Power of the Dark Side

by Pamela Jaye Smith

  Patriotic jingoism, stirring speeches, and a whipped-up climate of aggression or defense can fling otherwise sensible individuals into a groupthink frenzy. Whether it’s Popes offering salvation to soldiers on Crusade to retake the Holy Land, Hitler’s call for lebensraum (living room — room to expand) and speedy evolution to ubermensch (superman) destiny, radical Islam’s urge to purge the world of the Great Satan Western culture, the power and allure of many like minds can suck you in like a whirlpool.

  A. IN ACTION

  Talk to anyone who’s ever been to boot camp, where individualism is pressed out and groupthink is shoved in.

  Soldiers going AWOL are often breaking out of groupthink.

  From Thucydides’ on-the-ground account of the 5th-century BCE Peloponnesian Wars to soldiers’ blogs from Afghanistan and Iraq, waging war has always depended on groupthink.

  B. IN MEDIA

  Watch the opening speech in Patton. Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will is so effective it might even inspire you to sign up for the SS (until you stop and think about it). Stanley Kubrick had a wry take on groupthink in Dr. Strangelove and a tragic one in Full Metal Jacket. The Thin Red Line showed individual soldiers switching between groupthink and love musings, ambition mongering, or spiritual contemplation as required by orders and enemy fire. Tom Hanks was a reluctant groupthink leader in Saving Private Ryan.

  Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech for Henry V has been repeated to rousing effect: Kenneth Branagh as Henry urges his British soldiers against the French at Avignon, Bill Pullman as a U.S. President inspires a global group of fighter pilots against the aliens in Independence Day, Tom Berringer as President Teddy Roosevelt does it in Rough Riders.

  Pat Barker’s award-winning Regeneration novels personalize the tragedies of groupthink for soldiers caught up in the madness of WWI trench warfare. Kubrick’s Paths of Glory illustrates the perversity behind that madness.

  Rudyard Kipling’s war poems and stories scathe groupthink, while Tennyson’s poem The Charge of the Light Brigade ennobles it with “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”

  Joseph Conrad details a descent into groupthink in his novel The Heart of Darkness; writer John Milius and director Francis Ford Coppola give it a war setting in Apocalypse Now.

  All war stories by definition deal with groupthink.

  C. IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Inner Drives Center of Motivation - Lower Solar Plexus: separatism and small groups, & Root: survival and death.

  Have your leader do a version of the ever-popular, ever-powerful St. Crispin’s Day speech, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.…”

  Take a cue from The Thin Red Line and show various characters differently enthralled in groupthink, or not.

  Delineate the decline as idealism goes bad and groupthink goes dark, ala the IRA and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

  Show the evolution of warrior groupthink from a small patrol to high command. The Sharpe’s Rifles series starring Sean Bean follows a lower-class soldier’s rise to officer in the Napoleonic wars, with all the problems of shifting his group identity and getting others to recognize that shift.

  Enrich your military groupthink with setbacks like Mission Creep (the slam dunk expands into a quagmire), Blowback (reverberations from the battlefield), unintended consequences, etc.

  Militaries tend to fight the last war, rather than clearly analyzing the current situation; it’s a great opportunity for conflict between your heroine and the groupthinking establishment marching towards disaster.

  CONCLUSION

  Groupthink in its many versions offers a rich source of ominous villains, dangerous situations, and dramatic conflict. This hive/herd tendency causes huge problems which most of us encounter in some way. Whether your heroine is standing up and directly fighting groupthink or whether a groupthink situation is the background of your story, be sure to show us that it’s often a good idea gone bad. Also show us how difficult it is to turn around, stop, or destroy the juggernaut of mindless movement. Just remember, resistance is not useless, and the resistance is what makes a good story.

  8.

  WITCHES, WIZARDS,

  AND WARLOCKS

  Shamans

  Witchcraft as science

  Wizardry as political science

  The Dark Arts

  Witch hunts

  Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer… in the midst of the most scientifically advanced civilizations in history we’re seeing a resurgence of interest in magic. Some say it’s a reaction to the emotionless impersonality of technology. Some say it’s always been there, it’s just safer to come out of the broom closet these days.

  Our earliest stories feature wicked witches, fairy godmothers, powerful warlocks, and magical wizards. Before we have scientific or sophisticated explanations for the wonders of the world around us, we personify the mystery of our existence in human-like beings of great power, the same way we create gods.

  Most often these W’s of story are humans with special powers, though occasionally they’re exiles or invaders from other realms. All have the ability to work with Nature, combine its aspects into new forms, and bend it with their Will. They can also assess people’s foibles and fantasies and use them for assistance, annoyance, or annihilation.

  There are so many stories, books, games, Web sites, and organizations offering in-depth information about magic that additional research will be easy for you. Here are some characteristics and categories of these hair-raising individuals whose special talents can twist the nature of reality, aid or threaten your hero, and be fascinating story characters.

  CHARACTERISTICS

  Hyper-alert. Hyper-analytical. They see patterns where others do not see them and create patterns where they did not exist. They see past the symptom to the root cause. They understand and manipulate the laws of Nature. They understand and manipulate human psychology. Whether showy or secretive, they’re always aware of their affect on others. They manipulate others via voice pitch, tone, cadence; hand and body movement to catch and direct attention; substances to alter mind and body.

  If nonhuman or superhuman, they may manipulate the very laws of Nature.

  SHAMANS

  The earliest human societies include someone designated as the liaison to the spirit world. Cave paintings and ancient art reflect an awareness of altered states thought to be induced by drumming, singing, dancing, and the ingestion of various natural hallucinogens. Sometimes pain is part of the process.

  Some part of us knows that what we know isn’t all there is. The person who can supply answers to the mysteries of life becomes valuable to a group’s collective sanity, but can also twist that power for personal gain and the oppression of others. Fear of the unknown is a powerful tool, and when wielded by a shaman or magician with a healthy knowledge of human psychology, can be terrifying.

  A. IN ACTION

  Most pharmaceutical companies research traditional medicines all around the world, as in Medicine Man, starring Sean Connery.

  In modern-day sub-Saharan Africa, traditional medicine (muti) is still practiced by many. Though quite often helpful, some muti involves mutilation and murder. Human body parts are thought to contain lots of power, made more potent by the victim’s screams. Scotland Yard believes recent murders among African immigrants in England might be muti killings.

  B. IN MEDIA

  The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith contains references to muti.

  In The Emerald Forest film an American boy is kidnapped and raised by an Amazonian tribe. Coached by the shaman, he learns to navigate the spirit world.

  The award-winning Canadian docu-drama The Journals of Knud Rasmussen shows what happens to an Inuit shaman when Christianity and modernity encroach on the old ways.

  C. IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Inner Drives Centers of Motivation – Root: sheer survival, & Throat Center: clever observation and mani
pulation of nature and human nature.

  Show how the Wizard/Witch came to be set apart: red hair, albino, disabled, exceptionally ugly or beautiful, homosexual, smarter or dumber than most.…

  Another typical way shamans (as well as creative people) awaken to their powers is a period of illness or isolation, usually when young. Pain, fear, or great desire can also trigger the appearance of the magic.

  As with anything supernatural, you can have the villain not believe in it and use others’ fears to manipulate them; or have the villain believe in it but be corrupted to the Dark Side.

  A treat for your audience is to have the villain not believe, but then it turns out the magic actually does work, and they’re defeated by their own conjuring.

  As science discovers more about how the body and mind work, we learn that many magical cures make perfect scientific sense. Stories that bring rational thinking to former superstitions can offer surprises to satisfy both believers and skeptics.

  WITCHCRAFT AS SCIENCE

  The Wisdom Teachings are astute observations about nature and humans made over eons of time, passed down in formulas, theories, practices, and stories. Being able to predict the movements of the sun, moon, and stars is beyond most, even today. Yet archaeology reveals that many ancient cultures had highly developed scientists who had the orbit of Venus and the precession of the equinoxes down perfect, and they built huge monuments to prove it.

  Witches are traditionally wise women who can heal people. And curse them. Wizards supposedly read the past and foresee the future. Both are assumed to be able to influence the present and shape the future.

  A. IN ACTION

  Before it was common knowledge, anyone who could get their hands on the Chinese invention gunpowder or the still-mysterious Greek fire (a floating, flammable liquid you can’t put out with water) would be considered a sorcerer. Those who favor ancient astronaut theories note how many myths refer to “fire from the skies” and the similarity to air strikes, napalm, and nukes. Is it ancient wizardry or ancient science?

  B. IN MEDIA

  Wizards Merlin, Morgaine, and Taliesin wield magic-science in the Arthurian stories. Author Norma Lorre Goodrich has a comprehensive book series that offers fiction writers rich information.

  The Conan series of books and movies features lots of sorcery, some based on science, some on sheer magic. Usually wizards are the bad guys and only Conan’s sword and physical strength save the day with sheer brawn over brains. Xena: Warrior Princess combines both brawn and brains to battle sorcery in the 1990s TV series.

  Techno-Mages in the TV series Babylon 5 and Crusade cloak their advanced science in magic to better impress the uninformed, as with hologram projections.

  C. IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Inner Drives Center of Motivation – Ajna Center: the conscious combination of other Centers and abilities, the manipulation of time.

  Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Show us how one person’s technology is another person’s magic.

  Show us the learning process: thrill of discovery, first missteps, fine-tuning, and results of success. Recall Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, who used a spell to get brooms carrying water buckets but didn’t know the spell to make them stop flooding the workshop.

  Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Knights’ training sessions teach the physics of metaphysics combined with personal strength and stamina. Research martial arts training and take it to the next level for your characters.

  WIZARDRY AS POLITICAL SCIENCE

  Using mystery, aspiration, and fear, a priestly class can manipulate the emotions of a populace. Using chants, dance, incense, and architecture, priestly wizardry guides people to desired actions. Kind of like how political machines and consumer marketing use media today.

  While spirituality includes transformation of self, most religions are about everyday behavior here on earth, with promise of pleasure or pain beyond. As teaching tools for social propriety and control mechanisms for an otherwise restless populace, religions are very effective. Religion is also very dangerous for the same reasons. See more at radical fundamentalism.

  A. IN ACTION

  Some African priestesses still symbolically cut up warriors and toss them in a bubbling cauldron, then seemingly pull them out whole, supposedly invincible and ready for battle against modern weapons.

  The family of Russian Czar Nicolas was controlled by Rasputin, a charismatic, corrupt priest who supposedly healed their hemophiliac son with his magic powers. He also seduced noblewomen and dabbled in politics to the extent that Russian nobles (probably assisted by British Secret Service) assassinated him in 1916, though legend has it they had to try many times and he’s really not dead (just living on that same island with Elvis, JFK, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin).

  John Dee was a brilliant 16th-century British mathematician and occultist, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. This accomplished scientist and alchemist is a featured character in many stories, including Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum, a smart and humorous novel about magic and conspiracies.

  B. IN MEDIA

  In the Bible, Israelite leader Joshua made the sun and the moon stand still. Scholars differ on whether that was just bragging or a reference to some astronomical event.

  Frank Herbert’s Dune novels feature the Bene Gesserit, wise women who manipulate empires using seduction, illusion, and the occasional assassination.

  The Lord of the Rings books and movies find the politics and statecraft of humans, hobbits, elves, and dwarves intricately bound up by the sorcery of the rings. Sauron, Saruman, and Gandalf all use wizardry for political ends.

  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West imagines the ugly green witch from The Wizard of Oz as a sensitive ethical girl, determined to help overthrow an oppressive regime, frustrated by her friend Glinda the Good’s ditzy naiveté.

  C. IN YOUR CREATIONS

  Inner Drives Centers of Motivation – Ajna: site for magic, & Lower Solar Plexus: political manipulations, personal power over others.

  These W’s should be smart, science-savvy, and politically astute.

  Show how W’s assess a group’s common beliefs (political, religious, economic) and then manipulate them.

  Reveal the manipulated group’s lack of a certain knowledge (eclipses, sulfur, penicillin) and how that makes them vulnerable.

  Imagine the perfect propaganda illusion for your heroine’s agenda, be it a fearsome enemy or a fabulous treasure.

  The change from someone who knows information to someone who misuses it is a fascinating process. Show us the decline and fall of such a person.

  THE DARK ARTS

  At Harry Potter’s Hogwarts school you study Defenses Against the Dark Arts. So, where do you study the Dark Arts themselves? Same place you study the Light Arts. The tools are the same; it’s the motive that makes the difference.

  Just as Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi of Star Wars both went through Jedi Knight training, so too do the Dark Wizards and Witches go through the same training as Wise Men and Women — up to a point. That point is vital for your storytelling. It is where self-sacrifice is called for. Those who go down the Left Hand Path to the Dark Brotherhood are unwilling to give of themselves for others. Those in the White Brotherhood live to serve the One Life, even at the cost of their own.

  Ancient traditions and New Age speculations place secret wizard schools high in the Himalayas, the Andes, and Mount Shasta as well as underground in Egypt, Antarctica, and Phoenix, Arizona. Hindus, Egyptians, Jewish Cabalists, Muslim Sufis, Celtic Druids, medieval alchemists, pagans, and Wiccans all teach the ways of nature, human nature, and how to manipulate both.

  Though it can produce conflict or comedy, corruption at the lower levels of the Dark Arts is obviously not as dangerous as with those who’ve gained access to the deeper secrets of nature and conscious creativity — think young Lucius Malfoy in Harry Pot
ter versus Saruman the dark wizard in The Lord of the Rings. Oriental lore tells of entire societies of religious monks and nuns who went bad and stayed that way, using their mystical skills and martial arts to play heck with rival monasteries and unwary innocents.

  Some legends say the suprahuman entities who rule cultures, civilizations, and continents can be corrupted, and the loss of Lemuria and Atlantis, as well as the downfall of some empires, might be due to these Great Ones going over to the Dark Brotherhood.

  A. IN ACTION

  In the Bible and other quasi-historical accounts, human wielders of the Dark Arts are often responsible for the rise and fall of kingdoms and cultures.

  Alchemy is the study of natural laws, philosophy, and esoterics that has flourished deep within all religions for two-and-a-half millennia in Europe, India, and the Near and Middle East. Isaac Newton was an alchemist, and alchemy is considered the crucible of modern chemistry. Alchemy encourages positive spiritual transformation, but some alchemists do turn to the Dark Side.

  Eastern occultism flourished alongside Einstein’s new science at the turn of the last century, spawning many magical Western societies such as the Golden Dawn. Modern paganism and many New Age systems grew out of these early groups. Members sometimes turn Dark, and charlatans still cheat gullible people.

  Self-proclaimed wizard and Golden Dawn leader Aleister Crowley was famous for his fondness for Dark Arts, particularly sex magic. Esoteric lore notes that a burst of light is released into the astral world at the moment of orgasm or violent death. Many magical traditions use sex and death in their rituals to draw the attention of entities from other realms and to pay them off for their assistance in this realm. It’s the same principle involved in religious sacrifice, be it human, animal or in milder versions, flowers or finances.