Monday 8 March 2010

Unseen influences: interference and minor sabotage

I decided to write this article after discovering Carissa Conti's In2worlds website and reading what she has to say about Interference and how it is used to break apart relationships. 

I have some stories of my own to tell about interference on an individual level; I want to add my personal experiences to the available information. 

This article covers only minor incidents, not the vicious attacks, major derailings and sabotage I have endured along the way.

Interference in childhood
The first occurrence that I can remember of a particular type of interference that I call 'nipping in the bud' happened when I was very young. I had invited twin girls from my class in school to my birthday party. I remember their names, but I can't remember much else about them, apart from the fact that this was the first - and last - time that they visited my house. We were playing games; my father was clowning around and he threw his arms up and 'accidentally' hit one of the girls in the face. She burst into tears, and the sisters decided to go home. 

I soon forgot this incident, and did not think about it for many years. It is insignificant in itself, but a pattern emerges when it is considered together with other, similar incidents.  

By chance, when I was around five years old, my father ‘accidentally’ hit me right in the middle of my forehead with the end of his billiard cue: by coincidence this is the area of the ‘third eye’. 

Sunday 7 March 2010

Unseen Influences: the sacrifice of the sons?

When I was very young, I was an avid reader of the works of such prolific novelists as Sir Henry Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rafael Sabatini. I knew at the time that both Rider Haggard and Kipling had a son who died young; it wasn’t until many years later that I learned about similar tragedies in the lives of Conan Doyle and Sabatini. 

Rider Haggard’s only son died of measles aged 10 or 11. 

Rudyard Kipling’s only son was killed in the first World War at the age of 18. Rudyard Kipling had lobbied for his son’s conscription after the boy was declared unfit for military service. Sadly, Kipling’s elder daughter had earlier died of pneumonia at the age of seven.

Conan Doyle’s first-born son died at the age of 25 in the flu epidemic in 1918. 

Rafael Sabatini’s son and only child died in a car accident at the age of 17 or so. Mrs Sabatini was in the car too but survived: she was thrown from the car, which reminds me of the fatal car accident involving Monaco's Princess Grace and Princess Stephanie. Rafael Sabatini’s young stepson died in a plane accident after joining the RAF. Something went wrong when he flew over the family home to demonstrate his new skills, and his plane crashed in flames nearby.