Most of us who have lived with the results of 9/11 have as a result experienced some kind of trauma. It can be very difficult to come to terms with what actually happened at the World Trade Center. In fact, someone told me recently, “I wouldn’t believe what you’re telling me even if it were true.”
Our petition signers with psychological expertise have stepped forward to offer their insight. While this segment is clearly outside the knowledge base of the architects and engineers for 9/11 truth, these experts in psychology highlight their valuable experience for us as to why this evidence can still be so difficult for people to accept.
As we know the horrors of what happened on 9/11 were televised all over the world, and they were televised in fact live. We witnessed the deaths of almost 3,000 of our fellow Americans. We know this had a very severe and traumatic impact on a large majority of the population.
At this point we have nine years of hard scientific evidence that disproves the government theory about what happened on September 11th. And yet, people continue to be either oblivious that this information exists, or completely resistant to looking at this information.
So, the question becomes “Why?” Why is it that people have so much trouble hearing this information? From my work, I think we would be remiss not to look at the impact of trauma.
Many people respond to these truths in a very deep way. Some have a visceral reaction like they’ve been punched in the stomach. To begin to accept the possibility that the government was involved is like opening Pandora’s box. If you open the lid and peek in a little bit, it’s going to challenge some of your fundamental beliefs about the world.
If we can think of our world view as being sort of our mental and emotional home, I think all of us will do just about anything to defend our homes, to defend our families. And so, I see that will people and I saw that with myself when my brother tried to talk to me about it. Of don’t mess with me, don’t mess with my home, don’t mess with my comfort with how things are.
About a week later, I read a lengthy article by Professor Griffin about why he believes the official account of 9/11 cannot be true. And it was a very well researched article. It was in my office at the time. I sat there and I felt my stomach churning. I thought maybe I was going to be sick and I leaped out of my chair and ran out the door and took a long walk around the block, around several blocks and just broke down.
I understand now that what was happening was my world view about my government – being in some way my protector, almost like a parent had been dashed, and it was like being cast out into the wilderness. I think is the closest way to describe that feeling. And I sobbed and I sobbed, it felt like the ground had completely disappeared beneath my feet. And I knew at some point during the walk, I knew that I was going to have to become active in educating other people about this. That for me to retain any sense of integrity I was going to have to take some action. I couldn’t just let something like this go.
When we hear information that contradicts our world view social psychologists call the resulting insecurity cognitive dissidence. For example: with 9/11 — we have one cognition which is the official story of 9/11 of what our government told us, it’s what our media repeated to us over and over, that nineteen Muslims attacked us.
On the other hand, we have what scientists, researches, architects and engineers are now beginning to tell us, which is that there is evidence that shows that the official story cannot be true. So now, we’ve lost our sense of security. We are starting to feel vulnerable. Now we’re confused.
9/11 truth challenges the beliefs that our country protects us and keeps us safe and that America is the good guy. When your beliefs are challenged, fear and anxiety are created. In response to that, our psychological defenses kick in and they protect us from these emotions. Denial, which is probably the most primitive psychological defense is the one most likely to kick in when our beliefs our challenged.
And it’s a very, very uncomfortable state to be in. And eventually, our mind shuts off. Just like when a computer is overloaded, our minds get overloaded. We can’t handle it anymore and we shut down.
What some of us will tend to do is deny the evidence that’s coming our way and stick to the original story, the official story and to try to regain our equilibrium in that way. Another thing we can do is decide to look at the conflicting evidence, and be sincere, and be opened mind and look at both sides of the issue and then make up our own mind about what reality is.
Here are a few of those spontaneous initial reactions to hearing the contradictory evidence about 9/11.
“I don’t want to know the truth or I’d become to negative and psychologically go down hill.”
“I’m not sure I want to know. If this is true than up would be down and down would be up. My life would never be the same.”
They say, “This is the way the world works, and I’m convinced this is the right way the world works. 9/11 doesn’t fit into that paradigm, so I don’t need to look at the evidence.”
Bran: “I refuse to believe that that many Americans could be that satanically treasonous. Someone would have talked.”
But these our beliefs, they are not scientific facts. But these beliefs do keep us from looking at the empirical evidence. Whenever we say, “I refuse to believe” we can be sure that the evidence that’s coming our way is not bearable and it’s conflicting with our world view much too much.
As I thought about all of these responses, I realized that what is common to every one of them is the emotion of fear. People are afraid of being ostracized. They’re afraid of being alienated. They’re afraid of being shunned. They’re afraid of their lives being inconvenienced, they’d have to change their lives. They’re afraid of being confused. They’re afraid of psychological deterioration. They’re afraid of feeling helpless and vulnerable and they’re afraid that they won’t be able to handle the feelings that are coming up. None of us want to feel helpless and vulnerable.
Healing comes through facing the truth, experiencing it, allowing the feelings to come in. So that if there are feelings of fear that perhaps these events were caused by something that we hadn’t thought about yet – dark elements within our society for example. We’ll let that come in and explore it. Let the light shine on whatever happened. This will be the most healing process. The Germans did this after their war. The South Africans did this after apartheid. Reconciliation through the truth is a deep path to psychological recovery from the myths and lies around which this historical event has been cloaked in the official view.
One of the ways to deal with the trauma is to find the answers. That’s why I think it is of such importance to have a comprehensive investigation.
To work together to expose what happened regardless of where the evidence takes us. That’s what we expect in our state government law enforcement. I think that by putting science together with the law we will have a psychological healing around the impossible cognition that has been produced on that day.
After World War 2, part of the way that Jewish people honored the dead was by making sure that the truth was known and that the value of these people was respected. Not pursuing the truth about 9/11 disrespects the value of the life of the people that died.
Thinking that we’re above such things, that it could happen in other countries but it couldn’t happen here, that’s a lack of humility and that’s excessive pride. And so, not being able to see our dark side or see our weaknesses is the most dangerous thing.
A feature of American history that makes us particularly liable to this pride is this notion that’s called exceptionalism, that America is the exceptional nation. And that began from the beginning as this country was formed the people would say, “Well there was so much evil in the European countries, so much cheating, so much lying, so much using the people for the ruler’s purposes, but not in America. We have leaders that are free from those sins.” So, I think this has made 9/11 particularly difficult for Americans.
So, we need to understand that questioning is patriotic. Questioning is what we’re supposed to do as citizens. That’s our duty.
One thing that has become important for me personally is to educate myself, is to take responsibility. There’s that wonderful quote from Mahatma Gandhi where he says that, “We must be the change that we wish to see in the world.”
When we come to the national level, when something like 9/11 happens we need to be sure that we have a real investigation into who the perpetrators are and then we need to be sure that those perpetrators are held legally accountable. It’s part of the healing process on the individual level as on the collective level. We need the truth in order to heal.
My name’s Bob Mcllvaine and I’m from right outside the Philadelphia area and I’m the father of Bobby Mcllvaine who was killed in the lobby of the north tower on September 11th, 2001. He was one of the first ten bodies found. We took him home that week. We were one of the few. I finally found a doctor who examined him. All his injuries were in the face – the front of his face, his face was blown off, massive cuts in his chest, and his right arm were blown off. To me, that means explosion.
What happened on September 11th was a tragedy, where Neil was on flight 175 and it crashed into the second tower and I can’t imagine what happened to him.
My brother was my best friend. David has always been a firefighter. My brother wanted to save people’s lives. I’m a family member trying to find out the answers to the murder of 3,000 plus people.
I’m Jane Pollicino. My husband Steve was 48 years old when he was killed on September 11th. I had no identification. Why is that? It seems to me we should know why over 1,000 victims there are no trace of and no identification, no trace of over 1,000 victims.
Just a few years ago they were still finding body parts on the roofs of buildings. What is that?
We should know why there are over 700 bone fragments found on the top of Deutsche Bank Building less than half an inch long. We should have that information. Why were they up there? Why weren’t they found? What kind of explosion was there?
And the explosions were brought up many a times, talking to firemen, talking to the medics, talking to everyone, everybody talked about these explosions.
I want the officials that are in power to ask the questions. I want answers.
Please look at architects and engineers, people all around the world, scientists all around the world are questioning this, that these towers couldn’t have come down. When you bring science into the equation, that’s so important because you can’t argue against science and there’s some deep, deep explaining to do.
The bottom line is that it needs to be investigated properly.
We will never heal, this country will never ever, ever forget that day. We have to demand a new investigation. I want justice here.
The forensic evidence that you’ve seen is very real. New light has been shown. A third being now reaches into the pitch black sky, and stands in for the still officially unexplained free fall destruction of the World Trade Center Building 7. The obvious dark truth about Building 7 may very well provide the key to justice for the victims of family members of the destruction of the Twin Towers.
The country owns this. We were all victims. You all should want answers. It’s not just ours, not just mine. We all lost something that day.