By PressTV.com.
Are people who think 9/11 was an inside job suffering from pathological delusions?
That is what the mainstream media tells us. But a recent study published in Frontiers of Psychology suggests the contrary. It found that 29 of 30 research subjects – 97% of the sample – turned out to be “9/11 conspiracy theorists.” And it concluded that questioning the official version of 9/11, and constructing an alternative explanation, is a sign of psychological health.
The article’s title “Thirty shades of truth: conspiracy theories as stories of individuation, not of pathological delusion” summarizes its key finding: People who doubt the mainstream media’s version of 9/11 are not deluded. Quite the opposite: They are notable for “individuation,” a term coined by Carl Jung which he defined as: “The better and more complete fulfillment of the collective qualities of the human being.”
Are 9/11 truthers and other independent-minded skeptics really better and more fulfilled human beings? That is the exact opposite of what mainstream propaganda has been telling us.
The term “conspiracy theorist” was launched into wide circulation in the 1960s by the CIA ‘s Document 1035-960. That memo, entitled “Countering Criticism of the Warren Commission Report,” ordered the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird media assets to smear people asking questions about the JFK assassination by labeling them “conspiracy theorists.” Since then, “conspiracy theorist” has served as a weaponized term. Whenever defenders of an official myth cannot argue convincingly on the basis of facts and logic, they resort to the ad hominem “conspiracy theorist” insult as a weapon of last resort.
The good news is that the explosion of “conspiracy theories” in the wake of 9/11 is not a symptom of collective insanity or mass delusion. On the contrary, it is a sign that people are growing psychologically healthier.
And if the study’s sample is any indication, more and more people are becoming psychologically healthy. Psychologist Marius H. Raab and his four co-authors discovered that 29 of the 30 participants in their “constructing 9/11 narratives” experiment refused to swallow the official version of 9/11; only one participant fully endorsed the official story (and that person admitted to having no interest whatsoever in 9/11). Perhaps the public is becoming saner, better-adjusted, and better-informed than even the most wild-eyed conspiracy optimist would have believed.
Why are alternative 9/11 conspiracy theories psychologically healthier than the Official Conspiracy Theory (OCT)? The obvious answer is that the OCT is transparently false.
Believing something that is self-evidently highly improbable, and contradicted by all available evidence, is virtually a textbook definition of “pathological delusion.” The “two planes took down three skyscrapers” claim is ridiculous on its face; and the notion that “radical Muslims” who relished pork chops and debauchery, and could not even fly a Cessna, could achieve stunt-flying feats beyond the abilities of the world’s best pilots, is bizarre beyond belief.
Another obvious answer is that the Official Conspiracy Theory (OCT) is paranoid, racist, and murderous. Believers in the OCT have murdered more than one million Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan based on the paranoid delusion that “radical Muslims” carried out 9/11. If killing one person on the basis of their religion or skin color is a hate crime, what shall we call the murder of more than a million?
Full article here.
Real News Australia 