BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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Thursday, June 9, 2022

“The History and Art of Ventriloquism” by Valentine Vox: Since biblical times, another creative manifestation of multiple personality?


On the chance that ventriloquism may be another creative manifestation of multiple personality, I plan to read its history (1, 2), which dates back to biblical times and the “Witch of Endor” (3). “In the Septuagint (2nd century BC) the woman is described as a ventriloquist” (3).


1. Valentine Vox. I Can See Your Lips Moving: The History and Art of Ventriloquism (From ancient sages to modern stages. Three thousand years of vocal conjuration). London, Plato Publishing, 1981/2019.

2. Wikipedia. “Valentine Vox.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_Vox

3. Wikipedia. “Witch of Endor.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_of_Endor

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