The Jonathan Phenomenon

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that there seem to be a few new posters here, who may not be familiar with some of the tangenital issues that occasionally crop up on alt.conspiracy.sunnydale and related newsgroups. I thought it might be a good idea for me to post an itroduction to the Jonathan phenomenon, since it's what got me into Sunnydale studies. Maybe others can cover the LA darkness, Wolfram & Hart, etc.

Basically, around 2000 a Los Angeles media studies tutor noted an odd phenomenon; a statistically significant number of students were putting the name "Jonathan Levinson" into the cast of films such as The Matrix, Star Wars, etc. instead of the real stars. When questioned none of the students could explain why this had happened. Subsequently it was learned that similar false results were being observed in other areas such as History of Computing (a jaw-dropping 37% of students believed that he had invented the Internet), medicine, and musicology. It was also established that the phenomenon was global; I've fallen victim to it myself more than once.

When memory-recovery techniques are used on some "victims" (if that's the right word) they began to remember more of this mysterious character; agile, strong, impeccably groomed, in his late teens or early twenties, and apparently a master of a dazzling range of arts and skills. None of the Jonathan Levinsons found by an extensive search matched this description. The phenomenon continues to this day.

Following the Sunnydale Collapse more interest was focused on the town, and in particular on the passengers on The Last Bus and in the 1999 Sunnydale High graduating class. It was learned that a Jonathan Levinson was a member of this class, and in tests more than 63% of subjects recognized his yearbook photograph as the mysterious figure they remembered.

Little is known of the real Levinson; he does not appear to have attended college, and was a wanted criminal at the time of the Sunnydale Collapse. Interestingly, he was arrested (a citizens arrest) by Buffy Summers, one of the Last Bus passengers and a former classmate (two others on the bus, Alexander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, were also 1999 graduates, and the driver of The Bus, Dr. Rupert Giles, was of course the school librarian in 1999), but later escaped. His name has subsequently been added to the list of those killed in the Collapse, though there is no evidence to confirm this.

It's a fascinating and frustrating story, especially for those of us cursed with bad memories and an unfortunate habit of calling people "Jonathan" instead of their real names, and its global nature suggests an experiment in mind control, possibly via low-frequency radio waves.

Here's a picture of the real Levinson - not sure what the occasion was.

Comments

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Hey! I think I had a CD by him. I mean, the face looks the same and the name is too, so it's gotta be him.

I just went through my collect and I can't find it. Probably got lost in my last move.

If anyone has any MP3s of his, unh, CD...one of them. I can't remember names right now, but any MP3, would you be willing to share? That would be soooo cool. I'd especially like the song, ummm, I forget the title. Something about flowers and women...maybe tea and spice?

The one that goes Daaahhhhh!-DUM-DUM-DAAAAAAHHHH-dilly-dilly-doooo. That one.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

"Memory-recovery techniques" have been totally discredited. More often than not they create false memories of things that never happened. People looking for evidence of "Jonathan" actually create memories of him in their subjects, and then point to those false memories as evidence that Jonathan actually existed.

The same thing happens with people trying to recover memories of alien abductions, and past lives. (And more seriously, some "therapists" trying to "recover" memories of childhood abuse, often create false memories of abuse, where none happened.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree, but there's evidence that a good proportion of the subjects and therapists involved became aware of the extent of the Jonathan thing after the memories began to surface. The Tokyo study with the Buddhist monks speaks for itself, I think.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Yes. It is a classic example of why you need to do proper double blind testing of such things. The Tokyo researchers knew that they were looking for evidence of "Jonathan" and so they created it in the minds of their test subjects.

[very-true-thing.livejournal.com]

Wow. Fascinating stuff. Prompted me to take a closer look at the Sunnydale Jonathan. Came across something interesting. Some guy called Andrew Wells was arrested (and escaped) at the same time as Jonathan. And someone with the same name was allegedly on the infamous 'Last Bus'. Coincidence? I doubt it.