The Gettysburg Witch Trial

 

 

The study of the human mind is a complex and foreboding journey complicated by millions of years of evolution and survival, and if you are an evolutionist or creationist, it is a fact that you are the result of whomever or whatever swam, walked, crawled, or flew from day one. Otherwise, you would not be here.

Each of those wrinkles in your brain was put there for a reason. As the human brain grew beyond the confines of the skull it had to wrinkle to fit. Indeed, in the beginning God created man. And that man had about as much sense as a crow. Not yet a monkey, a crow. It had a reptilian brain which would eventually serve as a brain stem. It didn’t think, it just did! Breathe, beating heart, eat, and find some way to duplicate itself for posterity. Other things were added as needed  as time went by. A cerebral cortex, a frontal lobe, an amygdala. Wrinkles appeared and man began to understand that eating relatives wasn’t near as tasty as the girl next door.

The battle between the brain stem, amygdala, and frontal lobe was epic. The frontal cortex made the shaved ape know what he shouldn’t do, the stem talked him into doing it anyway, and the amygdala made him feel bad about it. Voila! Re-Ligion! Budding reason made man look up at the stars and understand that he didn’t make them. Had to be something a bit more talented than himself. God! Or gods. Whatever floats your ark. So, right away this bird brain began to try to understand this. What could possibly go wrong? Rape, murder, human sacrifices, and over 4,200 religions at the present time and each and every one of them has “The Truth!” Ya’ll can pass the plate now.

Everybody has a soul. Can’t have a god if you don’t have a soul. And surprise! Nobody can see a soul. It’s somewhere in there, but just where is anyone’s guess. All they agree on is that it is there and somehow uses the brain to communicate with the material world.

Enter psychology. The understanding of the mind. Or rather the understanding of the mind’s understanding of it’s situation. Psychology has always been there in the understanding that some people were two bubbles short of plumb. Now plumb, or what was considered “normal” was on a sliding scale. From eat everyone in the neighboring tribe to “Do unto others as you wished they’d do unto you.” Add just a dab of justification and you could do unto others before they did unto you and a dash of religion would calm that amygdala down a bit.

Psychologists and priests were at odds. Both knew there were many twists and turns in them wrinkles in our heads, the answers were different, that’s all. The priests, rabbis, imams, and assorted TV evangelists had their holy books while the psychologists had the DSM 1,2,3,4, and 5. From communion to Prozac learned men on both sides of hell struggled to flatten out those wrinkles in the brain. Still, they couldn’t understand how a man who’d had a spike driven through his head could ever hold a job while a guy in Texas had killed over twenty women during lunch because some chick turned him down for a date.

Demon possession. The catch-all answer to Bat-Shit-Itus! Somebody does something so off the rails, the devil made him do it. Priests answer! Psychological answer? Schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, reactive attachment disorder, the list goes on and on and Chester the Molester is still hanging out in the park. (The Muslims just chop their heads off.)

Just recently a famous paranormal investigator turned up dead near Gettysburg. Now, if you think psychologists or priests are “out there” let me tell you about paranormal investigators! This guy was touring with a haunted doll. Hey! I wouldn’t lie to you. A Barbie with a touch of Linda Blair. Her name was Annabelle something or other and the whack a doodle subscribers to this kind of thing think the doll killed him and want Barbie burned at the stake. I crappith thee not! You can’t make this stuff up folks.

Before I go on I’d like to say that I believe in Jesus, and He’s always done right by me. I’m not gonna preach to you but I’m not heading to the Barbie Burning with a torch and a pitchfork either.  Anyway, whenever the human critter can’t come up with an explanation he comes up with one of two things. If he’s a doctor, scientist, or physicist he’ll posit a theory. It’s not spot on, but it looks good and will do until something better comes along. This is how we got the theory of dinosaurs but there ain’t any walking around these days so we stare at bones and hope for the best. That also lets the DSM (Whatever edition) take pedophiles and rebrand them as “Minor Attracted.” In the religious camp they just have “the truth!” Oh, and hell.

Now the link between psychology and religion is that amygdala we’ve been talking  about. And subjective reasoning. Remember the woman who had the issue of blood for twelve years? And she convinced herself if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’s garment she’d be cured. She did and she was! When she began to praise Jesus he told her, “Your faith has cured you!” Have two patients. Both have allergies. There is a study being done and both people become part of it. One gets the new drug for relief of symptoms. The other gets a Sweet Tart. Both are relieved of the malady. Do the math.

There is no limit to what a person can do under the yoke of mental illness. And remember, normal is the condition of the majority, no matter how far out in left field normal is, if you are like the majority, you’re normal! Kinda like being a Democrat. If you kill women all the time because they part their hair in the middle you’re Ted Bundy. In Iran however, if you kill women all the time for exposing their hair, you’re Ali Khamenei! It all depends on how you look at it. The driving force in a lot of religion is usually after all the hoopla and TV there’s a little girl lurking around somewhere. Or a doll. Have you seen some of the life size lifelike dolls Japan is grinding out lately! Make you scream, “Oh God” all night long.