I love to watch cult and/or true crime (they are often one and the same, almost identical circles in a Venn diagram) documentaries. I prefer the quirky and weird, but sometimes, these topics can be quite heavy. I just saw a new one called (I think) Swipe Right For The Devil, I already know I don’t like that and will not be watching. But even the things I like, over time, can have a compounding effect on my soul.

My youngest son introduced me to a tv show called the Mentalist. I suppose it’s what you’d call a procedural. There is a team of law enforcement agents that investigate murders, and a dreamy guy who solves them all, quickly and easily, using his skills as a conman/psychic. It’s fairly light, with enough humor, considering each episode begins with a homicide. However, there is a through-line. The mentalist, Patrick Jane (the actor Simon Baker) had his family murdered by the serial killer Red John, so his entire motivation is vengeance: finding Red John and killing him. Generally, we get only a few minutes of character development per episode and even less of Red John. But from time to time, the show leans into the main mystery, the why the show exists, and it is then that it loses it’s lightness to the pitch dark.

In Sunday morning’s message, the material led to a warning: be careful about what kind of material we are consuming. We all think we are not affected, and we are all wrong. The Algorithm feeds us a particular food and we become what we eat. If we only watch YouTube videos from the political fringe, we will begin to resemble that fringe. We will think this is reasonable and we will become the fringe. If you only listen to Sabrina Carpenter, (if you can keep from tearing your ears out of your head), you will eventually believe all females are sex-obsessed cardboard cutouts whose sole purpose is as an aphrodisiac for frat boys. (This example may be a step too far, why would anyone only listen to Sabrina Carpenter??? But you get the point.)

In the series, I am at the point where we are about to expose and confront Red John, so all the episodes have that bloody tint. It’s honestly pretty disturbing. The imagery is frightening, the tone is aggressive and ominous. I am very engaged, I can’t wait to see who it is, AND, I also can’t wait for it to be over to put Red John behind us. I think it is doing something not quite healthy to my heart and soul.

There is a neuro-scientific element to this. The idea of neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt and reorganize in response to experience, learning, attention, and repeated practice. Our brains actually change (!!) based on what we repeatedly do, or consistently behold, rehears, love, or fear.

What we feed grows.

IF we are worrying (or afraid or anxious), our brains make shiny new roads to drive those emotions. 

IF we are peaceful & present, those will be our roads.

Is it ok that I’m watching the Mentalist rather than reading the Scriptures, thinking about serial killers rather than how to love my neighbor? What an interesting question. It’s probably ok, but only sometimes. There is plenty of beauty in the show (2 of the main characters recently got married, I cried, and immediately told The Angel, “I’d marry you again, today and every day”), love, friendship. In other words, there is plenty of good. And we’ve discussed the docs I like before, hearing their stories, their pasts, their lives, makes me less and less judgmental, more and more empathetic.

But there is a tipping point, right? People in places where it is dark for months at a time lose perspective and go crazy. The darkness of ‘entertainment’ and cultural stimulation does the same, disorients, starts to skew our foundations, and we end up miles from where we started.

Maybe the answer is simply to be aware. I know this search for Red John is as dangerous for me as it is for these characters. And now, I’m wondering what it says about me that I won’t stop?

I have 3 episodes and then I’ll tear up these roads. At least for a while.