Interesting ruminations by our philosopher-selves.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The following is rumination by our Lucifer Davison:
The idea that there could be people born multiple instantly means that for a small minority, the system (no pun intended) is wrong. They are not matching the identity of the common person on the street. They are instead:

A subculture of bodies with multiple inhabitants. The ramifications of this are big, especially where religion is concerned. If people are born with more than one soul, then to them the Biblical proscription of "One soul, one mind, one body" is not accurate. If so, this means that there is a full-fledged option to be different from the common culture. Multiplicity, if divorced from the doctrine of mental disorder would potentially be far more upsetting than Homosexuality. If people can have experiences of living in a body and can be proud of that fact, then there is a consequence for society. The consequence is that simplicity, that panacea of Fundamentalism and Social conservatism, is thrown out with the bath-water. The same is true for the natural multiples that weren't caused by trauma. Psychiatry does not recognize them and tries to suppress them with all the power of the State. Multiplicity, specifically the natural and born versions, is a potential death-blow to the infantilizing notions of mental health and extremist religion. Multiples have the ability to grasp far more of human potential, if only they choose to reach for it. They can reach for their potential in ways denied Singletons. The Singleton seeks relief in religion, in alcohol, in fruitless activities that are harmful to him or her and cannot escape the grim realities of this world. People in systems can, and that is what causes members of systems to be regarded as coping mechanisms and arrested development. We who are united in the simple fact that we are people who reside not in houses of steel or brick but of flesh. If people can be born multiple, then the world is far more complex than the average Fundamentalist of any religion or creed can stomach. That is my view on why the Establishment fights to keep the knowledge of healthy, normal multiplicity from being known. Thanks for playing!

Comments, anyone?

Comments

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Some of the younger fronters agree with part of what you're saying, except for the "able to grasp far more of human potential" part.

We see no reason why singlets shouldn't grasp just as much of human potential (provided one's into that sort of thing, which we're not) as multiples. There's been tons written by singlets about other worlds and realities.

What we think concerns the dominant culture about us, if anything, is the idea of multiple persons in one body symbolizing lack of their control over the population. The existence of multiples implies that the government and dominant culture don't control as much as they think they do, and that scares them.

It's the same with pathologizing religious experience ("She talks to God? Okay, lock her up and give her these pills") or other normal life problems and experiences, control is paramount, or the economy would be affected! Can't have that!

[eridanusus.livejournal.com]

...I don't think the government honestly cares.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seconded. I've NEVER once heard of the government going after a multiple, in any context.

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

I've learned that the U.S. government loves to have control.

Amalah

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yes, but only over things they view as powerful. The government isn't even aware of multiplicity as anything but a weird little footnote of psychiatry. They don't view us as powerful, we're not a voting bloc, we don't hold office or have lots of money or anything else. We're not an advocacy group, we're not organized as a group at all! And we're so far into the closet, most of us, that they don't even know we're here.

What is there for them to control, and why should they bother?

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

The government did have a psy-ops program that tried to make multiples into assassins.
The program was documented in the Church hearings on the MK-Ultra program in the 60's
and 70's. I met a lady who was a programmer at UCLA in that period. Totally gone. Wore
plastic to try to protect herself from it, but when i questioned her about the programming
she did she talked cogently about early LISP which was used in DARPA a lot because it was
considered an artificial intelligence language. It was her knowlege of the computer stuff
that convinced me personally that she was telling the truth.

--- Miri of Mtribe

PS - i wonder sometimes what happened to her. We tried to help her but she seemed beyond
help.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Do you have any additional information on this? The wikipedia entry on MK-Ultra doesn't mention MPD or DID in any way, though it does mention schizophrenia in passing.

And sorry if I don't understand what you're trying to say... "wore plastic to try to protect herself from it." What is "it" here?

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

It was a code called 'Monarch' if i recall.

Claire wore plastic to protect herself from chemicals she
thought the gov was using to control her.

As far as i could get from her she was perhaps given LSD
in one of the tests back them.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

As far as we have been able to research there is no evidence that Monarch existed except as a conspiracy theory. MK-Ultra was the name of the actual project whose existence was documented. That said, there are many people who believe, for one reason or another, that they were subjected to Monarch -- many more than could actually have been involved in such a program without leaving a substantial amount of evidence.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

About MK-Ultra: (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070312/klein) "The manual was based on the findings of the agency's notorious MK Ultra program, which in the 1950s funneled about $25 million to scientists to research "unusual techniques of interrogation." One of the psychiatrists who received CIA funding was the infamous Ewen Cameron of Montreal's McGill University. Cameron subjected hundreds of psychiatric patients to large doses of electroshock and total sensory isolation and drugged them with LSD and PCP. In 1960 Cameron gave a lecture at the Brooks Airforce Base in Texas in which he stated that sensory deprivation "produces the primary symptoms of schizophrenia.""

Basically, on the mind control thing, what I've been able to get from the sources I consider believable amounts to this:

The CIA ran some programs during the 50s, 60s and 70s in which they tried to create Manchurian Candidate-like artificial selves in adult test subjects who were unaware of the purpose of the experiments. There were attempts to see if LSD could be used as a mind-control drug or a truth serum-- there were a lot of LSD experiments run by the CIA. The programs were eventually terminated because, basically, they couldn't achieve their goals-- to create perfectly mind-controlled implanted selves-- and they couldn't find a perfect mind-control drug or truth serum. These things work much better in science fiction than they do in reality, apparently.

That said, I can definitely believe that there are people still out there who remember participating in such experiments, either as a subject or as an experimenter. I don't generally go in for conspiracy theories, but there is some pretty strong, IMO, evidence that the government has actively worked to silence people who tried to speak up about being LSD test subjects, and similar. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson) And the US government is still doing some pretty damn heinous things, as described in the link above, regarding sensory deprivation and forced drugging, that have been well documented by people involved in them, and still using these techniques on prisoners.

However, on some of the more extreme claims I've heard from some people who said they were involved in government mind control experiments, I would really, really need to see more evidence. In all the cases I believed, there was at least SOMEONE who had observed or participated in the experiments, who was willing to speak up about them, and had always remembered it.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I'm not doubting that the MK-Ultra thing happened.

I'm doubting that it had anything to do with multiples. Implanting some kind of killer-robot ultimate post-hypnotic suggestion into somebody is not the same thing as creating an actual multiple.

And I still don't think the government knows, or cares, that the phenomenon of healthy multiplicity even exists.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

(And for that matter, what is "wearing plastic." Like a tinfoil hat only made of tupperwear?)

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

AFAIK (like from what the paranoia brigade posted a while back), wasn't MK-Ultra basically based on placing the victim into a state where they would do as asked, and not remember afterwards? That doesn't sound like multiplicity to me. And while my stance on this in every day life varies, I don't think it sounds like multiplicity even if the compliant state decides they have a different name.

At least, it doesn't sound any more like multiplicity than hypnosis.

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Back then they almost equated a high hypnotisability with multiplicity.
You know the theory.

--- Marina

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

What I don't know is how hypnosis/suggestable states/dissociation has anything to do with people acting like there's a conspiracy theory surrounding natural multplicity? I'm not sure what your point was (and btw if you're aware of this then maybe say "so called 'multiples'" because not everybody would understand that you didn't mean real multiples)

[kuwaizair.livejournal.com]

and other's don't?

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't know personally. :)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

You're right, all of you; I should have left the word "government" out of it. "Dominant culture," though, is a lot more than just the government.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Still don't see it. Give me examples here, because I'm not seeing what you're seeing, apparently.

What I see is the dominant culture having no idea that we exist at all. And the few that notice us notice the extreme versions, the Sybils and the other media-hyped cases. But they still don't really know anything, and they still don't really CARE.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

But that's just it. There are tons of media portrayals of multiplicity (or rather, of MPD and DID), both fictional and "documentary". That's what they know, and it gets repeated, and that's what's in people's heads. First it was a rare disorder experienced only by a few women; then it was a bizarre disorder caused by child abuse; then it became (as it is thought of today) a fake disorder caused by doctors implanting hypnotic suggestions. And always, the emotional underpinnings are "bizarre, nightmarish," horror-movie tropes. That's what I mean by the "dominant culture"; the view that is presented to the general public by the mass media.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

You said "The existence of multiples implies that the government and dominant culture don't control as much as they think they do, and that scares them."

Leaving out the government then...

Popular media perception of multiples as being a "bizarre, nightmarish" horror relates to this how? They fear our power? What power? Why? What makes them aware of any "power" at all? And what makes you think that? Or do you?

I still maintain that 99% of the population just don't care. They don't plot about us, they don't fear us or hate us, they don't think of us at all. They may go and see a movie about some psychotic faker, or whatever it is, but that doesn't mean anything to most of them, it's just a story. It's not real, and they don't care.

I find the OP here has a tone of... conspiracy. Of "they're out to get us" and "they're keeping us down." And it sounds to me as though you agree, that somehow the media portrayal and the dominant culture's views are somehow oppressing us and keeping is from... from what, exactly?

I guess I just don't feel oppressed. I've been pretty open about my multiplicity, and I've yet to encounter any oppression or hatred about it. (I have with some other facets of my life!) I've had people go after me over religion, over cultural identity, over fandom even, but never over being multiple.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

You're right that a majority of the population doesn't care, I think, because they don't believe it affects them. It's something remote and exotic to them.

However, as soon as it does start to affect them-- say, if someone they know comes out-- if their only exposure to it is through the stereotypical ideas, even if those ideas were presented in the form of fiction, that'll be their mental idea of it that they reach for.

I don't think that any deliberate conspiracy is involved on the part of the general population, so I disagree with the OP's general view of things also-- I think mostly what's going on here is that when people are presented with something that challenges their worldview, they'll often try to deny it, or rationalize it away as something else. This happens with a lot of things, not just multiplicity.

I do believe there have been deliberate attempts to give the stamp of approval to a specific model of multiplicity in the psychiatric community, and to push out all others. Frank Putnam has some studies of non-abused multiples that have never been published, for instance.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that I can agree with. The psychiatric community is... well, really from the outside it seems to me as though dealing with unhealthy and abnormal people constantly has skewed a lot of their perceptions of normality, sometimes. Although by and large I support psychiatry, and think that the more we learn about how the human mind functions, the better!

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

No, we certainly don't agree with the OP on everything, but we do think that the dominant culture has kept multiplicity in the "abnormal" category. Not because we have any "power" -- simply because we are different, and that's something that film studios and book publishers can capitalize on. The fear, the titillation, the True Crime elements.

And it is in fact a type of oppression to have to be in the closet about an important part of your identity. Any time you can't express your true self, religion, or culture for fear of what will happen to you, then oppression is going on. You're extremely fortunate that you haven't been placed in a mental hospital, lost or been denied employment or lost friendships or loved ones after coming out as multiple. These things can and have happened to others, including some on this community. Others cover up very carefully about what they are, for fear the same will happen to them.

[nat-leia.livejournal.com]

I did not word my response precisely. What I meant is, I do not see that big difference between plurals and singletons (yes, there are some differences in functioning, yet I do not think that matters right now for the purposes of this debate.)

Thus can't grasp why would singletons be any 'less' capable of anything, or more prone to something else than the general population. I do not think there is any research supporting these assumptions of proness to such things.

(One can understand plurality as a group of *singletons* in one body, after all. I know not all identify with that concept, but it can be seen that way for easier explanation of what I have in mind.)

Certain amount of fear might play a role, yet I would not see it an only cause. I doubt dominant culture cares that much, actually. There are enough problems of its own for it. *headspin*

I think I'm babbling.