The Rise of Piety

In the run up to the election, BBC News was running a report from Florida, in which the reporter was interviewing a group of Vietnam Veterans to find out which way they were likely to vote. Perhaps not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of them claimed their strong support for George W Bush. He is, it seems, a Soldier’s President. In fact, one of the men there was wearing a T Shirt claiming, “Osama would vote for Kerry”.

It has been said that the re-election of George W Bush was brought about by a desire to return to Christian family values rather than because of any deep-rooted fears of potential terrorist attack from Al Qaeda. Indeed, if we are to believe the commentators, Americans are far more worried about the erosion of morality than the threat of another 9/11. Is it logical to assume that a nation at war would be more concerned with the behaviour of its own citizens than the conflict across the seas? Is such a move a sign that the American people have had enough of the climate of fear, and would rather stop the fighting and return to some sort of normality? And where does this leave the population on this side of the Atlantic? Is it right to assume that the rise of the Moral Majority could not be repeated here? Or are we all heading for a new dawn of fundamentalism in which totalitarian states and authoritarian churches wield absolute power?

When Osama Bin-Laden released his message to the people of America just a few days before election, I knew then that George W Bush and the Republicans would take the Whitehouse by a convincing margin. It would have been unthinkable that any other outcome could have been possible. Can you imagine if Adolf Hitler had taken to the radio to warn the British people not to elect Winston Churchill? What would they have done? As soon as Osama opened his mouth the fate of the Democrats was sealed. It was blatantly obvious that there would be a backlash against his words. There would simply have to be a show of defiance against such an address. Even if he had stood up in front of the cameras and talked about how much he hated Mickey Mouse, the very fact that he was alive and well would have motivated people in droves to elect a “strong” wartime President.

We only have to look at the attempts by the Guardian to influence marginal voters in Ohio to see the sort of backlash that this sort of action can cause. The idea had been that guardian readers should target undecided voters with their sincere and well meaning letters as to why they ought to be voting for John Kerry, but the presumption upset the whole country, and backfired so spectacularly that votes in Clark County swung far more in favour of George Bush than in neighbouring counties. Here are just a few of many such replies, and remember that these were directed at citizens of a supposedly allied nation. Multiply this reaction by a factor of several million and you might come close to how Bin Laden's message was welcomed:

"You radical leftwingers are worse than the Taliban. I suggest you stand back and take a good hard look at yourselves."

"Consider this: stay out of American electoral politics. Unless you would like a company of US Navy Seals - Republican to a man - to descend upon the offices of the Guardian, bag the lot of you, and transport you to Guantanamo Bay, where you can share quarters with some lonely Taliban shepherd boys"

But it’s not a simple matter of defiance. The fact that Osama Bin Laden made that statement at a time when the Republicans most needed to raise everybody’s awareness to the dangers of Islamic fundamentalists should ring alarm bells with everyone who has the ability to think clearly. The message was designed to provoke fear in a population who were being asked to make a choice about who would make the best choice for a wartime President. Since the election could not have possibly swung in favour of John Kerry, who (according to the opinion poles) was perceived as less likely to take a tough stand, I have to ask what on earth Bin Laden’s motives were.

Working on the assumption that the man is not a complete idiot, I must assume that Bin Laden knew what effect that his words would have. I’ve bashed this idea around for weeks, but can only come up with two possible explanations.

1 – Osama Bin Laden is working with, or working for, the George W Bush administration.

2 – Osama Bin Laden wants the George W Bush administration re-elected and has attempted to ensure they will win.

I’m going to discount the first theory for the time being. The idea that Osama is holed up in a CIA hotel somewhere, making videos on demand is too ludicrous to take seriously. I can’t believe that he was working n behalf of the government when he helped fund the 9/11 hijackers, and I’m sure the CIA would have wheeled him out for a photocall by now if they had him.

I hate to use “either or” logic, but the fact that the first theory is unusable only leaves theory number two (Unless there’s another idea that I’ve overlooked. Please feel free to bring this to my attention as I genuinely have no idea what it could be).

So. Here it is: The reason that Osama Bin Laden made the tape is because he wants the George W Bush administration re-elected.

That’s easy for me to say. An argument like that is easy to make but difficult to back up. What possible reason would Osama have to want his principal enemy to remain in power?

Well, we simply have to look at the evidence. The Bush administration has invaded Afghanistan, just as it was expected to after the 9/11 incident. But Bush also invaded Iraq, which was a secular country ruled by a dictator who happily sent people to jail for wearing Islamic symbols in public. Now that the Arab media has a constant supply of stories about how the Infidel has subjugated and brutalised their devout people, extremists like Bin Laden are reaping the rewards in terms of a constant supply of young initiates ready to flock into Iraq and take up the fight in the name of Allah and Jihad.

American foreign policy is making killers and martyrs out of hundreds of people who would have been happy to wear David Beckham T shirts just a couple of years ago. Every time a single civilian death occurs in a military operation, the entire extended family of the victim transforms into an enemy of the west. Every time the Arab media show a burnt down mosque, or a photograph of naked prisoners in jail, the fury of the Arabians becomes more polarized and the stream of wannabe warriors becomes a flood.

Similarly, American forces are vulnerable and a convenient target while ever they are tied up in Iraq. Why go to the trouble of sponsoring a suicide bomber to blow himself up in Times Square when you can sponsor a dozen such operations in Baghdad?

Islamic fundamentalists are not interested in peace. They are interested only in the extermination of those who do not share their views and their own eternal salvation for doing such work. This is why insurgents are doing everything they can to make sure the puppet government of Iraq cannot deliver (killing locals who wish to join the police, kidnapping aid workers, bombing the UN offices, etc) and it is also why they would much rather see an administration that is showing no signs of faltering in its willingness to engage in battle. What fundamentalists such as Bin Laden fear more than anything is a complacent docility overtaking the Arab world, with the new generation admiring and envying the lifestyle and excesses of the west. While ever they can keep Uncle Sam sufficiently riled so that all he will display are his sharp teeth, the chances of him seducing their children with soft words and coca cola are minimal.

This strategy also accounts for the lack of further terrorist incidents in the USA last year. Although a good deal of this is probably down to the diligence and even the xenophobia of the security services, it is worth mentioning that Bin Laden wouldn’t want to undermine the American Public’s confidence in Bush to protect them in an election year, and so it’s fair to expect that if he’d been approached by individuals or groups who had been planning such an attack, he would have advised them to wait for a more opportune moment.

So what does this have to do with the fact that George W Bush was elected due to a “desire to return to Christian family values rather than because of any deep-rooted fears of potential terrorist attack from Al Qaeda”?

To answer that question, we need to look at Ireland in the seventeenth century.

The Protestant way of life was always rather less about fun and more about work. (See my previous article Standing Up for Blighty for more on the Protestant Work Ethic.) By contrast, life in many Catholic countries has always been much lighter and more about enjoying life to the full. Despite their rather harsh stand on certain issues such as divorce and contraception, the Roman Catholic Church has never had much of a problem with the “wine, women and song” philosophy of the Italians, and the playful vibrancy of the Spanish. As the Catholic theologian Michael Novak wrote in "The Joy of Sports," "The spirit of play is Catholic; the spirit of work is Protestant."


(appeared in Punch, April 25 1845)

Compare this playful and relaxed model with the piety of many Irish Catholics and it doesn’t take long to see that something has gone very wrong. The occupation by the British and the seizure of land by wealthy English nobles and merchants left many native Irish without farms, votes or money. The mistreatment of Irish Catholics by their Protestant neighbours is still a sore wound for millions of their descendants, who claim that the loss of life amounts to a deliberate and systematic case of ethnic cleansing. Indeed, there are claims that even at the height of the potato famine, food was still being removed from Ireland by the British Army on an industrial scale.

In cases such as this, it is important for those oppressed to be able to salvage not just enough food to live on, but also a degree of dignity to keep the spark of humanity alive within them. When open defiance becomes impossible against such an overwhelming force of arms, then other, subtler forms of rebellion take their place. In the case of the Irish, the rise in piety was a logical reaction to what they saw as a drunken, lecherous and Godless bunch of tyrants. The peasants may not have had much, but their poverty made them far more likely to receive their reward in heaven than the greedy English landlords. The Catholic Church became a focal point for the prayers of the great unwashed, and the zeal of the downtrodden became so engrained in the Celtic way of life that it endured long after the famine and the occupation were consigned to the history books.

Being a great lover of science, one of the first things I took to my heart was the Newtonian theory that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. So it is that Irish Anglicans also began to feel oppressed by sheer weight of the conviction of their neighbours. Yet again, oppression and adversity created an inflated need for piety, until the churches on both sides of the theological divide in Ireland had very little in common with the relatively liberal organisations that had originally fostered them.

Which brings us a little further to the real reason for the Republican’s Election victory.

For the American people, religion has always been important. The whole country is founded on the fact that Colonial settlers arrived there in search of religious freedom. In the New World, individuals and groups of different faiths were tolerated and encouraged to worship God as they saw fit. But two very important factors changed this from a very early time.

The first of these factors was a desire to be rid of the Hegemony. There was still a deep seated dislike for the European dictators who so many had taken to the seas to avoid. It was clear from the start that if the people of the New World were to prosper and develop spiritually, this could not involve ties with existing churches. As the Spanish were discovering, having the support of the church back home was all very well, but the founding Bishops had expensive tastes, and seemed far more interested in stocking up on gold than taking lists of congregations. The war of independence brought about not just political freedom, but also a large degree of religious autonomy for the fledgling nation.

But this new independence was a mixed blessing, and when combined with the second factor; distance between settlements and isolation of communities, churches became more insular and localised. Free of authority and common practise, sermons became more superstitious, and communities became more cult-driven. Congregations knitted together more tightly and developed their own laws and practises, giving rise to communities which cut themselves off from the rest of the world, or embarked on frenzied witch crazes such as those in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, where a mob killed an accused witch outside the very hall where the Framers where drafting what would become the Constitution.

The religious practises of the USA might have remained a matter of personal choice for eternity, where it not for one man.


("We are all perfectly happy")

Stalin’s Russia had suffered far more greatly than the other allies in the Second World War. Official figures put total Russian deaths at twenty million. Compared with just over five hundred thousand for the British Empire and four hundred thousand for the USA. Stalin was not about to let the German nation rebuild itself. He expected the German people to pay a heavy price for their crimes, and since our combined losses didn’t amount to a twentieth of his, he had no intention of letting us dictate the peace.

It’s hardly surprising then, that America came to see Communism as the next big threat. Stalin’s brutal regime was just about as far removed from the American Dream as it was possible to get. Stalin was a dictator, blind to the suffering of his people. His death in 1953 made way for the appointment of Nikita “We Will Bury You” Khrushchev, and with the building of the Berlin wall in 1961, America had a very good reason to be worried.

Stalin’s effect didn’t only change the course of European and Russian history. It also shaped the American way of life, and with it, the rise of the American Far Right.

In 1950, Joseph McCarthy led what have become known as America’s second series of Witch Trials. This time, it was not isolation and ignorance that brought them about, but an innate fear that communist agents were infiltrating every aspect of American life. There were supposedly agents in all aspects of public life, quietly watching and waiting for an opportunity to subvert and brainwash the weak and the vulnerable. The House of Un-American Activities Committee was set up to root out members of the American Communist Party, and soon, communists were being accused and found where ever they were looked for.


Reds in the Greenhouse – Small town America takes on the Commies in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1954)

A nation which was still very much in control of its own sovereignty began to feel very much under threat from this hidden menace. Much of the fiction of the time revolved around this insidious threat. Children of the Duck and Cover generation grew up thinking Communist was just another word for the bogeyman. Using history as a guide, it’s not difficult to see why the American nation moved on mass (if you’ll excuse the pun) into the churches.

This was a nation Under God, and the Communists were trying to take that away from them. To be American meant different things to different people, but in the resurgence of patriotism that the Cold War brought with it, the one thing that was clear was the fact that good Americans were Christians, as this extract from a letter sent by the KKK to the HUAC illustrates:

“Every true American, and that includes every Klansman, is behind you and your committee in its effort to turn the country back to the honest, freedom-loving, God-fearing American to whom it belongs.”

What has always been important to the Fundamentalist Christian, is not the behaviour of their own congregation. Those who worship in the church and contribute to the coffers on a regular basis are rarely taken to task on their conduct outside the church. What really matters is that its members all profess a belief in the Lord God and (most importantly) a deep seated loathing of anyone who would oppose them.

So, now that we face yet another non-Christian threat, I think it’s only logical that we should see a fresh resurgence in the fundamentalist churches. The American way is demonstrative. Children pledge allegiance to their flag every day in school. Islamic citizens are expected to hang the Stars and Stripes from their homes to show their true loyalty, and even those too drunk to see straight are expected to stand for The Star Spangled Banner. The American Way dictates that attendance in church is more important than a love of God, and that loving your country is more important than loving your neighbour.

Just like the old days, it’s the rural communities who feel the most threatened. In small, rural towns, many people spend days in the company of just a few close friends, so it’s unlikely that new ideas will travel quickly. For the most part, many of the people in such communities live quiet, insular lives, meeting the majority of their neighbours only occasionally, such as on Sunday mornings, when everyone turns up to hear the Preacher speak of salvation.

I’m not accusing all rural people of being backwards. I’m simply stating a fact that anyone who doesn’t regularly mix with a wide spectrum of people is going to develop ideas that are a bit slanted. Put a whole community in isolation and you’ve got the beginnings of a cult.

And now the American people feel threatened like never before. The attack on the World Trade Centre gave the Americans a very nasty taste of what trouble in your own back yard is like, and they now feel more under siege than ever. Stories of Al Qaeda sleeper cells operating in every town have fuelled the media for months. So have tales of last minute raids thwarting armies of Islamic terrorists hell bent on destroying The American Way. Very few of these stories ever seem to have much substance, but they still serve to deepen the suspicion and widen the gap between the two faiths.

So, it doesn’t strike me as odd at all that the Bush administration should have returned to power after playing the God card. There are five million people in America who sincerely believe that the end times are upon us and that they will be abandoning the likes of me as they are swept up in the Rapture that is just around the corner. With only a few thousand votes deciding the winner of the Presidential election, coaxing their vote was a very smart move indeed. Failing that, all Dubya had to say was that the Democrats were going to take everybody’s guns away.

So where does that leave the British on May the 5th? I’ll come back to this closer to the time, but I’d like to bet that if the Conservatives try to play the Family Values card in the same way they’ll end up behind UKIP.

Snow All

SNOW!

Lots of it!

It's snowing in Holmfirth...

Yipppeeeeee!

Saved by Wendy Henry

I think this morning was the closest I've come to giving up. We all have mornings when we don't want to get out of bed, but this morning was just the worst. After sending out so many "spec letters" and getting so few replies back, I've even got to the stage where I'm actually happy to get rejection letters because it means somebody took the trouble to write.

But this morning I didn't want to know. It was Graduation Day at Huddersfield University and already there was no shortage of proud looking families walking with their cap-and-gowned offspring. It was all too positive for me. I felt shabby in my anorak and wet trainers, so I called into Smiths and bought a copy of The Week to cheer myself up. I couldn't really justify the expense, but I decided that if I didn't read something intelligent in the next twelve hours my brain would turn to mush.

On the way down to the Jobsearch offices I stopped. I just couldn't face the idea of spending yet another day chasing after jobs that weren't there. I turned around and headed to the bus stop. I would go home, go back to bed if I had to. But I would not walk through a town full of bright, smiling graduates as the token dropout.

Midweek was on the radio (I always carry a very small FM radio with me. It wouldn't do to be without Radio4 in this uncivilised world) and Libby Purvis was talking to Wendy Henry, who had once been the editor of the News of the World but gave it all up to work as a Dog Socialiser at Battersea Dogs Home.

They were talking about life, the universe and everything, and I don't even think I was listening. I was just standing in the drizzle, waiting for the bus and feeling generally down in the mouth.

"So what does a Dog Socialiser do?" Libby asked.

"Well, the thing about dogs, is that they don't need a lot. Just a bit of love food and water. But when they get depressed they tend to go downhill very quickly."

I raised an eyebrow at the irony, and had a good think.

Thirty seconds later I was on my way back to the Jobsearch centre. Today I've filled out an application form to work for Linda McAvan MEP, as a Research and Communications Officer.

I'm not beaten yet. Not quite.

When I click my fingers...

My friend Val sent an email which contained the question:

"How would a scientific person like yourself explain what happens when a person who hears voices undergoes hypnotherapy. Apparently all that happens is that the person enters an altered state of consciousness (presumably) and has a conversation with the hypnotherapist. At the end of it, the person does not hear the voices any more.
So how would that interaction alter the mis-firing synapse? Is that a possibility? Is the filter altered? I am interested in your response. Don’t just go off on a long convoluted rant against quacks and hypnotherapy! I know it may not happen in every case, but it does in some. So how come? What processes occur? What is altered?

I’m not about to state that anything to do with hypnosis or hypnotism is fake. Far from it, having read up on the subject last year, I am convinced that hypnosis works on many levels.

I acknowledge the fact that some people who have used hypnosis as part of their healing process have recovered.

When my dad had his heart attack he was taken into hospital and operated on. After what seemed like ages, he made a recovery and was allowed to leave. Although he’s not exactly on top form after the event, he can be considered to be in no immediate danger and shows every chance of living to a ripe old age.

It was pyjamas, you see. As soon as he went into hospital, My step mum bought him a new pair of pyjamas. Have you ever smelled brand-new pyjamas? They smell sort of chemically, like a set of prints back from lab, or the pages of a magazine that nobody has read.

Usually, when we buy a new item of clothing we will wash it before we wear it. However, when somebody needs new pyjamas for hospital, they generally need them that night, so they get worn straight away, complete with their chemical smell.

Now it just so happens, that that week, there were seven other patients who made a full recovery as well, and every one of them had been given fresh pyjamas to wear.

So, the following statement can hold true: People who wear new pyjamas after a heart attack are likely to recover.

This is the circular logic of post hoc ergo proctor hoc. (After the event, therefore because of the event.) It is the same slight of hand that allows the makers of Shredded Wheat to claim “Most people with a healthy heart eat whole-grain cereals”. The statement is saying absolutely nothing, and is difficult to disprove. But do you remember what I said in Smoke and Mirrors? The fact that something cannot be DISproven doesn’t make it any more real.

The last time my car wasn’t working it was fixed by new spark plugs being fitted. I can prove it. I have the receipt and the mechanic let me keep the old, blackened stumps as a souvenir. After the plugs were replaced, my car ran (and still does run) like a dream. But when anybody else’s car goes, would it be right for the mechanic to say “I fixed David Steele’s car with new spark plugs, therefore yours will need the same.”?

Okay. Lets drag this back on target. It may seem flippant that I’ve made these shaky analogies, but I think it’s important that we look at the logic that is in play to support hypnosis as an alternative to conventional therapies. This is as much evidence as there is for hypnosis as “cure” for anything: People who have used hypnosis have recovered.

According to Dylan Morgan, hypnosis is a state in which the mind is open and receptive to new learning techniques. His claims are no more mystical than that. It is this relaxed state that can lead to a state of suggestibility, or allow the imagination to be given a free rein. I would whole heartedly recommend his excellent free ebook “Hypnosis for beginners” which was one of my favourite reads in Iraq.

According to what I’ll loosely call the Morgan Method, hypnosis works by allowing the mind to form links. For example, a hypnotist might say “I want you to imagine that the phone is ringing and that you have an itch on your nose… Imagine the sound of the telephone, and imagine your nose itching… Now, the next time your telephone rings, I want you to remember that your nose is itching….” Then you sit back and watch the fun as they scratch their nose when you call them on your mobile.

This isn’t as far fetched as it might seem. For example, whenever I smell diesel fumes, I always taste ice-cream. Why? Because the van that used to deliver it used to kick lots of smoke out. I’ve learned to associate ice cream with diesel. The same happens with commercials. Think about the number of links that have been forged while you’re relaxed and watching TV. If I were to say “It’s the real thing” Most of you would think coca-cola. If I said “Just do it.” most of you would think of trainers.

I believe that hypnosis is valid and it is has provable results. It can create negative associations to help smokers quit (Next time you smoke a cigarette you will feel sick). It can help those afraid of flying (Next time you are in a plane you will think of your warm bed). It can even help patients to overcome the pain of childbirth or chronic illness. So, since it affects the mental processes and cognitive functions in such a way, there is no reason to suppose that it wouldn’t be of value in certain mental health cases. One way hypnosis has been proven to work is by allowing what could be thought of as tangles in the mind to be smoothed out.

Take an instance where somebody has had a painful memory as a child. It is quite possible for a hypnotherapist to take a person through that experience, but this time re-write the incident with a happy ending. In cases such as this, it is apparently common for a patient to replace the unhappy experience with the new, sugar coated memory.

If this seems surprising, then consider more deeply the accepted wisdom that the memory of a human being is not black and white. It is not a compartmentalised series of pigeon holes full of facts that are held on file until required. The memory has been shown to be a dynamic and constantly re-evaluating process. According to articles in New Scientist (“Our Orwellian Memory”), the memory process is one that relies on constant reinforcement and revision. The very process of remembering requires that memories are effectively taken out and dusted off to retain their clarity. The effect of this is that when you remember an event from a long time ago, you are not remembering the actual event, but a play back of the memory of that event.

Effectively, the mind makes copies of incidents to replace the old memory stores, and in doing so, it is prone to revise facts, overlook details and even invent facts that never took place. It is quite possible for events in the memory to be little more than fantasies of what really happened. And with no frame of reference other than our own memories, we’re already on to a loser.

So, given that the memory, as a fluidic medium rather than a mechanical retrieval system and that it is open to persuasion, it should come as no shock that memory recovery is one of the most effective tools at a hypnotherapist’s disposal.

But hypnosis is also very much about using the imagination. No hypnotist would deny that. Much of the hypnotic process relies on the patient being able to use their imagination (I want you to imagine you’re in a warm place… I want you to listen to my voice and imagine yourself becoming more relaxed as I count down from ten to one…) and it is precisely this reliance on role play that leaves the whole process open to abuse and misuse.

There have been many, many cases where hypnosis has helped people to exorcise their own demons. There have also been many cases where people with certain personality disorders have been able to discover that the cause of these events lie in earlier events in their lives. Perhaps they had been abused and had repressed the unpleasant memory, or maybe they had been involved in some other sort of trauma and simply not been able to deal with such an event. The Recovered Memory Movement saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of patients across America and much of Europe suddenly unlocking very real and painful memories that had been lying dormant in their subconscious minds for so long. Patients suffering from depression, anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, even headaches were encouraged and advised that this therapy might be of use to them too, and pretty soon hypnotic regression became a very big business.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the litigious masses of the United States got their teeth into the matter. Soon there was no shortage of girls and boys in court claiming that Uncle Frank had raped and abused them, and that the nice man next door had actually sneaked into their bedroom in the dead of night wearing only a pair of sneakers and a satanic mask. Families were torn apart, careers were wrecked, lives were ruined and victims were being created faster than ever. Sooner or later it all had to stop. And the tide turned in spectacular fashion.

Wave after wave of once believed victims started stepping forward, ready to take back what they had been told to believe under guided hypnosis and put right the damage they had done. These people became known as the Retractors and actually began suing the therapists themselves. What became known as False Memory Syndrome is still very much alive and well today, as more and more people realise that there supposedly reliable hypnotherapy sessions were nothing more than guided roleplay and wish fulfilment.

It’s not surprising that those wishing to find deep seated answers to psychological problems would now look beyond their life times to find the answer to their woes. Since events in this lifetime can be cross referenced, double checked and refuted, it was only a matter of time before the New Age Movement offered an untestable solution that everyone could believe in, without ever once having to worry about all that nasty business of facts and evidence.

It was a logical step that hypnotic charlatans should decide to go beyond simple one life regression and head out into the realm of past lives. Now a client is free to roam across all their previous incarnations and find as many excuses for their neuroses as they see fit. The best part about this is that it offers so much scope to the would–be time traveller. Not happy about paying your taxes? Perhaps in a previous life you were Robin Hood. Spending your whole life slaving away? Perhaps in a previous life you were Caligula, and now you’re just trying to make amends.

Rimmer: …Because, believe it or not, Lister, he told me that, in a past incarnation, I was Alexander the Great's chief eunuch.
Lister: Do you know something? I believe you.
Rimmer. He didn't say that I was Alexander himself, which is obviously what I wanted to hear. But it explained everything: I'd lived a previous life alongside one of the greatest generals in history. No wonder the military's in my blood.
Lister: No wonder you're such a good singer.
Rimmer: Well, maybe it's rot, I don't know. But it's funny -- to this day, I can't look at a pair of nutcrackers without wincing. And why is it, whenever I'm with a large group of women, I have this overwhelming urge to bathe them in warm olive oil?
Lister: I have that urge, Rimmer. It's got nothing to do with past lives.

From the Red Dwarf episode: Marooned

There are two very important factors to consider when analysing why these sessions would work:

Factor one: Filling in the blanks – Confabulation. Imagine you’re telling a story about something that happened to you in a bookshop last week. You know it was in a public place but you can’t remember exactly where. To facilitate the story, let’s say that you arbitrarily state that it could have taken place in a library. Some weeks later, when telling the same story again, you might automatically place the story in a library for want of a better location. A year down the line, you might walk past the town library and recall the incident that you now believe actually happened there.

Factor two: The urge to please. It is often the case that patients feel obliged to “play along” with their hypnotist’s suggestions. Perhaps this might take place out of respect for their perceived authority, or perhaps simply because the patient might feel that a lack of result would be some sort of failure on their part. In the case of the recovered memory craze, Richard Webster made the following observation in his book “Why Freud was wrong”:

“In their pursuit of the hidden memories which supposedly accounted for the symptoms of these women, therapists sometimes used a form of time-limited group therapy. At the beginning of the ten or twelve weekly sessions, patients would be encouraged to set themselves goals. For many patients without memories of incest the goal was to recover such memories. Some of them actually defined their goal by saying “I just want to be in a group and feel I belong.” After a fifth session the therapist would remind the group that they had reached the middle of their therapy, with the clear implication that time was running out. As pressure was increased in this way women with no memories would often begin to see images of sexual abuse involving father or other adults and these images would then be constructed as memories or “flashbacks””

To my way of thinking, past-life regression is probably the most conclusive proof that much of hypnosis is based in role play. I would not be any more inclined to believe a testimony obtained under hypnosis than I would if it were obtained any other way. People under hypnosis have no magical constraint to tell the truth, they are merely more relaxed, better able to concentrate, and more likely to use their ability to visualise scenes in their imagination. Anyone wishing to claim otherwise would do well to take a look at the work of The Amazing Kreskin, who has offered a cool $100,000 to anyone who can prove that a subject under hypnosis can do anything that a non hypnotised person is capable of.

I remember using a guided hypnosis tape about four years ago, which promised to help me unlock experiences of my previous lives. “This is not an exercise in creativity” The West Coast accented woman told me. “This is a genuine remembrance of that which has gone before.”

I was told to imagine myself in a grey mist, and then look down at my feet. I was supposedly looking through the eyes of my previous self at this point. “Imagine the ground.” The Californian advised me. “See the detail of the earth beneath your feet, see your feet in this place, and now, very gradually, look up, and let the scene unfold around you.”

I imagined the scene as instructed. Just as anybody would, I imagined something. I saw heather at my feet, and looked out to see a Scottish coastal scene, complete with rugged coast line and the cottage where I had “lived” before.

Was I remembering a previous existence, or was I simply following instructions? I’m a creative, imaginative person. The vision came to me because I was told that it should. Which is the most likely? That I transcended space and time, and somehow reconfigured the synapses of my brain to replicate those of a long dead person and see through their long decomposed eyes, or that I simply made it up because it was a result I had expected and wanted?

I know that many people claim to use self-hypnosis as a substitute for anaesthetic at the dentists, but I don’t know many dentists who tell the same story. I’m not saying it’s all a pack of lies. I’m just saying that there’s always an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence for just about anything and very little substantial proof.

I’ve no doubt the new age tricksters are just as unwelcome to clinical hypnotists as they are to me. But they exist and they are not short of cash. But where does this leave hypnosis? I said myself that “I believe that hypnosis is valid and it is has provable results.“ How can I believe this and still poke fun at past life regression?

Put it another way. How can I possibly believe that there is any such thing as hypnosis when there are people who can exploit it to invent fantasies that put people in jail?

Well. I hate to drag up circular logic, but you left me no choice. Hypnosis works simply because people believe it does. When a therapist tells a patient “Your arm is so heavy that you cannot lift it.” They are likely to simply accept what has been said, simply because they believe that they are in a trance. The smoker believes he/she has the strength to give up smoking – and so he/she can. The agoraphobic believes he/she has the strength to walk down the street, and so he/she can The patient believes that it is possible to close their eyes and see through the eyes of a past incarnation, and so they can.

And that brings us back to the original question. A person who consults a hypnotist has within them a belief, or at least a desire, that this therapy can help them in some way. With a mental condition such as the one you have described, there is just a chance that somebody may have placed sufficient faith in the hypnotic process to heal them that it allowed what ever was mis-firing in the brain to stop doing so. At the end of the day what ever it was that happened “worked” in some way. Sometimes this is all that is needed. Homeopathy sometimes “works” when all a patient has been prescribed is stale water. Faith Healing sometimes “works” when all that has happened is a few words have been uttered.

If someone is made better by any process, then we can only say that somebody using that process got better. That doesn’t mean the process “works”. We can only say what we see, not what we would wish.

Please keep your comments coming. Long live the debate.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Memories slipping away like that. Spines of books fading. Reasons becoming blurred. One by one the sharp edges fall off until only vignettes remain. I remember a grassy bank just before it was time to catch the train to barracks. I can't remember the sky. I remember rocks in the grass, and a river, or a maybe stream. Water, anyway. I remember not wanting that moment to end. Knowing that I was as happy then as I was ever likely to be.

17:35 from Paddington

How many times did I catch this train from Paddington back to Newbury this year?

Just for the record, unless I was running late, I took this very service about 20 times a month for four months. I don't think the idea that anything could have gone wrong like this had ever even entered my head. I was more worried about terrorists at the station than suicidal motorists in the next village.



Not that any of them are likely to read it, but I would like to express my deepest sympathy to everyone whose lives have been wrecked by this event.

Fair Enough

Just to say sorry to Anonymous for getting grumpy. I imagine I would have done the same thing. The law is the law, and a friendly word is better than a ride in a squad car. Yesterday wasn't a great day, and I wasn't ready for it.

Twelve letters sent out yesterday, all saying pretty much the same thing: ""Hey - I'm great- Give me a job!" This brings the week's total to over thirty. Doesn't hurt to keep trying, I suppose. What else is there to do?

I'm still trying hard to make sense of the US election. I'm so utterly shocked by the whole thing that I don't even feel able to comment on it right now. Not that my comments will make much difference. What sickened me yesterday was the triumphant Daily Mail headline: "Rise of the Moral Majority!" They are talking about a regime that ignores environmental issues, pisses on the third world, doesn't pay the UN its fees, stamps all over anybody with a turban, detains people without trial, fabricates evidence and believes it is wrong to try and stamp out hand guns. What part of anything the Republicans stand for is moral?

So, when I got home, and found out that my little article was against the law while the world's biggest criminal cartel is getting ready for another four years of rape and pillage, I couldn't help but wonder why we all bother.

I'm still wondering, but at least I'm still bothering.

Remember me?

It's twenty years since the the Bank of England did their bit to save trees and the Pound Note was phased out. Imagine that!

Remember how much of a novelty it was to get the coins? (Mind you, now that I'm living on Job Seeker's Allowance, it's still a novelty!)

(Image Deleted)

A special Mystery Prize goes to who ever can remember which Toblerone loving genius was on the back.

Four Chords

Today I decided to become a rock legend. I've borrowed a guitar and learned four chords already. (At least, I can do them all very slowly, given time.) For the record I've tried E, Em, A and Am. I like Am best, but I don't know why.

Somebody should do an in-depth psychological study to find out what sort of person likes what sort of chord. To be honest, I can quite happily sit and listen to the sound of any of the four I've tried today, just playing the same chord over and over, or listening to the subtle alternation from E to Em and back again. Even the sound of the wood is lovely. I can't think why I waited this long.

I tried some single note work as well. Now that's plenty harder. Just repeating this simple sequence on the first string (thin E) had me tied up for what seemed like ages.

GGFF,EEGF,GGFF,EGF- .

By the time I'd got the hang of those four simple bars I noticed that the ends of my fingers were an odd shade of purple. I'm sure they didn't look like that when I started...