@lunarmoth
This thread has been a difficult one for me because it mixes up personal interaction with professional commitment, i.e., the commitment to get to the truth of the subject matter, vs. the desire to be compassionate in my responses to you. This is always the case to some degree, but much more so here (it is similar, in fact, to how I am upsetting family members now by delving into family history: imagine if one of them were to start posting here!).
My impression of what’s occurred at this thread, while perhaps not as different as that of, say, brekin, is still quite different from yours. I was thinking earlier that it was closer to a hazing ritual than a real cross-examination (for you I mean). I agree that this is lamentable, but even hazing rituals may have their uses if the community that performs them is worth belonging to. I happen to think RI is, and while I’ve seen some policing going on here (at other threads), I haven’t seen any evidence that it stems from an internal authority or agenda, but only from the usual sort of kneejerk reactions and ideology-blindness that happen in any open discussion of sensitive subject matter.
As you know, stated for the record, during our six-hour conversation I found you to be a credible witness, and still do. But if I had first met you at this thread, based on many of your responses here, I would not have. That’s what I meant by the hazing ritual: to face the skepticism and even the scorn of strangers while you try and give testimony about things you may know in your bones to be true, and to stay calm and reasonable, is really the acid test, one that we are all going to have to face if we are willing to stare the devil in the eye and speak our truth on That Day.
That kind of adversity is valuable, even necessary. Individuation doesn’t happen because we feel like it (we never do); it happens because we have no other way forward save through the gauntlet of immense social, psychological, and spiritual pressure, both inner and outer.
While I don’t think you’ve made any enemies at this thread, it’s probably safe to say you have yet to make any allies. Yet there are potential allies here. This has probably been the least productive or collaborative (or warm) thread I've participated in at RI. I don’t think it’s surprising that a survivor of MKULTRA would find it triggering to share her story with supposedly rigorous researchers of such material and then find that they are more interested in nitpicking and goading. But, on the other hand, surely it can’t be surprising for you that people are deeply resistant and reactive to such material, when it is coming from someone who has experienced it directly ~ in other words, who is communicating something much deeper and more distraught that mere intellectual information? Or that the very thing that ought to illicit a compassionate response (your severe psychic trauma) calls forth instead the reverse.
On the one hand, this could be viewed, at least potentially, as evidence for the veracity of your claims; on the other hand, and unfortunately, it can be seen to undermine them, because a person who is reactive and who argues more emotionally than rationally (or even intuitively, if it’s at the cost of logic) is all too easy to dismiss for those who are unconsciously struggling to do so (i.e., to keep their own traumas from bubbling up). Like I say, it’s a gauntlet; or even a crucible.
That’s what I see happening here, and in the world at large; it may be the Devil, but if so He is the best and most essential Ally we have. The only one ruthlessly honest enough to tell us what we refuse to hear. As you said, time to own the shadow.
I haven’t addressed any of the specifics of your last post (about your experience of being exposed, etc.) because it didn’t feel that real (accurate) to me. The feeling of suddenly being thrust into the lights of a porn shoot, and all that, because of my intervention. Henry Makow gets a LOT more hits than I ever have, and his sort of exposure comes a lot closer to sexual exploitation. So I think maybe you are conflating an internal experience with an external one.
If I missed something, I am sure you will let me know.
It is a lot easier to fool people than show them how they have been fooled.
