    22

    Two groups of rats were placed in shock cages.  One group could

    escape the shock by jumping to an unelectrified platform.  A second

    group could not.  In short, the rats who could make the leap had a

    primitive form of control.  The systems of the rats who could not

    control their shock were flooded with endorphins.  The rats who did

    have control, on the other hand, avoided an endorphin surge.  The rats

    without control were afflicted with endorphin's dulling of the senses

    and the mind.  The rats with a handle on their fate remained perceptive

    and alert.33  Other experiments indicate something equally ominous:

    the lack of control disables the ability for long-term potentiation of

    neurons--in other words, it wreaks havoc on the ability to retain and

    act on vital information.34

    Control, in humans and rats, energizes the mind.  A lack of

    control can cripple mental powers.  Two groups of human subjects

    were given a set of complicated puzzles and a proofreading chore.

    Both groups had to carry out their tasks while an irritating noise grated

    away in the background.  There was one major difference between the

    two experimental contingents: one had control and one did not.  The

    tables at which one group of subjects sat had a button.  With that

    button, they could turn off the wretched sound.  The second group's

    members had no control at all.  Without a button, they simply had to

    grin and bear it.

    The group with the control buttons on their desks sailed through

    the puzzles and made only a modest number of errors in their

    proofreading.  The group with no control did miserably.  They

    mastered five times fewer puzzles.  And their proofreading was

    atrocious.  The deprivation of control had clouded their minds.

    Strangest of all, the group with the button never actually pushed

    that  button  once.    It  wasn't  the  noise  or  lack  of  it  that  affected  their

    performance.  It was the mere idea that if they'd wanted to, they could

    shut if off.  It was the thought of control.35

    The Kota came crawling to their sorcerer neighbors begging for

    an invisible form of help because forest witch doctors sold the

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