I’m not talking about a person who is delusional and believes he’s telling the truth in spite of evidence to the contrary, etc., but who begins by telling lies and, through repetition, eventually convinces himself they’re true.
Examples that come to mind:
-A politician tells the same heartwarming story so many times that even though in fact it either is grossly embellished or never happened at all even he seems to think it’s true.
Or- and this one I completely believe happens-
A minister tells about a vision he has (vision with small ‘v’- think, goal) and he talks about it so much it becomes a ‘Vision’ in the mystical sense that he had, and it grows more until it was something he saw 'just as clear as day with Jesus Christ standing right there close as you are now and telling me ‘Billy Joe, this is what I want you to do…’, and accelerates until it’s roughly on par with the Book of Isaiah and the minister himself seems to have forgotten its origins.
To use a TV parable, Don Draper on Mad Men: he doesn’t have amnesia or anything like, he can remember everything in his past, but sometimes it seems that by reinventing himself and living under another name and another lifestyle and all for so many years, he forgets his past for long periods until something happens that sends him a flashback scene.
Is there a name for this type of syndrome of turning myth into fact?
Ronald Reagan told various stories in speeches, seeming to be true, but which turned out to be scenes from movies that he had been in. Especially as he got older.
But I think the word that describes that would be “senility” or “Alzheimer’s onset”.
Confabulation is closest- that happens a lot when family members, each telling the truth as they remember it, tell a story (the Rashomon effect). In fact confabulation is the condition I’m looking for, but I suppose what I’m really looking for is the process by which memory becomes confabulation.
It occurs that Rev. Jim Jones would be applicable as well. I think he really and truly start to believe some of the things he began by telling as flat out lies about his powers and his divinity, etc., even when it totally contradicted other things he said or provable facts. With no offense to Mormons, my personal belief is that Joseph Smith, whose early tales were not only outlandish but constantly contradicted themselves, began as a con-man but somewhere along the line started to believe in his own religion.
A non-religious example- my opinion only- is Jefferson Davis. Reading his 1860-1861 writings and speeches, he makes no bones about the fact secession and the Confederacy and the war are about slavery first with every other cause combined being a distant second. Reading not just his official writings but even his private correspondence in later years, I think he had actually managed to convince himself “No, it wasn’t really about slavery, it was about state’s rights and self government and kindness to kittens and buttermilk biscuits…” stuff that’s now the Lost Cause dogma.
With all of the above, egomania is perhaps a part as is going through lots of suffering for your statements or actions or beliefs. (This isn’t to say the suffering wasn’t often justified, but it was suffering no less.)
I think with some of the ministers I’ve seen and known they have a process similar to “okay, I made it up… but it serves a much higher purpose… and perhaps I was being divinely led to make it up… and if I was being divinely led then I really wasn’t making it up at all, was I? Hey, I’ve really been telling the truth all along!”
Admittedly, though, it is usually applied to those who “confabulate” in the sense of making conversation, and not in the sense of someone who has deluded themselves.
It wasn’t that he was making up action (in that hits and runs were being scored) but he had a batter fouling off a continuous string of pitches until the wire came back. After one “foul ball” he described two kids chasing the ball and one falling down…
I don’t believe that the OJ situation qualifies as he convinced himself and a jury as well of his lies. Sort of a mass hallucination/insanity type thing.
TriPolar, you’ve been around long enough to be aware that political jabs like this are against General Questions rules. This is an official warning. Don’t do this again.
With each repetition, the story becomes more convincing. It could start out as a conscious untruth, but it could also be constructed with indifference to accuracy. In the second case, it’s known as bullshit and the person is a bullshit artist. Euphemisms include horsepucky and smoke blowing.
A third beginning could be defensive, where the person will say what sounds best to reply to a criticism, perhaps accusing their opponents of their own central vice. But in all cases reinforcement through repetition plays a central role.
Sort of a mass hallucination/insanity type thing.