Aidan Rankin: The soul theft

Looking back, I feel that being on the right was like losing a part of myself. In shamanic cultures, there is a widespread theory of "soul theft". This is the belief that an individual's soul can be captured, and then manipulated, by an external force. Soul theft is blamed for a wide range of ailments, from serious physical and mental illness to feelings of inner emptiness, and soul retrieval is an important part of the shaman's work. The process of soul theft can be long and insidious, with the affected individual becoming a willing collaborator.

Soul theft is an accurate depiction of the experience of becoming right-wing. It starts as a vague impression, then progresses - if that is the word - into a world-view; it begins as a bad mood, then becomes a permanent, brooding anger. One doesn't wake up one morning and find oneself transformed into a reactionary, a political version of the clerk in Kafka's Metamorphosis, who awakes as a gigantic insect. Instead, right-wingery takes over gradually, crowding out conflicting thoughts, until suddenly it defines and underlies everything.

Aidan Rankin

http://pocombelles.over-blog.com/2014/07/aidan-rankin-green-karma.html