Dogra Magra (20/47)

by Hisashi Yumeno

To be frank, if the phenomenon I call "extreme psycho-heredity" appeared only in the mentally ill, it wouldn't be so surprising or concerning. Of course, the research I've explained so far might be a groundbreaking discovery for the tadpole scholars out there, but for me, it's merely a new discovery on the level of a beggar suddenly starting to run.

The reason I loudly assert the horror of "psycho-heredity" is because it doesn't just appear in the mentally ill; it can be clearly proven that it manifests in many forms in ordinary people—that is, in you and in myself—just as it does in the mentally ill.

“What? A question? No, wait a minute. I understand the meaning of your question… You’re saying that it would then be impossible to distinguish between the mentally ill and ordinary people. How could such a ridiculous thing be possible… you would say.”

However, from the standpoint of a pure scientist, the problem is that I can only answer that such a ridiculous thing "is" possible. Moreover, it's not a problem on the same level as the mentally ill. In our mental lives—and this includes you, of course—a terrifying "psycho-heredity," indistinguishable from or even more potent than that of the mentally ill, is active from morning till night, without a single moment's pause. It even appears as dreams while we sleep, stubbornly dominating our psyche, which is the problem. Consequently, there are very many instances where one's own mind is not free, and since social articles in newspapers and magazines are endlessly provided, it becomes impossible not to address the issue.

I once told a newspaper reporter about this a long time ago; it's a very simple example of psycho-heredity, but just as the saying goes, "Even without seven quirks, there are forty-eight," it's a perfect example of how one's own feelings are not under one's own control, similar to a person with a mental illness. Moreover, no matter how much others laugh at it, and even if one feels strongly that one must correct it oneself, one simply cannot stop it because it is an manifestation of what I am now calling psycho-heredity. Tears well up even when one tries not to cry. Even when one thinks one shouldn't get angry, one involuntarily gets a sudden surge of emotion and forgets everything around them; this is also because one has inherited from one's ancestors the characteristic of being unable to regain one's own temporary mental imbalance, and it is nothing less than an manifestation of psycho-heredity.

In addition, there are countless other examples such as being obsessive, easily bored, moody, fair-weather, forgetful, nervous, having hobbies that become obsessions, addictions, womanizing, philandering, and abnormal psychology. However, out of a hundred people, not one, and out of a thousand people, not one, is without some degree of abnormal mental tendency. It is a serious matter because no one is free from the influence of psycho-heredity.

This logic can be understood even better if you read my essay "The Dream of the Fetus," which I wrote a long time ago. In essence, the human mind or soul is nothing more than an infinite collection of various animal psychologies and folk psychologies inherited from generations of ancestors, both animal and human. This is wrapped in a thin layer of human skin, thinking "I'll be laughed at if I do this" or "It'll be terrible if I'm caught." Then it's bound with tapes of ethics, morals, laws, and customs, adorned with various ribbons and labels of social etiquette, manners, status, and personality. On top of that, it's plastered with makeup and oil, and then, while brandishing parasols and canes, walking down the main street in broad daylight with an air of importance, saying things like, "If you are a gentleman, I am also a gentleman," "If you are a lady, I am also a lady," "If you are human, I am also human"—this is none other than what is called an ordinary person or a cultured person.

However, this packaging of cultured individuals is constantly under tension to prevent the leakage of its base, serious, and unrestrained psychological genetic content. In their desperation, ordinary people usually feign ignorance, only maintaining appearances in public while taking a slight breather. But sometimes, when they can no longer bear it, this packaging can rupture significantly at some point. In individuals, this manifests as immoral acts such as tantrums, deviations, quarrels, assaults, fraud, theft, and adultery. Those whose ruptures cannot be repaired become mentally ill. Among large groups, it leads to riots, wars, evil ideologies, and decadent trends. Examples of such exposures of psychological inheritance are probably shown to us ad nauseam in daily newspapers.

I dare to declare... that you and I both live in a psychological state that is fifty paces from that of a mental patient. Not being able to distinguish between a normal person and a mental patient is the same as not being able to distinguish between good and evil in a person inside a prison and a person walking outside. In other words, the surface of the Earth, throughout history and across all cultures, has been entirely a "great liberation therapy center for the insane," and the nine major liberation therapy centers are merely small models of it. As proof of this, aren't the patients within them, just like you and I, convinced that "I am not crazy" and actively exhibiting psychological heredity? So I say.

Hahahahaha... How about that, everyone? Aren't you a little angry? What did you say...? Not angry...? Very good, very good. Indeed, you are respectable people of common sense. Gentlemen and ladies worthy of representing modern culture... Eh, what did you say...? That's not it. Because the other party is a crazy doctor, you weren't really listening from the beginning...? ...Ugh. I'm impressed. I can't compete with such developed common sense.

Very well. If that's the case, I am prepared. After all, scientific research is characterized by brazenness, impoliteness, and rudeness. With your permission, I shall further expose humanity's embarrassing flaws in a more accessible way, and I shall certainly try to provoke some anger.

I believe everyone has experienced this, but when your head becomes a little hazy, various fantasies and hallucinations emerge one after another.

Fantasies and hallucinations are, in fact, like shadows of psychological heredity. Academically speaking, when the brain's reflex nerves become fatigued and stiff, various fragments of psychological heredity, having lost their connection to reason and common sense, begin to wander freely and wantonly through dreams within the body's reflex nerves, as if they own the place.

For example, a woman folding laundry behind a shoji screen might start thinking about the past or future, and before she knows it, she begins to ponder unrelated things. What if she shoplifted a ring from that department store and wasn't caught? If her current husband died soon, she could have a wonderful life with that amazing person. How about tormenting that hateful person in such a way? How refreshing would it be to dress her mother-in-law in a cat costume? What would happen if she committed a double suicide with that actor? Should she just become a vampire? She lets her thoughts wander.

Meanwhile, a man, too, gazing out of a train window and letting out a long yawn, imagines unexpected scenes: What kind of face would that gentleman make if he slapped his cheek? How beautiful would it be to set the town ablaze and turn it into a sea of fire? How exhilarating would it be to wipe out the crowd? What would happen if he planted dynamite in that pottery shop? If he broke that police officer's shin? If he scattered the goldfish from the goldfish vendor onto the road? If he took a young lady like that as a mistress? If he put that bank's safe in his pocket? And then, suddenly, he comes back to his senses, blushing all by himself.

All of this is the cruelty, belligerence, bestiality, or perverted psychology that our ancestors desperately wanted to do, appearing in our consciousness in a modern form. To say that this is not the case is merely the act of a stubborn person lacking introspection, or insensitive people who have forgotten it even if they had it. The proof is clear when one sees how one form of somnambulism progresses to mental illness. Just as one might immerse themselves in a vivid scene in a novel, picturing the scene in their mind and involuntarily drooling, in the fatigued reflexes of a mentally ill person, such inherited psychology appears in a somnambulistic state even more intensely than real emotions and feelings. And because other consciousnesses almost completely disappear, the person seriously acts out that somnambulistic consciousness. Therefore, all of their actions proceed according to the emotions inherited from their ancestors. This perfectly aligns with my theory.

More than three thousand years ago, in Tenjiku, three thousand ri away from here, Buddha attained unsurpassed perfect enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, revealing the true nature of the past, present, and future. What he declared as "karma and retribution" is precisely this. That the karma of parents repays their children is exactly that. Ahahahahahaha. This is not a teaching of bones. No offerings or donations are necessary. This is a lecture on the latest mental science within modern science. It is an explanation of the terrifying mental life that you all experience daily.

However, everyone, it is still too early to be surprised. The fundamental principles of mental science offer even more terrifying and astonishing facts.

You have probably already grasped the general idea from the explanations so far. The changing of human generations is like us falling asleep and waking up again. After sleeping for a night, we might completely forget about yesterday, but then, when we wake up, almost unconsciously, the carpenter goes to continue building the house he started yesterday, and the plasterer also goes to continue plastering the wall from yesterday. Then, we remember yesterday's events again, thinking, "Ah, I dropped a ten-sen coin here yesterday," or "Around this time yesterday, that beautiful person passed by."

The inheritance of the spirit is the same. The parent is yesterday's self, and the child is tomorrow's self. Night is the time when today's self is born from yesterday's self, becoming a dark and unconscious form.

Therefore, when humans, male or female, encounter scenes, objects, seasons, or weather conditions that their ancestors once experienced in a similar mood or mental state, they return to that old psychological state, just like the carpenter or plasterer of today. Moreover, the psychological states inherited from generations of ancestors are not just one or two. Scenes, objects, and weather conditions that hint at such psychological states are abundant everywhere, continuously stimulating our psychological inheritance day and night. As far as the eye can see and the ear can hear, without a moment's rest, the "Konjin of Ushitora" that governs our entire lives is, in fact, this principle of "psychological inheritance." Now, I will present astonishing evidence.

Ahahahahahahaha. One must not mistake this for the Ofudesaki of Oomoto-kyo. These are extremely ordinary facts that we experience daily. Our feelings change and replace each other from morning till night. We might intend to go out for an activity, but get sidetracked by a festival stall along the way, or someone who left home prepared for a journey might sneak into a library, or as marriage to a loved one approaches, suddenly feel aversion, or reject the only job found after a long search with just a postcard. Such significant psychological changes occur one after another because various suggestions govern our psychological heredity, and the reason we don't notice it is that the relationship between suggestion and psychological heredity is too instantaneous, subtle, and profound.

Well, what do you think, everyone? Don't you think that if we were to study the relationship between such suggestions and psychological heredity more deeply and academically, we could play all sorts of interesting tricks? Don't you think we could bring about desired changes in others' minds, just like watching physics or chemistry experiments?

When considering human criminal psychology, there are many truly fascinating aspects. To give a common example, one can receive an unexpectedly strong stimulus from a completely unrelated suggestion, without any prior warning. For instance, staring intently at the tip of a red ink pen might trigger an impulse to stab the eyes of an actress's photo nearby, or while looking at a blue sky or a white wall, one might suddenly feel cruel. Staring at the fog outside the window might make one want to clean a pistol, or hearing the sound of a strong wind might make one want to walk with a dagger hidden in one's pocket.

Also, one might look at a sharp razor, compare it to their own face, and grin, or hear a woman jokingly say "you can kill me" with a smile in bed and genuinely consider killing her. The chirping of small birds echoing in the reception room might trigger feelings of infidelity between a man and a woman who were previously serious. Looking at these changes in emotion, there are aspects that cannot be explained by logic, and it is undoubtedly a manifestation of psychological inheritance. And it goes without saying that all of these are the initial sprouts of criminal psychology.

When reading old kōdan (storytelling), essays, legends, and records, many stories emerge where ancestors left behind a ghost scroll that was not to be seen, and someone who saw it began to speak strangely, or someone who drew a forbidden heirloom sword, which was not to be drawn, changed their expression. This expresses the terrifying power of psychological genetic suggestion in a way that anyone can understand. I have also found countless examples in my research records.

Now, what would happen if the terrifying effects of such suggestion were scientifically studied and made practically applicable? Would a demonic magic surpassing that of Inuyama Dōsetsu, Ishikawa Goemon, Tenjiku Tokubei, or Jiraiya be performed in modern times?

Even if not to that extent, if this type of suggestion were skillfully utilized, one could drive another person insane upon meeting them. Since no sound is made and no blood is shed, passersby on a busy street in broad daylight would not suspect anything. Crimes could be committed for which no matter how renowned a detective arrived, they would find no clues whatsoever. No, what if it were actually happening right now, all around us?

Hehehe... you don't need to stiffen up and sit back down. No matter how much of an expert in mental science I am, I haven't yet discovered a way to give suggestions from within this screen and drive everyone insane all at once. Though, I do think it would be interesting if I could... Hahahaha.

No, this is a joke, but these criminal methods have already gone beyond the realm of fantasy and speculation and have become a problem right before our eyes. Facts always exist prior to research... If I were to say that, you might want to take it with a grain of salt.

However, please don't be surprised. In fact, the introduction to the draft of my friend, Kyotaro Wakabayashi's, masterpiece "Crimes and Their Evidence Applying Mental Science," a dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Kyushu Imperial University, contains such complaints. Since only that introduction was sent to me for proofreading, I took the liberty of reading excerpts from it, and this is what it said:

"According to my research, I cannot but admit that this kind of crime has already been committed since ancient times. For example, those who transmitted esoteric Buddhism and Onmyodo, such as En no Gyoja, Abe no Seimei, and Kobo Daishi, orally transmitted a kind of psychoscientific suggestion method obtained from years of experience. There are signs that they applied this to women, children, or ignorant men whose intellect and reason were insufficiently developed, causing some change or damage to their mental functions and gaining profit. In other words, the ancient practices such as 'using foxes,' 'applying secret Shingon incantations,' 'possessing with living or dead spirits,' and 'inflicting divine or Buddhist punishment,' which are similar to spiritual powers, divine works, and ascetic practices, are not absolutely impossible from the perspective of mental science. In their more advanced forms, hypnotists, psychics, and spirit mediums can possess abnormal power in the hidden corners of civilized society, and behind mysterious and elusive criminal cases, the activity of this kind of technique is often seen. It is difficult to conclude that all of these are rational deceptions."

「It is difficult to assert that there are no victims of such criminal acts in our country today, among those in mental hospitals, vagrant shelters, and even among the mentally deranged wandering the streets. However, rationally investigating and apprehending the perpetrators is almost impossible at present. This is because, when people are mentally killed or injured using such methods, no physical evidence is left behind, unlike other criminal methods; not a drop of blood, not a momentary sound, not even smoke can be detected. The victim also immediately loses the ability to give any testimony, and it takes a long time, sometimes permanently, to recover from their mental abnormality. Even if they do recover, it is highly questionable whether they retain memories of the incident at the time of the victimization or of the criminal method, which would pose extreme difficulties in investigation.」

「I believe that modern culture is what is called the culture of materialistic science. Therefore, it is natural that many of the crimes committed during this period also apply the principles of materialistic science. If, in the future, various theories of mental science become common knowledge, it is clear that crimes applying these theories will also become rampant, and the terror of such crimes will certainly be no less than that of what are called materialistic science-applied crimes today. And against such crimes, we forensic scientists must consider how to investigate the crimes, how to research the weapons, and what basic knowledge to use to clarify the course and methods of the crimes.」

“Everyone, please listen. The forensic scientist I revere, Kyōtarō Wakabayashi, is continuously searching for real-world examples to research 'crimes applying psychical science,' which he believes will spread worldwide in the near future, and to prevent their proliferation. Despite the prevalence of mentally ill individuals and suicides everywhere, he faces the tragic situation of not being able to publish his true research because he cannot find any suggestive material or evidence that would serve as clues to such crimes. He harbors suspicion of crimes applying psychical science in every human gesture, word, eye movement, and even hand movement.

Now, everyone, what do you think?

Here, a magnificent research material has fallen into my hands. Kyōtarō Wakabayashi was the first to discover this material, and he was convinced that it was an unprecedented 'crime applying psychical science,' and proceeded with his investigation. For me, on the other hand, it holds immeasurable and wonderful value as reference material for 'psychological heredity.' However, it was my misfortune that I was drawn into that material and inadvertently got involved. I, too, was driven into a situation where I had to buy a one-way ticket to the netherworld and escape with nothing but the clothes on my back. Such was the terrifying nature of that research material.

I have obtained an enormous investigative record, complete in every detail, including the true nature of the astonishing suggestive material that served as the motive for the madness, the strange and tragic circumstances before and after the onset of somnambulism dominated by psychological heredity, and the specifics of psychological heredity, which possesses a comfort akin to a heart slowly melting and flowing away. Indeed, it is an unprecedented, super-large-scale work that could be called a national treasure or a world treasure, extremely scientific yet thoroughly romantic, erotic, grotesque, and containing over 120 percent nonsensical elements, demonstrating the profoundness of its story.

Ah, my apologies. Understood, please refrain from applauding. I apologize for listing so many adjectives. It seems that when my alcohol levels drop, my mental reflexes become dull. Please excuse me for a moment while I have the King of Kings trumpet blown. And while we're at it, one from Havana too... Oh, this is bad. I'm still in front of the podium, aren't I? I will quickly retreat from the screen and instead take on the role of narrator, projecting the content of the strange incident I just mentioned. And I intend to shatter your common sense with a single blow...

What? You're saying it's the same thing even if I step out of the screen...? Ah, you've got me there again. Being too smart can be a problem, can't it? Actually, in a little while, another me will appear on the silver screen and will be live-reporting the strange psycho-genetic incident as it undergoes the "liberation therapy" experiment. So, at that time, that other me absolutely must step out of the projection screen and take on the role of explainer. This isn't a Futurist play, after all...

Now, it is with great regret that K.C. MASARKEY Co. presents its super-special production, "The Liberation Therapy of the Insane," a premiere in natural color, relief, and sound film. All the actors are real-life applications based on the actual performances of the people involved, and centered around a rare beautiful boy and a peerless beautiful girl, a whirlwind of inexplicable events and wonders continues. The blood, flesh, and souls of over twenty men and women become intertwined before anyone realizes it, finally reaching a precarious climax at this "Insane Liberation Therapy Center," where it may or may not announce a tragic, brutal, and unbearable ending. Please, everyone, with full anticipation... [Fade out]..."