“The second Dæmon of Imagination is Sin. Have you ever heard people say, ‘There seems to be quite an epidemic of burglaries’ or ‘of murders’? They are quite right.
There is an epidemic of these things. They are catching in a curious way. People read of a crime in the newspapers, they allow their Imagination to dwell upon all the details; the whole thing becomes a living picture which they cannot get rid of, and the end is that they attempt the same sort of crime themselves. That is why it is unwise for anyone to read newspaper accounts of those sorts of things, for even if you are not tempted to do the wickedness, the horrid picture of it remains, once you have allowed your Imagination to paint it for you.” – Charlotte Mason Ourselves Volume 4 Book 1 p 54