Psychokleptesis

PSYCHOKLEPTESIS (al­so In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Theft, Non-Mar­itime Pira­cy, or Schizo-af­fec­tive Cog­ni­tive Disor­der), the forced ap­pro­pri­a­tion of thoughts and oth­er men­tal el­e­ments by an ex­ist­ing or imag­ined as­sailant, of­ten re­sult­ing in fis­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and para­psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma to the in­fringed vic­tim.

Symptoms

Suf­fer­ers fre­quent­ly re­port hav­ing their thoughts stolen or used with­out con­sent. The per­pe­tra­tors are of­ten re­mote and shad­owy; they may in­clude sci­en­tists, gov­ern­ment bu­reau­crats, alien in­fil­tra­tors, in­ter­na­tion­al pi­rates, and even mem­bers of the anony­mous pub­lic. In the most un­for­tu­nate cas­es, vic­tims un­der­take ex­treme mea­sures of re­me­di­a­tion or sim­ply stop think­ing al­to­geth­er.

Prevention

The most pop­u­lar pre­ven­tive is the use of apotropa­ic mag­ic to ward off in­fringers. For ex­am­ple, a pub­lish­er might make a cir­cle with the let­ter C in­side it, along with the in­can­ta­tion “All rights re­served.”