"Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. The test was one of life or death, and the proof of innocence was survival. In some cases, the accused was considered innocent if they escaped injury or if their injuries healed." - Wikipedia

Have anyone else here found yourself in i a social context that makes you feel that it is arranged to make someone lose control and take the blame? Nudge Nudge you know what I mean?

Trial by ordeal was a very arbitrary practice.

For example: People were forced to dip a hand in a kettle of boiling water and retrieve a stone. If they became injured they were guilty!

Another practice was the water test. If someone drowned he or she was "innocent", if he or she survived it was and indication of "guilt".

D'oh!

Personally I just can not stop feeling that this crazy psychological violence going on is some kind of Trial By Ordeal.

The ones snapping are stigmatized or socially excluded. Seen it many times.

Anyone else getting what I am looking for?

Yes. Doesn't happen so much physically like in the olden days, but mentally, psychological trial by ordeal happen all the time.

A very simple version is something that happened to me once. A Mormon woman once kept insisting I was angry. I wasn't angry at all, not even a little bit. But she kept insisting I was because of some opinion I had given. Well she kept needling me for such a long time that I got angry (allowed her to make me angry) which gave her the "win" when she said, "See? I knew you were angry!Why didn't you just admit it?"

It was a good lesson. I don't fall for it quite so easily since then.

It is the same as what is happening a lot in our society. You are accused falsely and then it is up to you to prove your innocence. You can't escape undamaged at that point. For instance we read in the paper that someone "settled" an ugly law suit and we may assume then that to be an admission of some guilt and that is why they settled. Often, the accused may have insurance to cover such an incident and the Insurance Company who bought the risk has a say in the settlement as they want to spend as little as possible and it has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. Also, the accused may wish to avoid years of the frustration and anger that permeate your life in such a situation and so they settle. But the accusation trails them forever. For me this is the mental equivalent of being put physically in harms way and needing too come out unscathed to prove innocence.

The mental version of Trial by Ordeal is prevalent in our society with our children. Like the Mormons for instance. Beat your child to bloody and broken and you will to to jail for harming their body. But there is a hands off approach to parent and leaders when it comes to harming their brains and psyches--indoctrinating and brainwashing kids , making them doubt reality and themselves and to fear facts. That is okay. We must support a parent right to do that or so many in our society say.

Thank you for you post!

A time ago I read an academical disseration about this ordeal-logic in eastern europe during the Soviet days and the only way to get out of this trial-dilemma is to "pay a price".

There were two alternative strategies available to "pay the price":

Patron-Client ("Yes, master")

Playing a fool ("I do not understand, do not except anything from me", "I am stupid or mentally insane")

Staying away from entanglement with the Ordeal-makers is most of the time impossible because everyone has to make a living and the requires cooperation with many ordeal-makers.

You mentioned the settlement and that is what we do in western world in a civilized way but the trials are not so civilized when they are on a psychological level. That is what we all know.

But I hope that everybody will find their strategies out of the trial of ordeal-dilemmas they face in life at different moments.

I have someone at work like this......they push you to the limit, until you explode at them, then get mad at you for exploding at them. I think they are a Narcissist and/or Sadomasochist they seem to enjoy the whole thing.

Worked with people like that to. They try to talk you into doing their job. Very manipulative people and they think they have a right to their money and you have no right demanding any cooperation. They destroy workplaces.

I can not cope with a rancid social situation that is eating me up. I started to panic under pressure and ended up apologizing to the crazy-maker.

I am in that zone right now when I starting to feel my natural boundaries and the "imperators" does not like it. I wonder where I will end up next.

Been pondering on thi subject from time to time and I been reading into some methods of torture practiced in the western world and I can only say we in the western world have a knack for using methods to get confessions of "guilt" out of persons.

I would say that it seems to me that that is what people in the western world do most of their time. Out locating guilt and pushing people psychological ordeals.

Not a beautiful sight.

Sick and tired right now. Ended up in a situation where I am stuck. A real ordeal.

This time I am praying.

Reminds me of some of the old "Theodoric of York" skits by Steve Martin on SNL...

Some school friends and I were mad at another schoolmate. We decided to get even by individually telling her in subtle ways, throughout the morning, that she looked sick, or seemed sick. We had no idea of what we were doing, until the schoolmate went home. We ran to the school nurse, and she told us the schoolmate felt sick, and had to go home. We felt so bad! We had made someone sick! We called the schoolmate, and explained, and apologized.

The power of suggestion.

I'm worried that the new Mormon "ministering" program might have the same effect. If enough ward members thing someone is depressed, "mentally ill" or having marital problems, and they all start interfering in that person's life to "help," that person might become convinced that he/she actually does have that problem.

Unqualified diagnoses can be a disaster! Especially, with more subjective disorders which are more difficult to pinpoint.

What is normal! We are all depressed sometimes. All married couples don't get along sometimes. If a Mormon leaves a mission early, has a SSA, watches Porn, becomes inactive--this might not be any kind of "problem" to the person at all, and, rather, a solution, and self-acceptance.

Pioneer trek

3-hour Sunday Boredom

Cleaning toilets

The temple

Garments

Missions

All Trials By Ordeal

Whoever doesn't act happy, whoever doesn't say it was the "best experience ever" is not faithful.

I no longer have anything to do with her. The psychological torture was horrible.

I tend to set myself up for situations like this and I think I learned it from having a sister who treated me this way. She has never once been wrong in her entire life and I was always the one apologizing to her to make peace. Peace. What a joke that was.