“The most crucial battles are often fought in the shadows.”

To get more specific about the story, the blurb on the back cover says enough to whet one’s appetite without giving away too much of the story:

“One blustery March finds Dr. Jennifer Larson’s hypnotherapy practice entangled between spiritualism and a psychopath.”

Other issues addressed in more subtle ways are the similarities and differences between healthy narcissism (taking pride in one’s work), malignant narcissism (exploiting other people’s good work), sociopaths (underhanded and lacking empathy), and psychopaths (capable of murder).

Key words I chose for search engines include:

Hypnosis
Hypnotherapy
Psychological Horror
Mindreading
Psychic
Channeling
Afterlife
Spiritualism
Materialism
Psychotherapy
Philosophy
Narcissism
Sociopath
Psychopath

Many years of hard work were put into this novel. It was a world in which I emersed myself while it took on a life of its own. It even surprised me as if I were experiencing the story rather than just being its writer. I trust you will enjoy it as much as I did. Thank you!

Depression is Not for Everyone
by CV Berton - Sunday, 30 August 2020

Putting aside the kind of depression that the experts say can only be controlled with medication, there is a large swath that are depressed because of thoughts that, with discipline, can be controlled without medication.

Narrowing it down further still, there are people who think they are not good or not useful, and I would suggest that this premise is incorrect, and if eradicated would alleviate this form of depression.

Even the Bible says that “no one is good, no, not one”. So, being “good enough”is a theoretic impossibility, therefore, throw that one out. What you should be proud of is not being harmful to other people. If you can say that, then there is really nothing about which to get down on yourself. If you are being harmful to someone else, that is within your control, so you just turn it around. Problem solved. An apology would be appropriate also, and maybe some restitution if applicable.

Addressing the other issue of not being useful, the question becomes: To whom? This incorrect premise that you must be useful to other people is flawed. You don't have to be useful to other people other than providing some service or product they want for which they will pay you, and that pay is useful to you! You see, you are doing it for yourself. Their happiness is a byproduct.

It's okay to enjoy life for yourself. You owe yourself a living, and by doing that, you are making others happy, but their happiness is only so that you get paid, and that's reward enough. Stop beating yourself up. You don't owe anyone anything other than what you're buying from them. And they're selling it to you for their own selfish reasons, not because they like you. Nevertheless, always give them more value than for what they're paying, so that they remember you and keep coming back for more. That's called job security - for you.

So, if you were someone who used to feel depressed because you thought you weren’t good enough or useful enough, you don’t have to be depressed anymore. You have now learned that not being harmful to others is all that is really required of you, and that to be useful to yourself by working with dignity and value is plenty of reason to pat yourself on the back. So, go ahead, treat yourself to the good rewards of your hard labor.

Depression is not for everyone, and it is certainly not for people like you who believe in themselves.

Humans, Like Other Species,
are Territorial
by CV Berton - Thursday, 25 April 2019

To castigate nationalism and patriotism as evil or even “xenophobic” is to deny nature itself. Most, if not all, living organisms are territorial. It’s necessary for survival. What creature doesn’t want to be safe in the area where they need to eat, sleep, procreate and raise their offspring?

Reasonable people want strong national security for the same reasons other animals are territorial. We want a safe place to eat, sleep, procreate and raise our young. But as thinking creatures, and being the most intelligent animals on Earth, we see national security in a much larger scope. We are concerned for our progeny and descendants for thousands, if not millions, of years into the future.

And as an advanced, socialized society, it’s certainly not just our singular bloodline we’re hoping will carry our surname many generations into the future, we want the social structure in which we have thrived to continue on as well, and that requires preserving our culture in perpetuity.

The territory in which we find ourselves living today, and for which we fight to preserve on many fronts, is what many have called “the American experiment”. Reasonable people know that this experiment was a phenomenal success, not in terms of longevity, but in terms of quality of life, average lifespan, prosperity and advancements in technology, travel, health, knowledge, communication and entertainment. No other nation has transformed the human condition in such a relatively short time as did the United States of America.

But who and what are trying to take it all away from us? Only those who oppose our way of life and our social order built upon our philosophy based on human rights, meritocracy and freedom could be our enemies, even when they live among us, dress and speak like us - in fact, that’s what makes them more dangerous than our foes trying to invade and destroy us from the outside.

Yes, the enemy within. We’ve all heard the expression. They work in unison, and they work with our outside foes as well, to weaken our national sovereignty, to undermine our pillars of society, like our faith and our families, our independence and our free market. They do this through the use of propaganda, utilizing whole industries which they have strategically co-opted, like our education system, the news media, the entertainment industry, and most recently, the internet.

Their propaganda is all about how nationalists and patriots are knuckle-dragging Neanderthals who hate those who don’t look and speak as do they, and want to keep them out of their country. But they paint themselves as being much nobler, educated and sophisticated. “That is not who we are,” they say. They would erase all borders if they could, and just allow all walks of life from all four corners of the world to come and go as they please. What could possible go wrong?

Then one could ask, “Why would those who live within our territory, along side of us, not be territorial? While we are naturally territorial, why are they being unnaturally nonterritorial?”

Ah, but you see, our in-house enemy has just as much instinct as any household dog. Why else do they attack relentlessly? It is not that they are not territorial; it is that they seek a wider territory which includes this piece of geography upon which our cities and towns are built. It is a difference in the way they define their territory, and their definition is very wrong.

While we define our territory as borders, language and culture, they define their territory as no borders, no official language and no faith-based, family-based culture. They’d gladly sacrifice Middle America for their own prestige and their own family’s heritage.

Our enemy also has a parasitic nature, and a cunning one at that. While its leaders seek a territory which put them on successive levels of height, power, influence and stature, they ride on the backs of the people they see as the proletariat – the laborers – the malleable hordes, whom, ideally, they want kept ignorant, doped up and generally unhealthy in mind and body, to be, in the end, deprived of all rights and ownership of land.

If we do not join them in their micromanaging government, or conform like sheep to the laborers in the “labor party”, they want to engage in their comprehensive strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy us, like Obama claimed he wanted to do to “ISIL”.

In nature, the animals fighting for territory either fight to the death, or the losing party is beaten so decisively, that they retreat and limp away in disgrace. Humans, on the other hand, are the most intelligent animals on the planet, and there is a chance that a good many in the unreasonable party can be convinced to join us in freedom, family, faith and independence in a society that rewards and encourages upward mobility, with secure borders to keep our crazy enemies out. But in the meantime, beat them fair and square in the arena of ideas and debate (and other arenas if necessary) until they retreat in disgrace.