Early in my career as a forensic psychologist, I was retained in the matter of the theft of books working with my department head, Dr. William Logan. The value of these books was priced between $5 to $20 million dollars at a time when that was an astronomical amount. Some of these stolen books were incunabula or books printed before 1501. In Latin, incunabulum is singular of “incunabula.” A literal translation would refer to an infant’s “swaddling clothes” that had bands that would hold a baby in a cradle. The books produced when the printing press was in its infancy, were referred to with this term. The individual I evaluated occurred when I was working as a psychologist in the Law and Psychiatry department at Menninger. Stephen Blumberg, the criminal of the theft, had been evaluated much earlier in life at the same facility before he was charged with these alleged crimes. His father was a physician and had tried to manage both his son and mother’s maladies. This was a wealthy family that had obtained much of its financial standing through real estate. There was a history of hoarding in the family fortunately, and some of it was valuable land in addition to string.
In the early history of books, most of the texts were sacred. To steal a book would result in excommunication from the Church. As the narrative was constructed, Stephen discovered that the books he believed to be valuable were being disposed of by libraries simply because they were old and out of print. We should note that this was a time when blocks of Victorian houses were being torn down around Minnesota to make room for new apartments. He would enter these buildings and search the attics for books. Gradually he began building his own library with books he stole from libraries as an act of heroism to preserve them according to his story. He stole the identity card of a professor of psychology, hence my first case of identity theft, to have access to the collections and the stacks. In these days, these valuable books were not under the same tight security as today. Stephen risked his life climbing down a book shoot to reach his desired prizes. Included in his books from all over the nation, was the only copy of Captain Cook’s Journal of his discovery of the Hawaiian Islands. Nicholas A. Basbanes has a chapter about Stephen in his well-regarded book called, “A Gentle-Madness.”
There were peculiarities in this case. I learned of rings of men who shared books from the Victorian age glorifying the love of young boys. Their bible was, “My Secret Life: An Erotic Diary of Victorian London”. This was a key to a secret society of pedophilia circles in English-speaking countries according to Stephen. Some of the stolen books were used to engage the young with the hope that this would lead to a relationship. In addition, when obituaries or death notices were published, Stephan would enter houses, taking photographs of the deceased and their relatives, and they became his friends. I learned the value of open-ended questions when diagnostically he was given a self-assessment questionnaire that I had modified. Initially, the answers to these questions revealed a tremendous amount of what lay beneath the surface. In many of these cases, there is more going on than what meets the eye. This is one of my first cases where my testimony was summarized in a newspaper. I testified in Des Moines during a Future Farmers of America convention. The impact of beliefs on behavior and the subsequent forging of experience was clearly revealed in this case. I also found that librarians became particularly interested in book thieves and those who defaced books after the trial. Earlier in the 1500’s, this crime would result in corporal punishment.
Today the ability for groups or individuals to find support for their idiosyncratic pursuits has never been easier than today as it is readily facilitated by the Worldwide Web with the use of basic search terms. The ability to find a normalization of deviance has never been so readily accomplished. During our attempts to understand others as therapists/examiners, we are always trying to evaluate the relationship between their thoughts and actions. When fake news or hate speech is read, it is like an accelerant used to spread a fire. Then destructive actions proceed with little contemplation of the consequences. The only inhibitors to the flames of righteous justification are the inhibitors that arise when we imagine how someone we care about, whether alive or not, might respond to what we wish to do. Hence my emphasis that we need to reinforce in our isolating but digitally connected world direct interpersonal and emotional connections. I have seen how the lack of connection in a family and community results in the type of justification systems or engagement in groups that destroy individuals and their communities.
For more on the case see:
https://harvardmagazine.com/1997/03/biblio.3.html
https://cool.conservation-us.org/byorg/abbey/an/an15/an15-7/an15-702.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-04-28/news/mn-1571_1_book-theft