This page is the first publication of Trish Fotheringham’s epilogue to her chapter entitled, “Patterns in Mind-Control: A First Person Account”, published in Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations, (2008), J.R. Noblitt & P. S. Perskin Noblitt (Eds), pp. 491-540. Bandon, Oregon: Robert D. Reed Publishers.
The chapter by Trish Fotheringham describes programming methods and forms that are familiar to many survivors of ritual abuse. It is also of great interest that many of the descriptions of programming in her chapter closely parallel the descriptions by Svali in her online book, “The Illuminati: How the Cult Programs People”.
The Moral of the Story
By Trish Fotheringham, Survivor
After the healing I have done, and based on everything I have experienced and learned, from those who abused and exploited me and innumerable other perpetrators of one sort or another that I have known in my adult years, I can honestly say I have never encountered a truly evil person, only people who do evil things.
Sadly though, in the 21st century, mind-control patterning techniques are no longer only the tools of a few isolated and scattered groups or individuals. Fine-tuned, honed to perfection and beyond into nightmare, they are global, used increasingly and aided by ever more powerful new technologies, including computerized graphics and special effects, the internet, global spy satellites, biological warfare, microchip implants and virtual reality. From innocent babe to wise and wary adult, everyone is subjected to mind control in one form or another.
Mind-control patterns of the types I experienced are merely extreme examples of the same patterns found in other arenas of human existence, from homes to streets, cities to nations. The patterns in the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and responses people involuntarily manifest are all affected and shaped by mind control from families, employers, peers, cultural influences, institutions, governments, religions, corporations, and the media that bombard us constantly. All of these tell us what to trust, what to fear, what to think, feel, say and do to belong, succeed, be happy, and avoid getting hurt or being “losers.” Individuality is only acceptable within certain parameters and all else is dangerous – different beliefs, different ways and you’re the “bad guy.” Stay in your box and you’re safe. Think for yourself and follow your own heart and you risk being rejected, outcast, labeled or locked up, a scapegoat for societal fears.
Those of us who are “good slaves” follow orders well, conforming and staying out of trouble, doing as we are told and “rebelling” only within acceptable parameters, with weekend partying and drinking, letters to the editor dutifully supporting the point of view we have been taught to accept, or violence at sports events, for example. Some people though, choose to be free and as little conditioned as possible. They are the “bad slaves” who form blockades to protect endangered forests or protest against murderous government policies. And they get punished for it, in one form or another, by us as individuals and by our societal systems.
We need to recognize that some people now in positions of power and influence, or positions where they can make information disappear or be altered to suit hidden agendas, are “good slaves” whose programming, by groups with evil ends in mind, remains successful. We need to be aware that “bad slaves” and societal scapegoats are often used as unintentional tools for these powerful people and groups, serving as distractions from “the real agenda” for example.
Stereotypes and their associated societal/cultural “color-coding” are widely used, instantly recognizable patterns, and great tools for helping us understand one another. The media use them, and in our teens most of us select the ones which seem to best exemplify and express our identities. They even play a role in how wars are created and continue: the enemy is made clear with scary stereotypes to convey their “bad” character and “the good guys” are distinguished by opposing reassuring characteristics. Stereotypes provide clues to recognize and identify the mind-control patterns each of us has adopted and what our underlying needs might be.
Still, regardless of the stereotype they fit into, be it criminal, mentally ill, upright citizen, or hermit, all human beings are basically the same. None of “them” are any different than you or me; we all function from a place of trying to meet our needs. We all have good intent “colored” by our experience – the framework of beliefs and value systems, ethics, standards and practices we grew up with. Every one of us is doing the best we can, according to our understanding of the world and our place in it. We are what we experienced and came to believe. Traditionally, we tend to see all this in terms of good or evil, “normal” or “pathological.” But when people do evil, or allow evil to persist in the world, it’s only because that’s what they were taught or conditioned to believe is the most acceptable, bearable, livable choice.
They commit crimes because their learning had a twist that taught them that, under the right circumstances, this is acceptable. Or they are dissociated from some of their feelings or otherwise trained or conditioned into not having the empathy to understand their actions are wrong or hurtful to others, themselves, or the world we live in.
Yet we label people’s choices and behaviors as mental illnesses or untreatable behaviors, keeping them under control through drugs or incarceration, reducing them to good slaves but not really touching what’s underlying. Since many if not most of these individual and societal ills result from childhood trauma, if we instead put our resources into helping people recover, everyone would benefit.
When we stop viewing people as evil, we can get down to the business of stopping evil things from being done! Our approaches to things like pedophilia, for example, are based on control rather than on understanding the source and attempting to cure. You can’t rehabilitate a pedophile if you consider him or her to BE evil, but when you look at what they learned, where and how they learned it, and then compassionately help them to reconnect with their own “victim states” and regain or learn the empathy they are lacking, you CAN help them learn not to do that evil thing any more.
Maslow taught with his Hierarchy of Needs that people have no choice but to do all they can to meet their own basic survival needs. In my experience, survival needs include not only food, water, sleep, shelter, and safety, but also a sense of self and of being loved and belonging, as well as sufficient understanding to make our way in the world. I’ve learned that understanding naturally leads to wiser choices, and positive change inevitably results, in fact cannot be stopped, since human nature drives us forward to ever better things, relentlessly and unavoidably.
I know that underneath all the patterns we have learned (even the most dysfunctional, damaged, and twisted “evil” ones), we all have a soul-level awareness of the basic moral law, the Golden Rule, “love your neighbor as yourself”, and what that truly means. What if we tuned into this awareness constantly? What if we stopped expending our time and energy on being afraid of each other, and started connecting and cooperating instead?
We learned our ways of meeting our needs through our life experiences, which were controlled by others who had more power. Most of us allow ourselves to disconnect or dissociate from our awareness of the destructive patterns controlling our lives, at least to some degree. It isn’t a conscious process, but it allows our world to be determined by the mind controllers in all their various forms, who are in reality controlled by their own programming.
We can step away from the mind-control patterns in our lives though, and see them from a distance. We can listen to what people are saying with their behaviors and actions as well as their words. We can think about what triggers us, our neighbors, friends, family, world leaders, suicide bombers. We can discover what and who the real “time-bombs” are in our lives, waiting to burst out and take over our life and change it forever.
And we can ask new questions, seek new answers. We can ask ourselves, and help others to ask themselves, “What need is that person over there evidencing right now? What fear-based judgment am I making? Based on whose standards? What is my belief about this? Where did I learn this? What need do I think this pattern is meeting? Is it really?”
We can also apply these concepts, questions and approaches to our systems, from schools, laws, jails, and psychiatric institutions to politics, environmentalism, multi-national corporations, and the media. We can have compassion instead of fearfully making excuses and looking for people to blame. We can forget old notions of “good” and “evil” people and look at what drives the people involved, what underlying basic needs they’re meeting through their actions and behaviors. We can think about what needs of what people are being met through our own actions, through each law or system, and through the “powers that be” that try to control how we think and behave. We can ask “Can these needs be met in less destructive ways? How can we turn this into a win-win situation for all concerned?”
We can seek solutions by respectfully and cooperatively focusing on the commonalities we all share, rather than the differences that separate us. And we can implement ideas that meet needs instead of controlling and punishing, ideas that create change instead of furthering the same old patterns that are out-dated and no longer serve anyone well. We can change our systems to reflect these new understandings – revise our diagnostic tools (such as the D.S.M.), rethink the term “untreatable,” and practice restorative justice. We can work with people and their belief systems while they are actually in the dissociative state that facilitates or allows them to continue whatever it is that needs to change.
If we want a better, safer world, a more fulfilling society, we have to see with new eyes, recognize and acknowledge new truths. We can choose to act with understanding and compassion rather than fear, to be discerning, to think for ourselves. We can work together to help one another see our patterns more clearly, to know and understand one another, and the ways we individually respond to the attempts at mind control in our lives. We can determine the needs at the roots, and find ways to meet these needs without harming anyone.
We do not have to remain powerless, or victims. By finding and implementing new patterns, in ourselves and our actions and interactions, we can and will create positive change. Simply shifting our focus to acknowledge, accept and appreciate the truths of each of us as distinct individuals of unique and necessary value can and will bring about natural, inevitable change, healing, and peaceful evolution for all life on this planet.
The End
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