Esoteric Symbolism & Memes: Strategies of Control

[New Dawn Magazine]: We like to believe we are rational, in control of our lives and making our own decisions. We pride ourselves on our independence and take offence if someone suggests we are being irrational or that our decisions are somehow influenced by someone else. Sadly, free will is not as credible an idea as it first seems. Years of psychological research reveals the immense influence of genetics, culture and the environment on how we behave. While we may justify our decisions by supposedly rational reasoning, these are usually always the result of our emotions responding to unconscious factors.

The best way to understand this mechanism of control is via meme theory. A meme, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is an “idea, behaviour, style or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.” The concept was first proposed by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. While we may disagree with Dawkins’ extreme materialism and reductionist Darwinism, his understanding of memes is a great model to explain how symbols, ideas and images can be used to manipulate behaviour.

Just as the mechanism of physical evolution works via the gene desiring to reproduce at all costs, within the world of the unconscious the meme reproduces by moving from mind to mind. While genes reproduce by the paroxysm of pleasure, the meme uses whatever primal emotional hook it can latch onto – more often than not this is lust, aggression, violence or fear.

There are ‘positive’ memes, but sadly the baser human emotions work better to pass on a given idea or system of ideas (a memeplex). Nightmares, urban legends and tales of ghosts, ghouls and murderers pass from generation to generation with ease. In recent times it is easy to locate memes within urban legends about escaped killers, murderers or supernatural monsters of the night. For example, the ‘Tall Man’ or ‘Slender Man’ began as an Internet meme created by Eric Knudson in 2009. It triggered a flood of Internet fiction and YouTube movies about a strange character with a blank and featureless face wearing a black suit who hunts children. Unfortunately, this meme became all too real when in Wisconsin in 2014 two twelve-year-old girls lured another to a secluded place and stabbed her 19 times to impress the ‘Slender Man’.

Semiotics is the study of how symbols and signs are used to create meaning. When combined with meme theory we can come to an understanding of how symbols, signs, images, pieces of music and related factors can be used to anchor complex ideas and manipulate individuals, groups and even whole populations on an unconscious level....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...