Tag Archives: delusional beliefs

When Projections Lead to Paranoia

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By George A. Boyd ©2023

Q: Are projections linked to paranoia?

A: In some people, it appears that their projections can become linked to paranoia. Projections appear to progress through seven steps when paranoia occurs:

  1. Someone reminds you of people in your life, and you react to this person in the same way as you did towards this other person from your earlier life. In psychotherapy, this is called transference.
  2. You attribute your own emotions or motivations to others. You might accuse others of doing or feeling what you are doing or feeling. This is classical projection.
  3. You act in a way to induce the emotions or behavior in someone else you suspect they have. For example, you might believe in error someone is angry with you; but then, you do something that makes him or her generally angry with you. This is called projective identification.
  4. You begin to suspect the motives of others and you find it hard to trust them, especially if they have traumatized you or betrayed you. You may generalize this to other people, who have never harmed you—you start to believe no one can be trusted. This initial motivational mistrust is the portal to genuine paranoia.
  5. You begin to believe that others are spying on you and are attempting to trap you and imprison you. You may begin to believe at this stage that others are persecuting you. This may be a realistic belief if you have broken the law and you are the subject of an investigation. But if it has no basis in reality, it becomes a persecutory delusion.
  6. You start to obtain weapons and adopt behavior that allows you to evade the detection of those whom you believe are persecuting you, spying upon you, and trying to harm you. This comprises paranoid defensive behavior.
  7. You believe you must destroy those who you think are attacking and persecuting you. You may resort to acting out or overt violence to stop them from tormenting you further. In some cases, you might engage in litigation to make them refrain carrying out the systematic program of attempting to harm you that you wrongly perceive. In other cases, you may attempt to kill them or destroy their lives in revenge for the harm you erroneously believe they have perpetrated upon you. At this level, your paranoia becomes violent and you become dangerous to others.

Most people entertain some projections at steps one and two: Someone reminds you of your uncle and you start to relate to that person in the same way as you did with your uncle. You misread someone’s emotion from his or her facial expressions, words, and body language, as something you are actually feeling.

You start to drift towards paranoia at steps three and four: You induce the feelings you have in other people through acting towards them in certain ways that makes them express that emotion—those who employ gaslighting utilize this tactic. You begin to mistrust others based on experiences you have had that traumatized you, shamed you, or harmed you.

You move into full-blown paranoia at steps five, six, and seven: your mistrust becomes delusional, and you may attempt to defend yourself, or actively attack those who you believe are harming you.

We point out that there are certain media influencers, politicians, and clergy, who evoke your outrage and fear in an attempt to manipulate and control you. They communicate to you misinformation and conspiracy theories—and if you do not have the discernment to detect this is happening to you and to realize that the information you are receiving from them is untrue—you can be unwittingly led along the primrose path to paranoia.

Many people who now are true believers in conspiracy theories and embrace every word that comes from the mouth of the their cult leader, demagogue, or dictator were seduced and deceived at some point to believe that the lies and deception this person promulgates was the truth—a truth that ostensibly was hidden from you by those who wanted to conceal this information—and you are urged to believe that only this person is revealing the truth to you.

You can be manipulated through fear, shame, guilt, and anger that others induce in you through their lies. To avoid going down the rabbit hole of paranoia, it is important that you verify the truth of each communication you receive from a source outside the group that is disseminating these spurious ideas—for, if you check the communication of one conspiracy theorist with someone who holds the same beliefs, you are not going to gain an objective view of this subject!

You may wish to monitor what emotions the words, writing, and media presentations of others evoke in you. You can explore why this information makes you react in this way. You will also benefit from seeing if you can verify what they are saying from a source independent from those who believe in this viewpoint and who are attempting to persuade you to adopt these same beliefs.

Given the right manipulation and setting, even highly educated people can be deceived by these false messages. You need to remain vigilant and use your discernment to detect these subtle attempts to get you to believe these untruths—misleading ideas that can move you down the track to full-blown paranoia.

Those of you who are interested in learning more about conspiracy theories may enjoy our new eBook on Amazon, Conspiracy Theories: How They Distort Your Perspective and How You Can Recover from Their Thrall

The Gentle Meandering Away from Truth

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By George A. Boyd ©2023

In conspiracy theories, there is a detachment from consensual reality and absorption in deeper strata of belief and perception. These deeper levels of mental processing are subject to distortion and delusional belief.

The challenge for those attempting to navigate the illusions of the collective mind to determine reality and truth encounter seven major mental postures. These are:

  1. Recognition of objects in the environment and correctly labeling them, measuring them, and verifying their existence; this establishes facts and consensual reality.
  2. Speculation about causation and motivation using deduction and inference; researchers, journalists, investigators, and psychologists tap this level.
  3. Believing in things other people have told you or communicated to you without verifying the information you have received is correct; this is the first level subject to the distortion of conspiracy theories and others lying to you and exploiting you.
  4. Believing revelations and interpretations you receive from your own contemplation or that you receive from psychic readers or religious clergy; this level is subject to the distortion that comes from you overvaluing ideas or misinterpretation of the content you uncover or that is communicated to you; those who disseminate conspiracy theories often draw from these sources.
  5. Believing in signs, omens, and coincidences for guidance; the issue here is that you are not certain which of these presentations are genuinely guidance from your Soul and which are simply random signals; those that present distorted information from levels three and four with conviction and enthusiasm can readily persuade those who operate in this frame of inner guidance to adopt their beliefs.
  6. Receiving guidance from a spiritual entity other than your own Soul through channeling or automatic writing; the quality of this guidance you receive depends on whom you are channeling—you can receive very valuable and reliable information from this source, or you can obtain spurious and useless information. Some look for Gurus at this level to provide answers and show them how to realize their true nature.
  7. Gaining union with your Soul and having it reveal its true nature; this is union with your inner source of wisdom and discernment; this is the touchstone of inner truth and realization.

Not all of these postures of mental processing lead you down rabbit holes:

Postures one and seven form the bedrock of reality and truth. You can verify consensual reality through your senses and reason; you can gain conscious union with your Soul and tap into its direct intuitive stream.

Posture two, if performed with careful safeguards in place against bias can be a valuable tool to arrive at valid conclusions and correct inferences—without validation, however, these can lead astray well-meaning detectives, researchers, and clinicians.

The zone that generates delusion and the strange beliefs of conspiracy theories spans postures three to six.

Posture three is the most common entry point for those who embrace conspiracy theories: because they cannot or do not verify the information they receive, they unwittingly adopt false beliefs.

Posture four is often the source of many of the distorted beliefs that underpin conspiracy theories: someone has had a revelation… someone has attempted to read meaning into a cryptic scriptural passage or an arcane, symbolic manuscript… someone has interpreted an event in an ominous or apocalyptic way. Those that operate at this level still think, although their thinking process may be corrupted.

Posture five begins to operate when someone has set aside thinking and analysis, and instead embraces intuition as their source of truth. This is a highly experiential, serendipitous frame of mind that seeks to discover truth. Divinatory arts like tarot, angel cards, and I Ching tap into this intuitive matrix. This posture leads to a mindset that views the unitive nature of the universe, the connections between all things, and a sense that there is a deeper reality behind the observable physical universe. At this level, one “creates” through intention and visualization; events occur synchronistically.

Posture six typically dawns when someone seeks guidance from a wise and highly evolved spiritual being: this often takes the form of a search for a spiritual mentor or Guru. If someone selects an ethical, genuinely realized teacher for this stage of their aspirant journey, they can receive teachings that help them advance both in their personal life and their spiritual development.

Choosing wrongly can lead to involvement with spiritual cults and enslavement and abuse at the hands of authoritarian and paranoid spiritual leaders. Some alternately draw their information and inspiration from guides they encounter in the inner Planes; like flesh and blood Gurus, these sources can be legitimately helpful or they can lead people into greater delusion.

It is possible to avoid slipping into the traps of postures three to six:

In Mudrashram®, in our intermediate classes—the in-person Mudrashram® Master Course in Meditation and the by-mail and online Accelerated Meditation Program—we teach our students how to tune into posture seven to directly know and commune with their essential nature and skip over the pitfalls of postures three to six.

You can have greater success with posture two, if you learn critical thinking and obtain an education that emphasizes careful intellectual inquiry and analysis.

We encourage you to identify in what ways you operate in each of seven postures, and to progressively learn to uncover and eliminate the false beliefs you may have adopted in listening to the siren voices of the Astral and the misinformation coming from those who seek to exploit you and manipulate you for their own agendas.

The Seven Orders of a Conspiracy Theory

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The Seven Orders of a Conspiracy Theory

By George A. Boyd © 2020

Q: How do conspiracy theories start? How are they different than a realistic view of the world?

A: There appear to be seven orders of a conspiracy theory. The layers that make up these seven orders appear to reify the belief systems of both conspiracy and reality based frames; conspiracy theory deviate from sound logic and facts, or interpret them through a distorted filter. These layers are as follows:

Order

Content

False view
(conspiracy theory)

Correct view
(reality based frame)

1

Supporting Data

Selects data to confirm false premises

Selects data to confirm verifiable and correct data

2

Emotionalized Idea

Creates negative fascination with an idea, which motivates action based on fear, guilt, hatred, or prejudice

Creates sober realization, activates actions based on thoughtful judgment and clear thinking

3

Coherent synthesis

Premises and data construct a false narrative, and puts together a conspiracy theory as an explanation of the selected facts

Premises and data construct an accurate narrative, and a consensual worldview based on verified facts and validated inferences

4

Worldview or mindset

Those who believe the conspiracy theory hold that they access to hidden or secret knowledge that makes them aware of sinister activities that only they are privy to; they ignore data that conflicts with their core beliefs that make up the conspiracy theory

Those who adopt an accurate narrative do not perceive any sinister activities and can find no evidence for them; they rely upon consensually validated knowledge to inform their world view, which changes as new data becomes available

5

Identity

Those who believe in the conspiracy theory identify as a member of a secret group that is dedicated to exposing and defeating perceived evil actors; they may separate themselves from groups or individuals they perceive as evil; more radical groups among believers may attack these individuals or groups that are perceived as evil

Identifies as a member of a diverse society, with people who have many different ways of perceiving the world and who hold different values; the world is not perceived as evil

6

Psychological matrix

As the conspiracy theory becomes integrated into character, it becomes a paranoid system expressed as behavior (paranoid personality disorder), belief (delusional disorder), and ultimately contaminates core identity, giving rise to paranoid schizophrenia

Integrated personality functioning; there is coherence between behavior, belief, and core identity (integrity)

7

Karmic matrix

Accretions of karmic impressions of ignorance, negative passions, and delusion; feelings of upset and rage mark the emergence of these impressions

Accretion of impressions of understanding, integrated knowledge, and wisdom

Q: How could someone realize they are ensnared with a conspiracy theory, and extricate themselves?

A: It is a matter of recognizing the errors in belief and reasoning that lock the conspiracy theory in place. It is hard to be objective when the conspiracy theory mindset has taken over your rational faculties. Usually, someone outside the conspiracy theory group has to point out to you the logical inconsistencies and implications of continuing to hold the conspiracy theory.

If you are capable of objective self-analysis, you may be able to recognize the signs of layers four and five—whether the group you belong to contends it is privy to secret knowledge or if you identify with a secret group whose mission is to combat perceived evil, for which there is no objective evidence. That is a clue you might have gotten yourself involved in a conspiracy theory.

Many people in the USA are under the thrall of a variety of conspiracy theories; we suspect that if they could emerge from these delusional world views, much of the animosity for those who hold different political views would dissipate, and we would see enhanced cooperation between the members of both parties.

Q: Are members of right wing and left wing extremist groups under the sway of conspiracy theories?

A: You could use this schema as a framework to analyze their beliefs and mindsets. We suspect that a central conspiracy might indeed play a role in the hateful and paranoid behavior, beliefs, and identification seen in these groups.

We invite you to reflect on these layers, and see if you can recognize any of these patterns operating in you, or in other people. Awareness of these patterns is the first step to eradicating them; it will take some courage and discipline to willingly uproot them and admit that you were wrong.

Given the right circumstances, almost anyone could succumb to these subtle delusional beliefs and perspectives. If you know what to look for, you can often stop yourself from getting involved before you travel down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.