Booth's Mental health

[Juan Marrero]

I don't think that it is a question of his being nuts or perfectly sane. People are complicated. That's why Shakespeares's villains are so interesting and one feels a certain amount of sympathy for them. Appropriately enough, Booth was complicated. Garfields's killer, Guiteau, not so complicated. Guiteau seems to have been schizophrenic.

[Jenny]

A majority of folks who suffer from mental illnesses and disorders are hardly "nuts." That's an old stigma that is sadly still used today due to lack of public education.

As I have said before, no one will ever be able to conclusively prove that Booth had any mental issues or learned traits (from Laurie's post) that might have been a factor. It just won't happen. I will be the first to admit it.

However due to many recorded incidents involving family members and Booth himself, I personally see a very strong *possibility* that something, whether learned behavior or passed down genetics for a mental illness or disorder, was "off" about John Wilkes Booth. What that thing was? That's left for us to make our own speculations about (if we want to at all) as we all do about so many other parts of the Lincoln Assassination.

I am no mind reader (sadly - although I did edit my first post because I took my speculation too far without evidence to back it up. Apologies for that). I just call it as I see it from my own education and experiences regarding mental health. Does that mean I am right? That Booth did indeed had some sort of mental illness? Not at all. Does it mean I am wrong to have my suspicions due to legitimate documents and other evidence that record suspect behavior from Booth in this case? No.

Juan, that's another interesting thing about Booth - he doesn't seem to fit the "mold" that his successors like Guiteau do.

[LincolnToddFan]

(05-15-2015 05:27 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Take a look at Gordon Samples' "Lust for Fame" and the chapter about Booth's supposed trip to Paris. A woman he spent some time with was afraid of him and said he would awake in the night to converse with spirits and displayed some very strange behavior.

Mary Todd Lincoln had something in common with her husband's killer!?

[Gene C]

Sounds more like a spirited conversation with Jack Daniels, Jim Bean and Jose Cuervo

[L Verge]

I know that Juan and Jenny will agree with me that it is because Booth does not fit the typical mold of an assassin (at least our American ones) that makes him continue to fascinate many people. And, there are many historical figures that I would like to emulate. In the case of Booth, I think the circumstances of the Civil War made him identify with Brutus. About ten years ago, John Andrews wrote on "Shakespeare Killed Abraham Lincoln." I think he got it right.

I think I'll dig up the old attempt to assassinate Gov. Wallace to see how the civil rights issue a hundred years later affected the mindset of his would-be murderer. That happened about 25 miles from me here in Maryland. What is this thing with Marylanders?

BTW: Gene, Booth preferred brandy.

---

I took my own advice and checked on Arthur Bremmer and his attempt on George Wallace. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bremer

Make sure that you read the quoted passages from his diary. Very similar to JWB's reasonings. The early years of his life compared with Booth's, however, are almost exactly the opposite - as are the political leanings with Booth supporting slavery and Bremmer an anti-segregationist.

I did breathe a little sigh of relief to find that Bremmer spent most of his life in Wisconsin, not Maryland (at least before the assassination attempt). He's been in Maryland now since 1972. He earned an early release from prison in 2007, but has to remain in our state.

And talk about voodoo - I'm posting this on May 15, 2015. Bremmer made his attempt on Wallace on May 15, 1972. What made Bremmer pop into my brain on this exact day?

[RJNorton]

(05-15-2015 10:05 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  It is so wonderful to find that John Wilkes Booth was some kind of a nut. It is even more refreshing to see that his has been psychoanalyzed by pseudo-professional mind readers. The problem is that Americans seem to prefer that all of their presidential assassins be insane--it allows us to avoid difficult questions about real motive for pop psychology. I refer you all to the article by James W. Clarke, "Conspiracies, Myths, and the Will to Believe: The importance of Content," In Gabor S. Boritt and Norman O. Furness, Historian's Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History (Urbana: U Ills. Press, 1988), 365-73.

I have the book Bill mentioned. While I cannot post the entire article, I tried to pick out a paragraph that I think contains at least some parts of the point Bill is trying to make. Bill, if there is a better paragraph in the article that you'd like me to post I shall be glad to do so.

[HerbS]

Booth was a"wack job",Guiteau was a "nut case",and pushed over the edge by Garfield's son's statements to Guiteau! Oswald was not too stable either.I don't think Leon Z.was all there either.Take a good look at the attempt on R.R.,but Brady paid the price.So-on and so-on!I tend to think that all of the attemped,and Assassins have had mental issues in history.

[Gene C]

From a prisoner in a German, Jewish concentration camp of WWII,
"we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions."

From " Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

[L Verge]

(05-16-2015 03:58 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-15-2015 10:05 AM)Wild Bill Wrote:  It is so wonderful to find that John Wilkes Booth was some kind of a nut. It is even more refreshing to see that his has been psychoanalyzed by pseudo-professional mind readers. The problem is that Americans seem to prefer that all of their presidential assassins be insane--it allows us to avoid difficult questions about real motive for pop psychology. I refer you all to the article by James W. Clarke, "Conspiracies, Myths, and the Will to Believe: The importance of Content," In Gabor S. Boritt and Norman O. Furness, Historian's Lincoln: Pseudohistory, Psychohistory, and History (Urbana: U Ills. Press, 1988), 365-73.

I have the book Bill mentioned. While I cannot post the entire article, I tried to pick out a paragraph that I think contains at least some parts of the point Bill is trying to make. Bill, if there is a better paragraph in the article that you'd like me to post I shall be glad to do so.

Thank you for culling that out and posting it, Roger. I am now going to enlarge it to poster-size and hang it on my office wall! It hits the two main points that I have preached for years: 1) Lincoln is revered more now in hindsight than he ever was in life, and 2) the pressure of the Civil War on the entire American people made them do things that we now consider evil.

Other civilizations for eons have considered assassination a viable method of politics. William Henry Seward understood that - even if he thought Americans were above such messes. I realize that several of you will now hop out of your seat and take after me, but please don't waste your time. I don't condone such action and I don't condone what Booth did (and what others wanted to do). I just think that I can understand motives.

I find it strange how we can take one man's evil and turn it around as a just cause. My point in this case is John Brown. His actions in Kansas and Harpers Ferry were evil, but he was lauded by many in the abolitionist cause. The human mind can sure make weird distinctions.

[Jenny]

Quote:I have the book Bill mentioned. While I cannot post the entire article, I tried to pick out a paragraph that I think contains at least some parts of the point Bill is trying to make. Bill, if there is a better paragraph in the article that you'd like me to post I shall be glad to do so.

Roger, thanks for the clipping. I very much agree with it.

By the way (this is for everyone in general) mental illness or disorder does not equal nutcase/insanity/asylum/straight jacket etc. an overwhelming majority of the time. I think this assumption might be why a lot of folks bristle if it is suggested that Booth might have some sort of mental illness (as it would have been classified today).

I really don't want to come off as someone who wants to play the "he (Booth) was insane" card and appear to toss all of his obvious motives, plans, etc. out the window by saying he was utterly out of his mind the entire time. I am absolutely not.

Great quote, Gene!!

[L Verge]

Who was it that said there is a fine line between genius and insanity?

[Jenny]

Excellent post, Laurie!

[Craig Hipkins]

It is my unprofessional but personal belief that terms like "Insane," "Schizophrenia," "Narcissistic" and others that describe human frailties and actions are all relative terms. The norms of society dictate what is accepted behavior in that culture. Everyone is subject to moments of insanity or narcissism. This is due to each individuals unique experiences from childhood, through adolescence and adulthood.
Someone once said "My reality is not your reality." To John Wilkes Booth his reality was determined by the environment and the associations that he had been born into. Booth's motive for killing President Lincoln has been the subject of debate for over 150 years now. The only way to look at it honestly is to place it in context to the time in which it happened. Analyzing it from a 21st century perspective will give a spurious sense of reality as this most certainly will lead to a subjective conclusion.

Craig

[Jenny]

See where you are coming from for sure, Craig.

I think we are getting confused on "motive" versus "mental health." They are not the same. I've been going on about mental health because that was the original topic of the thread (I think).

Going to shut up and just watch the thread for a while - I feel like I am making things confusing (I am probably not on the same page).

[HerbS]

I call it man's inhumanity to man!