Underneath Gaslighting

8 Passengers

The Movie “Gaslight”

A movie that reveals a man’s secret and unholy desires and probes into the strange emotional depths of one woman’s heart … (from the movie promotions)

In the movie Gaslight, Ingrid Bergman plays a young bride who is being led to think she is going crazy by her husband. The evil man she married is actually after a valuable jewel that belonged to her aunt, a famous opera singer. The lights are gas, and if someone in the house turns on a light, all the lights in the house flicker. This is what Ingrid Bergman keeps seeing when she thinks her husband isn’t in the house. If he isn’t there, who is turning on a light somewhere else in the house? He keeps telling her that she imagined the lights flickering, or didn’t hear footsteps in the attic.

Doubt

His goal is to get his bride to doubt herself. That’s the goal of all gaslighting. “I never did/said/implied that!” - when the opposite is true. It whittles down self-confidence in the target.

Fear

Gaslighting is also meant to create fear. “Will they tell me I am imagining it again? Will I have to have a painful argument justifying my perceptions - again?” Leading to “maybe they are right. Maybe I did imagine it.”

Dominance

Trying to get a person - or “target” - to doubt what they see or hear is a type of bullying and a way of getting the target to set their reality according to the terms of the gaslighter.

8 Passengers YouTube Channel

There’s so much wrong with the “8 Passengers” YouTube family channel story, from the protests to CPS from YouTube viewers - who actually created a petition to let authorities know of their concerns - 18 police visits, family worries and more. But today the subject is gaslighting, and for that we need to focus on Jodi Hildebrandt in this fiasco.

Jodi Hildebrandt is a horrible therapist. She has reported clients to their religious colleges for masturbation based on confidential information learned in sessions. Her use of gaslighting is perverse and extreme, and the 8 Passengers YouTuber was under her toxic influence and even living in Hildebrandt’s house.

Hildebrandt’s niece describes her experience - click to watch

Hildebrandt’s methodology was to find something about you, convince you it was evil, and then use pain and starvation to get Satan out of you. That explains why the children living in her house were bruised, starved and restrained with duct tape. Her niece describes the same treatment at her hands.

Gaslighting by Hildebrandt meant a person’s experience was labeled as an“evil” part of them - as defined by her alone. That means any perspective the target might have is dismissed and replaced by Hildebrandt’s. The dynamic is sculpted to reference Hildebrandt as determining reality. Once that was set, all manner of punishment was used to get Satan out of the target through the work of Jesus through her.

Awareness

No one is immune. I sometimes think our worst enemy is our polite silence when someone does this to us. Gaslighting is an acid that drips on our confidence and self-containment for the benefit of another. It can come from grandiosity or insecurity. But honestly, what difference does it make?

Don’t stay and try to fight it. Don’t use logic. Don’t ignore it. Get up and go.