--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, drpetersutphen <drpetersutp...@...> wrote: > > This discussion around intellectual dishonesty is interesting, but I'm more > interested in the term'hysterical" what do you mean by it's use? It's just a > non-explanitory term like saying people who see UFO's are hypnotized. WTF > does that mean?
I used it as shorthand for my impressions in my initial post that led to this discussion. I don't find it as imprecise as saying "hypnotized" as I meant it in the dictionary sense of an uncontrolled emotional reaction arising out of the circumstances. But to be clear, I am not talking about some mental disorder. I fleshed things out a bit when I talked about reasons people could be exhibiting certain behaviors when learning yogic flying. I mentioned group pressure and suggestibility, as well as other things. For example, you get a group together on a high intensity course, with certain expectations that something just might happen, and they paid a lot for that something, and someone shouts, or barks it can be infectious. And then justification can proceed from there. Given the wide variability of how people behaved at courses, and how this changed after people were told that they didn't need to make noise, this seems a reasonable explanation. Similarly, when you get certain sects of Christians together and they pray and chant and one person suddenly starts speaking gibberish, it can be infectious. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was not infected.
