Wisdom Notes on Psychology

Violence as Political Spectacle
&
The Peace Process

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings on this page.

[ The particular states of mind or fixed beliefs of fascism and of nazism stay the same throughout time, but the kinds of behaviours and social domination they manifest are changeable, being relative to the social and political norms of each era. For example, the age of the Internet has allowed new ways of targeting victims to be developed by right-wing groups.]

If we look at modern times, we can see how varieties of fascism play out in the world. We can get a clue for the reason for the attractions of fascism by comparing a comparable scenario : in the world of BDSM, a person may desire to be submissive to a dominant Master. I generalise this desire. There is a wide-spread social effect similar to it. In desperate and hard times there is often an overwhelming social need for security, and this need usually outweighs the need for political freedoms. During such hard times we may see the abandonment of political freedoms in exchange for the security produced by a dominant right-wing political party. People easily attune to the need to be led. They may yearn for someone to take charge of society and lead it to better times. Hence arises the desire for a strong leader or Dominant to obey.

In effect, society regresses during hard times and becomes captivated by strong leaders who have the aura of certainty and dominance. Such leaders usually pursue various ways of increasing governmental surveillance and control over social and political dissidents. This pursuit of social control and social surveillance has been a major theme in British politics since the 1970s.

Terrorist Violence and the Peace Process

I add some notes on the causes of sectarian and terrorist violence, and take a look at some conditions that are necessary to make a lasting peace. The main point to note is such violence is nearly always a response to forms of neglect, oppression or authoritarian control, either real or potential, by a ruling majority or group.

In any negotiation, each side has to make concessions. In the attempt to end future war and violence, the psychological constraints on the negotiations are that the winner has to make most of the concessions, and the losers the least. The weaker side harbours grudges and resentments; these states of mind have to be abandoned if peace is to be attained. The only way to do this is for the stronger power to make enough concessions so that the weaker power no longer has grudges to maintain. This is the only way to resolve the grudges and sense of invalidation of the losers and prevent its younger generation growing up with a desire for revenge against the winner.

Of course, the people of the stronger power don’t like the concessions and view them as giving in to the “terrorists”. So for the stronger side to make most of the concessions is not popular for its supporters, but it is the only way to attain permanent peace. I list some examples.

• The Irish Peace Process

In Northern Ireland before the 1970s, the IRA (a clandestine terrorist group) had more or less ceased to exist. The original impetus to its creation no longer mattered. The emergence of sectarian violence in the 1970s was directly linked to the oppression by the Protestant police towards the poor Catholic sectors of the population. The IRA emerged as the champion for retaliation against injustice.

In the peace agreement of 1998 brokered by the American senator George Mitchell, the way followed is actually the only way to attain lasting peace. In peace negotiations, it is always the stronger power that has to make the most concessions. The British government made the most concessions and the IRA the least.

• Consider the aftermaths of World Wars 1 and 2

After World War 1, Germany was engulfed in bitterness by the terms of the Versailles treaty and by the economic collapse that swept through America and Europe. Extreme right-wing groups came into the ascendancy in Germany and so World War 2 became inevitable. However, after World War 2 the economic rebuilding of Germany through the Marshall plan had the effect of removing most of the bitterness of defeat, thereby preventing the younger generation from desiring to get their revenge.

• Consider the Middle East

[ I wrote these notes well before 2026]. Israel is the strongest power in the region and has always forced the Arab countries to make the most concessions in any peace conference. The result is that there has never been any real peace in the region. For every concession that Israel forces the Arabs to make, the longer grows the list of resentments that these Arabs have for Israel. These resentments maintain the conflict and ensure that it will be perpetuated by the next generation of Arabs.

This Israeli strategy is the classical demonstration of how not to act if a permanent peace is desired. In all such conflicts, regardless of who started it and why, the losers are invalidated. Hence the losers will hold grudges against the winner, and peace can only be attained if these grudges are addressed and resolved.

• Islamic Hatred against America and Britain

Underlying this hatred are core issues which can be grouped around themes such as invalidation and denigration, as well as the loss of social power. The traditional Islamic religious structure ( like Christianity of 100 and 200 years ago) orientates around character as being the defining mark of a person, within a male-dominated patriarchal society. So all values are linked to ideas about character and male domination of women. Unfortunately, the ideas of character that are followed are linked to the past, and so inhibit progressive social change. There is no understanding that moral values have to change and evolve in order to meet the new problems that social change presents to us.

The model of social structure that is being forced, in many ways, on the Third World is the Western model, which usually means nowadays the American model. Unfortunately, the American model is based on economics, not character; a person is defined by the amount of money in the bank, and not by his character. This model of person-assessment is deeply disturbing to people who believe in character : judging the worth of a person by his possessions is felt to be crass in the extreme. A poor person does not have any money in the bank; all he has is his character. All he can be proud about is his character, which gives him social standing in his community. Unfortunately the American model has the effect of automatically invalidating and denigrating poor people who can only orientate around character. Because of the pervasiveness of Western influence and Western invalidation, it can be common for Islamic peoples to dislike and hate America and Britain without actually having met any Americans and Britons.

On top of invalidation, there is also the issue of women’s rights, and these are deeply disturbing as well to patriarchal and Islamic countries. The men fear the loss of their social power and control. This issue alone once it starts gathering momentum will cause a great deal of conflict in such societies, and in these conditions a traditional response is always to blame one’s enemies. Hence even without invalidation, such countries will be anti-American and anti-British because of the freedom of Western women.

Failure of Orthodox Religions

A great deal of conflict is caused by, or supported by, religious fundamentalist sects. But their supporters do not see these sects as being bad. In the Third World, the poor sections of the community are usually neglected by the state religion (since the poor have little political power and absolutely no social status). When a fundamentalist sect arises, it begins to organise the poor and to provide some forms of socialist help to offset their poverty. So the poor benefits from the new sect. The struggle to survive is mitigated. The relief from poverty means that the poor will always provide the power base of the new sect, whatever political views it may propagate. If the state religion did the job that it is supposed to do and help the poor, then fundamentalism would not have the political influence that it does.

A major way that religions shape the world is that they maintain moral codes. But there is a problem here. A principal source of conflict in a changing world is that whatever moral codes are good today, they will inevitably become out-of-date sometime in the near future. The reason for this is that modern nations are changing fast, and so new moral issues are always arising, issues which traditional morality cannot adequately cope with. For example, many religions are unable to accept the need to have women priests and bishops.

The moral values of the child are usually the reflection of the moral values of the parents. Hence morality remains unchanged, and unable to help the person to face new situations, new challenges and new problems. In these circumstances, religions which do not upgrade their moral codes will gradually fade away into evolutionary irrelevance.

Nowadays the most common way to improve moral codes is by living through violent times: as violence takes new forms, this ensures that moral debate is regularly in the news.

Poor countries usually resist moral change. The best way forward to help them is by giving them economic help in order to mitigate poverty and to increase the availability of free education and free health-care and cheap accommodation. This is a program for “liberal” socialism, as found in Britain. Free-market economics is not the way to improve the conditions of poor countries.

Psychic Energy flow in small Groups

I explain how small groups function as a prelude to examining the spectacle of the Nuremberg rallies in Nazi Germany. First of all, psychic energy is not the same as emotional energy. Psychic energy is required to raise the level of mind so that it can explore intellectual concerns and practices, such as meditation, contemplation, abstract thought, higher mathematics, mysticism, etc.

When we engage in relationships, we exchange emotional energy if we are in close proximity to other people. Emotional energy flows between people when their auras overlap, and this happens when two people are within about 10 to 12 feet of each other. Psychic energy flow stimulates the mind and is not restricted to such a short range (it can flow between people who are thousands of miles apart). The control of psychic energy is a central task of traditional spiritual practices like meditation, visualisation and concentration.
Now I can describe the energy dynamics of small groups, including that of the family unit.

• The Small Group

In my 30s I found faith in two English yoga teachers, Jack Bolton and John Moore. Beginning in 1975, I used to attend residential weekend classes in their country house situated in pleasant countryside near Lenham, Kent. I attended these weekends for several years. Usually these weekends consisted of people wanting instruction in yoga, but sometimes some people only wanted a quiet weekend in the countryside. Jack was the extrovert and John was the introvert. Jack gave talks on aspects of yoga and theosophy in the evenings. After I had been to many weekends, I began to notice a particular phenomenon that happened during the talks. If the rest of the weekend group were interested in yoga, then Jack could talk for hours to his audience in the evening. However, if the audience consisted of people who only came for a weekend holiday in the country, and were not interested in yoga, then Jack ran into a problem. His evening talk began well, but after half an hour or so his ideas started to dry up. After another 10 or 15 minutes he would come to a stop and the evening talk ended. Why was this?  Why did it matter whether the audience was interested or not in the talk?

It was obvious to me what was happening, but Jack never understood. When the audience was interested in yoga, their enthusiasm kept Jack going; they were giving him psychic energy. However, when they were not interested, then Jack received no energy from them and his ideas soon dried up.

In this kind of situation, the person who is the centre of attention or master of ceremonies receives psychic energy from the receptive audience. It is this supply of energy that keeps him going so that he doesn’t feel tired till the show comes to an end. An analogy is that of an electric circuit. Here the electrons from the negative pole of a battery flow round the circuit to the positive pole of the battery. The movement of electrons is from the negative pole round the circuit to the positive pole; this movement requires energy. In Jack’s talks, the audience acted as the negative pole and gave energy to Jack (the positive pole) and he returned the energy as a flow of stimulating ideas to the audience.

• The Family

In a harmonious family, the children give psychic energy to whichever parent is the current centre of attention. This energy gives the parent the enthusiasm to play with the children and to encourage their exploration of the new world they have found themselves in. Additionally, the flow of emotion between their auras enables the parent to delight in their company. In a dysfunctional family, this double flow rarely happens since one or both parents do not have much interest in their children, except to delight in controlling them.

When no energy flows occurs between the family members, then this may indicate that the father, as head of the family, is more interested in power than in the children. The children, and the wife, simply become people who have to obey him. In this situation, the family has become a political body in miniature.

• Validation of the Masters of Ceremonies

As another example, I consider the scenario of actors on a stage; they are the centre of attention by the audience. The psychic energy flow between audience and actors is the same as for the small group, but is on a larger scale.

Another factor comes into prominence, that of validation. Many actors feel diffident before the play begins, but once the audience begins showing its appreciation, and validation, the actors feel alive and self-confident and can give a great performance.

Also, football crowds function in the same way, and they especially highlight the ups and downs of validation. If the supporters’ team wins, that team is validated and the supporters are overjoyed; if the team loses, it fails to be validated and the supporters become disconsolate.

I did not pick up on validation when I listened to Jack’s evening talks on yoga at his Lenham house. It was only years later that I realised the need for validation underlies all psychic energy exchange. The audience functions in ways that validate the centre of attention.
Once validation begins, then so too does the psychic energy flow.

The Nuremberg Rallies of Hitler

One social spectacle that has always fascinated me was that of the Nuremberg Rallies held in the Germany of the 1930s. This was the time of Hitler and the Nazi party [¹]. The rallies were typically held in a stadium and the audience of party members and followers could be as large as several hundred thousand. What are the psychological dynamics of such a large public spectacle?  Eventually I came to the conclusion that there are three main factors involved: these are the exchange of psychic energy, validation, and domination and submission.

How does domination and submission fit in?  Hitler rose to power in Germany during a period of economic depression and social upheaval, all contributing to a wide-spread social malaise. This malaise intensified feelings of subjection and submissiveness generated by Germany’s collapse in World War 1 and its subsequent victimisation by the victorious allies. Hitler appeared on the political scene before the economic depression but did not make much headway then. However, when the economic collapse occurred, he seemed to be the saviour that Germany needed. Large numbers of the population could surmount their self-pity and abjection by following Hitler as the means to reverse their fate. He became the exciting dominant leader they craved for. They willingly obeyed his commands, even when he went down the path to genocide of the Jews.

Now I can combine these ideas to illustrate how the Nuremberg Rallies functioned. The large crowd is focused solely on the centre of attention, which is Hitler. He is the means whereby the audience can reverse their negative moods and become highly excited by such a dominant figure. Their excitement makes it easy for them to validate Hitler. The psychic energy exchange happening in the large crowd can be considered to be rather uniform, stimulating the same emotions that are circulating endlessly between the people. This circulation will have a significant effect on the relatively few people who have doubts – these people will be engulfed by the circulating emotions and will share them. Whence their doubts will soon disappear as they absorb the mood of the crowd. (This process of a large crowd spreading its mood into any doubters or bystanders used to be called mass hysteria).

The need for validation underlies this energy exchange. The crowd functions to validate the centre of attention. The bigger the crowd, the greater the feeling of validation that the centre of attention feels. Hitler received both emotional energy from those near to him, and psychic energy due to the validation from the vast audience. The validation that Hitler received at Nuremberg before the World War gave him the self-confidence to take risks, relying solely on his own judgement. Hence when World War II began he could ignore adverse advice to his risky war plans from his military generals. He needed validation and the Rallies gave it to him. He couldn’t seek validation from any other person since no-one else in Germany was more powerful than he was.

The Rallies were no longer held once war began and this had a significant negative effect on Hitler. When the war in Russia began to go badly for him, he no longer had a major source of validation available to him, and his self-confidence started to disappear. As his self-confidence began to erode, he made more and more mistakes in his control of the battle fronts, and eventually became paranoid.

So the legacy from the Rallies was one of the important factors that enabled him to succeed in all his early military ventures, until his army reached the outskirts of Moscow and his luck disappeared.

The Significance of Revolutions

The significance of political and social revolutions is that they primarily change the children, rather than the adults.

The adults have been socially conditioned during their childhood, so the new situation after a revolution will only have minor lasting effects on them. However, the children of that time will grow up in a different political or social situation from that which the adults experienced. Hence the children’s social conditioning will be different in some important ways from that of the adults.

[¹]. Wykes, Alan, Nuremberg Rallies. Purnell's History of the Second World War, campaign book No 8, Macdonald & Co, 1970. [1]

Copyright © 2026 Ian Heath
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