I’ve been chatting with an old friend a bunch the last few
days: he’s been going through a weirdly interesting time. Once we were fellow
Amma-heads and Vipassana addicts – I’m going back a good 15-17 years here – but
our paths diverged. I was all about purity and he liked his marijuana too much.
He also got into shoddy conjurer and probable kiddy-fiddler Sai Baba, and a
whole bunch of weird flakey self-proclaimed psychics and mystics. They all
seemed quite dodgy to me, and further investigation apparently confirmed this.
But he dug them and didn’t like me trying to point out anything about them and
we kind of went our separate ways.
I got to thinking about him the other day, though, and
thought I’d pop in. Despite what I’ve said above, we’ve always got on well, and
he’s a funny and enthusiastic chap.
I knock on the door and am startled by his appearance. He
was 21 when we first met: he’s 80% bald now – genetic – and his teeth and
fingers are all brown and twisted, from the marijuana.
But, you know, I guess we all age eventually – and his
raucous laughing greeting hasn’t changed.
We talk the small stuff and the fun stuff and the
reminiscing stuff – but what I’m really interested is this tale he was on with
last time we spoke, about three years ago, where he was telling me all these
people were insulting him and even shouting at him wherever he went. He’d see
them in his home town; he’d see them in the city two hours away; he’d see them
on foreign vacations. It was all wrapped up in some girl he’d once been in love
with and sent long, heartfelt emails to, as is often a man’s wont, at least
once in his life. This is when things started: all the people, he presumed,
were somehow related to her: friends, people she’d shown the emails to, general
bad guys. They’d just say sly things like “that’s him; that’s the cunt” and
then walk away. Or maybe talk about getting him, but be talked out of it.
Sometimes it was even the girl herself, standing in his neighbour’s garden late
at night shouting weird insults over the fence and then disappearing.
I listened. He enthused as he told me all the latest
encounters. I asked questions. I tried to refrain from outright questioning his
sanity. But then I did anyway, in as gentle a way as I could.
Thing is, you see, due to my curious mind and internet
compulsion, I’ve explored a lot of the darker corners of the web – and,
therefore, of the human mind. What he seems to be experiencing is something
known as ‘gangstalking’, which is a growing phenomenon among a certain group of
people (normally Americans). Mostly what they believe is that they’re being
targeted – in fact, they call themselves ‘Targeted Individuals’ (T.I.s for
short) – and report the same kind of things my friend is talking about: being
followed, harassed, insulted, threatened, having their shit messed with, life
totally suffering as a result. Usually it’s all done at the behest of some
covert government agency, but not always, and can be based around a purely
personal issue, such as something stemming from the work place, or place of
study, or, as in the case of my friend, misdirected romance. Everything he
describes, these individuals describe too – and they’re totally serious. They
form groups. They make websites. They post videos of “100% proof” – and then
merely show cars entering and leaving parking lots, which to them are people ‘stalking’
them. Some of them are so outright bonkers it’s almost impossible to get my
head around. While others seem like they’re not bonkers at all, just sad.
It’s such a shame what’s happened to my friend. He used to
be so bright and happy. But he never could resist the weed, nor his old dark
friends who liked the weed, and I think that was a big part of it. Also, I don’t
think he ever really got the grounding part of spirituality – he was too wild,
too far out there, even for someone like me. He cared about nothing else.
Indeed, he burned for it, but went about it in pretty weird ways – and he just
went mad. All that meditation and prayer and chanting and all he has to show
for it is…psychoses; neuroses; and a lonely life that revolves around TV and
marijuana and a weird mad head and all those brown teeth.
We believe, I think, in the early days of our spirituality
that it will be some kind of cure-all panacea – that all we have to do is
meditate or chant or do our yoga or share our hearts. But as I’ve grown older I’ve
realised that most of the maddest people I know are spiritual people, and that
whatever it was that got them going in the beginning – all that initial joy of
liberation and emotional and physical freedom and expression – just isn’t sustainable.
People who have been in it decades seem no nearer to being complete and whole
than anyone else, and maybe even the opposite, maybe lag behind. They often
come across as flakey, desperate, lost, insecure, deluded – but have also
developed the coping mechanisms to show the world an entirely different face.
Some of these people may be teachers, even gurus. They can sit up straight for
hours; talk all manner of talk; contort their bodies wonderfully, like a circus
performer; and present the gentlest loving front – yet underneath it all…
There was a story in the news last year about some
ex-meditating fellow who came to believe he was being gangstalked. I read about
the spiritual stage of his life and he seemed to have ascended to quite some
heights in intense practice and meditation. And then at some point he lost his
mind and ended up shooting a bunch of people.
Another woman I know is a teacher of what she calls ‘radical
honesty’. She teaches people to be open and vulnerable. She gets them to share their
innermost secrets. She probably does it quite well, and maybe it’s actually
good for them – but the irony is she’s probably one of the most dishonest and
manipulative people I’ve ever met, with a mind seemingly lost in a maze of
falsehoods and fictions. In more honest moments she’s even confessed to being a
‘compulsive liar’. But who knows whether that wasn’t just more mindgames and
manipulation?
I could go on. I know teachers of self-esteem who are
riddled with insecurity. Teachers who preach peace and non-violence, and then
kill critters willy-nilly. Meditation teachers filled with anxiety and
nastiness. It’s…well, you teach what you have to learn, I guess – though even
that’s the positive, New Age spin on it. More to the point may be that we often
seek to heal in others what’s going wrong in ourselves – and so no surprise
that these teachers set themselves up to cure in the external what they can’t
face inside: there’s that good old projection again.
But I’m getting off track: the point being that ‘spirituality’
certainly ain’t no panacea, and, no matter what the heights we may have
attained in our enthusiastic youths, there’s no escaping the madness of our
Western minds and upbringing, which is perhaps the same madness which drove us
to spirituality in the first place. At some point it’s going to catch up. At
some point it may even overpower us, if we’re not willing to face it. And
perhaps a big part of the problem with Western spirituality is that it gives us
a lot of tools to avoid facing that. Allows us to be deluded about nice things
instead of negative things. Creates a false ego identity that others are
actually respond positively to, with their own false identities, rather than
run away from. Hell, quite often they even pay for the privilege – it’s pretty
easy to get away with shit in the spiritual world. The whole system is set up
for it – special religious dispensation and all that.
My friend, alas, seems mostly lost. For him, I understand,
it’s totally real. He’s hearing the voices and seeing the people and, you know,
it doesn’t matter who you are, it’s almost impossible to see something outside
of that. I mean, could you, reading this right now, consider the possibility
that there was no phone or screen or piece of paper in front of you? Accept
that you were actually imagining the whole thing? I wouldn’t think so – and
probably no good anyone trying to convince you otherwise. Just as it’s no good
me telling my friend that what he’s experiencing isn’t real. These things are
real for the people experiencing them – I’ve even read of a girl who thought
her gangstalkers were putting dolls in her yard, and when she took a picture of
them to show her friends, even though she was still seeing dolls, her friends
could see it was nothing but leaves.
So, instead, I try a different tack. I try some logic. He’s
not so far gone that he’s not at least a tiny bit open to it not being real. So
what we need are some facts: when did he see the girl overseas? What if we can
prove that she wasn’t? What about these other people you say are following you?
What if we can show they don’t know her, and don’t know you? What if when you
think she’s in your neighbour’s garden shouting at you through the fence we can
find out she’s actually two hours away at home with her hubby and kids and
there’s no one there?
I mean, the whole thing’s totally ludicrous – this woman
appears to have a very nice city life, busy and professional, family-oriented
and successful – like something out of a Richard Curtis movie, really – so she’s
hardly the type to go stalking some stay-at-home pothead, haunting him over the
neighbour’s fence, for no apparent reason – but how to get him to see that,
when he’s actually seeing and hearing her?
Also, why bother? An occupational therapist I once knew
would tell me about the bonkers people she worked with, and related a
perspective I found enlightening and thought-provoking: for, deluded though
they may be, if it’s not impacting negatively on their lives, nor anyone else’s,
where’s the harm? Let’s say there’s a woman who sees goblins under the sink.
You and I both know they’re not there – but why all the effort to convince her
of that, if it doesn’t bother anyone? If she likes them? If she still gets on
with her life and isn’t crippled in a way she doesn’t like? If the goblins aren’t
telling her to do harm?
I feel with him he doesn’t mind it too much, and he still
laughs and gets on with things, and he’s not about to go shooting anyone. There’s
also a sense that he’s invested in it, that it’s become a part of his identity:
that he actually likes it in some way, as many of us do with our crutches and
our dramas and our ideas that something outside of us is the actual cause of
our problems. Who would he be without it? Better? I guess there’s no way I can
be sure of that. And what does he himself want? That may be the most pertinent
question, and one I’m not sure I have a clear answer on.
He’s asked what I think of it and I’ve responded with a
certain part of it, in as gentle a way as I can. Ideally, I’m trying to lead
him to his own realisation, and to not push him away by telling him outright it’s
just delusions. I know for him it’s real and I don’t want to oppose that. So I
try a bit of logic, and pointing out that she’s a happily married mother of two
– his stalking skills aren’t quite up to mine, surprisingly – was a bit of a
surprise and a jolt to his system. Also just working with facts – take some
notes, try and get some recordings, figure out some names, keep track of times
and dates – seems like a good way to go. It’s not the be all and end all – but
it may just open a chink in the door to the possibility that the doctors and
scientists may be right after all.
I’ve also sent him some links to things to read – reports
about gangstalking; a paper that found 100% of 128 cases studied involved
delusion; other people online describing the exact self-same thing, but
obviously bonkers – though this doesn’t seem to have gone down so well. I’m not
sure why but I imagine it’s perhaps a little threatening to the belief, and
that he’s not quite ready to shine the light of logic on it just yet. Like I
say, I’m trying not to push – getting together yesterday was good, and I felt
we made some progress – but today he’s back to telling the stories and giving
the evidence and feeling there’s just too much to dismiss the whole thing. It’s
one step forward, one step back – and today’s step, for me, is probably just to
give breathing and thinking space. To be honest, it may never be anything more
than that, and perhaps this’ll be him, for the rest of his life. It happens, ya
know? Once upon a time we were all young and excited and free – and never
suspected for a second our friends and brothers and loved ones would turn out
like the ones on TV, who lose their minds, lose the plots, do things that make
no sense, and fall into madness. But they do, just like could happen to anyone.
It’s a weird one. There’s probably nothing I can do about
it, really. But since he’s asking me what I think, I guess it’s only right that
I answer, in the best way I know how.
I suppose at some point I’ll suggest a mental health
professional. At least for him it’s only a personal issue, rather than global
and governmental, otherwise anyone could be on it – the doctors, the
study-writers – even me. Hopefully the worm hasn’t tunnelled quite that deep.
Although there’s probably more to this than I realise: one of the last things
he said to me, out of nowhere, was that he thinks she’s in love with him, that
they’re maybe even soulmates, but circumstanecs are keeping them apart. That
was a bit of a shocker: given that there hasn’t been any actual contact. It’s
hard to know what to say to that: the notion of it is insane, from what I know
of both their lives. He may just be more far gone than I imagine.
Poor chap. I suppose all I can do is can keep trying, if and
when the door swings open. In the meantime, I guess it’s just gentle
questioning and then focusing on other more palatable and friendly things.
After all, there’s more to him than this, and more to our friendship too.
Cheers. :)
Interesting links:
New York Times article -
Study paper -
An excellent skeptic's video explaining how gangstalking
works -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLqMpnc54j8
Twitter feed of a guy who thinks he's being gangstalked (really bonkers) -
https://twitter.com/MarkMRich
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