Overcoming Psychological Barriers to 9/11 Truth -- a new article in the Journal of 9/11 Studies

The Journal of 9/11 Studies proudly publisheses a peer-reviewed article by Laurie A. Manwell, M.Sc., which deals with overcoming psychological barriers regarding 9/11 truth. The title is: Faulty Towers of Belief: Part I. Demolishing the Iconic Psychological Barriers to 9/11 Truth. http://journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/FaultyTowersofBeliefPart_I.pdf

A reviewer (Professor) from the University of Waterloo stated:

“This is an excellent paper. The material is convincingly
presented; the argument becomes increasingly intriguing and persuasive
as it moves along…. The real strength of this paper is that it lays out the
complex issues without flinching from the overwhelming differences that
prevent sane discourse on the "truth" of 9/11, while at the same time
maintaining such equanimity.
“The importance of this approach can't be overemphasized. Unless
we get beyond the problems so thoroughly identified in this paper,
how, for example, can we talk about the three towers of the World
Trade Center falling in so short a time, just as though they were a
nicely controlled demolition…?”

Another reviewer noted: “I am sorry to disappoint
you by not providing insightful questions/comments. My excuse is that
in contrast to the earlier draft, this current version of the article
left me little to comment on. Everything, the conceptual progression,
the relationships between psychological constructs and 9/11 issues
was much clearer and more coherent. All the issues that I had with
the earlier version appeared resolved.”

Kudos ....

to Laurie A. Manwell, M.Sc for accomplishing a great deal of work, well conceived and executed.
Thanks for your hard work.

Thank you for your comments

Hello, I'm the author of said article :)

First, thank you all for your comments and please keep them coming.

While Part II is well underway, I have already made a few changes to address some the concerns voiced here - most notably how NOT to put people to sleep (LOL) :) Hey, I'd rather read something more entertaining and titilating myself, but that's not what's going to get my colleagues interested in the subject. In fact, one of the primary motivators for my writing the article is that, after nagging and nearly harrassing my fellow scholars to look into this, I was just so disgusted with their dismissal that I had to prove them wrong, and set out doing so by using their own means of "academic research." I put that in quotation because I was astounded that even though they expound the "scientific method" without question (perhaps therein lies the problem) they were just as ready to suspend the same critical thought processes so as not to have to discuss alternative accounts of 9/11. Completely unbelievable!! And also, the ways I was broaching the subject just didn't seem to be working, even my dogs were ignoring me. :)

Anyway, I do plan to as you say, "hit them in the gut" with part II, but a strong foundation had to be laid down first for other academics to even bother looking at it. Of course I would be more than happy to give a talk in less rigorous terms as someone has suggested (and yes, I can interject my sense of humour, albeit somewhat warped, I'm a Canuck, eh!). But one thing at time. :)

Thanks everyone, for taking the time to read it and again, any comments will be considered for part II if appropriate.

Cheers,
Laurie

on the psychology of the truth

I look forward to reading the paper. I wanted to share my experience of this weekend that I found very inetresting. I had a few old friends in town, all New Yorkers. They had been marginally aware of my truthing but had never really commented on or discussed with me. Since they were staying at my place for the night I managed to play for them some scenes from Improbable Collapse and 9/11 Mysteries, as well as talking a bit. One of them basically said "I think you're right, I think it's all been covered up." Another, who was near the towers and in the dust cloud, was receptive and I could tell he was thinking about it seriously, though he did not proclaim his truth conversion like the other. The third was a woman whose reaction was the most intriguing--she said a few things. One was that she couldn't, as a New Yorker, understand people around America's obsession with the events--she understood that it was a national myth in the way it was used anyway. She said New Yorkers had moved on and that no one there liked Giuliani the way people around the country seemed to. She said though, on seeing footage of the collapses, that she couldn't handle watching it, having experienced it first hand. She said that it would have to be left to those of us in Massachusetts to look for the truth--the memories for her, as a New Yorker, were too painful. Maybe I'll send her this paper!

Hmmmm.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

NEW---> check out our revamped site!

 

Yes, interesting that even

Yes, interesting that even the trigger of the images shut down your friend's mind, almost six years on.

Manwell's paper is a solid, bold and badly needed first step to understanding the mass psychology of 9/11.

The next step would be a soundly researched analysis elaborating 9/11 (esp. the tower demos) as a premeditated and carefully calculated PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTACK on the public mind. Much evidence of this.

“On the altar of God, I swear eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the mind of man."--Thomas Jefferson

Background information

Professor Phil Taylor of Unversity of Leeds, UK:

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/index.cfm?outfit=pmt

and the company he advises:

http://www.scl.cc/article.php?id=12

I wrote a little piece on an article he links to:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/06/dangers-of-disinformation-in-wa...

speaking of psyops

Had a look at your website, Ningen. Plenty of no-planes nonsense.

It's sad that 911blogger has devolved to the point where a post by a genuine scientist is disrupted by disinfo crap like "TV fakery". I guess that's why "they" usually win these things: Eventually, honest people just get tired of fighting "their" propaganda, and disinfo crap (like "TV fakery") begins to dominate the discussion. Pretty soon, honest people just give up because they aren't as dedicated as the propagandists, or they don't have the same resources.

What about Professor Taylor's websites?

Why are you trying to discredit the resources I offered, Simuvac? Why don't you want people to look at it?

Professor Taylor knows of propaganda, and his website is a tremendous resource that has nothing to do with "no planes" and everything to do with the issue raised by Michael Fury, psychological attacks on the public mind.

Moreover, the company he advises is in the business of psychological operations. Why are trying to discourage people from viewing this information?

They may draw different conclusions than me, which is fine. You don't like the conclusions I draw, so you tell people they shouldn't read for themselves.

Finally, the article I discussed at my website is from Harvard University, by a well-credentialed journalist and analyst of journalism, and describes military control of airwaves in war zones and the need for journalists to be very careful because the military is able to insert video into national broadcasting networks. The journalist was told this in 1997.

Perhaps you are trying to keep people from reading the quote of an Air Force information operations officer: "the public information battle space is simply too important to ignore."

My conclusion, based on well-known military doctrines, is that the citizenry is considered part of the war for minds, and that the author's warning to journalists not to trust the media applies at home as well.

Why are you trying to discourage people from looking at this information, simuvac?

I'm really tired of this.

I question the motives of people that discourage others from looking at information for themselves.

Again, Professor Taylor's website is about propaganda, the issue raised by Michael Fury, and the article at my website makes a reasonable argument based on a credible source of some disturbing information.

It's not about discouraging people from looking

It's about the way your website, and sometimes your comments on blogger, mix legitimate topics (propaganda) with absolute garbage about TV fakery.

I question the motives of people selling "no-planes" fantasies.

If you were just trying to inform people about propaganda, then I would not have a problem. But clearly you are slyly trying to mix a discussion of propaganda with a discussion of TV fakery, as much of the content on your website attests.

So that makes me dishonest and a propagandist?

Who are you to judge me? I have my views and I explain them. If I think this is important and want people to read it, if they choose, then I will damn well post it. If you don't like it, too bad.

If you have something of substance to say about my first comment above or the specific article at my blog that I linked, fine. Otherwise, you are being rude and disruptive.

Clearly you are slyly trying to discourage a discussion of propaganda by attacking me.

Actually, it's not clear at all -- just suspect.

Is this nonsense, simuvac?

It's real research by a respected professor of psychology, as I'm sure Ms. Manwell could attest.

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/05/post-event-information-influenc...

The conclusion I draw from it is based on my theory that witnesses were influenced by images seen by themselves and others, including reporters, on television. That conclusion is certainly debatable, but it is not "nonsense."

Is this "nonsense"?

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/06/why-didnt-these-firefighters-se...

It's direct quotes of firemen that did not see or hear planes, despite being in a position to do so.

Nice job turning this into a no-planes thread, simuvac. If you think I'm going to take your attacks without response, think again. Next time, leave your baggage at home and respond only to what I post, without attack or accusation.

I rest my case

But good luck with your prosecution of the 9/11 crimes based on the theory that no planes hit the towers in NYC. I look forward to the Law and Order episode based on it.

You made no case

You made a snide comment.

Your premise that alerting people to this issue of faked broadcasts would interfere with a prosecution is completely unfounded. I've heard this argument before in an article at 9/11Truth.org -- Spitzer didn't prosecute because of embarassing theories. It's bullshit and it gives Sptizer an excuse for failing to uphold the law in New York. He had the office, the resources, the evidence, and the subpoena power to launch an investigation, and he chose not to. According to your logic, he should be excused because he would have been embarassed because some website was talking about pods.

This is not just about a prosecution -- it's about awareness so that it doesn't happen again. And it's about the truth as I see it. Remember the word "truth"? I don't see it in your blogs here, but that's just my opinion. I don't accuse you of being dishonest or a propagandist just because I disagree with a lot of what you emphasize. Should I?

I wonder if Ms. Manwell might have something to say about the resistance in this movement to the emerging proof of a media hoax. Her paper is excellent, as I wrote in a comment at Reprehensor's blog.

love that jefferson quote btw...

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

NEW---> check out our revamped site!

 

I read the article

The paper made some nice points. I am eagerly awaiting "Part II" - which presumably tells us how to in fact change someone's mind on this issue. The problem seems to come down to the fact that mentioning 9/11 automatically brings up death anxiety, which cues people to cling to their pre-existing ideologies (e.g., patriotism, religion, the US gov't is benign).

As for the paper's shortfalls, I saw only one: I wish that the author had stated a better case in her paper for why the OCT is so patently absurd. She did cite quite a few authors, and quoted one at length about the squibs. I wish she had cut nature at its joints and got to the heart of the problem.

I worry that libraries won't carry this journal, so its authors are preaching to the converted. Finally, it would be nice to see an empirical project of this nature, instead of just a lit review. (But that may be where "Part II" comes in.)

I can't wait for her later works to arrive. She skillfully interweaves psychology literature with an understanding of people's reactions to 9/11.

E

Unless I have to .. I can't

Unless I have to .. I can't read these exalted texts any more..

I need a mp3 speech! (can be broadcast!!)

.. why can't the author hold a well-prepared lecture, hold it in front of non-academics (to obviate the jargon) and pepper it with ironies and jokes.. like Michael Parenti

Txt-only version:
http://u2r2h-documents.blogspot.com/2007/06/911-faulty-towers-of-belief....

I think this is an essential article.

If you wish to persuade people. If you wish to influence how they think and what they will consider - with respect to 9/11 truth or anything else, I think as many as possible must understand these relevant psychological variables.

I imagine that most who post here can benefit from understanding these issues as they try to influence folks to look at evidence regarding the government's lies about 9/11. As a poor analogy, when I had to design some simple circuit boards (in the context of running a neuroscience brain wave imaging laboratory), ultimately I had to study Ohm's law and worse to figure out how to accomplish my tasks. The same with programming. Didn't have a damn thing to do with neuropsychology per se, except they were crucial to accomplishing the research.

With respect to this article, basic, experimentally supported understanding of human cognition/emotion/behavior is equally crucial to the success of the goal of awakening others to 9/11 truth. I believe that 9/11 truth activists should understand these concepts and learn to utilize them.

While Part II will be welcome as it helps to make the tie between experimentally supported concepts and how to use them to further the goal of informing about 9/11 truth, all should endeavor to understand these concepts and help facilitate the process.

More melodramatically, we have a war to fight. And it really is an 'end times' crisis (with or without the religious connotation) and we must understand our weapons.

To be very brief, the 9/11

To be very brief, the 9/11 attack was a violent induction into a mass hypnotic trance done against our will and without our permission (different from most hypnosis). It disoriented people and forced them to adopt a new view of the world, and most adopted the one that was most readily available--the OCT.

This is a very good article and all of us should read it. Manwell uses good research studies to describe how and why people adhere to the OCT and how and why they defend it against better evidence.

One conclusion is keep going. If we keep repeating the evidence for 9/11 Truth we will get through to more and more people. It really does come down to one mind at a time. Talk to your friends and family. Eventually they will hear you.

Once people have broken out of the trance state, they will not re-enter it easily, as we all have seen. In this vein, I do think that it is important to get people to face the image of the Towers collapsing, as this is the central image of the trance induction. Once their minds have fully reappraised this image, they will be free of the trance state. To get them to do that, we can begin anywhere (WTC 7, Flight 93, the stand-down), but deep awakening requires seeing through the "official story" about the Towers.
________________

JFK on secrecy and the press

"it is important to get

"it is important to get people to face the image of the Towers collapsing, as this is the central image of the trance induction. Once their minds have fully reappraised this image, they will be free of the trance state."

Precisely.

Mass trauma-induced mind control.

The numbers we need awake will not be competent to rationally challenge the more obscure aspects of the cover-up until they are liberated from the emotional entrainment of that central event.

There are many "ritual" aspects to the tower demolitions. Besides the more obvious (though subconsciously operative) numerology--911 as "emergency", the prominence of "eleven", even the colossal "eleven" of the towers themselves--there are deeper mythic (even Jungian) resonances.

This author discusses some sources of this symbolic power:

http://abdielsroom.blogspot.com/2007/01/none-so-blind-lament.html

"As Webster Tarpley observes, the subliminal effects of 9/11 threaten to permanently distort our at-home-ness in reality, in the physical world, which on that day became a place where majestic state-of-the-art buildings, marvels of engineering and modernist architecture’s capstones, monuments (affirmed by cliché) to human ingenuity and spirit…unpeeled so strangely to dust. The question of how the towers fell isn’t merely academic, but in some measure crucial to our psychological health as a people. If, as some contend , they were destroyed by explosives planted in the structures in the week preceding the attacks, then we’ve been compelled to accept a counterfeit view of physical reality, marking the radical intensification of a schizophrenic mindset already endemic in—and increasingly definitive of—Anglo-American culture.

The effect of the Towers’ destruction is tied to the structures’ form as well as the place of the “tower” and “twin” archetypes in legend (whether in Tolkien, the Tarot or the Pentateuch for the former, or astrology, religious esoterism and classical myth for the latter). Anthropomorphic totems, the twin towers connoted a unity of two (or balanced duality), the harmonious couple (thus love, or lovers), or the self and its reflection: in short, completion, with the north tower (with its antennae) the yang to the south’s yin (slightly recessive, as if, from the greater Manhattan perspective, backing the other up). Their destruction, then, was an eidetic inscription, rooted in mortal shock, of the shattering of unity, the failure of love, the death of the iconic companions, God’s wrathful judgement (ala Babel) upon our aspirations (and the futility of endeavor) and the fracture of communion (language, community—or logos, word or idea embodied…meaning). Situated at the millennial cusp, at the crossroads of macrocosmic time and superhuman space, the structures’ spectacularly surreal dematerialization unmistakably declared the triumph of disunity, unreason, separation and loss—in short, the reign of antichrist, which 9/11 would appear to have been intended by certain of its architects to herald.

From tut-tut to sneering contempt, the sad range of knee-jerk responses to critical 9/11 discourse remains, alas, to be expected. For 9/11’s sponsorship by commanding elements within our government would make it, in essence, a human sacrifice —an explicit reassertion of the ancient carnal religion of empire, The Old Worship, defined ineluctably by that signature rite. As such, it is an epochal evolutionary throwback whose nature, in abject defiance of secular progress, must be denied, however irrationally, by those blind to 9/11’s esoteric implications. Only somewhat paradoxically, the same anxiety prevents many religious people from recognizing 9/11’s true nature as a state-sponsored secret intelligence operation, a contingency which subconsciously confronts them with the overthrow of God—or at least His Earthly Dominion—by the anthropologically more ancient deity in opposition to whom monotheism evolved: Moloch, the god of human—specifically child—sacrifice (to whom children were “passed,” according to scripture—and in chilling echo of 9/11—“through fire”).

With our bereavement defiled by vulgar bellicosity, we would rush the immolation behind us. Yet our wound remains unfathomed. Unable to mourn, commemorate and bring it to meaningful closure, we fixate at our initial shock, as our slaughtered are consumed by their butchers. Unavenged and hostage, their souls are doubly mocked in a cacophony we loiter as chattel. The undead.

As activists note, it is hardly out of the question that 9/11’s planners intended to be noticed; hence the conflicting layers of subterfuge, the contradictory elements of the attacks and cover-up. An essential measure of their control would be our knowing they are there, in charge, and that there’s nothing any of us can do. The consuming obsession of 9/11’s planners, this control is consummated in the Enlightenment’s capitulation to the forces of unreason; in its denial of the empire’s nature, the left genuflects before antichrist. In our abusive national family, the lefty is favored of the rapist father and according to profile loyal—however complaining—to the last."

The twin towers were a ritual gateway or threshold through which we were pushed, and which were then razed to prevent our return. As Phillip Zelikow, that prescient expert in "public myth", wrote in 1998, "...this event would divide our past and future into a before and after."

This is what they mean by the "Post-9/11 World".

“On the altar of God, I swear eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the mind of man."--Thomas Jefferson