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Secrets and Lies—Good and Evil
Outward ceremonies will not compensate for the want of virtue. The impulses of love are so subtle, and the influences of false reasoning, when enforced by eloquence and passion, so unbounded, that no human virtue is secure from degeneracy. Heroes and villains are largely defined by their treatment of others. Ben Crawford is considered a hero because he is kind to everyone he comes into contact with, and he is also sensitive. Ben Crawford likes to pursue more happiness-seeking activates and experience good emotions, and we see this in him before the murder of Tom Murphy. After the murder of his son, Tom Murphy, Ben Crawford experiences a roller coaster of good and unpleasant emotional states, but he does not let this compel him to the dark side. While everyone is mistreating Ben, playing him for a fool, trying to trap him into a relationship, or sponging off of him, he remains emotionally stable and is still able to experience some happiness and satisfaction in life. We see that Ben is still happy when he takes his daughter and Jess Murphy to the county fare. When examining Secrets and Lies, it is easy to think of suspense as intense entertainment or something the audience is interested solely as a form of escaping from reality, for a while. However, by engaging in this program, the audience is using this World to learn to critically think and form conclusions about their own existence, relationships, and figure out what really matters to them.
People are able to explore their humanity, spirituality, and psychological nature. As you watch Secrets and Lies, you think about why some people do good things, why some people do bad things? You will also consider what factors influence the choices people make? The characters are all morally complex, and you see what motivates people do behave the way they do. Nonetheless, things are not always what they seem to be. In cases like Ben Crawford, many people in the audience wonder why no one speaks up against the atrocities committed against Ben Crawford and his family, and why do people add to his suffering? It is inconceivable that a righteous person would sit back and watch a man be tortured and do nothing to stop it. Those who do not act are looked at as being indifferent or evil. However, we know that normal people can do some very evil things given the proper motivation. Kevin Williams, the African America neighbor used to work for the CIA, and is used to being discriminated against, he has a grudge against society, and when he gets the chance, he returns the favor by kidnapping Ben Crawford and trying to force a confession out of him. Jess Murphy, had an affair with Ben and gave birth to his son in secret, when he will not engage in a relationship with him, she accuses him of rape to make sure he goes down in flames.
Christi Crawford is rather cold and professional, she feels betrayed by the situation and does the best she can to be a good wife and support her husband, but she is hurt because she made some choices that she is not necessarily comfortable with and feels a little concerned that she may be responsible for how this situation turned out. While someone else in the miniseries just wanted to eliminate someone, they found undesirable and inferior. Often times, when people are given power, and they are not mature, nor used to having power, they will more than likely try to punish others, will be hostile, and will enjoy the power they have other others. They seem to be compelled to commit atrocities, engage in abuse, and generally treat others as subhuman. And although many people feel like hating Christi Crawford, at least she never displayed those traits, like Kevin, Jess, and detective Cornell did. Many people in Secrets and Lies engage in harmful and atrocious acts toward Ben Crawford, and they also diffuse responsibility. They demonstrate how human nature can be truly painful due to the experiences others have, and are looking to blame someone else, in this case Ben Crawford, for the choices and decisions they made. It is not that Ben Crawford is a bad guy, however, the community members are hiding evil inside of their souls and Ben is the perfect target to release it on because he has been demonized by the police and the media.
It makes these people feel good to take their frustrations out on a mark and to sit back and judge him, as it takes the attention off of them and makes them feel superior and important despite the pain and suffering, they are inflicting on an innocent man. After people engage in this game, they feel they have no choice and must go on. Knowingly causing harm to Ben Crawford, the community is engaging in a war against this man. They know what they are doing is extremely painful, and none of them express concern for his health nor safety. Many of the participants demonstrate clear signs of distress, including nervous laughing, sweating, groaning, and psychotic splits with reality. It is like these people are all following some kind of demonic orders from an authority figure and go far beyond their moral limits to inflict physical and psychological torture onto Ben Crawford. For example, it comes to light the Tom Murphy, Ben’s son, was murdered by a blow to the head with a flashlight, and someone breaks into Ben’s garage and places several flashlights like the murder weapon in his garage, and takes a key and scratches his car with it, in addition to spray painting “Child Killer” with red spray paint on his garage. The people in the community relinquish personal responsibility for their actions to Satan, an authority figure. This is known as authoritarian obedience. So Ben Crawford is seen as disobedient as he refuses to submit to Satanic rule and take the case for a murder he did not commit and is cited for insubordination and could face execution.
Research indicates that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to criminal behavior, but a murder has been committed and someone must pay and Ben Crawford is the perfect scapegoat. Also, after what the community has done to Ben Crawford, making him pay for this murder will alleviate them from facing any criminal charges for the unlawful acts they have committed against him. And still, the community members do not see themselves as evil because they have convinced themselves that Ben Crawford is evil, when he is a very good guy, and that it is acceptable to treat him anyway they want to. And that is where that saying, “It takes one to know one” comes from. Essentially, much like Tom Murphy, Ben Crawford is deemed inferior and oppression and slaughter of him is acceptable in the minds of these demonically possessed people. Their sense of morality seems alien compare with Ben Crawford’s compassion and empathy. People are taught that they are superior to Ben Crawford because he has been accused of a crime, and this legitimizes actions that would otherwise be seen as reprehensible. Anyone who speaks out on behalf of Ben Crawford is likely to be chastised and others conform to avoid negative attention. Ben Crawford knows he is under threat and that his life could be extinguished at any moment. And community members who threaten, oppose, or abuse Ben Crawford are seemingly rewarded because someone has to pay for this murder and they are all making the investigation easy on law enforcement. However, not everyone in the community embodies evil, Christi Crawford is one of Ben’s best allies. Ben Crawford is condemned by nature and fortune to an active and restless life.
Call Me When the Cross Turns Over
Love and friendship know nothing of justice. The value of love is that it overlooks faults, and forgives even crimes. The World imagines those to be at our nature’s depths who are impudent enough to expose its muddy shallows. The dredging of natures is the miry form of art. Analytical psychology is an approach to studying mental health and personality development by investigating consciousness and unconscious processes. Personal development involves a process of individuation, growth as an individual, in which each person can better understand both themselves and aspects of a universal level of the subliminal cognitive state. Many of us are on a noble quest. We spend each moment of every waking hour focused and reflecting on mystery we are trying to solve. Life is about trying to protect the peace the community after an intrusion by outside forces, which we are not akin to. The person who is very determined and on a righteous journey, in the midst of the chaos and deceptions around one is a person who is connected with God, and this allows us to remain strong and peaceful.
Individuation refers to the effort to become a fully human person and to grow into full consciousness. The process of becoming fully human and totally conscious is to understand the good, bad, light and darkness, and it is not an easy choice. The journey to individuation is a lifetime journey. Some people choose to protect their compassion nature with cynicism and apathy because they do not want to feel vulnerable nor uncertain. It is by far more easy for people to pretend like they do not care than to face heartbreak or disappointment. Some people put up barriers because they feel threatened by potential rejection and want to live a painless life. However, by blocking people out who care about you, not only are you hurting them, but you are also hurting yourself. No matter what, life is fluid and while you may think you have a person where you want them, you may lose them while you are not looking. A lot like parking your car in a lot and leaving it unattended. You think it is secure because it has an alarm system, you are constantly watching it, but if someone wants it, they will find a way to get it from you.
When people lose things they care about because they did not cherish them, a feeling of revenge starts to brew, and while they thought they were protecting themselves, they really start to feel the pain of loss, and this can turn into a vengeful rage. Your shadow represents the individual’s discordant desires, instincts, or shortcomings. This is why we are facing so many shootings and violence, people are living fake lives and hurting inside. On Wednesday, 2 December 2015, in San Bernardino, California, USA one to three suspects committed a massacre, killing more than 20 people at the Inland Regional Center, a facility that cares for people with developmental disabilities. This shows you that no targets are off limits, people are killing anyone they want without any regard. Because the conscious ego can only know itself, the contents of the mind and the dark shadows residing inside are unknown to others. Mass shooters are no longer adapting to the outer reality that we all share, but rather to an inner reality. They have a split with reality because there are elements of themselves that are forgotten, repressed, or ignored. To avoid these type of situations, we need to be kind to people and accept others for who they are. We have to learn to surrender, relinquishing part of our own desires and be guided by God to care for others who are having hard times.
We have to learn to train our mind, body, and spirit to be disciplined. In life, everyone faces trials, and just because some are smiling and happy, it does not mean that their life is better than yours, it simply means they are better able to control their emotions. While some people take relationships for granted and are running around trying to get attention and be popular, their loved ones may be in the process of letting going and moving on. A person should contemplative as the spirit converse and assimilates with the unconscious. As one progresses through individuation, actions may change, as the body now acts in congruence with the mind and spirit. When you recognize distressing feelings, the first step is to acknowledge them. If you remain in denial or in a one sided relationship, you will remain discontented and ignorant for the rest of your life. Being alone and uncertain of your future can be a painful and frightening experience, but remember to walk in faith and not by sight. Before examining our own hidden qualities, we may be in complete denial of our shadow elements, yet what we deny in ourselves can often easily be spotted in others. A person may despise another’s quick temper while at the same time fervently suppressing a wish to respond with anger.
The first step in making the acquaintance of a person’s own shadow is admitting that the scary, annoying, or irritating qualities found in others are often the qualities in that individual that evoke the very same responses. For example, if you are dating someone who is in their 40s, who is still going out to nightclubs and trying to be hip, you may despise that aspect of them and you need to eradicate that person from your life. Staying in unhealthy situations disavowals one’s own characteristics and it may be dangerous. The more you suppress yourself, the more darkness and unhappiness grows inside of you, and it will take over your life entirely. The goal in life is to develop a reciprocal relationship. Everyone knows when you are in your 40s, you are too old to be going to nightclubs and trying to look cool. So if you are dating someone, who is older than you, and this is how they behave, break it off and enjoy life so you do not end up like them. Art may disguise complexions, but never improve them. Sometimes people are placed in our lives so we can see what we do not want to become. This shadow holds a message that it may be wise for you to heed. These are messages that may come from your subconscious content, particularly if the vision includes a character that is the same gender as the person with the vision. By paying attention to the message, or the vision, the encounter with the shadow becomes collaborative, rather than hostile in nature.
As unbelievable as it may sound, this shadow is still part of you. You should accept it, attune to it, guide it, and control it. Be mindful, strive to stay mindful and aware of anger and other shadowy feelings, as well as paying attention to your thoughts. Sometimes you go through a lot of the same type of relationships to help you grow. On the path to individuation, a person examines events are meaningful expressions of the collective unconscious. So, let me take that back, if you are dating someone who is immature, as long as they are not harming you or taking anything from you, allow them to be in your life. This could be your spirit testing you to see if you can hang on when things get rough. Let them think they are still the love of your life, and when someone else comes on, they will realize you have left them in the shadows. We have the innate capacity to walk a path through the park that leads us to our true selves. We gather strength from every situation, and allow this to bring you peace, balance, and wholeness, but to benefit from this wisdom, we must first learn to feel the variety of emotions. It is amazing, when you change the way you look at people, and start looking out for them, it is impressive how much better they treat you.
Secrets and Lies—a Look into the Mind of Ben Crawford
Virtue, sooner or later, meets the good it merits. There is no casting of swine’s meat before men worse than that which would flatter excellence as though its true origin were not good enough for one, but one must have a lineage, deduced as it were by spiritual heralds, from some stock with which one has nothing to do. Virtue’s true lineage is older and more respectable than any that can be invented for one. Ben Crawford is so attentive to details and sees the entire perspective. With thoroughness and honesty, carefulness, ethical behavior, and morality, Ben Crawford strives to be structured, logical, and efficient, while he uncovers a mystery. Ben Crawford displays all of these good qualities when investigating the murder of his son and trying to protect and keep his family together, by addressing the problems with the police investigation, before they can grow larger. By addressing his concerns, Ben Crawford will maintain better healthy overall, and live a more quality life because he does not just sit back and let stress eat him alive, he takes action. Conscientious individuals like Ben Crawford perform better at some jobs than others like Detective Cornell.
Although Detective Cornell is reliable, she tends to be excessively meticulous, and may be less efficient than Ben Crawford. While Detective Cornell spends all morning try to craft Ben Crawford as a suspect, only paying attention to details that make him look guilty, she is being unproductive because she is ignoring other possible motives and suspects, as her job is to solve a murder by noon. Adhering to procedure while trying to frame Ben Crawford for killing his son, Tom Murphy, makes the actual criminals, who really killed him leave an orgy of evidence behind because the real suspect knows he or she is not under suspicion. And this is why Ben Crawford take charge of the murder investigation on his own. Because everyone else in his life, including investigators, seem to be so lackadaisical, self-absorbed, and unethical, Ben Crawford develops an anxiety disorder known as obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) because he is going to lose his freedom and possible his life for a crime he did not commit just because it is easier for the police to label him as a suspect and close a case, than to figure out who actually committed the crime.
People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), which in this case we are jokingly calling “Obsessively Corrupt Police Department,” is a mental condition in which a person, Ben Crawford, is preoccupied with rules, orderliness, time awareness, vigilance, self-direction, and attention to detail because he worries that he has not done everything necessary to feel safe and secure. As a result of his OCPD, Ben Crawford cannot see everything wrong with his behavior. Ben is overly aware, scrupulous, rigid, inflexible, suffering a great deal of stress, and this is becoming deeply ingrained in his personality pattern so much that people cannot stand to be around him, as they know he can see through their vices and snarky comments. At first critics could not tell if Ben was connection, because he knew something was wrong, but seemed to be in some type of a mental fog, but now everyone fears Ben Crawford because they see he is highly cognitive. So to push him over the edge, or disrupt his mental state people play games with him, and taunt him, and even physically assault him, as a method of trying to drive him crazy because they think he is on the verge of a breakdown, after all, under these conditions most people would be.
Ben Crawford is looked at as guilty by everyone in his community, they spray paint “Child Killer” on his garage, start to fire him from his jobs, and no one will hire Ben because he is so demonized by his community. Others jump in on the game by vandalizing his car, planting evidence, breaking into his home, and even turning his wife and children against him. To make matters worse, Ben’s neighbor kidnaps him and tortures him and tries to kill him if he does not confess. And the man that thinks he is the father of Tom Murphy, strangles Ben Crawford and also tries to beat him to death. So the entire community has turned against Ben, even his wife and children, and he has no money, no one to turn to for help, and is about to lose his house, who would not go crazy, right? Well certainly NOT Ben Crawford. Ben Crawford has proven himself worthy of retaining this higher state of consciousness, it makes him who he is. Ben Crawford proves that he is not lost in the wilderness, but mostly everyone else is. He is a hero and gaining skills and performing heroic deeds, and his journey is also spiritual. Virtue is God’s empire.
Randolph Harris II International 