Prison guards and parents: two memorable passages

I was reading about the author and explorer Sir Laurens van der Post recently, and came across something that he wrote during his captivity in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

Once, depressed, he wrote in his diary:

"It is one of the hardest things in this prison life: the strain caused by being continually in the power of people who are only half-sane and live in a twilight of reason and humanity." 

Van der Post’s words summarise his experience very well; they are of particular interest and significance to me because they could also be used to describe some people’s experience of childhood – as seen in retrospect rather than at the time though.

Van der Post was an adult at the time of his internment; he had experienced freedom; he had seen a different world and lived a different life; he knew what reason, sanity and humanity were.

He had gone from the normal to the abnormal.

It is another matter when we are born into what seems like imprisonment and into the power of people who are more like prison guards or hostage-takers than caring parents. There is an extra dimension to deal with: we need to put everything into context and learn from first principles how decent human beings behave, and what reason and sanity are. 

Carole Nelson Douglas summarises this stage very well in Cat in a Midnight Choir:

“...no anger, no fury is stronger than the final, unavoidable realisation that the protector has betrayed his role and is really the destroyer. But it takes a while to find out that the unthinkable is not the status quo, and that your daily 'normal' is very abnormal to a larger world.“

People from dysfunctional families need to go from the abnormal to the normal.

It certainly does take a while, perhaps because after living so long in the twilight zone we can only take the truth in small doses and need to adjust to reality very slowly. We need to deal with some devastating realisations. 

Our lives may indeed have been as far from normality as Laurens van der Post’s life in the prison camp was.

The Three Hostages: a sinister scenario

I was very young when I first read John Buchan’s thriller The Three Hostages, an adventure story that features Richard Hannay and contains a fascinating mystery to be solved.

At the time, certain expressions that would now be considered ‘politically incorrect’ and offensive did not register, nor did I see anything particularly noteworthy in the horrific mental state of the hostages and the unpleasant, alien conditions in which they were forced to live. At the time, the clues to the hiding places of the hostages and the challenge of finding and freeing them were the most gripping aspects of the story. 

The details of life as lived by privileged, well-connected people were very interesting too. I found the book exciting and informative. I envied Richard Hannay: I wanted that sort of action and lifestyle for myself!

Now, after many years of investigating unseen influences, it is the references to magic, wizards and the stealing of souls, the discussions of psychology and the subconscious mind and the descriptions of hypnotism and mind control that are for me the most significant aspects of the book. 

As his friend and colleague Sandy Arbuthnot says to Richard Hannay:

“…the compulsion of spirit by spirit.  That, I have always believed, is to-day, and ever has been, the true magic.”

There is a lot of general information in The Three Hostages about the sinister and unethical practices mentioned above, and about the attributes, abilities and personality of the kind of man who would make use of them.

Now, what holds my attention above everything else is the effect that these practices have when applied to the hostages, also the details of hostages’ lives while in captivity.  Much of this has relevance to the real world; some of it is also very familiar to me. The resemblances that I can see and the connections that I can make to my own life are very painful to dwell on. 

Watership Down: a sinister scenario

There is an episode in Richard Adams’s Watership Down that made me feel very uncomfortable when I first read the book and still affects me negatively many years later.

I see this book as much more than an entertaining story about the adventures of some fictional rabbits: it has many relevancies to humans and real life.

The episode in question can be interpreted in many ways: psychologically, metaphysically and politically. There are aspects that remind me of cults and conspiracy theories too.

It all begins when two very different groups of wild rabbits meet for the first time.

The nomads meet a settlement of eerie, unnatural rabbits
A band of wandering rabbits is seeking a new home because of a predicted disaster. They find a promising-looking field then discover that it is already inhabited by other rabbits. The existing occupants are large, sleek and healthy and seem very prosperous. They are not hostile: they are unexpectedly welcoming and invite the newcomers to join them, saying that there is plenty of spare room in the warren. 

Fiver, a member of the travelling band who is psychically gifted, advises his companions to have nothing to do with the place and its inhabitants. He says they should all leave at once. 

The rabbits are under the unofficial leadership of Fiver’s brother Hazel, who despite the warning decides to accept the strangers’ hospitality. He leads his band down into the warren. 

The others start to mingle and settle in but Fiver sits alone and apart, apparently ill or very much depressed. The new rabbits avoid him instinctively.