Persecutory Belief Formation in Online Communities:

Clinical Psychology, Information Warfare, and the Moderation Failure of Gangstalking Discourse

Abstract

Online communities centered on perceived coordinated harassment—commonly referred to as “gangstalking”—present a complex intersection of psychological distress, belief reinforcement, and digital platform governance. This article examines a corpus of online discussions drawn from such communities to analyze (1) clinical psychological mechanisms underlying persecutory belief systems, (2) the relevance of information warfare and psychological operations (psy-ops) as explanatory metaphors rather than verified mechanisms, and (3) the role of online moderation in amplifying or attenuating harm. A contested hypothesis—that some participants may interpret their suffering through a framework involving cultic abuse and occult practices such as remote viewing—is examined critically as a belief narrative rather than an empirically supported causal account. The article argues that while the distress expressed is genuine, the explanatory structures provided by these communities often exacerbate symptoms and impede recovery.

1. Introduction

The rise of online communities devoted to experiences of perceived surveillance, harassment, and bodily control has drawn increasing attention from psychologists, sociologists, and platform governance researchers. Subreddits such as r/Gangstalking and r/GangstalkingTruth serve as digital gathering spaces for individuals who believe they are targets of coordinated, often technologically sophisticated persecution.

Participants report phenomena including auditory intrusions (“V2K”), somatic manipulation, environmental signaling, time distortion, and external control of cognition or behavior. While the factual accuracy of these claims remains unsubstantiated, the psychological suffering expressed is profound and undeniable.

As Jaspers observed, “What characterizes the delusion is not its content, but the absolute certainty with which it is held” (General Psychopathology).

2. Clinical Psychology: Persecutory Ideation and Meaning-Making

2.1 Persecutory Beliefs and Stress

In clinical psychology, persecutory beliefs are understood not merely as false propositions, but as attempts to impose coherence on overwhelming internal or external stressors. Freeman and Garety note:

“Persecutory delusions often arise from the interaction of anomalous experiences with cognitive biases and emotional distress”
(Persecutory Delusions, 2014).

Individuals reporting gangstalking experiences frequently describe:

• Sleep deprivation
• Hypervigilance
• Heightened threat perception
• Social withdrawal
• Repeated institutional invalidation (e.g., police dismissal)

These factors are known to intensify anomalous perception, particularly auditory, olfactory, and somatic sensations.

2.2 Trauma, Dissociation, and Externalization

A subset of participants frame their suffering as the result of cultic abuse or ritualized harm, sometimes involving occult practitioners or paranormal mechanisms such as remote viewing. From a clinical perspective, such explanations may function as externalizing narratives.

Judith Herman writes:

“Trauma shatters the construction of meaning… the survivor attempts to restore coherence by locating the source of harm outside the self”
(Trauma and Recovery, 1992).

This does not imply fabrication or malingering. Rather, it reflects how the mind constructs explanatory models under extreme distress, especially when conventional explanations feel invalidating or dismissive.

3. The Hypothesis of Cultic Abuse and Occult Agency

3.1 The Hypothesis as Narrative Structure

The hypothesis that sufferers are victims of cultic abuse by occult practitioners employing remote viewing is best understood not as an evidentiary claim, but as a narrative framework with specific psychological features:

• It provides intentionality (“someone is doing this to me”)
• It explains persistence (“they are trained, organized, powerful”)
• It moralizes suffering (“evil actors, satanic or cultic”)
• It accounts for invisibility (“occult, covert, deniable”)

In this sense, the hypothesis resembles what anthropologists call a totalizing explanatory system.

As Berger notes:

“Such systems are resistant to falsification because they reinterpret disconfirming evidence as further proof of concealment”
(The Social Construction of Reality, 1966).

3.2 Remote Viewing as Cultural Residue

Remote viewing programs, such as those associated with Cold War-era intelligence research, are often cited as validation. However, mainstream scientific consensus remains clear.

According to the American Psychological Association:

“Claims of psychic functioning have not withstood rigorous, replicable experimental testing.”

The persistence of remote viewing as an explanatory device reflects cultural residue, not empirical validation—particularly appealing in communities already primed to distrust institutions.

4. Information Warfare as Metaphor, Not Mechanism

4.1 Psy-Ops and Cognitive Framing

Many posts frame experiences through the language of psychological operations, cyber warfare, and intelligence tactics. While modern information warfare does target populations, scholars emphasize scale and intent, not individualized persecution.

Pomerantsev explains:

“Information warfare aims to destabilize shared reality, not to micro-manage individual targets”
(This Is Not Propaganda, 2019).

Thus, psy-ops function more plausibly as metaphorical scaffolding than literal explanation for personal sensory experiences.

4.2 Pattern Recognition Under Uncertainty

Cognitive psychology shows that under stress, humans increase apophenia—the tendency to detect patterns in randomness.

Whitson and Galinsky found:

“Lack of control increases illusory pattern perception”
(Science, 2008).

In gangstalking discourse, everyday events (cars, smells, noises, coincidences) are woven into coherent threat narratives reinforced by group consensus.

5. Online Communities and Moderation Failure

5.1 Echo Chambers and Belief Hardening

Online platforms amplify belief systems through:

• Algorithmic reinforcement
• Social validation
• Moderator endorsement

Of particular concern is moderator participation that affirms extreme interpretations, lending institutional legitimacy to speculative claims.

Sunstein warns:

“Like-minded groups tend to move toward more extreme positions”
(Going to Extremes, 2009).

5.2 Ethical Failures in Moderation

Several posts analyzed include explicit suicidal ideation, yet responses often fail to redirect toward crisis resources or grounding interventions.

From an ethical standpoint, this represents a failure of:

• Duty of care
• Harm minimization
• Platform responsibility

As Gillespie notes:

“Moderation is governance—its failures have real-world consequences”
(Custodians of the Internet, 2018).

6. Harm Amplification and Clinical Risk

The convergence of:

• Psychological vulnerability
• Totalizing belief systems
• Peer reinforcement
• Institutional mistrust

creates a high-risk environment where suffering escalates rather than resolves.

Crucially, challenging beliefs directly often backfires, while affirming them may deepen entrenchment. This places moderators and clinicians in a difficult ethical position.

7. Discussion: Belief, Suffering, and Responsibility

It is essential to distinguish:

• The reality of suffering (which is undeniable)
• The reality of explanations (which require evidence)

The hypothesis of occult cultic abuse via remote viewing, while meaningful to sufferers, cannot be substantiated empirically and risks redirecting individuals away from effective care.

As Karl Popper observed:

“A theory that explains everything explains nothing.”

8. Conclusion

Gangstalking communities illustrate how psychological distress, when met with unmoderated belief reinforcement, can evolve into self-sealing explanatory systems resistant to help. While narratives involving cultic abuse and occult agency offer meaning, they also risk exacerbating isolation and despair.

The responsibility lies not in ridicule or dismissal, but in ethical containment, compassionate grounding, and evidence-based intervention—both clinically and at the platform level.

The tragedy is not that people search for explanations, but that too often, the explanations offered deepen the wound.

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