Throwing a light on gaslighting

Have you seen those rubber hand experiment videos that have been making the rounds on social media recently? They are a study in the art of psychological manipulation and should serve as a wake-up call to all of us. 
The videos depict a subject sitting at a table wearing a long-sleeved shirt or a drape of some kind. On one side is the person’s real hand, but on the other side, wearing what appears to be the sleeve of the same shirt, is a fake rubber hand. (The subject’s actual other hand is on the other side of a divider out of sight of the subject.) 
The first part of each video shows the fake hand being touched by various objects while at the same time the person’s real hand, which is out of sight, is being touched in the same manner. This creates the illusion that the rubber hand is actually the person’s hand. 
The ultimate strength of that illusion (or delusion, as the case may be) is proven when the researcher suddenly picks up a hammer and brings it down on the fake hand causing the subject to flinch and wince in pain as if his hand had actually been struck. 
The experiment is a powerful illustration of the technique of mind manipulation known as gaslighting. 
If the word gaslighting is a new one to you, please read on because, whether you know it or not, you are being constantly gaslighted by people at all levels of the government, media and academia and you need to learn how to recognize it and defend against it. 
The term gaslighting has a fascinating evolution which began in the early 20th Century. However, the practice of gaslighting has been with us since the dawn of time with devastating results around the world, especially in the last 100 years or so. 
In its common use, gaslighting refers to a form of psychological manipulation in which one person attempts, through a consistent pattern of repeating untruths, to sow self-doubt and confusion in someone else’s mind. The intent is to eventually gain power and control over that person. Through constant repetition of the lie, the abuser distorts reality and forces the victim to question his or her own judgment and intuition.
The term itself originated with “Gas Light,” which was the title of a 1938 thriller play written by British novelist and playwright, Patrick Hamilton and set in Victorian England. It’s the story of a man who attempts to make his wife doubt her own sanity by convincing her that her senses are deceiving her. Although the gas lights in the couple’s apartment are indeed growing dimmer (due to some nefarious activities on his part), he consistently denies that obvious fact, causing her to lose her grip on reality. 
The play was later adapted into a production that played on Broadway under a different title and it was also made into films on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, the plot line of the play made its way into the American consciousness until in 1965 writers began combining the two words of the title into one new verb — “gaslight” — which means to manipulate others in a way similar to how the wife in the play was deceived.
Over the last three years the term has become ubiquitous in the media and popular culture, but, while the word is relatively new, the manipulation technique is as old as time. We even find examples of gaslighting in the earliest chapters of the Bible.
The serpent’s query to Eve in Genesis 3, “Did God really say?” was a form of gaslighting in an attempt to get her to question what God had actually commanded regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 
After the resurrection of Christ, the religious leaders in Jerusalem attempted to gaslight the people of Jerusalem by bribing the tomb guards to spread the lie that Jesus’s disciples had stolen his body. 
Examples of gaslighting can be seen in literature as well. Remember the aptly named character, Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings trilogy? When we first meet King Theoden, he is a mere shell of his former self because of the lies the evil adviser has whispered in his ear for years on end. And then there are the pigs of Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” who use revisionist history and the repetition of manufactured “truths” to gain control over their fellow animals. 
However, the most tragic examples of gaslighting are to be found in the world history of the last century. Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who was a master of gaslighting, famously stated, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” He obviously knew what he was talking about, because in less than 40 years the Third Reich turned Germany — arguably the most technologically and socially advanced society in the world at the turn of the 20th Century — into a depraved cult capable of exterminating millions of people deemed undesirables. 
How do you know you’re being gaslighted? For one thing, if someone persists in telling you things that don’t line up with the reality you see around you, it’s probably gaslighting. Modern day examples would be anything to do with human-caused global warming/climate change, much of what was said by government health officials about the origins, treatment and prevention of COVID-19 and pretty much anything the current administration says about the economy or the border or its “green energy” initiatives. 
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about gaslighting is that there is never a benign or innocent reason for someone to engage in it. I suppose one could make the argument that flattery is a form of gaslighting in which people are told lies or half truths in order to protect their feelings but that doesn’t really fit the definition. 
As with the plot of the namesake play, there is never a wholesome or virtuous reason for creating a narrative of lies and distortions of the truth. And, as history sadly shows, the gaslighter always has something nefarious to gain, while the unsuspecting victim has everything to lose. 

RON BURTZ can be reached at newsregister@hamilton.net