Post No. 2,781 - good and bad crowds

I recently read   “Do you have an instinctive aversion to mob psychology?”   https://thequietlife.net/p/do-you-have-an-instinctive-aversion   from an introvert activist I admire and respect (Susan Cain). 

I quite liked the poem by Les  Murray, but the post raised a few other thoughts. 

Firstly, there are forms (or aspects) of crowd behaviour/psychology that I consider are wrong - things like riots, pogroms, peer pressure, gossip, etc. 

In terms of public protest, I recall being overwhelmed and scared by the noise and anger of a (peaceful - unlike at least one) Việt Nam War  protest march in the city (which I wrote about somewhere, I think).

However, coming together for collective action can create good outcomes - including outcomes such as the eight hour day and other historical achievements, and, more recently, as I wrote about in   “On public pressure affecting responses to active mass atrocity events [Note: Content Warning - mention of and links to articles violence and atrocities against victims of a wide range of ages. Reader discretion is advised]”   https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2024/02/on-public-pressure-affecting-responses.html     

So crowds can be both good and bad. Nuance is the word of the day in this, as in so many other matters.

Also, as a side note, the word “mob” is now largely used in Australia to refer to Indigenous groups, I have so deliberately chosen not to use that word in the above. 

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram. 

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  

 

Post No. 2,606 - Some interesting reading/viewing [Note: Content Warning - links to reports on bigotry/hate, crimes, violence/abuse/war. Reader discretion is advised]

Here are some links that might of interest or value:

• My recent posts on my political blog:  
• “An open letter to Australia's progressive politicians regarding the Voice referendum” [Content Warning: hate, hate crimes, violence, threats of violence, discrimination - reader discretion is advised];
  
• interesting listening this week includes: 
• “Earth Matters: Women bringing  new agendas to COP28”;   “Decolonising the ethics and practices of bat care (Freedom of Species)”;   Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect podcast series “Expert Voices on Atrocity Prevention”: Episode 25 - Muzna Alhaj, a Sudanese activist and a member of a Khartoum-based Resistance Committee who explains the outbreak of violence in Sudan in April 2023, how the crisis has affected the role Resistance Committees play in their communities, and the current atrocity risks faced by civilians and steps the international community can take to support local populations and address the ongoing crisis.   Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/expert-voices-on-atrocity-prevention/id1550368126?i=1000629653766  or on YouTube at https://youtu.be/OKnK2bLrHTk?si=DoDsLD9UBMpgTjt-;  
  
• “You Can't Trick Someone into Hope. It Doesn't Work Like That”; 
• “organisms without brains can learn, too – so what does it mean to be a thinking creature?”; 
• “3 Ideas About Autism that Sound Good (but are actually TOXIC!)” - and these ideas crop up in other contexts to which these problems also potentially apply; 
• a video on animism and asking for permission - which many Europeans/Westerners don’t do ... ; 
• “The Failure of Positive Thinking”; 
• “The True Cost Of Autistic Masking (Damaging Effects Of Unconscious Masking)”;
• this week’s “afterlife report” by the  Zammits. 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram and Mastodon.

Vote Yes for the Voice in Australia - see this backgrounder.  

Finally, remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, and to mind our Mӕgan.

 

Post No. 838E - the sixth set of keywords

Owing to Blogger's limits on keywords, when I have a lot I have to post them in batches. This is the sixth lot of keywords for this post.

Keywords:

abuse of power, anger, animals, artificer, attitudes, authentic presence, awareness, balance, Balanced Positive, Bhakti, blackmail, blood, challenge, change, chaos, children, circle, clairvoyance, concentration, consequences, control, death, Deities, dimensions, discrimination, divination, dowsing, Earth (element), earthbound entities, elements, emotions, energy work, equal and opposite reaction, ethics, evil, faery, faith, family, fear, fight or flight or network and nurture, Fire (element), focus, folk lore, forgiveness, friends, genes / genetics, gifts / giving, grounding, growth orientation, guilt, healing, history, honour, ignorance, informed decisions, insularity, invisibility, invocation, isolation, judging others, justice, knowledge, language, levels, limitations, love, Mӕgan, magic, magickal language, magickal techniques and styles, magickal tools, manifestation, metaphysical mass, metaphysics, moral courage, motivation, mythology, myths, names, neochristianity, nightfall, Paganism, pain, Pentacle, pentagram, personal responsibility, perspective, phenomena, power, prejudice, preparation, prophecy, protection, psychic attack, psychic development, psychism, psychology, racism, reincarnation, rescue, residue, responsibility, revenge, risks, rituals, sacrifice, scepticism, Seelie, self knowledge, sexism, shielding, (the) Sight, society, spells, Spiritual Maturity, spirituality, subconscious, submissiveness, sunrise, survival after death, teaching, telepathy, temperature, tests, thaumaturgy, the Greater Good, train others how to treat us, uncooperative, understanding, undetectability, Unseelie, ward, werewolf, yoga,

Post No. 172 - Scientific proof that the future can be predicted?

PS - for an update on this, see   “Post No. 3,179 - Precognition and working with time”   https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2025/07/post-no-3179-precognition-and-working.html       

As I was driving home tonight, I was listening to the BBC The World Today programme (I think) via ABC Radio NewsRadio, when they had a segment which was more or less introduced along the lines of scientific proof that people can predict the future.

The segment was an interview with a Professor Daryl Bem, a psychologist working at Cornell University, who may have found scientific evidence that people can predict the future.

What Professor Bem did was a variation of a memory test.

In the standard form, volunteers are shown a list of 48 words, one word at a time for three seconds, on a computer screen. They are then given exercises to do with half of those words - selected at random by the computer. After this, they are asked to write down as many of the original list of 48 words as they can. Not surprisingly, the 24 words that they had exercises for are more frequently (as a "long term" statistical trend) remembered.

In the modified form, the 48 words are shown to the volunteers, then they write the list, then get exercises for randomly selected words. The same trend is still apparent.

Interesting - I'll have a think about how much credence I will give to this. It will possibly only mean something to me if one of the Skeptics organisations acknowledges it as valid - I don't need a scientist to tell me what I know to be truth.

I found a few links for this story; here is the New Scientist link. Have a read and see what you think.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: science, scepticism, precognition, psychism, psychology,

First published: Friday 19th November, 2010

Last edited: Friday 19th November, 2010

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also other options. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and  

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2025     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  

 

 

Post No. 147 - A book of mixed "blessings": Baldwin's "Spirit Releasement Therapy"

I referred recently to the book "Spirit Releasement Therapy", by William Baldwin. Well, I have tracked down and obtained a copy, and my first scan of it is extremely disappointing.

The practical ideas on spirit rescue and past life regression seem OK, but the book claims to have "cured" two people of being (M2F) transsexual by rescuing female spirits from these people.

That may have happened (I think, incidentally, that there is good reason for thorough psychological evaluation prior to surgery, although current assessments should be improved, and the view of gender diversity needs to be broadened), but ALL first responses to any divergence from normal along the lines of "I can 'cure' that" are, in my experience, basically bigotry and prejudice (see here for a better view on trans matters, here for a better view on same sex attraction, and here for a better view on bisexuality). They remind me of the story about a famous psychologist (Freud) who was asked by a woman if he could cure her son's homosexuality: the reply was along the lines of "Madam, there is nothing to cure."

Transsexualism (and being transgender or bigender) is NOT a disease that needs a cure! To imply that it is, as Baldwin does, is irresponsible and unprofessional in the extreme.

Goddess how many people have I LITERALLY buried because of idiotic implications like that ... !

The attitude brings to mind another book I read years ago which claimed a similar "cure" for being gay or lesbian. I can't even recall the title of it now - needless to say, I stopped recommending it very quickly!

I wonder how those idiots feel as evidence of physical causation starts to be found (see here and here, for instance)?

I'm wary of finding physical causation for sex and gender diversity: it raises the possibility of bigots having abortions because they don't want to have an LGBTIQ kid. The problem is not natural, normal diversity (now acknowledged to happen in other animals): it is the attitude of stamping on divergence.

So ... Dr Baldwin is not off to a good start with me. I'll see how his book holds up when read more thoroughly.

Oh, by the way: I've decided to try writing my reviews of books in chunks: I still have several book reviews that I haven't completed yet because I am trying to assemble all my notes and review the whole thing. Doesn't work with my busy lifestyle ...

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: rescue, past life regression, hypnosis, discrimination, transgender/transsexual/bigender, lesbian/bisexual/gay, psychology, death, demons, gender,

First published: Friday 20th August, 2010

Last edited: Friday 20th August, 2010

Post No. 095 - Could there be a sort of ... karmic Stockholm Syndrome?

This is a bit of speculation, but it fits a current circumstance that I am examining:
- could there be a (psychic/metaphysical) equivalent of the "Stockholm syndrome", where the victim of an act begins to identify with the perpetrators of the wrong?

The case I am thinking of is where person A, in a past life as a torturer in Constantinople, blinds person B (Tim Severin writes about these sort of events in his Viking series - I think in the third book, "Kings Man"). Obviously, one would expect the karmic return to be along the lines of person B either literally (perhaps through the instrument of an accident) or figuratively (e.g. being duped, conned or misled in some way - unable to see something) blinding person A. What, though, if, in addition to that, person B had an idealised, "blinded" view of person A still?

Obviously that would be an extra edge of the karmic entanglement to be repaid, but it is also a psychological aspect to be watched for and managed.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm .... I'll have to think more on that.

(Maybe it's a bit like those women who defend patriarchy?)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

Tags: karma, philosophy, psychology, past lives, Stockholm Syndrome, control, inappropriate reactions, emotions, abuse,

First published: Sunday 20th December, 2009

Last edited: Tuesday 22nd December, 2009