Rape of the Mind
A. M. Meerloo, M.D.
Scream
Stages of Thinking and Delusion
The psyche is constantly confronted with and communicating with the outside world, and at every phase of an individual's development that world and its events are experienced differently. Although different scientists have drawn different conclusions about the various phases and their implications, the very recognition of change and growth of personal outlook is one of the most important scientific findings in psychology and is agreed on by all psychologists. Let me briefly explain here the developmental approach to human psychology. It is not the only one, but it will serve to illustrate the tremendous impact of immature and delusional thinking on our final opinions.
Developmental psychology - as studied in children and primitives-posits at the origin of thinking, in both the individual and the race, a hallucinatory stage of the mind, in which there is no experience of difference between the inside and the outside world; the mental separation and distantiation between the self and the world has not yet taken place. The psyche is felt to be omnipotent -all that is experienced inside the self is attributed to the universe as well and is imagined to be part of that universe.
According to developmental psychology, the infant experiences the world in this way, and in certain types of insanity the adult will revert to this hallucinatory stage. Yet, even mature man does not succeed completely in separating internal fantasy from outside reality, and often he thinks that his private and subjective moods are caused by some external actuality. In the next stage, that of animistic thinking, there is still a partial sense of oneness between the ego and the world. The individual's inner experience, his fears, his feelings, are projected onto seeming causative agents in the outside world. The outside world is a continual demonic threat to him.
The child who bumps against the table projects onto that table a hostile living power, and hits back. The primitive tribesman, hunted by beasts of prey, attributes to the animal he feared a divine power, that of a hostile god. The entire outside world may in fact be peopled with the fears of men. In times of panic and fear, we all may populate our neighbourhood with nonexistent traitors or fifth columnists. Our animistic thinking is continually busy accusing others of what actually occurs inside our own minds. Nowadays there are no devils and ghosts in trees and in wild animals; they have made their homes in the various scapegoats created by dictators and demagogues.
The third stage is that of magical thinking in which there is still a sense of intimate connection between man and his outside world. However, man places himself more in opposition to the world than in union with it. He wants to negotiate with the mysterious powers around him. Magic is in fact the simplest strategy of man. He has discovered that he can manipulate the world with signs and gestures or sometimes with real actions or changes. He erects totem poles and sacrificial blocks; he makes talismans and strange medicines. He uses words as powerful signs to change the world. He develops a ritual to satisfy his need for coming to terms with the outside world.
Which of us has not felt a sudden desire to count cobblestones or is not the jealous possessor of an amulet or some other secret token whose power would be lost if its existence were known to others?
Immature as they are, these tokens serve to build up happiness and a good life. We all still live in the world of magic and are caught in the delusion of happy manipulation of nature. The modern tribe drives around in mechanized cars and becomes a megalomaniac sorcerer of the wheel. Millions of victims are brought to the altar of the god Speed because of our hidden delusion that frenzied rapidity prolongs life. The engine and the gadget have replaced the more mysterious amulet of earlier days. Knowledge is still in the service of power instead of in the service of understanding.
In the last phase of mental development, man makes a complete separation between himself and the outside world. He not only lives with things and tries to manipulate them, but he also lives in opposition to them. In this phase of mature reality confrontation, man becomes an observer of his own life. He recognizes the abyss of his own being. He sees his body and mind as separate from the world. With hands, ears, eyes, and his controlling mind, he confronts reality. He steps back from the world and observes it. He is, in fact, the only animal that walks erect, straightforwardly facing the world. He is the only animal that uses his hands and his senses as verifying instruments.
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As we saw in the chapter on Totalitaria, mass delusion can be induced. It is simply a question of r organizing and manipulating collective feelings in the proper way. If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside corrective, and can hypnotize the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be instilled. People will begin to accept the most primitive and inappropriate acts. Outside occurrences are usually the triggers that unleash hidden hysterical and delusional complexes in people. Collective madness justifies the repressed personal madness in each individual. That is why it is so easy to sloganizing people into the mass hysteria of war. The outside enemy who is attacked by vituperative slogans is merely the scapegoat and substitute for all the anger and anxiety that lives inside the harassed people.
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Technology disregards the fact that our scientific view of the world is only a gradual correction of our mythical and pre-scientific view. Technology, once a product of courageous fantasy and vision, threatens to kill that same vision, without which no human progress is possible. The idol, technology, must become a tool again and not the omnipotent magician per se, who drags us into the abyss.
Websites
MOEC: Mobilization of Empire and Civilization
http://powereality.net/anglo-american.html
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