, 37, 73 in films like ‘Close Encounters’ and ’12 Monkeys’. You’ll find 39, 93, ‘7 flights up’ and lots of other variations upon 3 on the first couple of pages of Orwell’s novel 1984, which help to imply that the Winston character is ‘no good’ and that big brother is good (yep, Orwell was just another media MC artist and not the libertarian champion that he is widely believed to be). Those are often strung together into short sentences like 286 from the film ‘Cast Away’ indicating 'to sink someone', ‘two were sunk’ or ‘two consumed/partook of evil’ set alongside a prominent nearby 77.

Chessboard/gaming symbolism is also fairly common as are the connotations of the individual pieces on the board, often woven into chessboard scenarios that model real world aspects of ‘the game’. ‘Rook’ can have bird connotations, ‘queen’ often has homosexual connotations, ‘bishop’ often implies the overseer, slave-master, preaching or pursuit aspects of MC and so forth.


Click/Stimulus Messaging

Click/stimulus messaging is a means of clandestine semi-communications whereby one or more of several kinds of transient stimuli are used to clandestinely hijack linguistic material (spoken, heard, read or even thought) or other symbolic fodder within a target’s sensory environment or stream of thought so as to deliver a clandestine message that guarantees anonymity for the giver.
. . . . .

Although the presence of audible linguistic media in a target's sensory environment provides plenty of rich fodder for stimulus messaging, an attack that involves no such material at all is possible too. For example, ‘clicking’ when a target's surveillable field of view lands upon objects that can be interpreted as somehow symbolic or self-specific or when a target is simply reading. Because the technology for surveilling thought itself is in the arsenal, clicking upon moments from the target’s internal dialog is another method. Although there is less linguistic/symbolic fodder available when no external material is nearby (unless one’s internal dialog tends to chatter), that configuration is in some ways more disturbing. Even if the target attempts to drown out audible language or isolate him/herself in a featureless room devoid of any linguistic/symbolic fodder at all, there is still no way to avoid an attack that employs 'bee stings' (see below) in conjunction with a surveillance of the internal dialog, except perhaps via the meditative technique of silencing the internal dialog altogether. But that would be a pretty boring and unhealthy way to live, so it's usually best to learn to cope with an attack than try to avoid it. But doing so might afford a little temporary relief. Even then, electromagnetic voice-to-skull can still be used to get the message across. One way or another, they can make it unavoidable.

Imagine the joy of hearing a soft thump from source unknown at the moment that, for example, the black cloaked wraiths lift their swords while preparing to put to death the hobbits in the film, “The Lord of the Rings”. Effectively, it would be a death threat that carries not just the force of words and the ignorance of not knowing who is conveying it, but the force of all the magic (in this case black magic) that the small army involved in the making of a film can bring to bear - music, cinematography and all.
. . . . .

Cough Messaging and Body Language

Say that you and I are co-workers and you want to provide a pretext for expulsion. Since laws and workplace rules generally forbid harassment and creating a hostile environment for co-workers, you have to be clever in your attack. So how do you go about accomplishing your goal?

You begin your offensive by passing by my office door and coughing as you pass. I will think nothing of it. Do it again and I'll think that maybe you have a cold this week or that pure chance has dealt one of those somewhat unlikely but entirely random occurrences. Do it a third and fourth time and you'll have captured my attention. I'll realize that something is up between us. Do it a fifth and sixth time and I'll start to get angry. If I confront you over the matter, you can just smile with a touch of practiced surprise on your face as you say, 'Goodness, are you feeling OK? You seem a little disturbed. Maybe you should rest or see a doctor', which will only make me angrier, since the possibility in random occurrence has long passed and because I'll know that you have the initiative and are working me in a way that can't be easily stopped or proven.
. . . . .

However, after having gained my attention, if you change tactics, then I will have the added burden of showing how sucking air through your teeth or clicking pen to key is a part of your effort. Alternatively, you can begin to 'trigger' me at other locations to make the collection of video evidence far more difficult. Perhaps you will choose to start coughing (or whatever) as I pass by YOUR office door or while passing me in the hall.

Intended (rather than spontaneous) coughing and laughter in coincidence with chosen moments in public venues in which crowds gather (movies, concerts, etc.) is common. It can be used to enhance the paranoia and discomfort of specific targets at moments chosen to be specific to targets by harassers who have embarrassing information on their targets.
. . . . .


'Bee Stings'

Bee stings are a technology for inducing the sensation of pin-prick, crawling insect and other sensations felt upon the skin. They can be inflicted in such a way as to cause pain as punishment/deterrent, to induce an irritating itching sensation or to induce mild, non-painful sensations as a method of extraordinarily clandestine signaling/messaging. When employed as a semi-communications vehicle, a number of schemes can be applied. It can be used as one more form of simple click/stimulus messaging. It can be more sophisticated such as stinging the right knee to convey 'yes' and the left knee to convey 'no'.
. . . . .

Frustration, confusion and the hopelessness in being kept perpetually ignorant are obviously one of the main sources of pain for all targeted individual’s, part of the price of our persecutors’ cover. But such needless cruelty seems to me one of those things about MC most in need of reform, though I doubt that will ever happen, pain being probably the single common denominator of MC in the first place, and confusion and ignorance are helpful tools that help to inhibit organization and resistance and preserve our persecutors’ deniability, which has lasted for over half a century.

(YHST = You, he, she or they. Notice the use of body parts that have a near phonetic match to the words that they wish those body parts to symbolize. That is apparently a natural choice, making the training of the dictionary easier to train in and remember (unfortunately). A given symbol is trained in like this – the phrase ‘take it on the chin’ pops up on the radio or TV. They transmit a sting to the chin at that moment. Repeat a time or two for confirmation and voila, it’s trained in. Only if I were asleep could I avoid that involuntary and unwanted training. Thereafter, they can use that symbol in response to my unspoken thoughts or other contexts much like in any language.
Chin - 'Take it on the chin' or 'Expect a punitive response' or 'punch in the mouth'
Top of the foot - 'Fool'
The underside of the arch of the foot (i.e. arch) - 'YHST is/are'
Middle finger - 'F___ you'
Middle right toe - 'F___ you too'
Knuckle - 'Punch you' (figurative) plus whatever connotation the chosen finger implies
Big toe - 'YHST too/also'
Back of the foot [heel] - 'YHST is/are a heel.'
Shin – ‘Sin’
Calf - 'YHST can or we can'
Right knee - 'Yes'
Thigh - 'Lie'
Elbow – A__hole or 'You're an ___hole'
Ankle – ‘Angry’
Bottom of the foot just behind the toes - 'Soul'
Right index finger - 'Shoot you down' (figurative)
Pinky - 'Penis'
Ring finger - 'That person, place or thing is or has been in one way/sense or another wedded/coupled to or associated with you or is a criminal or evil or you are associated with that or we have associated you with that (in some way that you may eventually discover)'
Thumb - 'Dumb'
Lip - 'Kiss' or ‘whisper’ usually implying that something is being said about me
Wrist - 'Masturbation' or 'YHST is/are a jerk'
Top of the Shoulder - 'YHST should'
Chest - 'That is or would be best'
Buttock - Ass or 'You're an ass'
Base of spine - 'YHST is/are a spy (i.e. anyone who disagrees with or is resisting us or is our enemy or is a criminal)'
Ear lobe - 'Listen' or 'Pay attention' or YHST is/are low (i.e. bad/small)
Forearm - 'Shoot you down' or 'punish' (figurative)
. . . . .

Combinations

There are quite a variety of different tools in the current arsenal from the various ways of interfering with the operation of electronic equipment to public mobbing tactics to neurological manipulation. A deliberate effort has apparently been made to make each target's experience unique both to explore and evaluate the most effective methods, to better exploit the individual weaknesses of specific individuals, and to make the determination of consistencies between their experiences that might ultimately amount to a preponderance of circumstantial evidence of the reality of MC more difficult (i.e. a target being hit with migraine like pain does not appear to have anything in common with one that is being bombarded with computer virus attacks or one that is being harassed in public places or one that is being hit primarily with 'bee stings' or one that is being mirrored in the media or one that reports hearing ghostly noises in the attic).
. . . . .

A target can be placed in other more deadly scenarios too. Like being 'gifted' with an artificially induced sexual response (erection) at an inappropriate moment via technology of remote neurological influence by one party who is hidden from another who surveills only the sexual response, thus misleading the second as to the target's nature and predispositions. Or alternatively, the anonymous giver of the artificial ‘gift’ treating the target as though the reaction were spontaneous and non-induced as part of hard-ball mind gaming including attempting to convince the target of predispositions that he/she does not have, which is diabolical. When your central nervous system can be manipulated directly and surreptitiously, it is not necessarily even possible to tell if a behavior or physiological reaction were spontaneous or externally induced or steered (short of simply knowing yourself well), although I don’t believe that it is possible to fully roboticize people over any but brief periods of time. Hope not.

Although I have no shred of doubt that one or both of those means have been applied against me personally, I do NOT accuse my persecutors of having robotically controlled any of my conscious actions, or voluntary or involuntary behaviors beyond trivial, momentary ways useful for mind gaming, pressuring and paranoia enhancement, and I assume that using such means to obtain outright false and fabricated evidence of guilt or predispositions is not part of their code of conduct (if they have one). I hope it isn’t that diabolical anyway. Trickery, pressure, interrogation, depression enhancement, leveraging ignorance and paranoia and destabilization tactics appear to be more in line with that code. However, some targeted persons are complaining of precisely such clearly diabolical tactics, but I have no way of measuring their honesty or sanity. In any case, I assume sole responsibility for ALL of my conscious behaviors, predispositions and beliefs, though I know those have been influenced by all the years of pressure, cruelty, gaming, prattle, endless suggestion and being beset by an antagonistic and hostile surveillance presence for so long. I’m trying to be as objective and unemotional in describing this as possible.

- In another scenario, extraordinarily ugly and/or terrifying dream imagery can be induced artificially as a means of punishment, psychological destabilization or aversive reinforcement. Reward, positive reinforcement and the creation of (perhaps false and insincere) bonds and beliefs, can be induced with beautiful/attractive dream imagery too. The two extremes may be applied in combination in carrot and stick scenarios.

- In another, one or more provocateurs can attempt to drive you to angry, frustrated outbursts, whose efforts are hidden from other observers who are attempting to judge your psychological stability, innocence and such.

. . . . . . . . . .

ON a SIMILAR THEME

Here are 3 links to some Internet articles which may add something if
people are interested in following them up. People have different outlooks and
approaches which may or may not tie in with anyone else's. The writer
of these comes from a psychoanalytic background.

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/intrusive-brain-reading-surveilla\
nce-technology-hacking-the-mind-by-carole-smith/

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/on-the-need-for-new-criteria-of-d\
iagnosis-of-psychosis-in-the-light-of-mind-invasive-technology-by-carole-smith/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7123

PERSONALITY and BEHAVIOUR

The following extracts are by different writers


Fantasy role-playing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Profiling by the company we keep ?

From 'Out-of-Character Behaviour' at http://toukanalia.blogspot.com








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

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.

I am 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.

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'.

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.' "

In '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 comments on various hoaxers. He comes up with some interesting ideas about dynamics such as the rather earnest campaigners there can be in any field really. Maybe a lot of us are basically rebels seeking a cause or something 'meaningful' to work on with other people.

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.'

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!

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 and splitting' comes in, mentioned in Speakofthedevil's Blog.

If someone goes in for meditation, or has a feverish illness and senses things differently, do they actually become different? If tragedy knocks harshly on your door, are you necessarily the same person afterwards? I feel we can get changed by things, sometimes so that there is no 'going back' completely.

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Possession, Dissociation or DID

From 'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com


Adam Crabtree’s book 'Multiple Man: Explorations in Possession and Multiple Personality' was published in paperback in 1988 by Grafton Book.

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

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

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







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

Another theme which could have relevance is the concept of the 'shadow', or darker side of ourselves which we may be disinclined to acknowledge - but which others can sometimes see perhaps because of their own acknowledged or unacknowledged parts.

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

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

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!

. . . . . . . . . .


Other or better models for personality?

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.

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.

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.

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 mentioned Psychodrama with people showing a natural capacity to draw more things out of a scene or situation than they actually know of.

. . . . . . . . . .


From: http://magentine.angelfire.com

Prompted into looking at someone's work by other people's scepticism, I went along to his talk, discovering it just before it took place. My experience with emailing speakers after a talk is that generally nothing happens. I waited till everyone asked questions, then mentioned my interest.

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

I do not know if I am interpreting his words correctly or rather putting things in a way I can handle, that I feel there could be some validity to this approach, having considered some other theories as working hypotheses. It does not matter that I did not interpret it the way he meant because it meant something to me at the time.

If we are influenced sometimes or in some ways by myths, fairy tales, or whatever belief or theme attracts us for a while, this could reflect in our behaviour. It could be a one-off event or situation, or it could run through our lives as a recurring pattern.

Some people form groups with a particular ideology and call it Satanism or something else. It may or may not involve Satanism and it may or may not involve cruelty and sadism. My working hypothesis is that 'It', 'Things', 'Anything' may happen totally in a physical sense, being enacted in a reality structure that is there for people to see, photograph, gain evidence from.

Alternatively, could it be that sometimes it is not 100 per cent physical, that some is a scenario played out as a mental or emotional strategy? The aim would be to scare people, keep them under control, and confuse them and other people in the process.

Check out Cilla's Blog http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com which touches on Shamanism, the Unseen, Symbols, Realities, Urban Legend & Ritual Abuse, and Social Dynamics of Ritual Abuse. I do think we need to look at things differently or we won't get anywhere that could be helpful. Not everything will fit every situation, or person, or experience.

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

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

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