“Gaslighting: Psychological abuse – manipulating someone to doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity” – Patrick Wanis PhD.
(Also: Gurus demand obedience and claim supernatural authority & dominion over other people https://youtu.be/wvMyoFLdQQ0 and read/listen to this interview https://www.patrickwanis.com/how-gull…)
The play Gaslight reveals the man, Jack, using various methods to try to convince his wife, Bella, that she is going mad, that she is becoming forgetful, secretly misplacing, moving, losing and even stealing things as well as hallucinating sounds and images. Jack makes her completely doubt herself, destabilizes her perception of herself and the world around her and ultimately makes himself to be the victim of her madness & disease. Bella can no longer trust her own memory or her own perception of reality.
Each night Bella hears sounds and sees the gaslight dim in her bedroom, which is caused when someone else turns on another light in the house. The house help and her husband (who is secretly switching on another gaslight in the house) deny that anyone else is in the house and so she continues to be fooled by her husband’s lies and manipulations. Bella resigns herself into believing that she is really mentally ill until a stranger comes to her rescue and convinces her she is not mad, but rather she is being tricked.
“Gaslight” was produced and staged in London and Broadway (as “Angel Street”.) “Gaslight” was turned into a film in 1940 in the UK, and the US version in 1944, featured Ingrid Bergman who won an Oscar for her role.
Eventually, the term “gaslighting” came to describe a form of psychological abuse where the abuser manipulates the victim into doubting their own memory, perception, and sanity.
