Calling electric gurus, help!

Ok, another new and interesting discovery I just went back to this for a bit ( need to take a break now and then to give my brain a break, lol ) and with this wires hooked up as mentioned above, with no flasher they work perfectly but dont flash, if I hook up the flasher then there dim and dont flash BUT IF I touch the probe of my test light to the purple power supply wire, ( I was testing to see if the light was bright at that juncture) then the lights are bright and flash perfect, when I remove the probe they go dim, this has got to be a ground issue, what am I missing? Btw, none of the wires in the bundle at the column are grounded, should one be? There is a black one but I think I had already tried grounding that one with no change. Thanks for your help here .