Most of the tactics used against targets of organized harassment seem designed to mimic the symptoms of mental illness.1 Leaving the psychologically debilitating aspects of organized harassment aside, there are obvious reasons for this overall strategy:
- If a target can be made to create a paper trail supporting a diagnosis of mental illness, it’s simple to put him in a position where it’s his word versus that of the authorities. Because of his history, the official explanation will be given much greater weight.
- Targets too wily to leave a paper trail behind will be unable to complain, for fear of discrediting themselves.
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “Why are they doing that; what’s the point?”, a list like this one – examining what psychiatrists are looking for, and how you can be provoked into meeting their expectations – will explain a lot.
Stalking and harassment
A target’s belief that someone is trying to harm him can be explained away as persecutory delusions.2 (Note that there can be delusional aspects to a target’s testimony, even if he’s absolutely correct about the big picture.3)
Persecutory delusions
According to official statistics, 11.5% of stalking reports turn out to be false, with 64% of those false reports being persecutory delusions, such as being monitored by a government agency.4 A target who isn’t careful about how he makes his case (making accusations he can’t back up, for example) should expect to become part of that statistic.
Persecutory delusions are sometimes called querulant delusions, with the connotation that the delusional person complains too much.5 Targets who unwittingly and repeatedly complain about minor (but disturbing) occurrences may be creating a record to be used against them later.
Delusional misidentification syndromes
People who look and dress like a target, or like significant others, may occasionally be dispatched to the target’s area. Ill-considered reports or complaints will support a diagnosis of subjective double syndrome, the delusion that a person has a double or Doppelgänger with the same appearance6. If the report is of someone else’s lookalike, the report can be treated as evidence of Fregoli syndrome, in which different people are believed to be a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise.7
What if a targeted individual reports that a significant other is behaving in a seemingly hostile manner? Even if he doesn’t make the leap to a persecutory delusion (stating the significant other is out to get him), there’s a syndrome for that. Capgras syndrome is a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.
Delusions of reference
Another common tactic experienced by targeted individuals is the use of broadcast programming that appears to be customized to the target.8 Even if there are witnesses or evidence left behind on a recording device, there’s no proof that the events refer to the target’s private activities; reporting these episodes will support a diagnosis of delusions of reference, in which the subject believes that irrelevant or unrelated events directly refer to him.2
A target can also be tricked into exhibiting these symptoms if he complains about people nearby speaking about the details of his life, or about repeated remarkably improbable and well-timed (but otherwise unordinary) events that occur in his vicinity.9
Electronic harassment
If you’re experiencing electronic harassment and being treated like you’re crazy for talking about it, Kurt Schneider (d. 1967) is your nemesis. Schneider devised the “first-rank” symptoms (FRS) of schizophrenia10. One exhibited FRS is sufficient for a diagnosis of schizophrenia.11
Three first-rank symptoms are thought broadcasting, in which a patient reports hearing others’ thoughts and/or being able to broadcast his own thoughts; somatic hallucination, the experience of influences playing on the body (any mysterious sensations can be explained away as ‘somatic hallucination’), and thought insertion.12 All of these symptoms can be created by way of nervous system stimulation or cranial stimulation (using implants, for example).
Closing remarks
We’re looking at the broad outlines of the playbook for organized harassment campaigns, with virtually every tactic used against a target corresponding neatly to some symptom of schizophrenia. The nearly perfect match between tactics and diagnoses hints at collaboration between the harassers and the diagnosticians - and possibly even some overlap.
It’s too early to speculate about how, but we now have a good idea of why.
References
- ^ a bAndreasen, Nancy C. (1984). "Scale for the assessment of positive symptoms"; The Movement Disorder Society. (local copy)
- ^ Brown, Seth A. (2008). "Reality of Persecutory Beliefs: The Base Rate Information for Clinicians"; Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry.
- ^ Lester G. et. al. (2004). "Unusually persistent complainants"; British Journal of Psychiatry (2004) 184: 352-356.
- ^ Christodoulou G. N. (1978). "Syndrome of subjective doubles"; American Journal of Psychiatry, 135(2), 249-51.
- ^ Mojtabai R (September 1994) "Fregoli syndrome". Aust N Z J Psychiatry 28 (3): 458–62. doi:10.3109/00048679409075874
- ^ Schneider, K. Clinical Psychopathology. New York: Grune and Stratton. 1959.
- ^ Julie Nordgaard, Sidse M. Arnfred, Peter Handest, and Josef Parnas (2007). "The Diagnostic Status of First-Rank Symptoms"; Oxford University Press’ Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2008 January; 34(1): 137–154.
- ^ Andreasen, Nancy C. (1991). "Schizophrenia: The 27 Characteristic Symptoms"; Schizophrenia Bulletin. Oxford University Press and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. (local copy)
Footnotes and further reading on this site
- ^ We could also say: many of the symptoms of mental illness, particularly those pertaining to alleged delusions of persecution, seem designed to explain away genuine persecution at the hands of a large organization.
- ^ “Deception, self-deception, and delusions”; Feb. 2011.
- ^ This tactic suggests causality inversion, in which cause and effect are switched behind the target’s back. See: “Causality inversion, and how it looks like delusions of reference” (Feb. 2011).
- ^ A process of sensitization (see: “Sensitization (and why it works so well)”) can attune a person to covert messages directed at him; conspicuous surveillance is a strategy of making a target aware that he’s being watched and followed (see: “Watched (and hated) by many”).
[W]henever the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience." 
It would seem that in the times of wireless techniques, no implants are necessary. There is no firewall in mind.
It’s a little premature to talk about how First Rank Symptoms are created artificially. I didn’t devote much column-space to that issue because everyone experiencing E/H knows exactly how complaining about it looks to others.
That’s for the next series, coming up shortly.
702 comments
I found it was better to describe the PTSD and anxiety symptoms- then give “safe” non-bizarre examples with witness verifications……If you tell them too much, the docs will automatically assume you are delusional! Luckily, I had one who knew me for years- before and after- and knew my family. That helped alot…….We need to start educating these Psych professionals!
My targeting began in earnest in late 2004, and my experiences, which include being covertly drugged, seem to have been designed to mimic the symptoms of mental illness from the very beginning. The perps repeatedly enter my home when I am gone, steal or move papers, books, and other small items, and tamper with my computer. It’s that “oh, you just forgot where you left that” syndrome repeated all too often. This form of psychological torture against me has been going on for years.
When my (overt) stalking began, I thought it was the work of one obsessed (wealthy) man in Miami when I lived in North Central Florida. As I believed was the correct thing to do when the break-ins began, I phoned the police. When telling them that someone a few hundred miles away was ordering people into my home, without looking at evidence, the police were almost shouting in my face that I am schizophrenic and delusional. That’s all it took for that label to be put on me, and of course the usual question, “what did you do to deserve it?” was also brought up. Seems you don’t have to even exhibit the usual signs of “mental illness” for this label to be thrown in your face like a slap–simply reporting an unusual form of break-ins and harassment is enough for this diagnosis. Once the police neatly have this unprofessional diagnosis, they never come to your house again when you phone to report the break-ins (unless you have evidence).
By the way, why almost no one ever set-up evidence and proven this?
I think many here know the answer, but we’re not allowed to talk about it, because it upsets a lot of TI’s.
Please go over my series of articles on organized deception and review your case in that light. You might find some new answers.
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Hi Mej313,
We got the same problem with the police here in Europe. I hope a lot from this ‘ethnic commission’.
Thanks Jeremy for what you are doing for helping TI’s.
Please don’t forget about us from France and other countries.
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I’m not even sure what mej’s question is asking. Although J’s response is pretty much how I might interpret it, but I could be wrong. mej? Anything more to add to clarify?
If the topic is “stuff that’s hard to prove” and how to get our point across, well, the recent opportunity to have a group of people giving testimony is a good one.
J’s earlier point in the post about the bioethics meeting is also well taken - i.e., What matters is getting the evidence we do have in front of the right referees. We might not have the names of our perps per se, but at least certain arbiters, referees, access officials are starting to show up, in person, with name tags. Just a few more opened gates like that one and who knows what kinds of evidence will show up, for the record.
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(At the risk of repeating myself,) your first sentence here really hit the nail on the head.
i was attacked so hard at work i almost died last july i wound up in the hosp last july when this happened….i am so frequently sick i cant get it to change..i am stuck in the ‘lie’ catagory. the lies they tell people beleave and attack me so hard i am dieing….litterally. they keep telling people i use illeagal drugs or drugs….i was hit by a drunk driver and have to take pain pills and they lie about it and say i abuse my adopted child have the time they call me by my sons biomoms name….thats how uninformed and how stupid they are they beleive all the voices in their heads…..it amazining what people choose to beleave…..if it wasnt for my priest at church i would be dead….how do i make it stop…
oh coarse they dont beleave the people like the catholic priest who is a theripst and has been in war and it is his job to ‘read’ people and says im a good woman who has faced to much horror and it needs to stop and prays for me and my child……
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Pam, I feel for you. I’m so sorry this is happening to you or anyone else. I don’t think they believe what they say; they’re not confused, you’re being deliberately injured. Torture is physical and psychological.
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Did you know that Tina Turner said she found the strength to leave Ike, who was supposed to have been abusive, after she started meditating? I know we can’t leave our situation, but maybe appreciate what life we have, and make the uphill climb to create more good things. Zimbardo said about his prison experiment, that prisoners would lessen their suffering if they turned away their focus from the bad. I don’t know all that you’re going through, but I want to help.
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That little fact about Tina Turner is the very first thing that made me want to meditate. Since then I have found Buddhism has a lot of good directives about how to think of things. You haven’t written in a long time; I was wondering how you were.
201 comments