I was reading an article in the paper the other day about a small town in the midwest that experienced a very strange phenomenon. One fine during the summer, or perhaps the spring, it started raining frogs. It happened in the fifties, and it was a small town, so there is absolutely no evidence that this actually took place. Some say it was a hoax. Others think it was due to an extremely unlikely confluence of meteorological events pulled the frogs out of a lake them through some strange quirk of air pressure and deposited them on the unsuspecting town inhabitants. Others claim that it was mass hypnosis. Mass hypnosis is a strange thing when you think about it, because there have been many documented accounts of mass hypnosis. Some of them easy to understand, some unexplainable like the falling frogs.
I was reminded of this story when I recently saw a movie where a guy fell in love with a prosthetic doll. At first people thought he was completely nuts, but then slowly, as they realized he had deeper problems, decided that the best course of action would be to help the poor guy. At first he was the but of jokes behind his back. I’m sure you can imagine the jokes that would circulate should you show up at a party with a fake person and in all seriousness claim her as your girlfriend. One of the most fascinating things about the movie was how the townspeople slowly started to get sucked into his reality. Because he believed so completely that this rubber doll was a real person that he had real conversations, (and even a couple of arguments with,) the townspeople slowly started becoming involved in his obvious break from reality.
This is an example of when you have a really strong, congruent frame of reality. If you walk through life holding a strong set of beliefs in your head, others will believe them as well if the beliefs held tightly enough. It matters not if they are true or not. The key is when you choose a belief, to make sure to choose helpful ones, and act one hundred percent that they are actually true. When you do that, people will only follow your lead. Imagine some people in the world that have really strong beliefs, and act on them. Suppose you could have a strong belief that you are incredibly attractive to the opposite sex? Suppose that you held a belief that money is easy to come by? Suppose you were to hold a belief that you were able to learn new things easily and quickly? How easy would your life be then? What other beliefs can you come up with that once you believe them, others will as well? How easily can you imagine your life when you switch out old beliefs, and switch in new ones that support you and what you want to create better things in life?
So as the movie went on, the main character decided, most likely subconsciously, that he learned what he needed from his relationship with girlfriend, and imagined a deadly disease for her. So she could die, and clear the way for him to start to build relationships with real people. I think there are several important lessons in this movie, not the least of which is how powerful your mind is to create the life that you want, by almost any means necessary. Even enlisting the help of the entire town in some incredible group self induced hypnosis. That is pretty powerful stuff.
And as far as group hypnosis, sometimes called ‘mass hysteria,’ there are different kinds. Their are the organic kinds, like the raining frogs, and certain episodes of dancing hysteria, and laughing hysteria. Then there is created mass hysteria, although the creation of mass hysteria is not always the intent, as what happened in the famous Orson Wells “War of The Worlds” incident, where everybody thought we were under attack by Martians. Personally, I’d prefer some falling frogs. Unless of course they were Martians disguised as falling frogs.