September 9, 2015

The Herd


Independent Minds Means No TeamworkThis week I would like to draw your attention to the herd mentality. We are all herd animals and we often behave accordingly without paying any attention to the provocation, or stimuli, provided by the herd’s behavior. This is so hard wired into our very nature that a skilled manipulator can easily and surreptitiously take advantage of how we’re all wired. We can see this done with groups as well as with an individual. Interrogators will often use neuro linguistic programming techniques to guide a subject into a confession. We all have mirror neurons so mirroring a subject, matching their behavior including their posture and mannerisms, and then beginning to pace them in order to establish rapport is not hard at all. As they become comfortable with you, they begin to trust you more and more, and of course the manipulator can take this trust in many directions. For example, the hypnotist may use it to guide you into hypnosis and the interrogator may use it to obtain the truth. Indeed, in my new book, “Gotcha! The Subordination of Free Will,” you will find how this strategy can lead to wide-eyed group hypnosis.

Human Stampedes

It’s also not uncommon to find people lining up to buy the latest new this or that because everyone wants it. Marketers long ago learned how to take advantage of this aspect of our personalities. Again, as herd animals we seek approval and status. People have been known to trample other people in order to get their new possessions in what can best be described as a human stampede.

The herd’s pressure can be so powerful that we will often ignore our own senses to find agreement. There have been many replications of the famous line study where a subject is asked to judge the relative length of different lines. Placed in a group where everyone but the subject is in on the experiment, the subject will correctly identify the longer line in the first couple of tries. However, as the rest of the group always chooses a shorter line as the longest, soon the subject literally ignores their own senses and ends up agreeing with the group.

Marilyn Monroe Copy-Cats

There are many other ways that we behave as herd animals, acting in reliance upon the herd, but to me the most interesting area of this behavior arises when humans copy others in disastrous ways. Take for instance the death of Marilyn Monroe. Following her overdose of sleeping pills, the suicide rate increased 12% in our country alone. Joseph Hallinan, in his book, “Kidding Ourselves,”1 reviewed the data collected by Professor David Phillips who reported 303 excess deaths due to copying Marilyn Monroe.

When you begin to look into this sort of herd activity you discover that it’s not unheard for people to die following the death of a loved one, or within a short time of hearing the news that they have cancer, or for that matter, as a result of suggestion—the so-called Voodoo death.

Mass Hysteria

We also have the many instances of mass hysteria. One of the earliest reported examples of this occurred in Cambrai, France, where nuns threw fits, barked like dogs, and practiced a sort of mediumship foretelling futures. One of the more interesting examples of this sort of herd hysteria occurred in Africa and Asia. According to Hallinan, “…hospitals in Singapore were flooded by frantic men convinced their penises were shrinking.”2 Further, mobs in Nigeria actually hung a dozen or more purported penis thieves.

I have often shared stories of mass hysteria, where an entire school or even a large portion of a city fall ill due to some unknown or suspected substance, and these illnesses are very real for both the patient and the health care provider. Real symptoms including such things as rashes, fevers, blisters and the like.

Mind Power
Our minds are very powerful and they can conjure up most anything if we just follow along with the herd. It is important that we recognize this potential in all of us in order to truly become aware. So, once again I want to encourage each and every one of you to be mindful—fully awake and alert to what you’re thinking and why.

Thanks for the read,

Eldon Taylor

Eldon Taylor

Eldon Taylor
Provocative Enlightenment
NY Time Bestselling Author of Choices and Illusions
www.eldontaylor.com

Sources:
1 Kidding Ourselves: The Hidden Power of Self-Deception
2 Ibid