On Gaslighting
28th March 2026
The name comes from the famous film GASLIGHT (1944) starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, where a young bride’s new husband slowly manipulates her into believing that she is descending into insanity, to distract her from seeing evidence of his crimes (including that the gaslights through the rest of the house dim when he sneaks into a attic at night and turns on the lamp there — from this comes the film’s name).
Gaslighting is a sophisticated technique, pioneered by the Nazis when the radio was still a new invention, perfected by the Soviets over many decades of Cold War, studied and copied by the CIA, and installed secretly into all the mass media in the United States, and in the world, by Project Mockingbird and other secret operations.
In brief, gaslighting involves two cooperative groups: perpetrators and willing victims, or, as I like to call them, following HG Wells’ names for the post-humans more highly evolved than we, Morlocks and Eloi.The Morlocks who know it is a lie repeat it endlessly, relying on the sheer fact that it is outrageous to make victims pause to doubt it.The lie is surrounded with all the normal evidences of ‘social’ proof, that is to say, the cues and labels used by groups of men to confirm to each other that they are saying and hearing the truth, such as, for example, the confidence of delivery, coming from a trusted source, coming from an expert, from the celebrities and “cool kids” and hearing that the opposite is heresy, a sign of mental and moral inferiority.The lie is packages to be easily memorized and repeated, usually a phrase or word “conspiracy theory” or “islamophobia” that is smugly used by never actually defined. The smugness with which they utter perfect nonsense or repeat absurd lies even after being caught is a social proof of truth: instinct says liars should hesitate, or seem nervous.The perpetrator rarely says the conclusion to be drawn, merely implies it, and leaves the victim to draw the conclusion himself, so that the normal skepticism used for statement coming from others is never triggered: the victim is under the illusion that he came up with the idea independently.The Eloi have their self-esteem and their worldview wrapped intimately about these lies, so that to question them would invite the downfall of every point of pride.