The Case of Bishop Williamson
Richard A. Widmann
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In the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) a belief is an
emotionally held opinion that is treated like a fact by the person who holds
it. NLP is a spin-off of hypnotherapy developed around thirty years ago, but
the principles upon which it is based are as old as human behavior. One of
the major principles of NLP is fixing an association between an action or an
object, and an emotional state. For instance, the sense of smell is strongly
associated with emotions. People smell cookies baking and think pleasant
thoughts about childhood. The smell is associated with memories and an
emotional state. To make one of these associations is called "anchoring." It
is like Pavlov's dog experiments where the dogs associated the sound of a
bell ringing with being fed and would salivate when a bell was rung whether
there was food present or not. People operate the same way, only people
communicate with each other better than they can with animals. Therefore,
much more complex anchors can be created in people.
The gas chamber story and the Holocaust myth are beliefs. They compose part
of an emotionally held opinion that is treated as a fact. Many negative
emotions are associated with both the story and any challenge made to it.
These emotions are purposefully anchored to the story to protect it from any
challenge. A great example of this technique is the single-word quote
uttered by Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee's International
Director of Inter-religious Affairs: "Shameful."
Shame is now associated with any person who does not accept the gas chambers
and the six million dead Jews as a fact, and for anyone who tolerates that
person. This is one more layer on the taboo. With that one word, Rabbi Rosen
created an anchor. Even considering listening to someone who would like to
present revisionist information is now meant to create a feeling of shame.
This is not new. I loaned some of my revisionist material to a friend a few
years ago and he said he felt guilty reading it. This is how the taboo is
self-enforced. People are taught in school and in the media to associate
strong emotional states with propaganda of all sorts. It not just with the
Holocaust that this technique is used. How do you feel when you see your
national flag? Why do you think it is waved on TV news? You have been
trained since childhood to stand at attention and feel respect when you see
the flag. The flag is there to enhance credibility. When it comes to the
news media, one rule of thumb is to understand the more flags and uniforms
you see, the bigger the lie you are being told.
Credibility is a major component in the success in setting an emotional
anchor and establishing a belief. Bishop Williamson should know this: as a
member of the clergy his business is the promulgation of his faith. This is
why the first thing that is attacked by the promoters of the gas chamber
nonsense is a revisionist's credibility. If there is no credibility, no new
belief can be anchored. Because the recipient has been told by a source he
regards as reliable not to trust revisionists, and has a strong emotional
attachment to his beliefs, any information presented to the contrary is
rejected.
This is how the taboo is set and enforced. There is a NLP practitioner who
specializes in teaching men "speed seduction." One of the things he tells
his students is the techniques he teaches works even on those women who are
familiar with how they work. They do not work on every woman, however. So,
even though a person understands someone is using an anchor in an attempt to
manipulate feeling, an emotional state may be induced despite this
awareness.
BELIEF VERSUS KNOWLEDGE
A problem with Bishop Williamson's answer to the question posed to him about
a statement he made years ago is that he introduced his reply with the
phrase "I believe." While I am sure Bishop Williamson has no interest in
teaching mid-twentieth-century history, and has no desire to be come an
expert in revisionist research, if he is going to express an opinion on the
topic of Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz and the number of Jews who died as a
result of a Hitler government policy, *he has to tell the interviewer what
he knows, and not what he believes or believes he knows.*
When he says "I believe," Bishop Williamson is challenging an established
set of beliefs with one of his beliefs. That sort of approach puts the
Bishop, or anyone who might doubt the gas-chamber story, at a definite
disadvantage. Remember, a personally held belief is treated by its holder as
fact. The holder is also emotionally attached to it. Anyone hearing someone
say "I believe" will view what is being expressed as an opinion. Since the
hearer will understand his own belief as "fact," he assumes any contrary
"opinion" or "belief" would only be expressed by someone in an inferior
position, and will immediately discount anything said due to the qualitative
difference between a presumed "fact" on the one hand and a mere "belief" on
the other.
People who have not read enough about gas chambers to understand the subject
should defer the question to someone who does. Bishop Williamson referred to
the Leuchter Report and air photos in his reply. While the Leuchter Report
is great and presents much necessary information, invoking it pits the
credibility of sources for one opinion against the credibility of another.
What the Leuchter Report presents is an expert opinion. At the time it was
written, 1988, the Soviet Union still existed. Few people in the West had
access to the Internet or Eastern Europe. It doesn't take an expert to
recognize a car, even a wrecked car. Looking at a set of blueprints for a
building and reading that a room is labeled "morgue" instead of "gas
chamber" does not demand the expertise of an engineer. It doesn't take much
research to figure out that cremators running on something other than faerie
dust cannot reduce three bodies in fifteen minutes.
Revisionists have attempted, well before the publication of the Leuchter
Report, to show that it is possible to do chemical tests to determine if
cyanide was used in a room because it leaves a stable chemical residue that
can be measured decades later. Those who defend the gas chamber story reply
that nobody can tell by looking at a space, or chemically testing it,
whether it was ever used as a gas chamber and that the only dependable
source for such proof are eyewitness accounts. Revisionists want to verify
or discredit the eyewitness accounts. Those that rely on those accounts for
their beliefs will never accept that the stories are not, at least in a
general sense, true.
It is obvious that the Holocaust is a taboo that will not be dislodged by
pitting one set of sources against another set of sources. New approaches
need to be tried with the knowledge of how people view beliefs and how
emotions have been anchored to them.
The gas chamber story is a clumsy lie. That is not a belief. That is a fact.
It is knowledge. There was constant communication between the concentration
camp, its inmates, and its staff with the outside world up to its
abandonment in January 1945. Packages and letters went in and out of the
camp. Staff came and went. Prisoners were transferred and released from the
camp. Photos were taken of activities there: both by people on the ground
and Allied aircraft. As late as September 1944 inspectors for the
International Red Cross visited Auschwitz.
There was nothing secret about Auschwitz and Birkenau. Every day the SS
office at Auschwitz sent radio messages to Berlin headquarters giving
prisoner tallies. The British intercepted and read at least some of these
transmissions throughout the war. This is a fact. As late as August 1944 the
British RAF called a suggested mission to bomb the Auschwitz gas chambers
"fantastic." They did not mean that the suggestion was "terrific." They
meant "fantastic."
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