What if you woke up one day and found that everything that you had previously believed was a lie

I saw this discussion on a linkedin group. Someone came up with this hypothetical question when she “witnessed the breakdown of communication between people who are passionately attached to their beliefs.” I couldn't read the entire thread which literally had thousands of comments. Some said that this paradigm shift would be the best thing that ever happened to them. Others said it would be depressing or horrifying. Some made references to “The Matrix” and other science fiction stories. However, a few people, including myself admitted that this is not a far fetched scenario. This happens all the time. In fact, it happened to most of the characters in my latest novel.

When I first started writing this story, I was a playwright and asked myself the question of how a cult leader can convince someone to kill themselves. The idea that someone can control your mind so well that you would override the basic instinct of survival just to obey him was unfathomable, yet it has happened so many times in history, and relatively recently with the news of the Order of the Solar Temple’s suicides (this news was recent when I started writing this story). I started writing this play as I researched the topic of cults and brainwashing. As I did this, I came across some remarkable stories and realized there was so much more than brainwashing going on.

As I researched the psychology of brainwashing, I learned that while some people may believe a lie wholeheartedly, others may have doubts but will stay in an organization because that is there home. They may not agree with their authority figures but will still obey them due to loyalty to their tribe. And, as someone mentioned in her linkedin thread, some people wake up one day and realize that everything they believed is a lie. This doesn't mean they will leave. This doesn't mean they will stay. This is an earth shattering revelation because it might mean that everything they gave their life too no longer exists. When I started writing this story as a play, I explored brainwashing. When I explored it as a novel, I examined the different ways people respond when they realize that all they had previously believed was a lie.

When this happens, some fall into depression, maybe even suicide. Others escape, change their lives or turn over a new leaf. Some will deny the truth to the bitter end and live in denial. Some will passionately fight the truth and will enact revenge on those who took away their fantasy. We've seen all of these things happen throughout the dawn of history and no matter how many times we witness seeing what happens when the beliefs of people clash, we are still dismayed and saddened by the results.

In my small, intimate story, I explore all of these things. Through the lives of these different but very real characters, I created scenarios that challenge our own sense of judgment. This book took a lot of courage for me to write and release to the public. I suspect (as pointed out by my first reviewer) that it will take a lot of courage to read but if you ask yourself these same questions and you have a passion for psychology, relationships and adventure, please check it out. Maybe you will find all of your former beliefs of what a novel should be, challenged to the extreme.

Enlightened Ones is now available on Amazon on kindle or ebook format. It will be out in paperback edition very shortly:

Purchase Enlightened Ones here

What Would You Do?

I wrote this blog many years ago under another alias.  One of my friends told me about this news story:

A corrections officer from Florida was calling up fast food restaurants claiming to be a local cop and telling supervisors to hold and question employees about a fake crime that they had supposedly committed. In one case at a McDonalds, the supervisor made a 17 year old girl take off all of her clothes and then let her boyfriend (not an employee) rape the girl because that's what the "detective" told the boyfriend to do.  So the boyfriend did it.  We have been conditioned from birth to follow blindly the orders of authority.  Even the most horrible orders won’t make the ordinary man question what he is being asked to do.

At the time, a man had just killed himself over the internet.  He announced it.  Everyone went on his website to watch it happen.  He took pills.  He could have been saved.  People laughed about it.  Finally, someone notified the moderator of the site who found his location and called the officials.  The police came in to find him dead.  People were watching this happen on the web.  Some people were shocked, others laughed.  Thousands of people witnessed a man dying on the internet and just one person made an attempt to contact the moderator. 

I recall an incident in Vietnam.  I can't remember what it was called.  A group of soldiers were told to raid a village in search of spies.  They found none.  But they were so frustrated from dealing with the conditions they were dealt with in Nam that they violated the people in the village.  They took everyone, man, woman, children alike; and put them in a ditch to die.  One man, who flew a helicopter, saved the day.  He said he'd shoot anyone who'd harm those people and he managed to set them free.  Interestingly enough someone emerged a hero, though at the time, he might have appeared a traitor.  I’ve heard many versions of this story.  Even though many soldiers were guilty for brutally murdering innocent people, only one man was persecuted.  He was the scapegoat.  I also heard that these soldiers were following orders. If this is so, then why did the officials get of scot free?  So now the question is, are we right to just follow orders?  As innocent as it seems to be a blind follower of authority, there is something quite evil about choosing to remain ignorant.

I dealt with bullies growing up.  No, they never picked on me.  They picked on my friends and it seemed I was the only one to stick up for them while everyone else stood around and watched.  I even attacked a group of kids who were pestering my friend while other friends just looked on for entertainment.  They ran away.  This happened in the fourth grade.  In Junior High something similar happened, but this time, the crowd was bigger.  All they did was watch a friend of mine getting pestered by another girl.  I told them they should be ashamed of themselves.

We need to stop and think about how we laugh, ridicule, judge and kill people.  Whether it is someone committing suicide on the net, or a kid being bullied at school, or innocent people being tortured in a war, or a loving couple who simply want to get married, we have to be courageous and speak our truth.  Maybe speaking the truth won't do anything.  But it's better than nothing.  I'm starting to realize that now.  Why live my life just being a peon?

What would you do?  How easy it is to stop what is wrong.  But most people stand around, watch, laugh, and do nothing.  What would you do? 

An experiment in the seventies was conducted.  They told people to give someone electric shocks in another room.  the person would be screaming in pain, begging for them to stop, but when told to keep going, the subjects continued to inflict pain.  It was all rigged but the large majority of the people continued to do what was told to them even though they could hear that it could be torturing or harming another.  It was an experiment on the power of authority.  Who are you?  Are you the kind of person who would keep pushing the button just because that was what you were told?  People think they wouldn't.  People think they know right from wrong.  But when tested, the results are quite contradictory.