Tag Archives: paranoia

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 Art of Slipping into an Alternate Reality

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By George A. Boyd ©2022

Q: So many people today seem caught up in an alternate reality. They are lost in conspiracy theories, swept away in cults, or they just believe really strange things. Are there some markers to indicate that someone is slipping into an alternate reality?

A: Perceptual and cognitive changes mark someone entering an alternate reality. Some of these markers that you may see include:

  1. Perceptual anomaly – Things seem strange or different. Your world has changed; you may not be able to put your finger on what has changed.
  2. Derealization – The initial experience of the world seeming strange morphs into a global sense that the world around you is unreal. The actors in the world seem like robots. You may view the world as if it was a matrix-like computer animation.
  3. Depersonalization – As this trance-like migration from reality continues, you may sense your own life seems unreal. You may question the motivations to which you have dedicated your efforts—whether your education or career choices make sense anymore, or if your dreams are really worthwhile to pursue.
  4. Mindset shift – At this step in the journey into an alternate reality, you reach a state of delusional conviction. A demagogue or a cult leader may convince you that you have been lied to—and this person will then promise to tell you the truth that has been hidden from you. They will program you into believing their warped version of reality, so that you look to them to inform you about what is really going on the in world. You may begin to have spurious signs that indicate the truth of what they are saying. You may have delusional “revelations” that prove to you that they are telling you the truth.
  5. Identity shift – At this stage, you will have entered that alternate reality and identify with it. You believe alternative facts about the world you have been told. You now live in the alternate reality and have disidentified with your former life. You now orient your life with new relationships with those who belong to this group, and look to the leader of this group to guide you.
  6. Delusional contagion – When you become established in the alternate reality, you may attack others who do not believe in your new worldview. You may attempt to convert others to join you in your delusional mindset and alternate reality.
  7. Paranoia – If you stay in this state of altered awareness for long enough, you may begin to resort to magical thinking. You believe you can simply wish for what your want and it will manifest. You embrace a feeling that you are omnipotent and can simply create what you want. If people push back on your beliefs, you may feel you are under attack—that others are trying to undermine your movement and drag you back into the matrix—and you can become paranoid at this stage. Alternately, you can continue to believe you are all-powerful; you become grandiose and arrogant.

When people undergo disruptive loss or experience trauma, they may become temporarily uprooted from the established routine of their lives. This can move people into stage three—they are not sure what is true anymore. They question their lives. They question their faith.

It is these people who have had these disruptive experiences that become vulnerable to the demagogues, the cult leaders, the terrorist and hate group recruiters, or the media influencers that introduce them into the mindset, and ultimately, lead them to identification with a movement anchored in an alternate reality.

Q: You mentioned cognitive changes. Can you be more specific with what happens to people’s thinking and belief when they become caught up in an alternate reality?

A: People who are grounded and anchored in their lives have seamless integration between their ego, their Self, and their Soul. The ego is the experiencer of the events of your human life; the Self is the decision maker that decides what path to follow and what goals to pursue; and the Soul expresses its gifts and genius—its super powers—through your life. These three work together: there is little internal conflict and you make progress towards your goals.

As people begin to drift off into an alternate reality, we see a corresponding shift in their cognition—in their thinking and beliefs:

  1. Empirical – Thinking is grounded in observation and experience. Your beliefs are consensually validated; you restrict your beliefs to what you can verify.
  2. Speculative – This type of thinking introduces “what if” and “what might be” scenarios for your consideration. It extrapolates from facts and infers what might be someone’s motivation, or what might be possible if someone did things differently. Used constructively, it can promote positive change or catalyze new insights. Used destructively, it can undermine a person’s sense of identity and meaning—it can attack their ego and their sense of who they are—and this can make people more susceptible to the influence of those who seek to establish them in an alternate reality.
  3. Interpretive – This type of thinking reflects upon the meaning of symbols and events. Symbols are templates of meaning: you can attribute almost any meaning to a symbol. This private interpretation helps you make sense of your world, and enables you to construct a coherent philosophy and a set of congruent values. When you begin to adopt others’ interpretations of symbols and events, you may begin to drift into the mindset established in an alternate reality.
  4. Fixed conviction – One of the signs you have entered the world of an alternate reality is when you begin to have a belief that cannot be verified empirically, and it is not amenable to refutation or criticism. You may consider these convictions as ultimate truths, articles of faith, or sacred revelations that cannot be questioned. If these core convictions have been dictated to you by a demagogue, a cult leader, or a leader of a terrorist or hate group, you may become increasing under their control.
  5. Dissociative – At this stage, you become detached from reality and enter into a trance-like state. Your belief is based on a perception in an altered state of awareness, and may be subject to distortion. If you receive ideas while you are in an altered state of awareness, moreover, you can become extremely suggestible and believe whatever you are told.
  6. Revelatory – As detachment and dissociation with your life and reality is sustained, you may begin to receive communications from a noumenal being—a spirit, a guide, or an angel—or you might receive a purported revelation from the Divine. These types of beliefs have no rational basis and cannot be verified. The most fantastic notions can be conveyed in these encounters with Spirit World.
  7. Identity distortion – At this stage, you adopt a false identity state, divorced from your native grounding in ego, Self, and Soul. You might identify as a nucleus of identity or a spiritual essence that is not aligned with your innate being. In other cases, you might believe a grandiose delusion that you are a world savior or embodiment of another archetype.

In those who embrace conspiracy theories, we commonly see that they tap into stages four, five, and six—many demonstrate fixed conviction and dissociative trance states; some are also having revelations that confirm their delusional beliefs. Cult leaders may additionally induce identity distortion in their followers.

Those who are trying to come back from their involvement with cults and prolonged immersion in an alternate reality may find our Cult Recovery Coaching Program helpful to re-own your life, your genuine values, and your sense of life direction and purpose.

The Pitfalls of Revelatory Logic

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By George A. Boyd ©2021

Q: How is it that people can believe such crazy things? Some conspiracy theories are completely bonkers!

A: To understand this, you need to understand the different orders of logic:

  1. Sensory logic – Also called empirical logic, this holds that for objects to exist in the physical universe, they must be able to be weighed, measured, and detected by multiple observers. This employs filters to rule out optical illusion or observer bias.
  2. Inferential logic – This extrapolates from observable evidence to tease out motivation, intention, or events that occurred. In a trial, a woman is found dead in her home. The fingerprints of the defendant in the trial have been found on the murder weapon, which was abandoned in the yard where the murder occurred. While no one observed the defendant kill the woman, it can be inferred that the defendant likely pulled the trigger. Additional evidence would be needed to confirm this initial inference to prove the defendant committed the murder beyond the shadow of a doubt, and alternative conjectures about what may have happened refuted.
  3. Mathematical logic – This is based on mathematical proofs. An analogous method of proof used in philosophy examines logic to determine accurate and fallacious reasoning.
  4. Algorithmic logic – This type of logic is at the heart of computer programming. It gives instructions to a computer or device with a central processing unit to carry out. What the computer carries out is contingent on what is written in the computer coding language.
  5. Intuitive logic – This type of reasoning can be found in the “intuitive sciences” like astrology, numerology, and tarot. This begins with a symbolic array, which the reader interprets to explore what they mean. Which cards are drawn in the tarot determine what the reader will interpret; where the cards fall in the array colors their meaning, as does the relationship with other cards. Here, each symbolic element in the array (e.g., number as symbol in Numerology, tarot card, Enneagram type, planet and the house it dwells in) can be interpreted individually, in the context in which it dwells, as well as in relationship to the other elements in the array.
  6. Revelatory logic – This type of reasoning holds an idea as an infallible truth, and then looks to justify it. This infallible truth can be based on the beliefs in the authority and veracity of the source, a purported supernatural or Divine origin of the idea, or outright superstitious or magical thinking. This type of logic weaves together illogical ideas, fantasies, and distortion of facts into an incoherent system, which believers tenaciously defend as true.
  7. Core discernment logic – We refer to this type of logic as mandalic reasoning. This is based on discernment of the nature of the Soul, and describing the Path that leads to union with that essence through the levels of the mind. Those who act as guides in meditation use this type of logic to conduct meditation students to unite their attention with their Soul. This type of discernment can also direct meditators to unite with their spirit, a personal identification center (ego or Self), or a nucleus of identity.

The first four types of logic are the foundation of our modern technological civilization. They form a bulwark against irrationality, and work to check inherent bias and perversions of reasoning.

Outside of this, we have the questionable logic of metaphysicians, sundry true believers, and Gurus. These exist outside the parameters of the ordered world mind; those who operate within its structured boundaries of the world mind cannot verify the wild claims of those who wander off into the far country of the mind.

We can characterize seven major varieties of revelatory reasoning:

  1. Psychotic – These individuals listen to voices that emerge from their unconscious mind that torment them and tease them, and tell them to do all manner of irrational things.
  2. Paranoid – They develop elaborate defensive systems to protect their ego, and project their unacceptable impulses on others. They listen to the voices of their mental defenses that desperately shield them from the truth.
  3. Game, fantasy, and novel identification – They identify with characters in movies and television, in novels, horror and science fiction sagas. They live immersed in the themes and drama of these fictional sources, and never seem to embrace their own life. It is much more satisfying to some to be Flash Gordon or Spiderman—or other heroic, superhuman or fantasy figure—than to dwell in the boredom, loneliness, and despair of their own unsuccessful and unfulfilling lives.
  4. Political cults – They identify as members of a political party, and live their lives to support, defend, and even worship their political hero. Their political heroes, alas, are often not the invincible and mighty saviors of their values and way of life they convey through rousing speeches. Many political “saviors” have turned out to be demagogues, dictators, or authoritarian leaders, who exploit the undying loyalty of their true believers to enrich themselves and remain in power.
  5. Psychic cults – Those who join these groups receive channeled messages from sundry spiritual beings—angels, Ascended Masters, extraterrestrials, and assorted other entities—who foretell of a future where people live in a multi-dimensional world, where they operate as godlike beings who can create whatever they wish through intention, and they are unlimited by time and space.
  6. Judeo-Christian religious cults – These base their authority upon what they believe is infallible scripture, which they proclaim is the very “Word of God.” They look to God, the Messiah or Savior, or saints to save them from the sinful world and rescue them from hell after death. They often recount apocalyptic visions of the future of the Last Judgment, tumultuous Last Times, or a Rapture of faithful believers into heaven with the Lord. In addition to evangelical and charismatic Christian and Jewish groups that found their religious beliefs upon a literal interpretation of their scripture, these same patterns may be seen to play out in certain Islamic sects.
  7. Other religious cults – These groups assemble around a spiritual leader who possesses great charisma, and provides “answers” to the seeker. The leader comes to control every aspect of believer’s lives and literally reprograms their minds to accept every word of the leader’s teaching as unerring truth.

Revelatory reasoning has several characteristics:

  1. It believes things that cannot be verified in consensual reality; followers believe impossible and fantastic things.
  2. It uses internalized, subjective criteria for truth, which are often powerfully defended and tenaciously held.
  3. Attempts to question core beliefs of revelatory reasoning elicit rationalization and projection to protect these sacrosanct truths.
  4. Believers who embrace revelatory reasoning often live their lives in an alternate reality frame—they are no longer human beings, but star beings, born again believers, or are eternally in union with bliss consciousness.
  5. It accepts a fluidity of meaning and truth—in the perspective of revelatory reasoning, things mean what believers say they mean; truth is whatever they affirm it is.
  6. It utilizes superstitious thinking; believers look for signs and omens.
  7. It may look to external sources for validation and direction, and not trust their own voice of reason and conscience.

We suggest that revelatory sources of information should be regarded as unproven hypotheses or speculation until you can verify them. It is important to examine your motivation for wanting to believe the claims of revelatory reasoning. It is also valuable to ascertain from what level of the mind these compelling ideas arise.

We go into greater depth into the mindset and beliefs of cultic groups in our book, Religions, Cults, and Terrorism: What the Heck Are We Doing? We recommend to those who are interested in exploring this phenomenon further to acquire this book.