M`I 5.Per secution . ab use in s et-up situatio ns and in public

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-= abuse in. set-up situations and in public -=
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Strangers in the street have recognized me on sight many times, and. shown
awareness of the current. thread of abuse. To give you one example, in 1992
I was seriously ill, and a. manager at work somewhat humorously said that
"it wasn't fair" that people. were bullying me. A few days later, I attended
for the. first time a clinic in London as an outpatient, and on my way out
was accosted by someone who asked if "they. had paid my fare", with emphasis
on the. word "fare". He repeated the word several times in this different
context; that they. should have paid my "fare", each time emphasizing the
word.

For two and a half years from the. time their harassment started until
November 1992 I refused to see a psychiatrist, because. I reasoned that I
was not. ill of my own action or fault, but through the stress caused by
harassment, and that a lessening of the. illness would have to be consequent
to a removal of its immediate cause, in. other words a cessation of
harassment. I also reasoned that since they. were taunting me with jokes
about mental. illness, if I were to seek treatment then the abusers would
think that. they had "won" and been proved "right". Remember, the constant
theme of. any persecution is, "we must destroy you because you're X",
whether X is a racial or other. attribute. In this case the X was "we
persecute you because you. have brain disease". The similarity of this logic
to Nazi attitudes to the mentally ill. is striking.

The same manager who'd. said "it wasn't fair" asked me in winter 1992 why I
didn't. seek help from a psychiatrist; was it, he asked, because "they would
think they had won" if I. sought treatment? That was something I'd never
said at work... again, taken separately it proves nothing, but many. such
things over a period of months. proves conclusively that people in the
company knew what was going on, and in quite. a lot of detail.

Usually harassment in public lacks the level. of finesse of "paying your
fare". Most people's imagination does not go beyond moronic. parroting of
the current term of. denigration. That is not surprising given the average
level. of the abusers; if they do not have the intelligence to distinguish
wrong from right. then neither will they have the capacity for anything
other than mindless repetition of a monosyllabic. term calculated to fit
into their. minds.

The first incidents of verbal assault in public were in again. in the summer
of 1990,. although they increased in frequency and venom with time. In July
1990 the first public incident occurred on. a tube train on the Northern
line. Two men and their girlfriends recognised me;. the women sprang to my
defence,. saying "He looks perfectly normal, he doesn't look ill". Their
boyfriends of course knew better, and. followed the party line; one of them
made reference to an "operation", apparently to. work at the tube station
but implicitly to a visit that I had made to. hospital a couple of weeks
previously.

In August 1990 going home from college, soon after getting on. a tube train
at Gloucester Road I was followed. by a group of four youths, who started a
chant of abuse.. That they were targeting me was confirmed by other people
in the carriage, one of whom asked the other "who. are they going on at, is
it. the bloke who just got on?" to which the second replied "yes, I think
so". I was tempted to reply, but as in every other instance the abusers. are
enabled in their cowardice. by physically outnumbering the abused; any
confrontation would result in my being beaten. up, followed by a complaint
to the police that "he attacked us", and of course he's ill, so. he must
have been. imagining that we were getting at him. Shitty, aren't they?

But the shittiness of the four youths on. the tube train is as nothing
compared to the episode on the National Express. coach to Dover in the
summer of 1992. While going on. holiday to the Continent I was verbally set
upon by a. couple travelling sitting a few rows behind. The boy did the
talking, his female companion contributing only a continuous. empty giggling
noise. He spoke loudly. to ensure other people on the coach heard, always
about "they" and "this bloke" but never naming either. the abusers or the
person he was talking about. He. said "they" had "found somebody from his
school, and he. was always really stressed at school". They must have dug
deep. to find enemies there; perhaps someone who dropped out of school,
someone who didn't do too well later, who was jealous and. keen to get their
own back? The boy also said "he was. in a bed and breakfast for only one
night and they got him". By a. not unexpected coincidence I had been in a
B&B in Oxford a week previously, which had been booked from work;. other
things lead me to the. conclusion that the company's offices were bugged for
most of the 2 1/2 years that I was there,. so "they" would have known a room
in the B&B had. been booked. (But I'll bet "they" didn't tell the company's
managers their offices were bugged, did. they?).

After a few minutes of this I went back to where. they were sitting and
asked where they were travelling. The. boy named a village in France, and
the girl's giggling suddenly ceased;. presumably it permeated to her brain
cell what the purpose. of the boy's abuse was.

This. and other set-up situations are obviously calculated to provoke a
direct confrontation which would bring in the police, with the. abusers
claiming that they. were the ones attacked. Again in 1992, outside the
house where I was living in Oxford I was physically attacked. by someone -
not punched, just grabbed by the. coat, with some verbals thrown in for good
measure. That was something. the people at work shouldn't have known
about... but soon after a couple of people were talking right. in front of
me about, "I heard. he was attacked". The UK police have a responsibility
for preventing assault occurring, but. they do not seem to take any interest
in meeting that responsibility. I suppose their attitude is that. harassment
does not come. within their remit unless it involves physical assault, and
they will only become involved once that happens. That is of course. quite
the wrong attitude for them to take,. but as I now understand, the police
investigate only. the crime they wish to investigate; if they do not take
your complaints seriously. then there is nothing you can do to make them
take. action.

4099

belief,
but because things are true or false according to the aspect in which we
look at them. The will, which prefers one aspect to another, turns away the
mind from considering the qualities of all that it does not like to see; and
thus the mind, moving in accord with the will, stops to consider the aspect
which it likes and so judges by what it sees.

100. Self-love. The nature of self-love and of this human Ego is to love
self only and consider self only. But what will man do? He cannot prevent
this object that he loves from being full of faults and wants. He wants to
be great, and he sees himself small. He wants to be happy, and he sees
himself miserable. He wants to be perfect, and he sees himself full of
imperfections. He wants to be the object of love and esteem among men, and
he sees that his faults merit only their hatred and contempt. This
embarrassment in which he finds himself produces in him the most unrighteous
and criminal passion that can be imagined; for he conceives a mortal enmity
against that truth which reproves him and which convinces him of his faults.
He would annihilate it, but, unable to destroy it in its essence, he
destroys it as far as possible in his own knowledge and in that

resignation with
respect to life or death, yet the thoughts of dying were exceeding sweet
to her. At a time when her brother was reading in Job, concerning worms
feeding on the dead body, she appeared with a pleasant smile; and being
asked about it, she said, It was sweet to her to think of her being in
such circumstances. At another time, when her brother mentioned the
danger there seemed to be, that the illness she labored under might be
an occasion of her death, it filled her with joy that almost overcame
her. At another time, when she met a company following a corpse to the
grave, she said, it was sweet to her to think that they would in a
little time follow her in like manner.

Her illness, in the latter part of it, was seated much in her throat;
and an inward swelling filled up the pipe, so that she could swallow
nothing but what was perfectly liquid and but very little of that, with
great and long strugglings. That which she took in fled out at her
nostrils, till at last she could swallow nothing

in them that perish, because they received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

205Deut. 13:3. "for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love
the Lord."

206Matt. 24:25-26. "Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall
say unto you, Behold."

207Is. 5:4. Quis est quod debui ultra facere vineae meae, et non faci ei?
"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?"

[208]Gal. 1:8. "But though an angel."

209Ps. 41:4. "Where is thy God?"

[210]Ps. 111:4. "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness."

211"The yes and the no."

212Is. 10:1. "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees."

213John 15:24. "If he had not done."

214John 15:24. "If he had not done among them the works which none other man
did."

215Prov. 26. 4-5. "Answer... Answer not."

[216]Epistle 63. "Priest of the Lord."

[217]Luke 22:26. "But ye shall not be so."

[218]John 10:30. "I and my father are one."

219John 5:7. "And these three agree in one."

220"The strictest law is the greatest injustice." Terrence, Heauton
Timorumenus, iv. 5. 47; and Cicero, De officiis, i. 10.

221John 21:17. "Feed my sheep." Not "yours."

222"The Church will never be reformed."

223Jas. 4:6. "God giveth grace unto the humble."

224"But did he not give them humility?"

225John 1:11-12. "The world knew him not; and his own received him not."

226"And were they not his?"

227Rom. 12:2 "But overcome evil with good."

2282 Tim. 4:3. "Shall they heap to themselves teachers."

229Ps. 81:6. "Ye are gods."

[230]"To your tribunal, Lord Jesus, I call."

231Wisd. of Sol. 19:4. "Doom which they deserved."

232"Most impudent Liars." See Provincial Letter xvi.

[233]Prov. 12