16

INTRODUCTION TO THE KORZYBSKI MEMORIAL LECTURE OF BOOST A. M . MEERLOO, MDHarvard Club, New York City, 28 April 1964

Allen Walker Read

I feel that it is an honor to introduce Dr. Meerloo, for he is one of the most eminent speakers that wehave had in the thirteen-year history of the Korzybski Memorial Lectures . If I were to give you Dr . Meerloo'sachievements at full length, I'm sure it would embarrass him, for he is truly a modest man . But in these cata-clysmic times of the past three decades, he has been thrown into situations where the melodramatic and the he-roic have been thrust upon him . At the opening of World War H, he was living in The Hague, in the Netherlands ;and in addition to his private practice as a psychoanalyst he served as psychiatric consultant to the governmentagencies and to the Royal Court.

Living under the tension of the impending invasion of Holland, he thought deeply about what was happeningin human psychology, and two books resulted in 1940, Homo Militans, the Psychology of War and Peace in Man,and The Psychology of Pain and Sorrow, both published at The Hague . For the next two years he had to treat thevictims of Nazi mental torture, and he developed the outlook that enabled him to analyze totalitarian procedures .Even then he knew how 'brain-washing' would work . The Nazis put him in prison in 1942, but he escaped toEngland and became a colonel in the Netherlands Army-in-Exile and chief of the Psychological Department . Af-ter the war, back in Holland, he became High Commissioner for Welfare in the Netherlands Government .

Since coming to this country in 1946, he has had a private practice, held many academic posts, and haslectured widely. The books that he has written by now number more than eighteen and his articles more thanthree hundred .

If I were to list the honors that have come to him, it would take me a long time . But you are not so muchinterested in the honors, I think, as in Dr . Meerloo as a person . He has studied mankind in an amazingly widevariety of its aspects . In any subject that he tackles, he comes up with fresh and startling insights . At theheight of the 'rock and roll' craze a few years ago, he developed the hypothesis that its deep, primitive attrac-tion springs from the following source : when the child is still in the womb, it hears a double heart beat, its ownand that of its mother . This syncopation of two rhythms against each other is remembered by the nervous sys-tem, and certain forms of jazz therefore create a deep response .

Because I am a lexicographer, I have been much interested that Dr . Meerloo coined the word menticide,probably a permanent addition to the language . It refers to the killing of the mind, which many nefarious forceslead to these days .

One of his critics has called him, I think rightly, the 'passionate spokesman for the democratic practiceof life .' But I would call him not only 'passionate', but 'compassionate' . Dr. Meerloo is above all a humani-tarian with deep concern for human sanity in all its aspects .

Dr. Meerloo is an original thinker who does not follow anyone else's terminology . In these Korzybskilectures we have not chosen speakers who are direct students of Korzybski's work, but those who are working intheir own way along non-aristotelian lines . Dr. Meerloo has a special talent for taking figures of speech andworking out their implications .

In his address this evening he will speak on the subject, 'Mental Contagion and Emotional Infection .'

JOOST A .M . MEERL00 was born at The Hague in theNetherlands in 1903 . His MD degree from the Uni-versity of Leyden was awarded in 1927, and in1932 he received the PhD degree from the Univer-sity of Utrecht . He was deeply involved withthe tragic events in Holland during the waryears . For his services in behalf of his coun-try in Holland and with the Army-in-Exile he wasdecorated in 1943 by the Netherlands Governmentwith the Distinguished Service Cross .

In 1946 Dr . Meerloo came to New York, andis now an American citizen . Besides having aprivate practice, he is Associate Professor of

Psychiatry at the New York School of Psyyhiatryand Lecturer in Political Psychology at the NewSchool for Social Research .

He was appointed a Fellow of the AmericanPsychiatric Association and the Royal Society ofMedicine (England), and is a member of numerousprofessional organizations in the United Statesand abroad . In 1961 he received a peace awardfrom the American Association for Social Psychi-atry for his 'unselfish concern and dedicationto the welfare and preservation of mankind .' In1963 he' was elected an honorary Trustee of

(Continued on page 25)

Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture 1964

MENTAL CONTAGION AND EMOTIONAL INFECTION

Joost A.M . Meerloo, MDNew York, New York

In unfolding his time-binding principle Korzybskiexplained that this principle is essentially the reasonwhy each new generation has the opportunity to beginwhere the older generation leaves off. History andtime are condensed in various ways . We find this con-densation in the chemical structure of the genes, theso-called carriers of heredity in which the history ofbiological adaptation and learning is conserved, whilewords, symbols, myths and traditions are endowedwith the evolution of man's subjective experiences anddeducted abstractions .

Where does a speaker begin? Where, in the vastconglomerate of inner and outer experiences, lies thesubject of tonight's lecture?

It is an honor indeed to be asked to give a lec-ture in memory of a great pioneer. However, trans-cending the joy and honor which I feel tonight is theawareness of the responsibility to define the modestplace of this paper within the great opus Korzybskileft behind .

My first encounter with the science of semanticsand verbal meaning-which in its beginning was called'signifies'--took place in my native Holland some fortyyears ago, when I was a medical student. The move-ment in the Low Lands started when in 1897 the Dutchphysician and author, Frederik Van Eedem, publishedhis study on 'The Logical Basis of Mutual Relations'(5) . Though he founded his work on the well known pi-oneering investigations of Breal (3) and Lady Welby(18), he went his own way and formulated, alreadythen, some semantic questions about official thinkingwhich he called quasi-scientific abstractions and quasi-logic automatisms .

How surprised I was to find a flourishing scienceof general semantics and psycholinguistics, going farbeyond our limited venture, when I settled in this coun-try after the Second World War. Yet, tonight I am notgoing to rephrase my personal and limited understand-ing of that vast edifice founded by Korzybski and hisstudents . My subject is mental contagion and emo-tional infection. What do I mean by that label? Youwill not find these words in the textbooks on psychol-

Address given 28 April 1964, The Harvard Club, New York

ogy, sociology, or psychiatry . Nevertheless, theconcept is used in everyday vernacular . The news-papers write about ideological contamination or po-litical infection, about epidemic criminality and thespreading of pathological habits . Psychologistsspeak about suggestion and the more inadvertent in-duction of behavior . The dissemination of violenceis at this moment a special point of order . Psychia-trists mention infectious psychoses or the uncon-scious transfer of feelings, thoughts, and actionsKorzybski, in his introduction to Science and Sanity,writes about the concept of infectious identification (7) .

All this is reason enough to look more closelyat this subject of mental contagion or psychic con-tamination. Be aware that all these words are bor-rowed from the pathology of infectious diseases . Ac-cordingly, we will unwittingly look for communicableunits, for psychic germs going from one person tothe other. Although the concept of mental contagionis still undefined, all the metaphors used up till nowpoint at a hidden and inadvertent transfer of feeling,thinking, and action .

But before we start to look at the clinical factsI have to come back to my unanswered question:Where does all this fit into the science of generalsemantics, founded by the man in whose honor wehave gathered here tonight? I have to go back toSpinoza who in his herkological approach of 'omnedeterminatio est negatio' taught us that in order tolearn to explore and define we have to be well awareof our limitations, that is to say, to be aware howbound we are by our suppositions and by our tools ofresearch. We first have to walk around our subjectin order to determine what distorts and inhibits ouroutlook. Like in a bowling game, we attempt manythrows at our subject of observation hoping to hit thecore of the problem in the end .

Let us tentatively accept that mental contagionintrudes into our feeling and thinking unobtrusively .Mental contagion comprises, as it were, the scienceof concealed communication of all that intrudes intoour clear semantic thinking and troubles the higher

17

18

abstractions . I want to show that such psychic infec-tion takes away the consciousness of abstracting andthat it pushes us unwittingly back to a non-verbal levelof relating . Just as minute neurophysiological occur-rences-as for instance a small stroke-can changeour ability to conceptualize, so are our verbal ration-alizations and abstractions distorted by inadvertentenvironmental attitudes and suggestions . Indeed, wespeak of the infectious psychological climate . Mentalcontagion dulls the awareness of the fact that we mustcontinually go over and above the doctrinal complianceasked for by our environment. It coerces and distortsour endeavor to think clearly and it robs our mentalapparatus from its highest aim, namely, to think inan unbiased way. A technician would say that we haveto be on guard at all times for disturbing noises inour communication system . Mental contagion in theform of unobtrusive brainwashing can be a permanentintruder into our semantic endeavor and into our sys-tems of orientation .

I now have to warn you that many people feel anunpleasant resistance against this subject . The Ideathat other people's emotions and thoughts can unex-pectedly intrude into our thinking affects our illusionof psychic autonomy . We want to ward off such eerieconcepts. Yet, when I go deeper into this subject youwill become more familiar with what I have to relate .Remember that those who have become more ac-quainted with the concept of mental contagion are start-ing to build defenses against this unobtrusive influenceand are thus able to better eliminate self-deception .It is the same with myths : those who accept mythsfor what they are will no longer be lured by them .

Allen Walker Read (14) gives a beautiful exam-ple of disturbing noises from Civil War days in thiscountry. He tells us how the unexpected 'rebel-yell'of the Confederates completely demoralized the Yan-kees until they familiarized themselves with this weap-on of psychological warfare . Yelling, of course, bet-ter not be part of a meeting to which we came' in orderto discuss philosophical and psychological subjects .But every lecture is a symbolic fight in which we mu-tually probe: Who has the strongest psychic impact?I want my ideas to measure themselves with yours .Instead of yelling, or fencing with steel, I use wordsymbols . Those symbols, traveling between you andme, are loaded with manifold meanings which every-body interprets in his own personal way, graspingparts of the semantic and emotional intention behindmy sophisticated symbols and my gestural actions .Various additional little cues in my communicationwill decide whether my audience is going to accept orreject my presentation .

Let us now look at the clinical considerations tosee if some general rules of mental contagion can beestablished .

The Pattern of Interaction or Man's HorizontalPsychic Conditioning

Man exists through personal interaction . Thisis true even for a hermit who, in his own mind, livesat the center of a network of relationships. We knowrelatively little about this web of cross-relations thatis continually active . It has been known for sometime that a case of panic in one individual can instan-taneously induce collective panic in a group of people,and hysterical behavior on the part of one person willspread like wildfire and easily affects an entirecrowd. There are numerous examples of such psy-chological chain-reactions . It is also true that somepeople are immune and keep their distance, usuallybecause they are better aware of the interaction be-tween them and the group. On the whole we find thatlittle systematic attention has been devoted to theconcepts of mutual interaction, of positive or nega-tive influences, or other forms of behavioral con-tamination .

Psychiatric literature has produced numerousexamples of psychosesadeux or psychosesatrois,and of infectious psychoses (16) within families or insmall communities. Diagnostically one has to detectthe pathogenic nucleus inside the group . Mob psy-chology is for a great part the science of the psychicgerm carriers . There are also several cases knownwhere a latent psychotic parent pushes the child intoabnormal or even criminal behavior . The child actsout, as it were, what the parent represses in himselfalthough the elder is often quick enough to punish theyoungster for his asocial behavior . The so-calledschool phobia is thought to be most probably moti-vated by the mother's unconscious separation anxi-ety: she does not want to the child to leave her .

By and large the theme of human interactionhas been receiving more attention since throughpsycho .herapy greater emphasis has been placed onhuman encounter and the interrelation between pa-tient and therapist . Moreover, the subtle parent-child relationship is now looked upon as the initialconditioner of the molding pattern of man's psychicfunctions. Families live together happily or tensely,depending on the example set by the parents andtheir guidance. Omission as well as commissioncondition the child .

In every group a specific climate of mutual in-teraction is established and its quality usually de-pends on the leaders. From practical experience inthe classroom we are aware that teachers are able toinfluence not only the morale of the entire class butalso the mutual relationships between the students .Often the pattern of interaction is set at the beginningof the school year . A teacher unwittingly influenceshis class through his mood, be it good or bad, whileby the same principle a student with a nervous tic can

infect his fellow pupils .Books on human ecology or social psychology

rarely touch upon the facts of mental contagion. Yeteveryone is daily subjected to a multitude of influencesthat somehow fashion and alter his habits . It is a con-tinuous bombardment by influences, with micro-condi-tionings and tiny seductions . Apart from the presenceof atomic particles in the air that can gradually andinsidiously change man's biologic condition, there aremanifold subtle psychological conditioning units thatbring about changes in people, in their interactionsand their environment .

Man is not a separate individual who can pre-serve his independence . He is the nucleus of a socialunit upon which language, history, tradition, myth,personal genesis and group influences are continuallyhammering away. This fact of daily interaction andcoercion, which is the subject of every study of humancommunication, hurts man's illusions of having an in-dependent ego-so much so that he is inclined to resisttaking this vulnerability into account. Whenever twopeople meet, the stronger personality, after an initialperiod of psychic probing, knowingly or otherwisetries to coerce the weaker one, attempting to becomethe leader. Several patterns of interaction in whichpsychic contagion plays an important role can be de-tected. Between harmonious sharing together and theultimate of permanent one-sided dominance lies agamut of variations .

Man's personal and historical past may be calledthe vertical molding influences, his social environmentthe horizontal conditioner, as suggested by Ehrenwaldin his studies on neurotic interaction in the family (6) .

Each Man Is a CrowdIt may come as a shock to some that man is not

a distinctly set off entity with a constant self butrather the focal point of a field of influences, and thenucleus of various passive disseminations and activeparticipations in community life . Each man plays sev-eral social roles . He is not the sum total of what heconsciously experiences. There is a vast reservoirof subliminal experiences and a large pyramid of un-conscious and biological drives impelling his actions .He is not only that separate unique human being thathis reflection in the mirror shows him to be; he is notonly that highly original creative thinker the poetsings of . He borrows more than he knows from hisepoch and the Zeitgeist, he absorbs continually fromhistory and tradition,, and as an individual creator hesoaks up as much as he can to mold and transform intosome kind of personal Gestalt . Collectively, the lis-teners have also a share in the composition of musicas the composer himself as long as the audiences cre-ate and recreate the accumulated harmonies in theinner ear of their listening minds . A Mozart born inthe twentieth century might have turned out a different

kind of music . To be sure, creative geniuses dotransform the world in which they live ; Hadley Cantrilcalls them the goal-directed transactions that go be-yond the mere interactions (4) . There are also thetalented molders, as well as the mere plagiarists,and don't forget that the very word we speak is aform of plagiarism . Politicians, so utterly dependenton competitive election-strategy and public approvalare even more products of the Zeitgeist and are con-tinually being shaped and conditioned by the massemotions of their electorates .

In our world of today there are very few moralauthorities and individuals who have transcended theoverwhelming network of influences and dare to beunique and wise personalities . The cacophony ofnoises tends to drown the voices of wisdom . Tele-phone, radio and television bring daily hypnosis intoour living room . Television violence disseminatesa contagious and perverting influence onto our youths .Whereas executive power and dictatorship admittedlyexist in our world, there is virtually no affirmationof the wisdom of a single unique human being .

When my book on brainwashing, thought controland menticide (12) first came out in 1956, severalcritics assumed that I was describing an extremepolitical phenomenon characteristic only of totalitar-ian regimes. The fact is that a major part of thebook is dedicated to the non-obtrusive, quiet persua-sion of minds that takes place in. all personal encoun-ters in every civilization . I pointed out how institu-tionalization and technicalization of our communitylife unobtrusively changes people's attitudes into au-tomatic conformity and obedience, while simultane-ously affecting their approach to personal responsi-bilities and commitments .

Descartes' Cogito ergo sum (I think, thereforeI am) needs revising for our times : I think, thereforeI re-think other people's thoughts. I think, thereforeI borrow . from history and plagiarize my teachers'ideas. I think, therefore I am influenced and concen-trate on thoughts inadvertently put into my head byother people's utterances and by the daily headlines .I think, therefore I reshape other people's ideas .This new position of man in the technical age demandsgreat modesty about any direct personal impact onhistory .

In our affluent society a paradoxical phenome-non exists in advertising and in the machinery thatengineers public opinion. In order to justify theirexistence, these institutions have to tax their ingenu-ity to the utmost so as to create artificial dissatisfac-tion in a relatively satisfied economy . It is a cultureaimed at achieving thoroughly saturated gratification,with people continually on the lookout for newer andmore thrilling needs, 'guided' by an artificial crea-tion of new wants, combined with empty ways of fillingleisure time . Because of more leisure time, our

19

20

society is perhaps more prone to mass suggestionthan a culture in which primary human needs have notyet been fulfilled . Boredom provides a fertile soilfor the seeds of suggestibility . Boredom can evenhave a luring hynotic effect and can be more persua-sive for some people than the clarity of purposefulwork. The results of boredom are often disastrous .Human aggression, competition and even destructionmay be aroused and unleashed, although minds atlei-sure can be kept occupied and turned away from thegreat void of senseless living . As we have notedelsewhere (13), it is all too true that regressive bes-tial feelings are more easily invoked and spread bypropaganda than noble ones, according to the rules ofmental oontagion, some of which I now have to explain .

Direct Mental Induction and Regression to ArchaicCommunication

As we already heard, various synonyms areused to designate the phenomenon of mental contagion .We are all 'moved' by other people's emotions .Sometimes this emotional transfer is spoken of asmoral contagion, sometimes as infectious defamationor contagious placing of blame . Stimulating propa-ganda is often called inflammatory. Again the referralto infectious diseases! A politician may speak of peo-ple being susceptible to other political currents be-cause of their persuasive impact . One can refer toinfestation with panic, or behavioral contamination,or the suggestive sloganization of a group .

Many a teacher complains of the one pupil who ishaving a bad influence on his class, officers report afew soldiers who have formed an infectious nucleus ofpanicky cowards in their companies . The psychiatristdescribes infectious mass psychoses or, as mentionedbefore, smaller epidemics of psychosesadeux orpsychoses `a trois . He considers all these a specialaspect of pathological intercommunication . In non-pathological cases he talks about contagious familyinteraction .

These subtle interactions are the products of theintricate web of communications that surrounds man .We live in a field of continuous intercommunicationwith conscious as well as subliminal perception. Stim-uli from within and from outside, of which we aremore or less aware, reach us continually. Evenwhile asleep we are not completely cut off from sen-sory contact with our environment. Experiments showthat even under anesthesia the cerebral cortex regis-ters sensory stimuli . Exploration of the psychothera-peutic process has brought to light the existence of un-conscious pre-verbal communication as well as unob-trusive subliminal information, both making use ofinfinitesimal verbal and gestural clues, and also ofextrasensory perception . There is rhythmic inductionand interaction, gesture and sound, and, at the verysummit of verbal mutual contact the various levels of

semantic exchange . In this lecture attention will begiven to the immediate induction and transfer causedby various forms of archaic communication .

Archaic communication exists of the innatebodily signals and the adaptational responses existingbefore and immediately after birth .

The social intercourse established by innatebodily signal codes held in common by man and beastform part and parcel of archaic communication .Everyone understands and reacts to the distress callsof animals . Certain emotional expressions are im-mediately understood. Crying, laughing, rhythmictapping, yawning, fright reactions, fainting, itching,dancing movements, sneezing, shouting, convulsions,erotic gestures-they all invoke immediate under-standing and response . If I would imitate with myhands the movement of yawning without warning you,many in my audience would take over the sign andbegin to yawn. Nothing is more contagious than ayawn-a sign of boredom-or the rhythmically reiter-ated shout of a crowd-the Nazi 'Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil'or the Fascist 'Puce, Duce, Duce' . If such primaryexpressions are not checked by self-restraint anddignified behavior, mental contagion is all the moreapt to take hold .

Throughout history there have been numerousinfectious dance epidemics. On a note of levity onemight mention 'Rock 'n Roll', the 'Twist', and morerecently the 'Beatle' craze . Rhythm in one personprovokes rhythm in others . It is important to notethat direct mental induction through rhythm and psy-chic co-oscillation follow a definite rule . The morean emotional expression reflects regression to thearchaic biological sign code, the more contagiousthat expression will be . A yawning child, for in-stance, affects all the other children in the class .Somebody who is scratching causes others to feelitchy. Mental contagion means, in this instance, acommon unobtrusive regression to a more primitive,pre-verbal sign language directly understood by all .The primordial units of mental infection are thosewhich in history and time acquired adaptational re-sponses that have a universal appeal . The biologicaland symbolic ,time-binders bind us to identical re-sponses. In medicine we speak of communicable dis-eases caused by infectious units . Similarly in psy-chology can we refer to primordial transferable unitsof behavior which compel fellow beings to co-oscillateas it were, and to react similarly or in the oppositeway. These inductions coming from outside our indi-vidual realm intrude into our clear semantic thinkingand by their emotional impact hamper the life ofreason.

Mental contagion is related to man's deep sym-biotic needs and his utter dependency . More than anyother animal he is dependent on the guidance of hisfellows. It is as if the rising gap between maturing

humans has to be bridged by various new methods ofcommunication. The biological basis of communica-tion establishes the direct empathy that predominatesin the mother-child relation and lives forth in all ofus in the process of direct identification . Lately psy-chiatry studied more extensively the permanent sym-biotic ties that can remain between individuals andare most probably one of the tenets of telepathy . Asthe distance between mother and child grows an ur-gent need for other more symbolic avenues of com-munication becomes established . Thus in everygroup-relation where the old symbiotic tie fromearly childhood is re-enacted--e . g . in societieswhere individualization is not emphasized, sometimesnot even tolerated-the facts of mental contagion be-come more apparent. Social rites and symbols maketheir specific psychic demands on the individual .Even the outsider is affected, though it may be in anegative way. The group frequently induces thestranger's opposition .

It has been observed that mental infection in-creases when established social institutions collapseand the group regresses to more primitive means ofintercommunication . Regression can also be the re-sult of the shock of not understanding and lack of com-prehension in a world that outgrows its traditions toorapidly. Reactive stupidity and the forsaking of intel-ligent endeavor often follow social revolutions .

When the individual's ego boundaries and ego de-fenses are weakened as the result of exhaustion ordisease-which in semantic terms means that he hasto abandon his high levels of abstraction-he is moreeasily suggestible and invariably feels himself to bea more passive victim of outside stimuli . This proc-ess can go so far that people feel completely defense-less. In schizophrenic doxasm we find the patient suf-fering from delusions of relatedness in which he feelsas if his mind and brain were laid bare to every evilintention of others-a condition which he also inter-prets as being brainwashed or victimized by mysteri-ous rays.

However, man's involuntary regression underthe burden of group action and mental contagion is notalways a negative phenomenon. Unfavorable forms ofregression do exist, leading to loss of self, to primi-tivity, chaos and decay . But there is a positive sideof regression leading to revitalization and towardsnew adaptations of the individual organism . We mustbear this ambivalence in mind . In sleep and in ourdreams we all regress and at the same time regener-ate our inner forces . Sleep, as Shakespeare says,knits up 'the ravelled sleeve of care .' While the group,with its greater chance of mutual contamination, tendsto incite the individual to regress to primitive actions,its continuity and its protective influence can preventthe individual from regressing too much . Traditionand social ritual, however rigid they may be, have a

way of bracing the mental backbone of those who havenot yet developed a well rounded self-awareness .

The old mystics believed in a collective emo-tional state with which the logic of thought only inter-fered. In other words people participate in the samefeelings, but when it comes to the conceptualizationof thought and the distantiation required by it theyare apt to diverge. I am thinking here specifically ofthe classroom, this most common experimentalgroup. Thought, reflection and discussion slowlymake individual entities of the participants, althoughthey never gain complete independence from thethoughts of their teachers . For this they need theverification of varied thoughts of different instructorswho teach them to look at a subject from differentangles .

The ambivalent relation between group and in-dividual is clearly demonstrated by man's motivationfor mutual participation and symbiotic enjoyment .The group comes together not only for mutual collab-oration and friendly cooperation, but also with a hos-tile intention of which it is less aware, namely to ex-clude others, to let off steam and to ban and some-times persecute the black sheep and the scapegoatswho have to be offered to the gods of hatred and re-venge . This inadvertent urge to vent common hiddenaggression on outsiders is one of the fundamentals ofgroup prejudice . Scapegoatism and prejudice reartheir heads early, first within the family, then in theclassroom . Racial prejudice is in many ways a dis-placement and a compounding of earlier sibling ri-valry. The semantics of prejudice and vituperationteach us again how infectious rage and hatred can be .

Increased inner tension may lead groups toburden themselves with an enormous load of rulesand regulations, and with extreme legal restrictionsas a protection against inner ambivalence and con-flict. We see another solution of these internal an-tinomies, for instance, in totalitarian regimes . Thegreater their internal trouble the more intense willbe their search for outside enemies and scapegoats .Demagogic strategy also employs psychic contamina-tion, whereby resentment is used as a commonarouser of aggression .

By contrast, a democracy founded on freedomwants to impose a minimum of law, asking of the in-dividual a greater measure of humanism, dignity andself-control than the law requires . The essentialdifference between enforced dictatorial legalism andthe freedom of voluntary personal commitment liesin the confidence men have in their intentions towardeach other. This self-confidence is stimulated bypersonal example and emotional transfer of mutualtrust. One of the most important factors in learningand maturing is the wholesome example set by con-sistent, benevolent and wise leadership . This iswhat we might call the converse form of mental

21

22

contagion through good and just examples .

Man's Vertical ConditioningThe fact that man's feeling and thinking are not

only influenced by the present but are also products oflong historical vertical tradition comes to the fore par-ticularly at times when he feels threatened in his so-cial and private existence . Throughout the world,whenever conquerors and tyrannical occupiers havetried to change the social and economical relations ina country, a resurgence of historical interest has al-ways been the result. In my native Holland, after theNazi occupation, books on historical topics were atthe top of the bestseller lists . We can regard this re-vival of interest partly as a form of escape into thedays of yore, into the glory and heroism of the past .However, it is more than escape because history andtradition are the mental roots which gave life to thevery group that is now in danger .

There is no doubt that this identification with thepast and pride in heritage can be inspiring and maygive birth to the most vital ideas and energies a groupor a nation possesses . We carry within us not only afeeling of horizontal identity, of doing what the Jones'sand the Smiths are doing, but also a vertical or his-torical identity. This is what justifies our painstakingteaching of history in the schoolroom. Yet this samevertical identification may result in the most primitiveregression to antiquated myths and black magic, suchas the world experienced in Nazi mythology with itsglorification of the blond beast in man and the ancientGermanic need for doom and Nemesis . Our illusionof fast progress and change fails to give sufficient at-tention to these history and time-bound patterns behindthe facades of modernism .

The words man speaks have their roots in a his-tory of different meanings . These meanings uncon-sciously reverberate in the word-symbols with whichhe expresses himself. Symbols are indeed the genesof history. Linguists have aptly described how ourthinking is fashioned by the treasure of verbal tools atour disposal .. Our thinking is tied up with our language,and to close the circle, because of the language we usewe are unwittingly bound up with the historical modesof thinking that language represents (15) . In turn, thelanguage handed down to us directs our modes of per-ception (17) .

Another example of vertical conditioning of ourbehavior is what we might call pseudo-heredity--thesubtle interaction from generation to generation . With-out denying the facts of biological heredity, Ehren-wald (6) gave a crystal clear description how genera-tions of obsessive-compulsive people (the Obscompfamily) laid the groundwork of the same conditioningmilieu for the next generation, so that the same oldpattern of pathological psychic defenses had to bebuilt up again by the newcomers .

Developmental psychology has only begun todelve into the many psychic interrelations and inter-actions that exist between generations . In a paper onthe influence of television and other means of com-munication on family interaction, I demonstrated howdegenerating and apathizing the growing lack of emo-tional contact between the generations can be, espe-cially since our technical know how makes it easierfor them to justify individual aloofness . Withdrawnparents make for either rebellious children or forwithdrawn ones . In a mechanized society, steeped inwhat amounts to an automatic urge to conform, theyoungster's hostility and even his delinquency can beone of the paradoxical protests against the feeling ofannihilation of his individual dignity . Numerousclinical examples exist of a form of passive destruc-tive robotism that follows every command issued, beit criminal or otherwise. Eichmann was the veryexample of such a robot full of conscientiousness,yet without a conscience . Technical automatizationgives people the impression of a restless going-on,a speedomania that prevents thinking and precludesthe awareness that many precious things exist be-yond and even contrary to mere doing . The age ofhaste threatens to destroy our capacity for individualmeditation .

Specific sensitive phases exist in the develop-ment of the individual in which traumatic occurrencesmay have a deep conditioning impact, making peoplemore vulnerable to mental contagion during that pe-riod. There are, for instance, ultra-sensitive devel-opmental periods, such as the walking crisis of theinfant and the Weltschmerz years of adolescencewhich can render the growing individual temporarilymore vulnerable to stressful impact and to greatermolding from outside . Every educator has to bemindful of this fluctuation of formative impact by theenvironment. Going to school, a first token separa-tion from the mother, is one such reconditioningphase in the life of the child . With the help of theteacher the child can either start a pattern of cor-rected sibling rivalry by improving relationshipswith his peers, or its old separation phobias can be-come aggravated.

A cornerstone in the study of mental contagionis the clinical acceptance of historical causation inthe individual development of human behavior . Weaccept the fact that a repressed, highly traumatic ex-perience from the past can be reactivated when a re-cent dramatic occurrence suddenly triggers off theold despair which might otherwise have left no tracesand been forgotten forever . Victims who passedtheir adolescent years in concentration camps liveconstantly on such a precarious mental tightrope .Every new stressful emotion triggers off desperatefeelings connected with the past and these powerfulfeelings threaten to send their victims . hurtling to

the ground .

Horizontal Social ConditioningWhich are the horizontal factors that contribute

to mental contagion? When considering ecologicaland psychological factors that condition and directhuman behavior we generally think in terms of con-scious persuasion, or more forcefully, mental coer-cion. Yet there are many unobtrusive influences insociety which shape our lives, often with as great animpact. For example, technicalization and institution-alization-more than other cultural phenomena-havedestroyed many a person's belief in himself as a self-governing individual. He feels caught up in a networkof suggestions difficult for him to offset with his pri-vate opinion and his own ethical evaluation because heis usually not aware that these suggestions exist . Wemust distinguish here betweendepersonilication-atemporary defensive surrender of the individual's in-tegrity to mass influences, which is a universal andnormal process-and depersonalization, which is aprocess of psychotic breakdown of the ego .

In the German S. S. state every soldier had to bean automatic, obedient follower . His oath of loyaltyimplied complete and unquestioning obedience to theorders from his Fiihrer and was absolutely binding .Were he to become critical of the commands he had tofollow, his only moral choice would be flight or sui-cide. The loyalty oath, an old magic tool of mentalcontagion instituted to ensnare man's conscience in asand trap of unceasing loyalty, is still one of the greatillusionary equalizers of our time . The fact is thatmature man cannot be unconditionally submissive to afallible fellow man . He needs real terror or terroriz-ing fantasies to incite him to submit . Dictatorial co-ercion enforced by terror changes nearly everyone in-to an automatic submissive conformist . Even the on-looker who wants to .steer clear of this process is notimmune to the gradual equalization of minds throughhis inadvertent interaction and sympathy with otherpeople's fears and sorrows .

Time does not permit a description of all the in-tricacies of unconscious and unobtrusive mental coer-cion which I discussed in detail in a monograph onbrainwashing and menticide . Suffice it to say that wehave become increasingly aware that systematic mass-persuasion, mass-suggestion, and mental mass-coer-cion do exist. Every group, every society, and everyculture exert stresses and tensions which have a mold-ing and conditioning impact on its members . In theSaturday Review of September 6, 1958, the late Sena-tor Richard L. Neuberger described a panicky surren-der of the U. S. Senate to a highly charged emotionalcollective confusion. The subject under debate waswhether to vote funds for a study on Strategic Surren-der'. Few had taken the trouble to read the volume inquestion but the key word 'surrender' had aroused a

feverish excitement that finally led the Senators tosurrender to collective emotions of pseudo-heroismrather than weighing with reason the matter underscrutiny. Indeed, mental contagion is related to thebolstering of hidden anxieties and our defensesagainst them.

Studies by Benedict (2) and Mean (8) show howspecial traditional habits determine the aspect of aculture from the very onset. We speak, for in-stance, of schizogenic societies (Bali) and paranoio-genic societies (the Dobu and the Nazis) . Also, werefer to apathizing and criminogenic societies, or toshame-and-guilt societies . It is all dependent on howconditioned and internalized the various individualand social responsibilities in these cultures have be-come . A society usually hands its members, in ad-dition to the verbiage and labels, a cluster of articu-lations, justifications and clichbs, giving the reasonswhy the participants are expected to adjust to thatsociety's code, prejudices, and ceremonials. This'platform' usually tends to obscure the fact of needfor compliance and psychological submission. Be-cause politicians always have to manipulate the in-strument of persuasion, they themselves are oftenvictimized by their own tool and become more vul-nerable to suggestion . The same is true ofhypnotists .

Man's innate masochism and his need for depen-dency play an important role in his nearly automaticsubmission to doctrines . To give a paradoxical ex-ample, social tension and stress as such do not al-ways have a direct anxiety-provoking impact on man .Sometimes it is the cessation of tension, the libera-tion from burdens, and the frustration caused bysudden unprepared-for leisure that cannot be crea-tively filled, that affect man's equilibrium. Panic,for instance, can develop when danger and stressare over, precisely because the tense misery haspassed. Many people do not know what to do withtheir pre-ordained defensive attitudes once outsidedangers are eliminated . To translate this into edu-cational terms we can say that the absence of rulesand the lack of discipline in a broken or weakenedfamily can arouse all the panic of unchecked uncon-scious drives in a child . Education has to help thechild discipline his crude instinctual impulses . Nosociety can forego the need for restraint .

Social tension, coercion, and the compulsion toconformity better fulfill immature human needs whenaligned with substitute gratifications such as utopianexpectation, self-adulation, or externalized hatred asmanifested in prejudice and scapegoatism. The con-tagion of aggression, excitement and debunking helpspeople to let off steam . Many people have an aver-sion to individual freedom because such freedommust lead to greater responsibility and individualcommitment .

PROPERTY OFINSTITUTE OF GENERAL SEMANTICS

23

24

Man looks at the world not through rose-col-ored glasses but through the lenses of his biasedemotions . The slave can be made to believe that helives in paradise, while those who have the luxury offreedom and independence can be talked into suffer-ing daily feelings of deprivation and dissatisfaction .Indeed, in our technical era the emptiness of moreleisure time has become for many a new burden call-ing for new adaptations .

How man is influenced and mentally infected byhis horizontal social conditioning can easily be dem-onstrated in the relatively small world of psycholo-gists and psychiatrists . The theoretical schisms be-tween these practitioners of the art of mental healingare usually determined by the school the student hap-pened to visit and subsequently by his teacher's opin-ions rather than by his own initial verification of factsand thoughts . The student's initiation into a specificpsychological group or subgroup is more often di-rected by similar social and ecological factors---sug-gestion, economic wherewithal, and prejudice-thanby elaborate study of the various pros and cons ofhis adopted psychological system and its competingviews .

Man's freedom starts by delineating his unfree-dom. That is why we have to study the spiderweb ofcommunication that invades our freedom of thinkingand abstracting. We cannot merely study man as aconcrete, independent, self-enclosed entity . He al-ways lives in a field of multifarious influences . Evenas a scientist he remains a benign plagiarist, andthis is true of the philosopher as well . The words wespeak are taken over from the language of thousandsof generations. Although we impute to each other asimilar manner of thinking and feeling, it is becauseof our disparate backgrounds that we all give a differ-ent interpretation to the words we hear .

Nevertheless, man is in continous mutual rela-tion and communication . Again, the loneliest hermitcarries within his mind his fantasied companions withwhom we has inner conversations . Everyone is inhimself a center of psychic reception and absorption .Man is also a transmitter of messages . There is nosuch thing as an isolated self-one is primarily agroup of shifting ego-boundaries in continual exchangewith the ego-boundaries of others .

In communicating, the core of the other personis rarely reached. The much talked-about I or Egoor Self, residing within its boundaries, 'is',a hypotheti-cal central pilot who receives as well as broadcastsmessages. He relays the incoming communicationsaccording to an inherited and acquired code and, inaddition, he may be a thinker for himself and a doerin his own right . These central pilots are agentsacting upon various influences according to their in-nate sense and the code imprinted on or developedwithin them .

Man's need for an elaborate network of com-munication is related to the absence of ripe instinctsat birth . His foetalization, biological retardation,and his lack of agile adaptation cause him among allanimals to be almost completely dependent on hisparents and peers during infancy and early child-hood. By opposing his peers, man remains relatedto them . Within the intricate communication net-work he perpetually classifies himself as to wherehe belongs, where he wants to be accepted, whatnetwork he fits into or wishes to fit into .

Man's self-realization implies his being awareof his continual interdependence and interrelationeven in his maturity . With Plato we may say thatreason makes people less amenable to coercion . Astrong feeling of self usually betrays a satisfactorysocial adaptation-one feels accepted and successful .It does not always mean bein a strong autarchic ego .Many subtle clues are used in this never-endingprocess of social selection and verification wherebyvarious people are included or excluded from theindividual crowd we call the total person .

SummaryMental contagion delineates the science of con-

cealed communication, of the manifold hidden cluesand disturbing noises in the system of mutual infor-mation. The study of psychic infection shows, morethan the individual analysis of man, how intimatelybound up man's emotions and behavior are with hisenvironment and his biological and historical past .Both biological and historical time are condensed inman and determine his limitations .

This brief survey of the influence of mentalcontagion in personal and social interaction showsfirst that man is an individual crowd, a complex be-ing directed by manifold internalized suggestions andidentifications through which traditions, parents,family habits, and teachers unobtrusively shape him .Man is not only an individual thinker but his culturaltraditions and the Zeitgeist think in him and for himthrough an intricate web of communications . We arebrainwashed as it were by our own, and our fellowbeings' primitivisms .

Vertical mental contagion is the product of theinfluence of linguistic conditioning, of history, tradi-tion and pseudo-heredity through interaction of gen-erations. Horizontal mental contagion is the resultof the unobtrusive mental exchange, persuasion andcoercion that condition man's behavior . Simple rulescan be formulated for the contagiousness of psychicphenomena. The more a human expression resem-bles an archaic and innate biological adaptation themore it forces fellow beings to reaction in the sameway. Co-oscillation with and induction by archaiccommunication is the core of mental contagion .

The unique individuality in the 'internalized

crowd' gets a greater chance to assert itself whencritical assessment of existing persuasions and sug-gestions can be made and the person can distantiatehimself from the web of conscious and inadvertentcommunications that are molding him . We may finishwith Spinoza's adagium that 'man's freedom starts bydelineating his unfreedom .'

BIBLIOGRAPHY1, Barbu, Z . PROBLEMS OF HISTORICAL PSYCHOL-OGY. New York: Grove Press, 1960 .

2 . Benedict, R. PATTERNS OF CULTURE . NewYork: Houghton Mifflin, 1939 .

3 . Breal, M. ESSAI DE SEMANTIQUE . Paris :Hachette, 1884 .

4 . Cantril, H. 'The Individual's Demand on Society'in THE DILEMMA OF ORGANIZATIONAL SOCI-ETY. New York: Dutton, 1963 .

5 . Eeden, F. Van. 'Redekundige Grondslag Van Ver-standhouding' in STUDIES. Amsterdam :Versluys, 1897 .

6. Ehrenwald, J. NEUROSIS IN THE FAMILY .New York : Hoeber, 1963.

7 . Korzybski, A. SCIENCE AND SANITY . Lakeville ;Connecticut: The International Non-AristotelianLibrary Publishing Company. 1st ed. 1933.4th ed. 1958 .

(Continued from page 16)the Institute of General Semantics .

Since 1928 his book reviews have been published inmedical journals and the scholarly press . His articleswhich have appeared in the General Semantics Bulletinare : 'Communication in the Therapeutic Hour : The Impli-cations of Silence,' GSB Nos . 20 & 21, 1957, and 'TheNetwork of Communication : A Psycholinguistic Analysisof Speaking and Listening,' GSB Nos . 26 & 27, 1960 . Afew of his numerous books are listed here : CONVERSATIONAND COMMUNICATION: A PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO LANGUAGEAND HUMAN RELATIONS (International Universities Press,1952) ; THE RAPE OF THE MIND (World, 1956) ; THE DANCE :FROM RITUAL TO ROCK AND ROLL -- BALLET TO BALLROOM(Chilton, 1960) ; THAT DIFFICULT PEACE (Channel Press,1961) ; ILLNESS AND CURE : ESSAYS ON MEDICAL PHILOSOPHYAND MENTAL HEALTH (Grune & Stratton, 1964) . .

Dr . Meerloo's Korzybski Memorial Lecture has beenpublished as Chapter 15 in his recent book, UNOBTRUSIVECOMMUNICATION : ESSAYS IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS (Royal VanGorcum, Netherlands, 1964) .

8 . Mead, M. and Metraux, R. THE STUDY OFCULTURE AT A DISTANCE . Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 1959 .

9 . Meerloo, J.A.M . CONVERSATION AND COM-MUNICATION. New York; International Univer-sities Press, 1952 .

10 . Meerloo, J. A. M . 'Mental Contagion .' AMERI-CAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, Vol .XHI, 1959.

11 . Meerloo, J . A .M . 'The Network of Communica-tion .' AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHER-APY, Vol . XIV, 1960 .

12. Meerloo, J .A.M . THE RAPE OF THE MIND .New York: World Publishing Company, 1956 .

13 . Meerloo, J .A.M . 'The Dual Meaning of Regres-sion.' PSYCHOANALYTIC REVIEW, Vol. 50, 1962 .

14. Read, A . W. 'The Rebel Yell as a LinguisticProblem.' AMERICAN SPEECH, Vol . 36, 1961 .

15 . Sapir, E . SELECTED WRITINGS. Berkeley,California: University Press, 1949 .

16. Tolsma, F . J. 'Modern Psychiatric Views on theInduced Psychosis .' FOLIA PSYCHIATRICANEERLANDICA, Vol. 54, 1951 .

17. Whorf, B. L . LANGUAGE, THOUGHT AND RE-ALITY. New York: John Wiley, 1956 .

18. Welby, V. SIGNIFICS AND LANGUAGE .London: Macmillan, 1911,

25