I just read an interesting article about ‘gaslighting’, a term that was
made popular in the 1944 film Gaslight.
The plot of the movie is about a husband using deceptions, beginning with the
brightness and dimness of a gas light, to convince his wife that she has lost
touch with reality and is losing her mind. His diabolical plan was to have her
committed so he could get his hands on her inheritance. I’m wondering if the
first recorded incident of gaslighting can be found in Genesis when the crafty serpent
said to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You
must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Gen 3:1 NIV)
3 comments:
Gail;
-----As long as two or more people apply their volitions in correlation with the truth, they will achieve correlation with each other. Whether or not they call it fellowship is beside the point. It will be that. God created for fellowship, something evidently not good enough for Lucifer. He wanted to be that around which everything correlated, that is God. But he could not be that in truth, because truth is what is, and what is was that God was the stuff around which everything correlates. Now, if that is somehow an inheritance, then I’m thinking you’re wondering might be right, but...
-----The only way Satan could be the point of all correlation would be to dislodge everything from correlating with the truth, that is, to sell false premises. I don’t know how the guy’s thinking could have stacked up, because the irresistible sale price he had to strike for selling his lie was the very thing he wanted, “You can be like God,” or in other words, everything can correlate around you, too. If Eve would have just thought a moment she would have laughed in the idiot’s face. But she didn’t think when she should have; she listened when she shouldn’t; she fellowshipped with stupidity; she bought the premise and lied to herself.
-----This is where Gaslight and The Garden of Eden correlate. Deceit does not create new matter. Not being of God, it can’t. But it twists perceptions, thus misleading volitions through which actions effect the arrangements of God’s creation (Cain knocked Abel on the head rearranging his body from above ground to underground, etc., etc. to today and beyond for a spell.) It may have been well enough for Satan that the only correlation to himself achievable was that all things no longer would correlate with God, the displacement of truth with deceit. But, by this he could only stir the masses, for deceit destroys correlation. So, as long as the wife did not mentally attend what she had learned to be true, the husband’s charade being played through misleading circumstances would twist her inheritance (stuff) into his lap, and to heck with her. He cared squat about enjoying her correlation with him.
-----This idea that Satan was after man’s inheritance has not found a place to rest upon what I’ve come to learn so far. I certainly see the coincidence in Satan being after the place of God while folks having come to God through Christ came also to taking part in Christ, who is God, and therefore they share in His place upon the throne. Then, you know from my comment a few days ago how I think about coincidence. But the question keeping the issue from settling in my mind is whether Satan was butting in on an intention God always had to share His throne with a creature, or whether God’s process of dealing with Satan’s destruction shared His throne with once errant man to show the selflessness of His love so the destruction of Satan and company would be indeed known for the act of love it will be.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Steve,
The serpent knew firsthand what it was like to lose an inheritance. So, I agree there is no evidence that he wanted Eve’s inheritance, but clearly he didn’t want her to have it either.
Gail
And isn't that weird thing of not wanting someone else to have something good though it effects you none at all kind of basic to evil?
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