Boyer

"The term 'Gaslighting' comes from the 1944 movie, Gaslight, starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten. In the movie, Charles Boyer tries to convince his wife that she's going insane by contriving incidents designated to make it appear as if she's forgetful, disoriented, and confused. As Ingrid Bergman played a Victorian housewife, Boyer's evil character had total control over her environment, and was able to use the force of his personality to convince Bergman that she had inherited bad genes from her mother, who had died insane .In that limited Victorian environment, without telephone, radio, television, and E-Mail, the techniques available were very few. Boyer hid some of her possessions, to make it appear that Bergman was becoming acutely forgetful. Rooms lighting was by gas, which provided an opportunity for devious mind-damaging. Boyer would sneak into the attic, for example, to rummage among the goods stored in it, and turn on the gaslight, which would cause the pressure to drop in the bedroom below. Ingrid Bergman became so psyched out that she thought she was imagining the dimming of the light in her room." "Surprise is an essential element....well under way..." This is what Victor said.