Conference on the "Psychopathology of crows and anonymographs" organized within the framework of the centenary of the Tiger's Eye case (Angèle Laval). Dr. André Gassiot is a psychiatrist and victimologist, legal expert and graphologist.
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Used especially in political and financial scandals, or in matters of morals, the term "crow" designates an informer with a secret identity.
This term has its origins in a french movie of the same name by Henri-Georges Clouzot, released in 1943. The screenplay was inspired by a true story that took place in Tulle (Angèle Laval - Corrèze, France), between 1917 and 1922. At the time, a jealous woman sent hundreds of unsigned letters denouncing the city's infidelity or bad behavior.
Dressed in black during her trial, she had been compared in a newspaper to a "poor bird that has folded its wings". Hence the association with the crow, which is an animal with a "sinister symbolism", of "bad omen", bearer of bad news. At the same time mythology says he is a vigilante and a messenger of the Gods.
According to the psychiatrist, the anonymous writing is a complicated pathological mechanism, no limited for simple sending anonymous letters. The anonymous writer is different from the “crow”, using mentals manipulations and making offences, robberies, sabot-makings and sometimes the death of the victims. The result is the coming true of an authentic “serial victimization”. The anonymous writer always presents personality disorders.
The crow is an anonymous "utility" writer with no known psychic disorder, and he/she does not act in the long-term.
A current example: Coronavirus. In France, citizens belonging to the medical sector - doctors, nurses - are victims of unsigned messages slipped under their doors. They are requested to leave their homes. Here we have a "utilitarian" reason (for these people, the neighbors) to use this specific method (in order to preserve their health, fear of contamination).
In the Grégory case, the raven is therefore not a "simple" crow : he is in fact an anonymographer whose different method is linked to the development of our technical means of communication in the 1980s: the phone.
Some letters will be sent to counter the phonetapping established in 1983 by the Gendarmerie to unmask this "crow". However, a crow can become a pathological anonymographer if the combination of more or less latent or obvious disorders, the personality and the environment will be favorable to taking action.
First let's analyze what the doctor calls "the mechanics of the crow": What is being anonymous? Hide your identity, your place or your social function. In Semitic culture, only "God" cannot be named, claiming anonymity can mean a will of omnipotence, omnipresence. Anonymity makes it easier to take action.
Mechanism of victimization and techniques of mental manipulation:
The defamation itself: to damage reputation by words, writings or acts.
The slander: a serious and false accusation whose engine is the rumor.
Rumor is the oldest media in the world and is based on a fabrication, sometimes a myth. A rumor is a noise that will grow, the amplification gives birth to a myth which is transmitted over several generations. The myth, associated with the rumor, will be conveyed, develop and create a whole singular atmosphere - which will die out and come back. Indeed, the rumor is ephemeral but returns, it is what we can call the phase of contamination - the dynamics of the rumor -, it will spread like the metastases of a cancer and thus give birth to "small crows".
The secret: the power of the crow lies in the fact that he/she holds or believes to hold shameful secrets and put them in the public square.
The imprecation, the curse. Threats, insults, blackmail. Control, fear. Stratagems, denunciation, deterrence. False splits (sowing discord in groups).
Linked to each other, we find these "weapons" in the Grégory case. Defamation, slander and secrecy mainly concern Monique.
The crow suggests that Monique continued her relationship with Jacky's father after her wedding (Albert) and that a second child was born from this union.
In a call, the manipulator says "that he is "holding" Monique who would be afraid that he will reveal the truth". The crow: "But there's another bastard and I'm the only one who knows who he is ... and it's the same "Thiébault" (Jacky's biological father)"; "And your mother knows it too."
If the relationship is proven and Monique leads a double life, how does he know the father for sure? How does the hypothetical second bastard play a role in his hatred for Albert and Jean-Marie?
In another call to the home of Jacky and Liliane, he contradicts his previous statements where he denounces the famous "Thiébaut":
The crow : "She always told you bullshit there has never been a "Thiébaut" than butter in the ass".
He bet on the ignorance of others and makes believe in his superiority, he answers in a vague and paradoxical way. The second bastard never existed, the crow sows doubt in the minds of Albert and their children in order to divide them and tries to discredit Monique. The sons doubt their identity, Albert, his legitimacy and Monique is sullied by suspicion. The crow slanders Monique using one of the shameful and painful "secrets" of her life, Jacky’s birth. It’s an "easy" attack. He takes up the roots of the same story and invents a second child out of sheer wickedness.
For his part, Albert's "secret" is also a destructive weapon. He is constantly brought back to his fragile health and to the suicide of his father.
The crow generally imitates someone who has a lower intellectual level, it is more difficult and unnecessary to do the opposite. The crow will always use very basic, coarse language, revolving around sex. Wickedness always related to events or alleged secrets in order to hurt the recipient.
It is important to note that a crow or an anonymographer never admits guilt, even when faced with compelling evidence. Why ? First of all, this is explained by an unconscious defense mechanism: the denial of reality or the perception of reality. He can also be affected by psychoses or serious personality disorders which are sometimes undetectable (except by professionals specialized in this field, psychology).
Doctor Gassiot takes the example of a case he personally studied: several people in a village have been the targets of an 'anonymographer' for years. The same person regularly ransacked a resident’s wine cellar. The latter therefore decided to install a camera and the individual was finally exposed. Despite the evidence of his involvement, he will say, "If you say it's me, it's me. But for me, it's not me." This man was the famous doctor of the village, elected municipal. He was unsuspected.
This explains all the psychological mechanics of the crow. Indeed, the crow cannot say / write what can only be said anonymously. For him, it is "the other" who will be invested with this ability to write / say; "The other" i.e. the person (anonymous) that he becomes when he commits his misdeeds. A man who is respected, valued and caring in his personal life - like the doctor mentioned above - can "disguise himself" under an appearance mask, protect himself behind a respectable and trustworthy professional / personal situation. His personality has a gray area which he unconsciously represses but which is exposed in all its magnitude under anonymity.
The question of identity is essential and highly symbolic, an unsigned document - therefore not attributed to someone existing - is clearly the psychological way in which the individual distances himself from his own acts performed by "the other". This "other" is somehow "non-existent" since he has no name, no proper identity.
Note: Dr. Gassiot's findings are consistent with the conclusions of the study by expert Ms. Berrichon-sedeyn (present at the conference): The crow is generally an individual who does not show any aggressive behavior openly. He / She can be anyone ... even unsuspected. A notable, a man or a woman of good family. Finally, the rude language of anonymous letters has no relation to age, gender, or appearance. The crow, in its everyday life, can use a rich vocabulary and a common or sustained language, etc.
"No one is immune to the abominable, we are all capable of the worst." - Jean Teulé.
Interview with André Gassiot
What will be the common thread of your conference?
The purpose of this conference is to understand what a "crow" is and how he / she works.
We must differentiate between crows and anonymographers who are delinquents and criminals. Why does an individual start writing anonymous letters? Why the writing and why the absence of the name? To find answers, you have to delve into the origins of writing and even before, into signs. There are a lot of mechanics in the ravens writing process that don't just boil down to them.
From the very studied cases and from my 30 years experience as an expert, graphologist, psychiatrist, it is a question of showing that it is an extremely complex story. We see it in the Angèle Laval case, or the Grégory case. It forces us to study what we call human nature and the notion of human antisocial behavior, which we will find among the Nazis or more recently among members of Al-Qaeda.
Being anonymous raises the question of identity. What is a name? All the psychoanalysis is there.
Regarding Angèle Laval, what would be your analysis of her actions?
It enters completely into the mechanics of the crow. From her childhood jealousy, she developed compensation strategies that went so far as to push her mother to suicide. It is the denial of the existence of the other.
Despite the complexity of this phenomenon, are there any common denominators among the "crows"?
Crows are exciting because they never confess. We have here a particular problem which is not an intellectual cognitive mechanism, but an activity linked to the emotional world. Denial in psychopathology is an unconscious defense mechanism. You cannot make someone say something that they cannot say, since it is in the unconscious and therefore inaccessible on the verbal and cognitive level. Because these are anonymous letters, we are dealing with unconscious mechanisms that we must be able to work out, in order to understand the deviations of human nature.
As an expert graphologist and psychiatrist, is there one file that particularly marked you?
In the history of crows, it's Angèle Laval, that's for sure. As part of my expertise, I saw a lot of crows, those who were in denunciation or manipulation. I even studied a case for 8 years, which allowed me to become aware of all the mechanics of crows. I took crows in psychotherapy on the problem of confession. We meet behind, psychological profiles with neuroses, obsessions, including psychoses. It is an extraordinary world which touches on writing, identity and makes it possible to highlight human nature in all its components.
Are there many crows on the Net today?
Cyber-crows are two more hours of conference! The particular mark of the cybercrow is its traumatic power. The crow is hiding, the cybercrow will try to hide, but with different techniques. Yet the psychological mechanism is the same. What sets them apart is that cybercrows are often teenagers.
Dragan Pérovic
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