220 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
the confessional booth so potent. It is backed up by emotional respect for a
whole church system, it brings to light the specific Mercy situations which
are troubled by the feelings of guilt, and it calls upon the emotional power
of God and his living and visible representative upon earth to alter the
disturbing Perceiver 'facts.'
The mechanism of Mercy identification, exploited by confession, is
opposed, though, by the network of experiences provided by my body: It
performed some set of forbidden actions; it entered some restricted place;
it was seen in some unsavory location. Wherever my body goes and
whatever it does, it fills Mercy and Perceiver strategy with facts and
emotional experiences. Therefore, when Mercy identification tries to alter
feelings of guilt which result from actions which I have done, or places at
which I have been, the Perceiver facts learned from my physical body will
protest with vigor—I know that I was there and that I did do that.A
One way to minimize this aspect of guilt is to separate Mercy
identification from the physical body. This separation can be achieved, for
example, through the use of a hired thug. If I kill someone personally, then
I will probably have major problems with guilt, since I will remember all
the facts, experiences and feelings of carrying out the act and observing the
results. In addition, it will probably take confidence to perform the deed in
the midst of my emotional doubts and this confidence will add strength to
the knowledge that I did the action. On the other hand, suppose that I get
someone else to commit the murder for me. Because my physical body did
not perform the deed, it is much easier for me to use Mercy identification
to avoid feelings of guilt.
The hired assassin, on the other hand, can use blame to remove his
feelings of guilt. He was not responsible for the murder; it was his boss
who was the ultimate cause of the death. Therefore, if in his mind the
crime does not link to me, he will feel that the punishment should not as
well. This was the defense of the Nazi criminals in the Nuremberg trials:
“We are not responsible, we were just carrying out orders.” As for the
leaders, they also did not feel guilty. They were too busy listening to
Wagner, and allowing Mercy identification with the „Thousand Year
Reich‟ to fill their minds with „good thoughts.‟
I suggest that the same type of conflict which arises when there is guilt
also comes into play when an individual faces personal loss, and that the
only difference between these two is the source of the emotional pain.
With guilt, it is Perceiver belief which imposes unpleasant memories on
me, whereas with loss it is the external world that forces me to face the
A We will see later that doing an action also leads to Server skills. Not only
do Perceiver and Mercy thought know that I have done the action, but
Server strategy also knows that I can do it. In addition, repeating an action
enough times leads to the added pressure of Teacher emotion.