INTRODUCTION
With a longterm interest in human behaviour and the 'weird', I still find myself wondering what really sways a person or situation. Probably it's a combination of factors but do we really know? Do experts really know? They certainly don't agree. I recently watched a TV programme which was about scientific evidence. People on both sides of the argument put their case and were questioned. Nothing was clearcut by the end, and no-one said 'of course if I'm wrong about this aspect it could change some or all of the rest'.
What tends to happen with me is I find an author's perceptions very useful - up to a point - then they seem to go off on some idiosyncratic track that I can't agree with. Maybe I do the same! The trick is probably not to throw baby out with the bathwater, and to keep what is important.
A particular book or website can suddenly set us thinking about something, or feeling we've found an answer. Maybe that stays with us, maybe it changes the next time something useful comes along, maybe our views take a diametric turn.
The fact that we have an adversarial legal system throws up interesting questions about what is just, fair, appropriate. More importantly, it shows how some lawyers are able to sway a situation which looks hopeless for their client into an acquittal. But as the case proceeds, often the truth becomes so multi-faceted that 'reasonable doubt' enters the equation. How does that happen? How do a significant number of people get wrongfully accused and convicted? Surely our system should iron out these huge wrinkles.
Our jury system works on a principle of a group of people coming to some kind of consensus or majority about what they feel is the guilt or innocence of someone, based on the evidence available at the time. Why then is so much time and money spent in the United States on jury selection according to some kind of profiling, or information about potential jurors' lives? Why do marketing companies do likewise? It must pay off - for those on the winning side.
People say our modern businesses bear increasing similarities to religion, taking on more importance in our lives as we are expected to do more for 'the firm'. Businesses and organisations can have neuroses of their own, affecting how they interact with the world and within their grouping. Thus individuals who enter them can be affected, the more sensitive being the more affected.
The same apparently happens when people join a cult, or as they are often called these days 'new religious movement' or NRM. Views about a particular group or cult are likely to include what is in the 'eye of the beholder' but generally there's a concept of what the term means.
Could all beliefs simply be a matter of which memes get spread around the most or stay the longest?
Or is there something else at stake?
What!
Like any normal day
It started off like any normal day’ is the gist of what someone was reported to say after going out with a rifle and shooting a courting couple in Wales (I believe). If anyone knows details of when, where and what was said, get in touch!
What was so different about that day? Do we all have moments that are totally ‘out of character’, changing our lives for ever with no explanation that fits the bill? Does a red mist descend, does a part of us kick in and take the reins, do we hear a voice or sense a compulsion? How do we rationalise it afterwards?
This is part of the basis of this Blog, and it’s showing on the front page so you see where it came from. And you can play a part in where it’s going if you want - just write a comment. If you don’t want it to appear for everyone to see you can make that clear.
This isn’t a lengthy academic exercise. Rather some ideas that are loosely strung together – maybe not even connected. My bookshelves overflow with books on serial killers and profiling and other stuff. The point here is that most of us tend to think of ourselves or others as ‘the sort of person who’ is likely or unlikely to do certain things. It’s a kind of shorthand or a comfort zone so we don’t have to countenance every possibility. We know what’s what, what we want, don’t want, or would never do …
There are books on Jung and ‘the shadow’, on the higher self and what can come out during hypnosis. I was looking for some rationale for what goes on in people’s lives, what goes wrong and why, and what can be done. This went round in a big cycle: from believing that, if something felt possible then it was likely, to rejecting great chunks, then back to the bookshelves for another re-think.
I looked at social systems, belief systems, religions, group behaviours including situations people refer to as Cults, at advertising, spin, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, stage magic, neuro-linguistic programming. I dipped into humanities courses, scouring booklists, visiting bookshops each time I went out, searched Amazon for anything that might answer my questions about ‘why people do what they do’. When I came across a book by John M. Doris ‘Lack of Character’ much of my thinking about profiling or likelihood of individual behaviour was thrown into disarray.
It seems we are creatures of circumstance more than we might think, having a wide repertoire of behaviours quite specific to the prevailing situation. Add or subtract a variable or rack up intensity and who knows what some of us might be capable of! I came to believe that extreme forms of behaviour – the ones we like to think we'd never do – are probably ‘do-able’ by a lot of us. It can be quite a small flip, turning on a pinhead, hanging on a thread, that makes for the next stage, almost as if inevitably. Catastrophe theory could be relevant here.
If something from another realm or reality layer is capable of affecting us, we may hypothesise and work something out. If I walk into a graveyard as my ‘normal self’ and come out full of doom & gloom, did something change me, a general sense of atmosphere, a specific haunting, what? When I write or speak, does it always come from just me? Am I inspired by art or nature or is some other realm or entity breaking through, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering?
Does it matter what hook we use as a belief system, so long as we behave ‘reasonably’ or within certain bounds? Or if we believe in something higher – or lower – than ourselves? Surely it could affect what we do, what we feel is appropriate or otherwise? What if people around us disagree totally with what we think and hold most dear? There would likely be a conflict of mind-sets on very sensitive issues. Maybe something will ‘blow’ and we act out.
Do actions simply continue on from natural events in our past, from family/work environment, or from wider society? Could we be affected by some ancestral influence, or rather something set in motion by people with intent - these days mostly called magick with a ‘k’, so that we too are saying ‘It started off like any normal day’? In other words, what if there is discontinuity, incongruity, dissociation, because we can’t trace a pattern or reason? Not knowing why, we may rationalise or confabulate, to reduce cognitive dissonance or save face.
Will we always parrot that ‘there is no evidence’ if we don’t wish to believe something? Or do we get too caught up in beliefs without regard to their validity? Human behaviour is so varied, how can we pin everything down neatly? What if something does not ‘fit’?
There’s a lot of interest these days in various aspects of shamanism, whether as practised in its natural environment or as brought over for what is loosely termed the West. People no longer shrug off as totally irrelevant all other realities that there could be. Here's a list of a few books, websites, blogs you might check out:
‘Blood Rites: the shocking expose of the ritual of human sacrifice – practiced today, and terrifying close to home’ by Jimmy Lee Shreeve
‘Multiple Man: explorations in possession and multiple personality’ by Adam Crabtree
‘Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board’ by J. Edward Cornelius
‘Not in His Image: Gnostic vision, sacred ecology and the future of belief’ by John Lamb Lash
‘The Unquiet Dead: a psychologist treats spirit possession’ by Dr Edith Fiore
‘Spirit Releasement Therapy: a technique manual’ by William J Baldwin
‘Programmed to Kill: the politics of serial murder’ by David McGowan
‘Serial Killers: death and life in America’s Wound Culture’ by Mark Seltzer
‘Lack of Character: personality, moral behaviour’ by John M Doris
‘Going Postal: rage, murder and rebellion in America’ by Mark Ames
‘The Sociopath Next Door: 1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty’ by Martha Stout
‘The Dark Gods: do they haunt us still?’ by Anthony Roberts & Geoff Gilbertson
‘The Dark Worship’ by Toyne Newton
'Unseen Aspects of Behaviour' at http://unseenaspects.blogspot.com - Including tides of thought or belief and counter-reaction. Articles on 'Urban legend and ritual abuse', 'Shamanism', and 'Symbols, Realities, the Unseen'
Why do you do what you do?
Can YOU be manipulated?
Do you think you should be?
Do you always know if you are?
Can you manipulate others?
What do YOU think?
Why do you think you behave as you do? Is it always the same?
Perhaps it is because one of your parents behaved like that, or it was someone you admired, or even disliked!
Have you ever acted ‘out of character’? Or only when you’ve been to the pub?
Have you got home and wondered why you bought something, lost your temper and don’t know why, done something unusual or ridiculous – for you?
We all behave differently in different circumstances. The person who is hyper-serious at work may be a comic in private. They could be mean and miserable, yet a super-parent or spouse, or mean at home and jovial elsewhere.
Would you ever go to see a stage show of hypnosis? Would you go up on stage?
Would you go to a hypnotherapist if you had a problem, or a habit you wanted to break?
Do you feel you know more about yourself than anyone else does? Maybe your best mate knows you better than you know yourself.
Are there people you would trust with your life? Or let them persuade you to take a risk?
Could a stranger reach those hidden depths, by inspired guesswork or manipulation?
Do people get caught up in the heat of the moment, or in a group or crowd?
Would you join a cult or movement? What is one anyway?
In-Character/ Out-of-Character
Do you think politicians can put spin on things and make a difference?
Can you see the spin coming and deflect it?
Have you honestly never been influenced?
Do you think you can be manipulated?
Do you think you can manipulate others?
How do you think it works!
Can one ‘manipulate oneself’ to change behaviour etc?
How might that work?
Have you done it?
Make up a questionnaire for yourself or other people – you may be surprised at some of the answers
Are you an independent thinker?
Do you believe in character profiling?
Do you believe in astrological types?
Can you pigeonhole a person’s behaviour for all circumstances?
Does stress make a difference?
What effect might stereotyping or labelling have on you? Or on someone else?
Is it fair?
Can you copy someone’s behaviour?
Can you influence someone?
Do others colour your moods?
Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in ESP?
Do you believe in past lives?
Are people responsible for all their actions?
Is there such a thing as ‘normal?
Any other questions?
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