Being manipulated is having the world inside your body crumpled to the ground, never to be rebuilt again. It doesn’t sound very fun, right? Manipulation should always be avoided at all costs, but how do we do it? Think about it like this, there’s this huge desert called the Mojave Desert. In that desert, there’s just a lonely phone booth. It’s like, when Godfrey Daniels said in a podcast about his experience, “A phone booth in the middle of the desert is like being able to talk to the moon” (Integration 2). What’s so special about this phone booth is that it’s just sitting in the middle of nowhere, with no stores or civilization close to it? This relates to finding and avoiding the manipulator because 99% of the time the phone booth doesn’t ring like the manipulator setting up their plans and making subtle moves, but when the time comes, the phone will just ring. The manipulator will just pounce destroying everything you have.

To try and stop this, maybe start by seeing who could be acting out of pocket in your friend group or anyone else you talk to. Most of the time, there won’t be anything out of the ordinary, but there will come a time when the manipulator changes their tone or attitude in a good or bad way to carry out what they need to do. For example, in Othello, Iago manipulates Roderigo, Cassio, and Othello simultaneously. This ultimately leads to an unfortunate end for Roderigo as well as Othello, who falls for Iago’s tricks into making them hate each other and kill them. He was able to manipulate them by acting nice and trustworthy towards them while cooking his plan up with other people. This is what a manipulator is best at, making it so hard to catch them. The way you should go about catching them is to analyze what they are saying to you. If they are trying to spread false rumors about this kind of person, and your only proof is from this manipulator, it could give you a good idea of what you’re dealing with and catch them. Most of the time though, it will be much harder to catch them by just talking to them. You are going to need to do some inside work as well. Try other ways or people to find proof about this person instead of the manipulator guiding you to what they want you to see. This tactic will work because even though Iago played it perfectly and it was too late for Othello when he found out because he had already killed his own wife, Desdemona, if he had talked to other people about Iago things could have ended differently. He might have heard other information from others and found out all Iago’s sayings were false but he kept only listening to Iago which led to his ultimate demise.

With all these evil things this manipulator is doing, it deserves the worst of the worst punishment in hell. Manipulators are sent to Circle VII of lower hell, which is reserved for fraud against those who share no special trust. Their punishment is to be submerged in boiling blood. This should hopefully show them not to kill as well as not manipulate others ever again. With this guide, it will make sure you will never get manipulated by anyone ever again!