Western Ghost Stories Aren't About the Fear of Death; They Are About the Trauma and Regret of the Living

I drew this on October 1, 2015. It is supposed to be Chernabog from the "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Disney's "Fantasia." Of course, Chernabog is a demon and not a ghost. =)

I recognize that, by definition, everything that exists, exists within the natural universe and operates according to the principles of natural law.  Even that which is man-made is natural in the sense that it functions according to scientific principles and cannot contradict or suspend them.  Anything that exists has natural attributes.  According to that understanding, to say that the "supernatural exists" is a contradiction in terms.  To label something "supernatural" is not to say that it is "extremely natural," but that it is above and beyond natural -- that it is outside of what is natural (i.e., that which exists).  To proclaim that something has an existence beyond, apart from, and outside of Nature is to proclaim that it has an existence beyond, apart from, and outside of existence.

I find it no contradiction that I continue to be fascinated by stories about the paranormal and the occult.  I do not take those stories literally anymore, as I did when I was ten; they now interest me as a sort of psychological phenomenon.  I am interested in the significance and the symbolism of ghost stories.  Here, I will not so much discuss people's motivations for why they listen to and tell ghost stories, but about why I think certain famous ghost stories remain well-remembered.


It's About More Than "I Just Like to Feel Scared"
Briefly, I think that it is an incomplete explanation to say that people like ghost stories because they like to feel scared.  As horror movie mogul Wes Craven once pointed out in USA Weekend, no one really likes feeling scared as such.  Rather, people expose themselves to scary stories and movies in order to make themselves feel brave.  When they encounter such scary stories, they feel all of the primal sensations of fear and alarm.  But, by the end of the story, they remain safe and alive, while they feel somewhat brave for having "survived" the simulation of terror.

I think that if people listened to ghost stories and watched scary movies solely for the sensation of fear -- without any interest in the other emotions involved in the story -- then they wouldn't have much memory about the details of the story.  I surmise that the details of certain ghost stories touch upon emotions other than fear.  When people have strong memories about a certain ghost story, it is not merely because they empathize with the protagonists who encounter the ghosts, but empathize with the ghosts themselves.


The Rules of a Certain Ghost-Story Template
There is definitely a lot of variation, and what I am about to say doesn't perforce apply to every famous urban legend about ghosts.  However, many famous ghost stories follow a certain template.

First, the ghost is territorial; he or she inhabits a certain location; there are geographic parameters the spirit cannot breach.   Some ghosts, such as the one I will describe later in this essay, are capable of traveling long distances.  However, even in the case of these exceptions (as I will detail below), there remain thresholds the apparition will not cross.

Secondly, the ghost has some sort of "unfinished business"; there was something that happened to the ghost when he or she was alive; the ghost feels that this matter remains unresolved.  This aspect of the ghost-story template is integral to my theory.

The third aspect is that insofar as the ghost conveys that he has "unfinished business," the ghost will betray this information in only the most indirect fashion.  This is seldom purely by the ghost's own choice; there is always some involuntary (usually unexplained) aspect of the spirit realm that precludes the ghost from very directly expressing to the living what issues of the ghost remain unsettled.  The story usually goes that when some living human encounters a ghost, the ghost communicates by nothing more than cryptic clues that the living investigator has to piece together.  (This is seen in the supposedly based-on-truth movie The Changeling.)

In many respects, a living human trying to investigate the story behind a ghost's unrest is very similar to a psychologist trying to uncover the reasons behind the mysterious behavior of someone who is mentally ill and in denial about the mental illness.  If you very directly ask a mentally-ill-person-in-denial about the reasons for his or her condition, you will seldom receive a direct, straightforward, earnest answer.  This is especially true if that person is still going through his or her "episode."  By the same token, if the living human enters the haunted domain and asks the spirit, point blank, what it wants and what needs to be done for the hauntings to stop, the ghost will seldom provide a direct, lucid, coherent answer.  Usually, the ghost cannot give a coherent answer, just as a mentally-ill person will feel that he or she cannot.

The fourth rule is that a ghost that haunts a place engages in some sort of repetitive behavior.  I have heard stories about some horrible mass murder committed on some famous spot.  Supposedly, every anniversary the ghosts of the victims and murderer will reappear and, behaving and reacting as if they are still alive, will re-create the entire massacre before living spectators.  When I give this example, one might say to me, "Aha! The murder results in death; therefore, the ghosts' re-enactment of events necessarily has to involve their death."  I dispute that.  For instance, there are some ghost stories (both presented as fiction and as "true") about some hospitals, schools, or orphanages where patients or children were mistreated.  According to the legends, the mistreated ghosts will re-appear and whimper, and re-enact the mistreatment, even if the mistreatment did not result in their physical deaths.

The repetitive behavior is another trait that haunting spirits have in common with living people who have certain mental illnesses.  As I mentioned before, many people, who have a certain context-dropping image of "life, as it really is," insist on going through the same self-destructive behavioral patterns over and over again, despite their always getting the same dismal results.  An example would be an insistence on getting into one abusive relationship after another.   The pattern only changes when the living human chooses to commit to changing with it, and sticks to that commitment.  Likewise, a ghost that haunts some place will usually repeat the same pattern until the "unfinished business" is resolved.  Unlike a real-life living person, however, the ghost cannot change the pattern on his own; he necessarily needs a living human being to help him; he needs the living, lucid human to initiate some new action that alters the course of events and gives him peace.

Next, I will give an example of a famous ghost story that I think follows these conventions.  After that I will explain why I think that people find the story scary not primarily on account of it reminding them of death, but primarily because it reminds them about the regrets that living people have about their lives.


The Vanishing Hitchhiker
Here is a story that is almost always told as true, and goes at least as far back as the 1970s.  Commonly the storyteller says it happened to a friend of a friend.  A motorist minds his own business driving along some area that isn't very familiar to him.  Along the way, he finds a rather benign-looking hitchhiker.  The motorist stops and asks the hitchhiker where he wants to go.  The hitchhiker gives a very specific home address.  The motorist replies, "Hey, that's on the way to my destination!  Hop in!"  The hitchhiker probably doesn't ride in the front passenger seat, but in the back, where the motorist cannot see the hitchhiker unless he turns his head.  Along the journey, the two get to talking and form an emotional bond.  After a while, though, they stop talking.

Eventually, during the silence the motorist reaches the home address.  He turns around and says, "We're at your stop!"  But the hitchhiker is nowhere to be seen.  The motorist looks everywhere and cannot find his companion.  Puzzled, he says to himself, "I deserve an explanation."  He goes to the residence and rings the doorbell.  Some old person answers it.  The motorist says, "This is going to sound very strange, but I picked up a hitchhiker who asked me to take him to this address.  But now I can't find him."  At this point, the motorist sees the hitchhiker in a photograph on the wall and exclaims, "That's him!"

The resident explains that that hitchhiker is a relative or some family friend, and has been deceased many years.  Sometimes the story goes that the hitchhiker had some falling out with the house's residents, and they always missed each other.  The hitchhiker died before any reconciliation could take place.  In some versions of the story, the hitchhiker was going to the house to make amends, but on his way he was hit and killed by a drunk driver . . . and he died on the very spot where the motorist picked him up.  In some versions, the resident says that there were many occasions on which other motorists picked up the hitchhiker at that exact same spot and the hitchhiker gave the address, only for the hitchhiker to disappear before arriving at the destination.

At this point, someone who hears the story for the first time (usually a child), gets goosebumps.  I find that a very interesting reaction.  Why would you find that story scary when the ghost's intentions are completely harmless?  The hitchhiker isn't trying to kill anyone.  He isn't trying to possess or enslave anyone.  He just wants to return to a certain location -- a place he couldn't return to while alive.    My first impulse might be to say, "People find the story scary, despite the ghost's benign intentions, because the story reminds of them of death."  But now I think differently.  I think that the story is scary because it reminds people of regrets about actions people have taken while alive -- the story is scary even when it reminds you of people who still are very much alive, at least physically.


My Analysis of the Hitchhiker Story
First I want to point out the areas where I think the hitchhiker tale fits the template I mentioned.  At first it might seem that the hitchhiker is not territorial; he is able to travel by motor car.  But note that he always follows the same path and his mobility remains limited.  Whenever he is picked up by a motorist, he is picked up at the same basic spot.  In some versions, that spot is where he died, and, according to some odd rule, his dying there renders it his default location.  The hapless motorists usually take the same route.  Finally, the hitchhiker always tries to get to the same address, and, presumably, he always disappears from the car at roughly the same area on the road.

Second, that the ghost has some "unfinished business" is very obvious.  He keeps trying to reach a certain residence, and he never succeeds.  Back when he was alive, he wanted to get there to try to resolve some personal matter.  Because he died before that could happen, the matter will forever remain unsettled.

Third, the ghost's method of communicating his basic problem is indirect.  The ghost could have told the motorist from the beginning, "I'm a ghost and I want to reach this street address because there is someone there whom I never properly said good-bye to before I died."  But the ghost doesn't say that; his pain is conveyed to the living person in a very roundabout way.

Fourthly, there is the repetitive behavior.  There are versions of the story where the house resident tells the motorist that many other motorists in the past have picked up the hitchhiker in the same location, only for him to disappear in the same location.   Thus, like many people with Borderline Personality Disorder, the hitchhiker keeps replaying the same pattern of behavior, only to wind up with the same dismal results (or non-results).

I believe the story strikes a chord with people for reasons quite apart from the part about the hitchhiker being dead.  I think lots of people remember that story because they have empathy for the hitchhiker.  They think, "Isn't it tragic that the hitchhiker died before he could truly settle the matter?  Isn't it tragic that the hitchhiker will not be able to give his final message to the house resident face-to-face?"  Then they think, "I have lots of unresolved concerns going on right now.  What if I died before my dreams were fulfilled, before I could resolve the troubles in my life?  What if I die with similar unfinished business?"  That's a very unpleasant thought, and I think that is the real reason that the story's ending gives people goosebumps.

I think that the tale of the vanishing hitchhiker evokes a fear much greater than the fear of death.  It reminds people about regrets.  It reminds them of how so many living people, today, engage in regretful actions -- or regretful inaction -- and lots of them are going to die before things can be made right.  That is, those wrongs will never be righted.   A possibility such as that is what is truly frightening. This is the probable root of a common American expression.  When someone continues to be bothered by unpleasant memories, he can say, "I'm being haunted by the ghosts of my past."


Haunted
That metaphor is given a lot of meaning in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.  As he is being literally(?) visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, Ebenezer Scrooge is pressured into facing all of the regrets of his past.  When talking with the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge faces his present insecurities, particularly his loneliness.  Finally, when stalked by the Ghost of Christmas Future, Scrooge contemplates the possibility that he will die before all of his present insecurities are reconciled -- that when he dies, it will be in a state as lonely as he has been in the present and the past.  The ghosts are a metaphor for (1) Scrooge's regrets and (2) Scrooge's fear that those issues will never be rectified.

I think the principles I have explicated even apply to ghost stories involving ghosts that re-enact their own murder.  When those tales evoke fear, I don't think the fear mainly comes from the realization that the victims have died, but mainly from the horror of contemplating the fact that real, living people are capable of performing an act as monstrous as murdering other human beings.  That's why people will find a ghost story scary if dead children in an orphanage, mental hospital, or school reenact physical or psychological abuse they have endured.  Even though the re-enactment doesn't involve the characters' death, it evokes fear and revulsion because it reminds us that people can inflict forms of cruelty that don't even result in anyone dying.  That, too, is regretful.

And as the vanishing hitchhiker story exemplifies, the ghost story doesn't have to involve human evil in order to be disturbing.  The common thread in these stories is that, back when the ghost was alive, people made highly regretful choices and they were never corrected -- nor will they be.  Very few of these stories end with the living eyewitness finding a way to finish the ghost's unfinished business.

I have been thinking long and hard about this symbolism, because I know someone who spent time in Hawaii with me -- and returned to Norway -- who has suffered with suicidal tendencies and self-mutilation for years, and could be very happy, but, to my knowledge, has refused to return to psychiatric care.  In one of her more lucid moments, my friend warned me that in social relationships she repeats the same dysfunctional pattern -- first it starts well, but she does something to sabotage it later on.  Just as it would be with a ghost, my attempt at conversing about the matter in a straightforward way are frustrated; but, like a ghost, my friend lets out indirect cries for help.  Many people assume my friend is confident and business-savvy.  But, conspicuously, my friend insisted on looking like a ghost, wearing black almost every day and trying to be very pale.  She even went as far as uploading -- in the absence of providing any context behind it -- pictures onto the Web where she was very realistically photoshopped to look like a dead body, complete with pallid gray skin. Later she finally stopped uploading the corpse pictures but that hasn't stopped the public morbid gestures entirely -- she legally changed her name to match the last name of someone she and another relative have cryptically hinted was a source of abuse.   My worries about the matter have led me to be very openly agitated and jumpy, just as I would be if a supernatural entity were visiting me.  As there is with every ghost story, there are elements of regret:  I regret that my attempts to help my friend are stifled, and that my friend's inner torment -- like any specter's -- goes on and on and on. You can say that I'm very much haunted by this.  And until I find a way to stop worrying about it, this remains a demon yet to be exorcised.

Why, If a Relative Raped You, It IS Everyone Else's Rightful Business to Know

These are excerpts from a longer essay I wrote.  The whole essay can be found here.

__________


Suppose you knew someone in childhood and, as an adult, became reacquainted with her. Imagine you suspect that, even as an adult, she is being regularly beaten by her spouse. Upon confronting her about this, she says, “This is something for my household alone; it is my private affair; it is none of your business!” Now consider another scenario. Imagine you learn that a young woman was raped by her own relative, and you have enough evidence to make you find it plausible that that relative may rape someone else. When the young woman learns of what you know, she screams that she will never forgive you if you go to the police or tell anyone else about this. She yells, “My relative didn’t rape you or anyone in your family. This is my private affair; it is none of your business! You have no right to go to the police about this.”

Are the women in the above two scenarios correct? The implication in the victim’s assertion is that because she is the one victim of which she is aware, she is the only party who has any right to take action against the aggressor. Because the aggressor did not initiate the use of force upon you or your family directly, says the victim, this is entirely her business and no one else’s. You and the government ought to butt out of this. Is she correct that this is nobody’s business but her own? No, she is not. Any use of violence, be it initiated or made in self-defense against the initiator, is necessarily everyone’s business. It is necessarily your business, and, to the degree that a constitutional liberal republican Night Watchman State has jurisdiction, it is necessarily the business of that government. The reason is that no use of violence, be it initiated or made in self-defense, can properly be privatized. [ . . . ]

Th[is argument] came from the ancient Greek lawgiver Draco. He was allegedly too harsh in punishing crime, and therefore a government acting too harshly is said to be draconian. However, Draco set a precedent that is actually important to having a truly free, constitutional liberal republican Night Watchman State. It turns out that prior to Draco’s time, the ancient Greeks largely agreed with W. Alan Burris that murder was a private matter. The ancient Greeks believed that if, say, Ralphius murdered your brother Jacius, it was not as if Ralphius had threatened the safety of the entire community; his lone victim was your brother Jacius. Therefore, if you wanted justice for Jacius, it was left to you and your family to seek out some personal vengeance against Ralphius. To this, Draco objected. Draco said that if Ralphius murdered Jacius, Ralphius necessarily victimized everyone in the community, and therefore the State, representing the entire community, was right to avenge the entire community against Ralphius.

This is true. If Ralph steals from Jake, then everyone else in the community has probable cause to fear that Ralph may steal from them as well. If Ralph rapes Jake, everyone else in the community has probable cause to fear that Ralph may rape them as well. And if Ralph murders Jake, everyone else in the community has probable cause to fear that Ralph may murder them as well. Even if Ralph publicly issues a serious threat of violence against Jake and has yet to carry it out, the rest of the public has probable cause for fearing that Ralph may carry out that threat against them as well. Therefore, any initiation of the use of force does, perforce, victimize everyone in the community.
[ . . . ] On that understanding, when the constitutional liberal republican Night Watchman State claims to represent the entire community in criminally prosecuting Ralph for what Ralph did to Jake, the constitutional liberal republican Night Watchman State is not collectivistically usurping the authority to represent individual community members against their consent. [ . . . ]

The initiation of the use of violence -- by anyone against anyone -- indeed demonstrates itself to be a threat to everyone in the community and not merely the most direct victim of that violence. If Ralph beats up Jake, there is sufficient evidence for you to worry that you could be the next victim of a beating from Ralph. And even if you, personally, believe that Ralph would never do this to you or your children, your next-door neighbor is reasonable in worrying that she might become his next punching bag. Violence cannot be privatized -- any act of violence inexorably imposes repercussions for people other than the violence’s most direct victim. [ . . . ]

If Ralph bruises his wife, he might rough up other people as well. Therefore, if you learn of this abuse, it is necessarily your business and the business of everyone else in the community. You are right to take action even in defiance of the wife’s protests. Contrary to her assertions, she is not the exclusive victim. The same applies if you learn a young woman was raped by a relative. Even if she sternly pronounces she is the solo victim and therefore it is not your place to intervene, that is not accurate. It is your business and everyone else’s. [ . . . ]

If you have been threatened with violence, or if it has already been inflicted upon you, you may be justified in fearing that if you come forward to authorities with this information, that it might put you at risk of being subjected to violent reprisals from the assailant.  For that reason, in the short term it may be rational that you tell but a few people about this circumstance and ask them to keep it secret in the foreseeable future.  However, that can only go so far. There is probable cause for the law to inquire as to whether this alleged assailant may pose a violent threat to parties besides you and therefore, in the long run, the protection of every peaceful person's rights requires that this information ultimately be publicly available.  On that basis, a right to privacy does not extend to any credible accusation that you can level about someone either threatening violence or having committed it.  [ . . . ]

That which is peaceful is private and should therefore be absent of governmental interference. Yet, by the same token, any violence that occurs anywhere, even if inflicted in putative self-defense, can never be privatized and should therefore be of concern to the public and the constitutional liberal republican Night Watchman State.

When We Must 'Interfere'

You know that I am a laissez-faireist. But few people understand what this means.  I am only laissez faire in that if people are being peaceable in their mutually consensual dealings, I do not want government force imposed upon them.

It is an entirely different matter if you insisted on shoving suicidal, self-mutilating, and other morbid gestures in my face and you hinted that this was the result of abuse from childhood that actually long predated early adolescence.  As you took the initiative to make such loud cries for help, you can be damn sure I am going to intervene.

 We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. 

--Elie Wiesel   

The cries for help will not go unanswered.

I've Been Close to Someone Who's Threatened Violence Publicly; Dangerous to Network With Her If She Isn't Getting Needed Help

Trigger warning:  This blog post discusses issues pertaining to child abuse, violent threats, rape, incest, suicidal gestures, and mental illness.


Stuart K. Hayashi




It wasn't easy for me to put this information right here. My concern about the danger -- including physical dangers -- outweighs such fears.  Some years ago I became very close to someone who, sadly, is dangerously mentally ill.  My friend has accused other people of being violent toward her, only later to act as if she does not remember the accusations she leveled. Moreover, in the years subsequent to placing a death threat against her mother on the World Wide Web for everyone to read, the archiving and documenting of this death threat remains.  Copies of the evidence are available.

I have contacted police about this on two continents.  On one continent, the police were unresponsive.  On the other, the police were responsive but said that jurisdictional issues prevent them from taking action.  Because my friend has given no indication that she has truly gotten past the obsession with violence, death, and child molesters, I judge that it is best for me to speak out here. What I know is that if I don't speak out about this, the danger is guaranteed to continue.  By contrast, if I speak out about this, there is at least a slim chance that someone might recognise my friend and give her the compassionate intervention she needs.




My Friend Publicly Threatened to Kill Her Mother -- The Evidence Is Archived, Documented, and Copied 
In 2004, in her home country of Norway, my friend put up this threat to kill her mother.  It is in English and it has been publicly available on the World Wide Web this entire time.  It is not one of those dumb, terse threats that people write on Twitter or YouTube, along the lines of, 'You disagree with me? Then I hope you die!'  Though the threat is grammatically inept in composition, it is nonetheless serious in tone and intent.  My friend does not say that she has some long-term plan to kill.  Rather, she envisions that one day she will become so incensed by her mother's nagging that she will take a knife and thrust the knife into her mother.  This is described vividly, as so:

Click on this to enlarge it and make it easier to read

The threat is documented and archived.  There are copies of it available.  This information is now irrepressible and un-erasable.

The very blog entry following it also has homicidal fantasies.  My friend and her on-again/off-again boyfriend at the time, whom she here calls “N,” were apparently on a break, and her boyfriend was pursuing someone else.  This is what my friend wrote about the other girl:

Click on this to enlarge and make it easier to read.

Direct Link | Archived Link

Some people in our respective circles have rationalised that these death threats are 'long past'.  After all, they say, these blog entries are more than ten years old.  Moreover, four months after my friend wrote her death threat about her mother, she wrote a follow-up post on that same thread where she claims to be all better:  '...im happy that i allowed myself to hate her [the mother]. otherwise nothing would have changed. I now love my mom to death like many other precious people in my surroundings'.

But it wasn't all better.  My friend made it all too obvious she is not recovered.




Years After Threatening Her Mother Publicly, My Friend Continues Exhibiting Publicly the Fixation on Violence and Death
When my friend was on Oahu from 2008 to 2012, she continued displaying morbid and even violent gestures, particularly in a public fashion.  Many of these morbid gestures remain on the Web, and have been documented and archived. There are also copies of this evidence available as well.

For example, in late 2010, my friend had another 'friend' (enabler, really) upload onto YouTube a video where she 'jokes' about being a neo-fascist 'of the Fourth Reich'.  My friend said privately it was a joke, but that is not obvious from the very strange video itself, which was listed as 'News and Politics'.  That my friend calling herself a neo-fascist 'of the Fourth Reich' is some joke is especially unclear for another reason: the enabler who uploaded the video is connected to an anti-immigration political group that advocates government force to curb Muslim immigration.  If you don't want people thinking you are a neo-Nazi, it's not wise to associate with that sort of group.  (Sadly, my friend actually first heard of that group from me, before it took on such a strident anti-immigration position.)

Around 2014, the enabler 'privated' the horrible video.  

Since you're probably not my friend's mother, you are probably wondering, 'Why the hell should I care?'  Until my friend confirms that she has returned to psychiatric care on a regular basis, I have strong evidence that she continues to pose a danger to colleagues with whom she networks. That could be you. Explaining this requires more context.




The Beginning of the Story Behind This
Before my friend showed me the murder threat and the disturbing 'Fourth Reich' video, she very slowly gave me clues indicating the danger.  First, she explained why she was born with her mother's last name instead of her father's, her father being an expatriate from the United States.  It was because her father himself had recently changed his last name.  The story behind that is itself bizarre and sad, and seems to have been because he felt betrayed by his own father back in the United States (we will call my friend's paternal grandfather WH here).  My friend laughed and said, 'My mum said to my father, "If we give our baby your last name, how do I know you won't change it again? We'll give her my last name; it's simpler." '  This father is a well-known photographer; his pictures have appeared frequently in the local newspaper and the website of his municipality/kommune, and his photos of the aurora borealis are celebrated throughout the world.

Then, for the first time, my friend sounded vulnerable. She said that she put on a front of bravado to hide her insecurities.  She admitted that she tries to make herself appear to other people that she is in a position of authority and responsibility, because she believes if people see her in such positions and seeming very confident and professional, they will not question her judgment or sanity.  No red flags went off for me; I reassured her that there was nothing unusual about nursing self-doubts.




The Accusation Against the Classmate 
In the weeks that followed, my friend increasingly showed an obsession with child molesters.  The first joke she ever told me happened to be what she identified as her favorite signature on online postings:  'The internet is where men are men, women are men, and small children are undercover FBI agents', alluding to online sting operations against child predators.  Then my friend would reminisce about an ex-boyfriend back in Norway.  She said that he was a deep, caring person who empathised with everyone, a man of upstanding good taste.  Then she stared at the ground and giggled, 'He always joked that he was a pedophile trying to lure kids into sex with him'.

Then in February of 2010, my friend came to a professor and me, and told us a troubling story.  She said that a classmate of hers in that professor's class had sexually propositioned her and, when she rejected him, he grew angry.  Based on his boasting about killing people in war and about his womanising, she was afraid he wanted to rape her.  They got into an argument and my friend had grown direly afraid of him.  A week later, my friend came to the professor and me and said that she was proven right to fear the classmate as violent, because he threatened her, 'If you tell anyone what happened that night, I kill you!'

My friend insisted that we not go to the police (in retrospect, I should have reported this to the police against her wishes) but that she wanted the professor to keep the classmate and her separate from one another.  She did not file any formal complaints with Hawaii Pacific University, but she did go around informally circulating this accusation among several other schoolmates.  I completely believed the accusation at the time.  Then my friend told the professor, several other schoolmates, and me a troubling story where she accused her writing instructor of invading her personal space as he flirted with her.  Again, she did not file a formal complaint and sternly insisted that none of us confidantes do so, either.  I completely believed this accusation as well.




The Obsession With Child Molesters
One night in April of 2010, when my friend and I were going out for an evening stroll, she said, out of nowhere, 'Why are people so bigoted when a convicted child molester moves into the neighborhood?'

My eyes shot wide open and I sputtered, 'Whah? . . . Wh-wh-wh-what do you mean?'

She explained, 'Whenever someone who, as an adult, had sex with a small child moves into the neighborhood, people immediately want to run him out.  They should consider that the child consented to the sex.'  She argued that a prepubescent child should be recognised as contractually competent to consent to sex with an adult caregiver.  She would not be swayed from this opinion, at least not this night.

Later, she also told me that when she was thirteen, she was groped by her then-best-friend, also thirteen years of age at the time.  She attributed her fear of men to the incidents of her friend groping her, though those incidents did not explain her obsession with child molesters in particular, nor her apparently fearing American-born men more than Norwegian-born men.




The Danger Posed to Colleagues (The Latest News Indicates This Danger Is Ongoing As This Is Posted)
Another night that same month, my friend was telling me about her day and then she said, very casually, that she bumped into the classmate.  I mean the same classmate she previously accused of threatening to kill her.  I was alarmed.  As calmly as I could, I asked her to go on.  What happened?  My friend said that she and the classmate had a nice talk, and he was just a nice, fun, friendly flirt.  Then she started into space, giggled, and said, 'Hee-hee! I . . . like [Classmate's name]'!

I was stunned.  I couldn't say anything in response.  My friend only responded to the awkward silence by changing the subject.

She also frequently talked about how she has had a long history of wanting to die.  At school, she threatened to kill herself several times.  Moreover, she mentioned hating her body and that this hatred for her body goes back to her early childhood, long before the boy groped her when they were both thirteen.  She mentioned that ever since she was little, she thought that female anatomy is disgusting because it makes her vulnerable to predatory males.  She did not elaborate on whether she felt threatened by one or two predatory males in particular.

The next day, I went to the professor to talk about her talking up that classmate as if she did not remember her allegation about him.  The professor brushed off my concerns.  Even as my friend made increasingly obvious and public morbid gestures, which he saw up close, the professor acted as if it was safe and acceptable.  For those reasons, I have lost a lot of respect for this man.

Throughout May of 2010, my friend switched back and forth in her memory of the classmate. First she switched back to saying he violently threatened her, and she went around telling other schoolmates about this.  The next day, she again talked about the classmate being just a nice, fun flirt. Two days later, she switched back to saying he was violent and dangerous.  Every time my friend changed her story, she sounded as if she did not remember what said the previous time, even if that previous time was no more than the day before.

By the autumn of 2010, my friend became very insistent on wearing the same garment to university class almost every day.  She took me to her apartment and she showed me all her clothes. It was not that she had lots of garments that looked alike.  This was the same black garment every day.  Then -- encouraged by the same enabler in Norway who uploaded the horrid 'Fourth Reich' video -- my friend uploaded photos of herself photoshopped to have a chalky white face like a corpse.  Two of the corpse photos even went on my friend's LinkedIn account, next to her résumé.  I think some people tried to assume my friend was 'just being a Goth or a Black Metal fan'.  However, my friend has a history of wanting to be dead literally.  For that reason, I could not dismiss this as my friend 'just being a Goth'; I had to take this seriously.

'A Lot of Abuse in My Family's Past[,] Including Sexual Abuse' 
By this time, I already didn't trust the judgment of my friend's American-born father. I did notice, though, that on Twitter he was following an eccentric woman from the same home state in the USA that he was from.  What got my attention was that the woman's website purported to be for a charity she set up, one for helping at-risk teens and twentysomethings (my friend's age range at the time).  All of the mental illness symptoms the woman's website described were the same as what my friend had either admitted to having or had exhibited to me directly. I thought, 'Who is this strange woman? Is she perhaps a psychologist with whom my friend's father consulted about my friend's problems in Norway?  About symptoms that are now becoming strong and publicly visible once again?'

I contacted this strange woman. I told her I was interested in her website, because I had a friend in her twenties who was exhibiting the symptoms the website described.  I mentioned to this strange woman, though, that I am worried that if she is a psychologist, she might consider it a conflict of interest for me to describe my friend's situation, as I think this strange woman knows my friend somehow.  The strange woman replied she is not a psychologist and it is OK for me to tell her what concerns me.   I told the woman about the morbid gestures but had not yet mentioned anything about the accusations about the classmate, the fear of men in general, or the obsession with child molesters.

It turned out that this strange woman is the paternal aunt to my friend.  The aunt remarked that my friend's situation was both familiar and unfamiliar.  The situation was unfamiliar in that, this entire time, the aunt was unaware that her Norwegian niece was going through all this. Yet, the aunt continued, what I described was indeed familiar in one respect:  when the aunt described mental illness symptoms on her own website, she was describing her own symptoms, and she was startled by how my friend's symptoms were similar to her own.  (I will not link to the woman's website, but rest assured that the website's URL is archived, its contents documented.)

Before I could say anything about the child-molester fixation or the accusation about the classmate, the aunt asked me whether my friend exhibited a prominent hang-up about sex.  I asked her what she meant.  The aunt replied, 'There is a lot of abuse in my family's past[,] including sexual abuse'.  Throughout the months, the aunt revealed that both a cousin and uncle of hers killed themselves, though in different ways. The cousin very deliberately committed suicide by throwing himself off a bridge. The uncle, named Delbert, sexually assaulted the aunt and later killed himself.  Later, the aunt mentioned that the father of both herself and my friend's father -- WH -- sexually abused the aunt and her sister.  As far as what the aunt said, though, my friend's father getting mad at WH and changing his own last name in protest -- to that of his mother's maiden name -- was unrelated to the sexual abuse.  Indeed, the aunt added that when she tried to talk to my friend's father about their own father sexually abusing her, my friend's father replied -- rather unconvincingly -- that he knew nothing of this when it was going on.

Later, it turned out that yet another brother, both to WH and that uncle Delbert, was also credibly accused of molesting a girl over whom he had authority.  The aunt said that this third brother 'drank himself to death'. That means there are credible accusations against three brothers on the paternal side of my friend's family.

The aunt went through the following pattern.  Every few weeks, she told me she would have a compassionate conversation with my friend about the public morbid gestures, and about their having so many symptoms and traumas in common.  But, last minute, the aunt would delay this.  Then she would start talking to me about something else, such as her co-workers irritating her.  Eventually she told me that she would have the compassionate conversation after she had her own confrontation with WH and her mother -- WH for sexually abusing her and with her mother for being an enabler who "looked the other way."  The aunt planned on confronting her parents with this through a snail mail.  She typed up a draft and e-mailed it to me.  I still have the entire draft in my possession.  It, too, is documented and archived, and copies of it have been made.

At the last minute, though, the aunt decided against mailing the letter. She rationalised that her mother was in poor health and the confrontation would worsen it.  Then she became uncommunicative and rude, and I do not think the compassionate conversation with my friend ever happened.  I suspect, at this point, it finally dawned on the aunt that if she looked further into the matter with my friend, she might uncover something incriminating not merely about WH, but about my friend's father himself, and that would undermine any remaining 'plausible deniability'.




Having to Go It Alone
It was up to me to have a compassionate conversation with my friend.  Most other people in our circles noticed the public morbid gestures but were too intimidated to say anything; they became perfect sycophants who helped my friend pretend that all of her public morbid gestures were safe and acceptable.

When I tried to talk to my friend about this, she feigned memory loss, pretending not to remember what she had told me about her obsession with child molesters and death and fear of men.  Then she added that by raising the topic, I had shown myself to be more evil and frightening than the classmate who threatened to kill her.  She added that my confronting her about this was more evil and hurtful than all of the misogynistic epithets her ex-boyfriends hurled toward her.  Soon after saying all this, she again feigned memory loss, this time pretending not to remember being angry just minutes earlier.  As if she didn't know how the conversation started, she began talking casually about her day and then put on a smile and asked me how my day was.  I reminded her of what our conversation was about -- her violent and morbid gestures.  She then grew enraged again and intoned ominously, 'This is not over!'

For the sake of my physical safety, I had to cut off ties to my friend. But I never stopped caring.




BiggerPockets.Com:  Where the Danger of Continued Violence Remains
Some months ago, when I looked at a real-estate investing website, my friend -- of all people -- popped up.  She talked about how she is a big shot real-estate investor who owns a parking garage in Norway and who is interested in New York.  She finally stopped using the horrid corpse pictures for her avatar.

However, she changed her name; she now goes by her father's last name.  To someone unaware of the context, that must seem a touching tribute to a man of obviously large meaning in my friend's life. But based on what my friend kept saying, and also based on what her aunt said, I am afraid that the name change appears to be yet another morbid gesture.  :'-(
 

If you network with her as a colleague, it would be prudent to remember her behaviour with respect to her classmate and the writing instructor.  As long as my friend refuses to take responsibility publicly for her public morbid gestures -- including, but far from exclusively, the still-online murder threats and photoshop-corpse photos -- there is probable cause in concluding that the danger remains. Indeed, if you work at a particular IKEA Service and Pick-Up Point, you should be very concerned.

I have to bring this up publicly.

First off, falsely accusing someone of a violent crime is itself an initiation of the use of force.  The reason is this.  If X goes to Z and accuses Y of having committed violence against X, then Z may easily respond with violence toward Y, either doing the violence himself as retribution or going to the police (remember that government action is backed by the threat of violence).

Furthermore, every impassioned public threat of violence -- such as the one my friend put on the Web publicly for her mother -- must be taken seriously.  Serious public threats of violence count as an initiation of the use of force.  The reason is that, although not all violent threats are acted upon, there is probable cause to judge that the person who issued the threat might still act upon it one day.

Even if my friend never does violence to her mother, she has given enough reason for people to suspect she might do something equally dangerous or retributive to someone else to whom she feels emotionally attached. You cannot justly hide behind the phrase 'This is my privacy and none of your business!' when the matter involves violent threats you have issued publicly against your own mother. That is particularly when you have continued, throughout the years, issuing public gestures indicating a continued obsession with death and violence.

If you have come into contact with my friend and truly care about her well-being and the safety of those around her, please, please, please confront her compassionately and firmly -- pardon that redundancy -- about how her happiness, her being able to accept herself and her past, without all these evasions, is most important, and that the courage to return to regular psychiatric care is worth it.  It is the part of me that retains confidence in my friend -- that part of me that holds onto the hope that she finds inner peace, authentic happiness, and the hope that she is capable of gaining it -- that asks this both of her and of you.




On May 17, 2020, I added the paragraph about that other brother to WH also being credibly accused of child sexual abuse. On August 15, 2020, I added the information about my friend posting her violent fantasies about her romantic rival.

A Right to Privacy Doesn't Extend to Violent Acts, Including Threats of Violence

Any act of violence -- even in self-defense -- has ramifications for everyone in the community. If X threatens violence against Y, there is probable cause to believe X might also be a violent threat to Z as well -- a violent threat to everyone else.   Violence is inherently a public matter, inherently an externality; it cannot properly be privatized and, to use an economics term, the costs of it cannot be fully "internalized."  By that I mean that if X hits Y,and then Y hits X back, it doesn't mean that Y's retaliation has made them both even.  Y's "private" retaliation does not render this a private matter that can be dropped.  No, this remains a public matter because the violence can still escalate.

Anyone who uses violence -- even in self-defense -- is a possible threat to everyone else, and that is why, even when someone uses violence in self-defense, it is right for police and courts to look into the matter and ascertain whether it was indeed self-defense.

And serious threats of violence -- even if not yet acted upon -- are worthy of police attention, as they create probable cause for members of the community to ascertain that the violent threat might be acted upon.  Moreover, if Q goes around falsely accusing R of making a violent threat toward Q, that counts as an initiation of the use of force, as third parties, mistakenly believing they are exercising retaliatory force in defense of Q, may end up being violent toward R, and this would end up being an initiation of the use of force.

Violence and the threat of it are the greatest threat to anyone's liberty; violent threats are what deny someone the freedom of peaceful action.  Moreover, a right to privacy does not extend to someone threatening violence.  That is, if L seriously threatens violence against her own mother, that is something the public has a right to know about, even if L's mother herself tries to dismiss that as something not to be taken seriously.  Even if L's mother dismisses it, other people around L remain potential victims of L if L does not receive proper treatment from mental health professionals or the law.

If you have been threatened with violence, or if it has already been inflicted upon you, you may be justified in fearing that if you come forward to authorities with this information, it may put you at risk of being subjected to violent reprisals from the assailant.  For that reason, in the short term it may be rational that you tell but a few people about this circumstance and ask them to keep it secret in the foreseeable future.  However, that can only go so far. There is probable cause for the law to inquire as to whether this alleged assailant may pose a violent threat to parties besides you and therefore, in the long run, the protection of every peaceful person's rights requires that this information ultimately be publicly available.  On that basis, a right to privacy does not extend to any credible accusation that you can level about someone either threatening violence or having committed it.