Dark Matters
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 19th, 2008
Life is not all about Yetis, of course.
As I have mentioned in the past, I have another blog that deals routinely with my research and consulting on the copycat effect, school shootings, and suicide clusters, often with a sidetrip into twilight language.
As you can imagine, I have had to put some time and some words over there lately. I could tell something was on the horizon, and then the Northern Illinois University shootings occurred.
For those interested in these topics, I have recently written several essays on the current events:
NIU Shooter: Steve Kazmierczak
New St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
Finally my February 9th posting of “Change is in the air. And danger…” where I predicted more rampages before NIU even happened, as I saw an important change as “Shootings Shatter Gender Barrier.”
Forgive me for this reality check-in. Hopefully, there will be some intriguing and uplifting cryptozoological news in the coming days.
Best wishes to all, be safe, be alert, and be prepared.
Loren, you’re a man of many hats. It’s a blog I will bookmark.
Nice articles. Great insights, as always.
What (I think) we have here is a case of a good “masker”. Nice and pleasant on the outside, with a lot of psychotic rage on the inside. Good actor.
What is interesting is the comment by the woman who was supervisor at the psychiatric facility he used to be in. She was asked if he had ever shown violent behavior towards the people at the facility. She said one could never tell, because his facial expressions were always the same in all circumstances. He had the same face whenever he was doing something bad or good. Unsettling.
The tragedy was, the behaviors before the shooting
taken by themselves were not indicative of what was going to happen, but taken CUMULATIVELY they should alerted someone “insightful” enough to have taken them in together. Nobody did, and six are dead.
Loren,
wondered if you were aware of the recent suicide cLuster in Wales. Ove the past year or so there have been at least 17 suicides of teenagers from the same towon of Bridgend in Wales. Unfortunately another young girl of 15 took her life yesterday. It seems that many of the young people know one another, but police have ruled out a suicide pact or cult. Many people now think that media coverage is making the situation worse. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7253788.stm
I remember reading Malcolm Gadwell’s book, ‘The Tipping Point’ when he discusses suicide clusters in Micronesia. His conclusions would seem to affirm the media influence factor.
I think this may be a factor in the high school/college shootings that have been experienced in the United States recently.
Great blog by the way. Before I start work every morning, I alway check to see what’s on on Cryptomundo. Must check out your other blog now.
As long as firearms, especially handguns, are so easily available, the shooting rampages will go on and on.
This may be true, somewhat, in America. But more globally, it is not just about a gun vs non-gun stance.
In Japan and China, suicides and school stabbings occur because of knifes.
In India, suicides and mass killings are done with fire.
It is a broader issue that is only reflected in the cultural framework in which it lives.
Yes, indeed in Japan most of these crimes are committed with knives although there have been some recent incidents involving guns, especially hunting rifles which are not as strictly regulated in Japan. Unfortunately there has also been a disturbing trend for the frequency of these attacks to rise. Although knives do less mass damage, the terror these attacks instill in those involved is still very real, and the shock among the general public is almost palpable here in a country that people here like to think of as “safe”. In the end, regardless of the culture, someone who wants to commit these attacks is going to find a way with the tools at hand. In my opinion gun control, while certainly an important measure, is only part of the problem, an effort to cure the symptom of a much more complex disease so to speak. Japan has great gun control laws, yet a rising incidence of random attacks. I think there are obviously some underlying issues that need to be addressed and perhaps there is a way to take a more holistic approach to combating the root of the trouble other than just making sure access to weapons is limited.
Dear fmurphy1970, et alii, please read the other entries at The Copycat Effect blog and you will find details of the Welsh cluster and The Sunday Times interview with me about it.
Loren thanks for putting this on Cryptomundo. As a VA Tech student and cryptozoology enthusiast I want to commend you on your work that you do in researching these matters. The world we live in today commands that we, as humans, have to band together and fight the greater common good for the security of one another. Those who suffer obsessions and mania that drive them to acts that are so horrific and brutal are acting out from somewhere inside of them which they may not have known existed. Society as a whole, temporally speaking, has subconsciously decanted its worst and most ghastly desires into inner most debts of us all and some of us cannot and will not recognize then when they brim over into consciousness. The result becomes these seemingly random acts of violence. Loren, you know better than most that they are not so random but latent expressions of what we as society truly fear. I can only hope that we decide, as a society, to change what we are doing to one another. Thank you again Loren.