The Gaslight Effect

Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships-
A powerful book on recovery as discussed by Occult Whistleblower, Pierre S. Freeman

One of the tremendous concepts in this book is a technique suggested by Margaret Singer. She called it “the gaslight effect” from the old classic, Gaslight, with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. In the film, slowly, imperceptively. Boyer, Bergman’s husband, for devious reasons of his own, convinces Bergman that she is insane.  This is done in small episodes with disappearing pictures and watches, including an episode where Bergman, now believing she is an amnesiac, finds a missing watch in her own purse, implying she might have stole it from her husband. Actually, Boyer stole it, just as he created flickering gaslight by going to the attic. The flickering gaslight was one of several phenomena she is supposed to be imagining, but is only a trick of his upstairs adjustment of the lighting in the house, another ruse to convince her she is insane.
            This is a perfect metaphor for the way a deceptive organization, particularly one that focuses on paranormal phenomena, will operate in order to convince a member that he has superior powers. But instead of convincing him the member is insane, they try to convince them they have special powers.

            Through continual reading about the potential for psychic powers and continuing to perform visualization exercises mounted on a platform of gradually increasing and escalation trance induction, the member eventually begins to see things spontaneously, all on his own. This phenomenon supports the belief that he has higher powers. But what he sees is not “real.” It is a creation of his own mind and therefore hallucinatory.

            I am not trying to imply there is no such thing as higher powers. I am just saying that hallucinations don’t count as authentic paranormal experience.

            In this case, the flickering appearance of auras, visions and strange sounds doesn’t function to convince him he is insane, but rather to convince him that he is a higher being, a chosen vessel of the Cosmic- by, indeed, actually making him become insane. If not insane, having enough positive hallucinations (things that do not exist at all), to make him completely insane.  It may not be the exact plot, but the technique is still “gaslight.”

            Although this is not a one-to-one abusive relationship as discussed in this chapter, just like Boyer in the film, there are correspondences between the characteristics of an abuser and the cult itself.

            For one thing, an abuser is generally seeking to dominate the abused. In a personal relationship, this is done by establishing authority and then using verbal, physical and even sexual means to manipulate the abused into compliance. It often works a lot by reducing the self-esteem of the abused and enhancing the position of the abuser at the abused’s expense. In a cult, this  kind of dominance with the compliance of the abused is always sought but the technique is not one-to-one necessarily.

            Again in a cult like AMORC, this is tricky. Because the first step is to convince the member that he is superior to everyone outside the cult. He is, indeed, a superior being.

            But, by doing this, he is put into a worldview that consists of a hierarchy within the cult and perhaps an additional hierarchy of ascended masters without the cult. So, although his self-esteem is heightened vis-à-vis outsiders who he has less and less to do with, his role in the far-flung tapestry of those who rule the universe is just a small speck.

Again, the gaslight effect is used to slowly convince him of his superiority and, at the same time, to assure his compliance and actually reduce his self-esteem to a very small flame, lit at the feet of his masters, who the member is just beginning to see with dazzling clarity, depending, of course, on the level of hallucinogenic reality to which he has descended.