Starting this Tuesday evening (EST), a six-week course featuring Mattias Desmet, Piers Robinson and MCM, on the most important issue in the history of humanity
I do not trust Desmet, never have. Its a gut feeling. I also do not trust Dr Malone. I have been in this health freedom fight since my son was brain injured by his shots in 2008. Since then I have developed a bullshit detector that has worked well for me so far in keeping my family safe. Remember we humans are dealing with the DoD and they are in control. Each injection vial is owned by them until injected into arms. The DoD is very good at controlling us, one person at a time, using technology that none of us can imagine. Shut off your TV’s, dump your phones, use technology as little as possible and keep your wits about you. This looks like a time waster. Instead, grow a garden, feed your neighbors, pull your kids from school and hug them. I respect and enjoy Mark’s fabulous articles but I am going to go with my gut on this one. God Bless us all.
Dumping all technology would include losing access to the internet, and that would mean the end of accessing Substack and keeping informed. Is that what you're recommending?
The 'gut' is no substitute for logic & reason... To think critically, one should focus on the argument - not the personalities of the people making them (or their previous affiliations etc.) - then it becomes easy to detect what is helpful & what is unhelpful (even if you don't like the person making the argument...).
By the way, crowd psychology was debated long before Malone & Desmet came onto the scene. Without a firm understanding of the human condition, it seems very unlikely that humanity will ever progress & escape this cycle of exploitation, abuse & violence.
That's your way of handling this train wreck, and good luck to you. I have school age children and so far it's been taking way more than a hug to help them navigate the madness - I have one brother who killed himself with a baggie and a noose over lock downs, and a 2nd brother who is now officially wobbling in the same direction; maybe I wish I could tune it all out, or maybe I'm fine that it's not in my nature, because my father used to "garden" back in the day, and I will not be like him. Btw, I have a different take on Malone than you, may the best hot gut instinct win... meanwhile his substack and Mark's and a few others have helped me feel not so alone, no debate there.
Gut feelings. The first time I found Desmet, my belly compass was moving up an down. Malone I liked at first, but I never liked Weinstein. Then he took over on his apostolic travels through the land of podcasters and I liked him better. I met people I liked a lot when I followed Malone. Also weird podcasters I don't follow. He has tried to reach every outlet, no matter how small.
Malone's support for Desmet is grounded in the need for "normalcy": the bad apples in Government must leave so that Government will be right again and the people wrong, as it was the normal worldview of many high-level scientists in the 80s and 90s.
This is false. Reality is not going back to a previous lie. Reality is moving in the direction of new lies, bigger than ever, and a lot of geniuses are going to be left behind. The younger scientists want the positions of the Professors, so there will be a long-knives night no matter how much the professors comply with the new rules. They are bargain pieces and nothing else.
I think Desmet is correct, even if I don't like him. The problem is that the strategy he has developed is not going to work. He is, after all, not an expert strategist. And the alternative political tactics will not work either. This problem has no political solution yet.
What we can do is to resist, to wait patiently, to encourage each other and to find and participate in alternatives, until there is an opening for attack, which may take more years. It is too bad that a lot of people need to die for that opportunity to appear. These are the people who make every effort possible to ignore reality. It is unlikely they ever change. So we can forget about them and focus on the people who can change. The good news is that there are many more of those.
Desmet will eventually come round to the dark truth of vaccines. First, he will lost everything he loves professionally and then he will be free to study the truth. What path he would chose after that? It depends on what he really wants. To me he seems to be on team humanity so far, like Malone and McCullough. It would be a surprise for me to see any of these three persons turning coats. But it seems their time to lead is approaching the end. If the multitudes or masses ever realize what has really happened, these three will be very solicited to speak in defense of the servants of the perpetrators, to reduce punishment. That may be a windfall. It could be tempting.
But really, we are not going to psychoanalyze our way to Justice.
Just a thought... Crowd/group psychology is as old as the hills, so are pundits making it easier to personalise (& ultimately discredit) the phenomenon by suggesting it's exclusively 'Desmet’s, or Malone's thesis'...?
There are good Wikipedia references to mass psychosis & even Healthline has a piece about it - so it's nothing really new on the radar. Even a commissioned UK report suggested that the botched pandemic response was largely due to 'groupthink'...
I doubt the US could have successfully engaged in the various middle-eastern military campaigns if it wasn't for the collective emotional stress generated by the appalling 9/11event... I think this is a glaring example of how public fear, disgust & paranoia can be cranked-up in order to push through controversial policies: Covid Id's, lockdown fines, experimental-jab mandates, lethal-aid to Ukraine etc. - take your pick...
Reactionary protest movements & activism tend also to fall victim to self-destructive mass-formations, so really we need to become more self-aware by experiencing a personal evolution, rather than an impersonal revolution...
Possibly never. That's the nature of totalitarianism. A third of the population are committed true beliers, & the other two-thirds will do almost anything to avoid conflict, public shaming or retribution etc...
The small minorities might just form breakaway groups & find ways to become resilient - but if they too become cult-like - they will share the same fate as the majority...
This is fascinating. I do think that Desmet touches on an important issue, but I think the book has an exploratory and unfinished character. I feel like it is a highschool essay, although too long for that, but it explores the issue but never really gets his hands around it. Then we had the polemic going on between Peter Breggin and him and that got a bit ridiculous, for I believe there were too many misunderstandings and erroneous assumptions. I have been blogging about that and I am not done with it yet from the looks of it. The bottom line is understanding this kind of collective insanity is key to outgrowing it, and historically we can only say that these types of episodes always end badly. Few Germans would have been happy with Hitler in May of 1945, even if they went along in 1937. Why does the world always keep doing the same thing?
For one thing, it appears clear to me that Breggin and Desmet seem to talk past one another, because Breggin is entirely focused on the manifest level of the story, where obviously the perpetrators should be held to account, while Desmet is focused more on the latent content of the story, in this case the process in the collective mind. It will be interesting to see if this gets resolved or not.
Thanks, Rogier. I agree that we all need a reasoned conversation on the strengths and weaknesses of Desmet's treatment, which is why this course should be enlightening.
As for the German people in 1945, William Shirer found (and he was not the only one) that what they held against the Führer was that he had lost the war. Very few did not approve the war itself.
I spent a year in Bulgaria from mid 2020 to mid 2021. There was no mass formation there. People complied with the rules. When one faction in the government prevailed, everyone more masks to the supermarket. When the other political faction got the mask mandate repealed, no or very few people wore masks in the supermarket. I watched this happen over and over. The policies changed from week to week, and people went along with it because--food. So if we study mass formation, we have to ask, why did this country or that country behave this or that way. My experience in Bulgaria is that most people complied because they wanted food. Most people weren't fooled.
Also, in California many businesses faced big fines from Public Health if they didn't enforce masks. People knew it wasn't the business actually wanting it, so they couldn't hold the owners responsible.
It was a clever way to avoid responsibility - if Public Health themselves had to go out and fine individuals who didn't cover their faces there would have been a lot more push back.
I wish there was a Constitutional Amendment that keeps governments from passing off enforcement to private entities like this - it would quickly end a lot of these laws.
Bulgaria is a country that was under the "sphere of influence" of the USSR. Their "collective unconscious" knows things that are ignored by the "collective unconscious" of people from other countries in the West, living under the sphere of influence of the USA.
For example, most people in countries like Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, all ignore that Hitler's version of Socialism was that the individual must submit always to the collective (the Nation, the Party.) They ignore it unconsciously, and they ignore the consequences of enslaving the individual. Proof: They are gleefully creating the Neo-Nazi Empire called the European Union, thinking that it is for the better.
But there is no European Nation, nor a European Religion, nor a European Race, much less a European Party. This is the novelty in all this. We are bound by Maternalism: we have to save the world from everything, including disease, wars, economic crises, famine, asteroids, global warming and, worst of all, the attack of the Manbearpig. We are saviors because we are white and wealthy (except for Spain and Portugal, mostly brown and semi-poor) and everyone else is dark and poor (even the actual Caucasians, like the Armenians and Georgians, who happen to be whiter than kefir SCOBYs), and they need to be saved by us. We are humanitarians even if we end up killing billions. Completely crazy stuff, like Nazism, and people buy it.
This is the Totalitarian Democracy we were warned about right after the Napoleonic Wars two hundred years ago.
We have to snap out of the spell, or we will be exterminated like so many people have suffered genocide.
So, yeah, the mass formation theory is probably correct, but it is not a universal phenomenon. It is a first world problem: the first world finally devouring itself.
Bulgaria is in the EU and NATO because they need the money, but most of the English speaking Bulgarians I met were critical of all foreign intervention, both EU and NATO. Their resistance to the current bs is from their history of Soviet and Ottoman occupation. I was happy to learn that they have the lowest vax rate in Europe and also the lowest excess death rate. Smart people.
I like Bulgarians. Many years ago, the Euro bills we use every day in Spain added a third designation in the Cyrillic alphabet, EBPO, when Bulgaria entered in the currency. From 2002 until then, we had the latin alphabet EURO and the greek alphabet EYPO or something similar. I didn't want for Spain to enter the EURO, because it meant adding fuel to the fire. Since 2002, the classic corruption of Spain got boosted to the extreme. We got money, yes, and we also got a huge ruin, far greater we already had in the 80s and 90s. Democracy is necessary for corruption.
Spanish people learned nothing from the dictatorship. This nation became the serfs of the American empire. No way out. Most people still deny this. That's because they want Socialism and see that the EU is a good way to get there. Of course, most people are useless eaters and will be starved in the prelude of the new socialist utopia.
Bulgarians are probably in better shape economically and mentally than most people in Western EU.
Some countries know we are in the transition time between what may be a major war by proxy between Great Powers.
Of course I get that. I'm just saying that we really have no choice but to keep on struggling to wake up enough of us to bring about such necessary justice.
The people who keep getting the JABS will end up dead eventually. So, if they refuse to believe the facts then we need to be concerned for our own welfare.
Desmet and others can lend nsights into how we got here and maybe how to help awaken people if we apply that insight but he is not the guy that's gonna play a role in holding people accountable.
There should be a new western for modern people. Clint Eastwood rides into a town run by bad guys. Clint hangs out in the saloon and leads the disgruntled townspeople in discussions about why people become bad guys. Two factions emerge. One faction believes bad guys are born that way. The other faction believes bad guys learned it in Jesuit, actually Jewish run schools. One day, some bad guys come into the saloon and shoot everyone. Miz Kitty is shocked and says, but we were practicing nonviolence! Then she dies.
Mattias Desmet's book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, makes a strong case that tyrants could not possibly tyrannize a population, without their blind faith, complicity, and their resentment toward those of us who are skeptical. He argues, and I think very well, that mass formation is a manifestation of a hypnosis, and that people would not be so eager to act against their own interests otherwise.
I do part company with Desmet, most respectfully, where he says that major and minor tyrants are not conscious or even organized regarding the damage that they cause to society. It seems to me that it is impossible for all of them to bray in unison "build back better" (and similar) without such organization. It is impossible for the likes of Trudeau, Biden, Merkel, Jacinda Ardern, Gavin Newsom, et al to NOT understand how effectively they have imposed atrocities on their citizens.
However, that said, Desmet's thesis is enormously helpful. Mass formation shows how the 60% became hypnotized and how to wake them up:. Keep talking to them and reasoning with them, even while they are throwing tantrums and attempting to censor. The sheep can actually have an epiphany, or even a glimpse, of the truth at such moments, and can finally wake up.
"that major and minor tyrants are not conscious or even organized regarding the damage"...
well i read this as not conscious like a psychopath is not totally conscious from the perspective of a normal person, that the psychopathic types are not organized in that its more precise to consider this as competing acts of collusion that in aggregate has resulted in driving society into accepting/embracing the living within dark times as the normal and expected...
that the underlying keys to this darkness being effective in gaslighting society into a mass formation is how we have all been darkly nurtured to be susceptible to the darkness of those who are the psychopaths...
that unless we come to understand/accept how this darkness has taken form inside us, how it structures our consciousness in ways that serve us poorly, that until we gain understanding how to bring this inner darkness into the light, then this darkness will have its way with us...
that to the degree that the darkness can convince us that all the darkness is within an external, is within the other, whatever label becomes this target of hate, then at best we will play a never-ending game of whack-a mole...
this such that we never question, never consider, tend to deny, tend to get triggered if this is even suggested, suggested that the start point is to bring light into the darkness within ourselves, that change starts first inside...
such that, my concern, is that to the degree that the darkness convinces us that all the evil is external then the darkness owns us...
i agree, that Desmet did an excellent job arguing that this is the case, provided a good introduction the issue/noise on which solutions/signal can begin to be considered, this especially impressive within the limits of our current dark ages field of psychology where mainstream therapy is based on a bogus foundational assumption...
just here a ponder, to what degree is this a noise to signal ratio issue, a little noise, the touch of the unconscious breaking thru, is just the color that makes us unique, but as it amps up at some point especially if tuned into our social desire provided buy and sell solo/single minded mindset, therefore entering the land of the concept of absolute signal...
lands where there is the need for the other to be the absolute target of noise...
thank you, and would agree, at least the start point of yes desire has a social aspect/influence, which that's an interesting way to visualize it, as mimetic theory, it fits, like the Jungian concept of projection and shadow but from a macrosocial perspective...
just note how oddly this topic, mimetic theory, seems not to come up in Jungian discussion groups that i have been active in for years...
have read Desmet's book and found it to be a solid introduction into the topic, this making all this controversy, harsh rejection, somewhat unexpected such that i wonder if driven mostly by misunderstanding mixed with, tiggered by, a desire/insecurity to avoid the reality within the concept that change must first start inside...
also, will note just finishing recently published new edition of the book, Political Ponerology by Andrzej M. Łobaczewski, edited expanded by Harrison Koehli, which for me backstops Desmet's book with more detailed much deeper psychological consideration of this mass formation effect...
that the editor Harrison Koehl, who writes a nearly 40-page editor's introduction overall recommends Desmet's book and has written an extensive multi part review of Desmet's book on his substack page, link below...
also, rather odd that both Catherine Austin Fitts and James Corbett have written praise for Political Ponerology while they like the Breggins have publicly given harsh negative reviews of Desmet's book...
which considering how Political Ponerology is a signifyingly more difficult to read book i wonder if Fitts/Corbett even read it, have the background to read/understand it, like this does not add up, then also CG Jung address this concept under the label of the mass man mindset which likely they are not familiar with either...
I am puzzled by the rejection of desmet by many of the cognoscenti. I found B Weinstein oddly combative in his interview with desmet. It isn’t clear what bothers them about his thesis. Or maybe there’s something unlikable about him personally. You are free to dismiss his ideas if he lives badly in some other way, but the ideas themselves remain untouched if you go that route.
well, this is a topic that i have been interested in since the mid 1970's, that my mother was like addicted to TV and i developed as a teenager the concern that the commercials especially were engaging in dark psychology that i had a hunch/knowingness was having a dark shadowed influence on society...
this leading to for example a reasonably serious hobby scholarship interest during my 20's and 30's in how commerce/government collusion working thru the major media was selling the public our wars for profit and the bogus agricultural reform of the doublespeak labeled green revolution...
so, it was an interested that i perceived there was no way to monetize so for me it was just a hobby interest that i was drawn to over the years, that i considered mainstream psychology more of a pseudoscience so i more focused on the macrosocial side of the topic until i figured out who CG Jung was roughly 6 years ago...
then when this covid feardemic/plandemic started which was clear to me within the first two weeks that being retired and having the time i began studying this as my new full-time job...
so, with this as a background from what i can tell there are extremely few people who are especially well informed about this particular subject, that like Weinstein, which i have not yet watched his interview with Desmet, but i perceive that his relevant background within this topic at least from his comments about Iain McGilchrist and hemisphere differentiation that he is missing so important pieces of the puzzle without which he is floundering...
that for me Desmet was the first other than Jung to understand this topic at least to some degree, so understanding at least beyond the limits of a Noam Chomsky level of understanding which failed him badly, and now after reading Desmet book and Political Ponerology i now have leads on sources that i did not know existed, like just a few months ago i figured our who Mark Miller was, that propaganda studies was an academic subject, just assumed, fail, no funding source so did not expect it to exist, giving me a lesson in you tend not find what you don't look for...
but all this being said i am still trying to determine the limits of what Desmet knows, that sure he seems to have rushed out a book based on possibly as much of a hunch vs having a deep understanding of this topic, yet his hunch from what i know so far seems to be basically correct even if rather incomplete...
One case of the deliberate use of propaganda was chile. Since the 1960s the usg was in the influence business there. Documentation is available in that case, but since the 70s the usg has increasingly shut down access to information on what it does both abroad and domestically. Perhaps this is the golden age of corruption and even the beneficiaries know it can’t last, hence the crackdown on us crazies who dare ask questions
agree that Chile/Pinochet was a rather dark example of, but then would contend that the history of this goes way back, that another example of is discussed within Sigmund Freud's last book, Moses and Monotheism, which suggest to me that some of what is darkly providing the shadowed form for our current mass formation has long standing historical roots...
Again, the view that good and evil are spiritual forces outside us, and that man is caught in the conflict between them, is more bearable by far than the insight that the opposites are the ineradicable and indispensable preconditions of all psychic life, so much so that life itself is guilt. ~Carl Jung, CW 14, par. 206
Ask him about heart surgery performed with hypnosis as the only anesthesia. Ask him how many people his serial killer patient murdered during and after therapy with Desmet. Ask yourself why you would promote this charlatan.
Why don't YOU ask him? You're quoting the attacks as if they're gospel truth; but I'll bet you haven't read his book. Have you? I for one find Breggin's critique over-stated. Am I wrong?
My gut tells me Breggin is not arguing in good faith. Beware the mind-identified ego that viciously attacks different points of view. I've never seen that behavior from Desmet or Malone, but have seen it from the Breggins. Which gives me pause.
I don't have a platform, I'm just a random commenter. My real vocation is rescuing street cats. I'm hands on with that. The political stuff, I leave to people who are good at journalism. I will, however, volunteer to operate the guillotine.
No I haven't read the book and don't intend to. I saw his interview with Bret Weinstein and was bored and disappointed. Still love Bret though. If you see enough interviews and read enough excerpts, that tells you what something's about. This fellow isn't worth my time.
I don't know if the serial killer stories and heart surgery stories are real, as they're second hand, but that's all we ever have. The sources are from people I trust, more or less. Are you denying that Desmet claimed to have witnessed heart surgery with hypnosis? Are you denying that he protected his serial killer patient? IMO, due to the sources, it's more likely than not that this fellow is a charlatan and I don't want to waste my time reading a book by someone who didn't even impress me when I was prepared to be impressed, because he did a long interview that I watched, with my hero Bret.
You DO have a platform - you're speaking on it. Desmet has a Substack - he answered my question (something unrelated). He is human.
By the way the surgery under hypnosis is real and easy to research. There have been many documentaries. Allegedly, the queen gave birth under hypnosis - she, like Rockefeller, only had homeopathic doctors, i.e. natural solutions - we got pharma.
But you won't do the research will you? Maybe you could ask your hero Bret?
As I already explained, after giving Desmet a fair hearing by sitting through the entire boring interview and reading some excerpts from his book, I decided not to go any further. It's like, if you get a few free samples from the new ice cream shop and you don't like it, why go in to get the real scoop. Often, making a decision based on the free samples is good enough and saves you the trouble, especially if aren't a professional ice cream tester (substack person, psychology expert, etc.) Also, I am fairly woo myself. I sort of agree with homeopathy, haven't used it yet, but would try it. I walk barefoot on the beach to get the good vibes of the earth through my feet. I love natural medicine. That doesn't mean that we should trust everyone who does it. Lots of charlatans out there. My psoriasis was cured by kittens from Mars. What, you don't believe the Queen used homeopathy?
I know the British Royal family have long used homeopathy, going back to Elizabeth's mother and I personally have found it very effective. However, if you doubt the power of hypnosis in heart or other surgery, here's what popped up on the first Google search page:-
This is a long book, 500+ pages. If you don't have time to read it all (which you should) then focusing on Chapters 9-12 is a good place to start. Too many parallels today to ignore or be coincidental. This book describes the template that has been followed by today's totalitarians.
While some read history so as not to repeat the worst atrocities found in the past, others read history so as not to get caught committing the worst atrocities found in the past. Believing they are necessary to achieve a greater good. The same beliefs as those who committed the atrocities.
"Sometimes you have to break eggs to make an omelet," they say:
New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty
I do not trust Desmet, never have. Its a gut feeling. I also do not trust Dr Malone. I have been in this health freedom fight since my son was brain injured by his shots in 2008. Since then I have developed a bullshit detector that has worked well for me so far in keeping my family safe. Remember we humans are dealing with the DoD and they are in control. Each injection vial is owned by them until injected into arms. The DoD is very good at controlling us, one person at a time, using technology that none of us can imagine. Shut off your TV’s, dump your phones, use technology as little as possible and keep your wits about you. This looks like a time waster. Instead, grow a garden, feed your neighbors, pull your kids from school and hug them. I respect and enjoy Mark’s fabulous articles but I am going to go with my gut on this one. God Bless us all.
Dumping all technology would include losing access to the internet, and that would mean the end of accessing Substack and keeping informed. Is that what you're recommending?
The 'gut' is no substitute for logic & reason... To think critically, one should focus on the argument - not the personalities of the people making them (or their previous affiliations etc.) - then it becomes easy to detect what is helpful & what is unhelpful (even if you don't like the person making the argument...).
By the way, crowd psychology was debated long before Malone & Desmet came onto the scene. Without a firm understanding of the human condition, it seems very unlikely that humanity will ever progress & escape this cycle of exploitation, abuse & violence.
That's your way of handling this train wreck, and good luck to you. I have school age children and so far it's been taking way more than a hug to help them navigate the madness - I have one brother who killed himself with a baggie and a noose over lock downs, and a 2nd brother who is now officially wobbling in the same direction; maybe I wish I could tune it all out, or maybe I'm fine that it's not in my nature, because my father used to "garden" back in the day, and I will not be like him. Btw, I have a different take on Malone than you, may the best hot gut instinct win... meanwhile his substack and Mark's and a few others have helped me feel not so alone, no debate there.
It's good to disagree but I hope we stay United in the fight for freedom.
Gut feelings. The first time I found Desmet, my belly compass was moving up an down. Malone I liked at first, but I never liked Weinstein. Then he took over on his apostolic travels through the land of podcasters and I liked him better. I met people I liked a lot when I followed Malone. Also weird podcasters I don't follow. He has tried to reach every outlet, no matter how small.
Malone's support for Desmet is grounded in the need for "normalcy": the bad apples in Government must leave so that Government will be right again and the people wrong, as it was the normal worldview of many high-level scientists in the 80s and 90s.
This is false. Reality is not going back to a previous lie. Reality is moving in the direction of new lies, bigger than ever, and a lot of geniuses are going to be left behind. The younger scientists want the positions of the Professors, so there will be a long-knives night no matter how much the professors comply with the new rules. They are bargain pieces and nothing else.
I think Desmet is correct, even if I don't like him. The problem is that the strategy he has developed is not going to work. He is, after all, not an expert strategist. And the alternative political tactics will not work either. This problem has no political solution yet.
What we can do is to resist, to wait patiently, to encourage each other and to find and participate in alternatives, until there is an opening for attack, which may take more years. It is too bad that a lot of people need to die for that opportunity to appear. These are the people who make every effort possible to ignore reality. It is unlikely they ever change. So we can forget about them and focus on the people who can change. The good news is that there are many more of those.
Desmet will eventually come round to the dark truth of vaccines. First, he will lost everything he loves professionally and then he will be free to study the truth. What path he would chose after that? It depends on what he really wants. To me he seems to be on team humanity so far, like Malone and McCullough. It would be a surprise for me to see any of these three persons turning coats. But it seems their time to lead is approaching the end. If the multitudes or masses ever realize what has really happened, these three will be very solicited to speak in defense of the servants of the perpetrators, to reduce punishment. That may be a windfall. It could be tempting.
But really, we are not going to psychoanalyze our way to Justice.
Looking forward to reading comments as I tend to side with Dr Peter Breggin but am open to hearing other opinions.
Just a thought... Crowd/group psychology is as old as the hills, so are pundits making it easier to personalise (& ultimately discredit) the phenomenon by suggesting it's exclusively 'Desmet’s, or Malone's thesis'...?
There are good Wikipedia references to mass psychosis & even Healthline has a piece about it - so it's nothing really new on the radar. Even a commissioned UK report suggested that the botched pandemic response was largely due to 'groupthink'...
I doubt the US could have successfully engaged in the various middle-eastern military campaigns if it wasn't for the collective emotional stress generated by the appalling 9/11event... I think this is a glaring example of how public fear, disgust & paranoia can be cranked-up in order to push through controversial policies: Covid Id's, lockdown fines, experimental-jab mandates, lethal-aid to Ukraine etc. - take your pick...
True. We need to look inside.
Reactionary protest movements & activism tend also to fall victim to self-destructive mass-formations, so really we need to become more self-aware by experiencing a personal evolution, rather than an impersonal revolution...
EXACTAMUNDO!
Self awareness is good and at what point do we hold the perps accountable for their actions?
Possibly never. That's the nature of totalitarianism. A third of the population are committed true beliers, & the other two-thirds will do almost anything to avoid conflict, public shaming or retribution etc...
The small minorities might just form breakaway groups & find ways to become resilient - but if they too become cult-like - they will share the same fate as the majority...
This is fascinating. I do think that Desmet touches on an important issue, but I think the book has an exploratory and unfinished character. I feel like it is a highschool essay, although too long for that, but it explores the issue but never really gets his hands around it. Then we had the polemic going on between Peter Breggin and him and that got a bit ridiculous, for I believe there were too many misunderstandings and erroneous assumptions. I have been blogging about that and I am not done with it yet from the looks of it. The bottom line is understanding this kind of collective insanity is key to outgrowing it, and historically we can only say that these types of episodes always end badly. Few Germans would have been happy with Hitler in May of 1945, even if they went along in 1937. Why does the world always keep doing the same thing?
For one thing, it appears clear to me that Breggin and Desmet seem to talk past one another, because Breggin is entirely focused on the manifest level of the story, where obviously the perpetrators should be held to account, while Desmet is focused more on the latent content of the story, in this case the process in the collective mind. It will be interesting to see if this gets resolved or not.
https://app.letterdrop.com/60dc6e5ca9dd7b0066740a6a/posts/6314dce998f51f006724563f
https://pharmageddon-and-phoenix.letterdrop.com/c/breggin--breggin-vs-desmet-revisited
https://pharmageddon-and-phoenix.letterdrop.com/c/allopathic-autodaf
https://pharmageddon-and-phoenix.letterdrop.com/c/fighting-windmills
https://pharmageddon-and-phoenix.letterdrop.com/c/the-bregginvsdesmet-nondebate
Thanks, Rogier. I agree that we all need a reasoned conversation on the strengths and weaknesses of Desmet's treatment, which is why this course should be enlightening.
As for the German people in 1945, William Shirer found (and he was not the only one) that what they held against the Führer was that he had lost the war. Very few did not approve the war itself.
I spent a year in Bulgaria from mid 2020 to mid 2021. There was no mass formation there. People complied with the rules. When one faction in the government prevailed, everyone more masks to the supermarket. When the other political faction got the mask mandate repealed, no or very few people wore masks in the supermarket. I watched this happen over and over. The policies changed from week to week, and people went along with it because--food. So if we study mass formation, we have to ask, why did this country or that country behave this or that way. My experience in Bulgaria is that most people complied because they wanted food. Most people weren't fooled.
Also, in California many businesses faced big fines from Public Health if they didn't enforce masks. People knew it wasn't the business actually wanting it, so they couldn't hold the owners responsible.
It was a clever way to avoid responsibility - if Public Health themselves had to go out and fine individuals who didn't cover their faces there would have been a lot more push back.
I wish there was a Constitutional Amendment that keeps governments from passing off enforcement to private entities like this - it would quickly end a lot of these laws.
Bulgaria is a country that was under the "sphere of influence" of the USSR. Their "collective unconscious" knows things that are ignored by the "collective unconscious" of people from other countries in the West, living under the sphere of influence of the USA.
For example, most people in countries like Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, all ignore that Hitler's version of Socialism was that the individual must submit always to the collective (the Nation, the Party.) They ignore it unconsciously, and they ignore the consequences of enslaving the individual. Proof: They are gleefully creating the Neo-Nazi Empire called the European Union, thinking that it is for the better.
But there is no European Nation, nor a European Religion, nor a European Race, much less a European Party. This is the novelty in all this. We are bound by Maternalism: we have to save the world from everything, including disease, wars, economic crises, famine, asteroids, global warming and, worst of all, the attack of the Manbearpig. We are saviors because we are white and wealthy (except for Spain and Portugal, mostly brown and semi-poor) and everyone else is dark and poor (even the actual Caucasians, like the Armenians and Georgians, who happen to be whiter than kefir SCOBYs), and they need to be saved by us. We are humanitarians even if we end up killing billions. Completely crazy stuff, like Nazism, and people buy it.
This is the Totalitarian Democracy we were warned about right after the Napoleonic Wars two hundred years ago.
We have to snap out of the spell, or we will be exterminated like so many people have suffered genocide.
https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/MURDER.HTM
So, yeah, the mass formation theory is probably correct, but it is not a universal phenomenon. It is a first world problem: the first world finally devouring itself.
Bulgaria is in the EU and NATO because they need the money, but most of the English speaking Bulgarians I met were critical of all foreign intervention, both EU and NATO. Their resistance to the current bs is from their history of Soviet and Ottoman occupation. I was happy to learn that they have the lowest vax rate in Europe and also the lowest excess death rate. Smart people.
I like Bulgarians. Many years ago, the Euro bills we use every day in Spain added a third designation in the Cyrillic alphabet, EBPO, when Bulgaria entered in the currency. From 2002 until then, we had the latin alphabet EURO and the greek alphabet EYPO or something similar. I didn't want for Spain to enter the EURO, because it meant adding fuel to the fire. Since 2002, the classic corruption of Spain got boosted to the extreme. We got money, yes, and we also got a huge ruin, far greater we already had in the 80s and 90s. Democracy is necessary for corruption.
Spanish people learned nothing from the dictatorship. This nation became the serfs of the American empire. No way out. Most people still deny this. That's because they want Socialism and see that the EU is a good way to get there. Of course, most people are useless eaters and will be starved in the prelude of the new socialist utopia.
Bulgarians are probably in better shape economically and mentally than most people in Western EU.
Some countries know we are in the transition time between what may be a major war by proxy between Great Powers.
Too much talk these days...
We don't need to be schooled about the psychological flaws that brought us to this day by enrolling in an online course.
We need rope. Lots of rope...
If you have "lots of rope," you'll have enough manpower to string up all those criminals?
I'm frustrated, Mark.
It is blatantly clear that many got captured and many will die or face injury due to these jabs.
But as we quibble and attempt to reason with the unreasonable, people are getting these jabs...
Got no answers, friend. Just frustrated...
Of course I get that. I'm just saying that we really have no choice but to keep on struggling to wake up enough of us to bring about such necessary justice.
The people who keep getting the JABS will end up dead eventually. So, if they refuse to believe the facts then we need to be concerned for our own welfare.
Desmet and others can lend nsights into how we got here and maybe how to help awaken people if we apply that insight but he is not the guy that's gonna play a role in holding people accountable.
There should be a new western for modern people. Clint Eastwood rides into a town run by bad guys. Clint hangs out in the saloon and leads the disgruntled townspeople in discussions about why people become bad guys. Two factions emerge. One faction believes bad guys are born that way. The other faction believes bad guys learned it in Jesuit, actually Jewish run schools. One day, some bad guys come into the saloon and shoot everyone. Miz Kitty is shocked and says, but we were practicing nonviolence! Then she dies.
Mattias Desmet's book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, makes a strong case that tyrants could not possibly tyrannize a population, without their blind faith, complicity, and their resentment toward those of us who are skeptical. He argues, and I think very well, that mass formation is a manifestation of a hypnosis, and that people would not be so eager to act against their own interests otherwise.
I do part company with Desmet, most respectfully, where he says that major and minor tyrants are not conscious or even organized regarding the damage that they cause to society. It seems to me that it is impossible for all of them to bray in unison "build back better" (and similar) without such organization. It is impossible for the likes of Trudeau, Biden, Merkel, Jacinda Ardern, Gavin Newsom, et al to NOT understand how effectively they have imposed atrocities on their citizens.
However, that said, Desmet's thesis is enormously helpful. Mass formation shows how the 60% became hypnotized and how to wake them up:. Keep talking to them and reasoning with them, even while they are throwing tantrums and attempting to censor. The sheep can actually have an epiphany, or even a glimpse, of the truth at such moments, and can finally wake up.
"that major and minor tyrants are not conscious or even organized regarding the damage"...
well i read this as not conscious like a psychopath is not totally conscious from the perspective of a normal person, that the psychopathic types are not organized in that its more precise to consider this as competing acts of collusion that in aggregate has resulted in driving society into accepting/embracing the living within dark times as the normal and expected...
that the underlying keys to this darkness being effective in gaslighting society into a mass formation is how we have all been darkly nurtured to be susceptible to the darkness of those who are the psychopaths...
that unless we come to understand/accept how this darkness has taken form inside us, how it structures our consciousness in ways that serve us poorly, that until we gain understanding how to bring this inner darkness into the light, then this darkness will have its way with us...
that to the degree that the darkness can convince us that all the darkness is within an external, is within the other, whatever label becomes this target of hate, then at best we will play a never-ending game of whack-a mole...
this such that we never question, never consider, tend to deny, tend to get triggered if this is even suggested, suggested that the start point is to bring light into the darkness within ourselves, that change starts first inside...
such that, my concern, is that to the degree that the darkness convinces us that all the evil is external then the darkness owns us...
About the sheeple, I agree, and I think Desmet did an excellent job arguing that this is the case.
i agree, that Desmet did an excellent job arguing that this is the case, provided a good introduction the issue/noise on which solutions/signal can begin to be considered, this especially impressive within the limits of our current dark ages field of psychology where mainstream therapy is based on a bogus foundational assumption...
just here a ponder, to what degree is this a noise to signal ratio issue, a little noise, the touch of the unconscious breaking thru, is just the color that makes us unique, but as it amps up at some point especially if tuned into our social desire provided buy and sell solo/single minded mindset, therefore entering the land of the concept of absolute signal...
lands where there is the need for the other to be the absolute target of noise...
thank you, and would agree, at least the start point of yes desire has a social aspect/influence, which that's an interesting way to visualize it, as mimetic theory, it fits, like the Jungian concept of projection and shadow but from a macrosocial perspective...
just note how oddly this topic, mimetic theory, seems not to come up in Jungian discussion groups that i have been active in for years...
interesting, will consider...
have read Desmet's book and found it to be a solid introduction into the topic, this making all this controversy, harsh rejection, somewhat unexpected such that i wonder if driven mostly by misunderstanding mixed with, tiggered by, a desire/insecurity to avoid the reality within the concept that change must first start inside...
also, will note just finishing recently published new edition of the book, Political Ponerology by Andrzej M. Łobaczewski, edited expanded by Harrison Koehli, which for me backstops Desmet's book with more detailed much deeper psychological consideration of this mass formation effect...
that the editor Harrison Koehl, who writes a nearly 40-page editor's introduction overall recommends Desmet's book and has written an extensive multi part review of Desmet's book on his substack page, link below...
also, rather odd that both Catherine Austin Fitts and James Corbett have written praise for Political Ponerology while they like the Breggins have publicly given harsh negative reviews of Desmet's book...
which considering how Political Ponerology is a signifyingly more difficult to read book i wonder if Fitts/Corbett even read it, have the background to read/understand it, like this does not add up, then also CG Jung address this concept under the label of the mass man mindset which likely they are not familiar with either...
https://ponerology.substack.com/p/ponerologists-log-supplemental-rounding?r=y3486&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I am puzzled by the rejection of desmet by many of the cognoscenti. I found B Weinstein oddly combative in his interview with desmet. It isn’t clear what bothers them about his thesis. Or maybe there’s something unlikable about him personally. You are free to dismiss his ideas if he lives badly in some other way, but the ideas themselves remain untouched if you go that route.
well, this is a topic that i have been interested in since the mid 1970's, that my mother was like addicted to TV and i developed as a teenager the concern that the commercials especially were engaging in dark psychology that i had a hunch/knowingness was having a dark shadowed influence on society...
this leading to for example a reasonably serious hobby scholarship interest during my 20's and 30's in how commerce/government collusion working thru the major media was selling the public our wars for profit and the bogus agricultural reform of the doublespeak labeled green revolution...
so, it was an interested that i perceived there was no way to monetize so for me it was just a hobby interest that i was drawn to over the years, that i considered mainstream psychology more of a pseudoscience so i more focused on the macrosocial side of the topic until i figured out who CG Jung was roughly 6 years ago...
then when this covid feardemic/plandemic started which was clear to me within the first two weeks that being retired and having the time i began studying this as my new full-time job...
so, with this as a background from what i can tell there are extremely few people who are especially well informed about this particular subject, that like Weinstein, which i have not yet watched his interview with Desmet, but i perceive that his relevant background within this topic at least from his comments about Iain McGilchrist and hemisphere differentiation that he is missing so important pieces of the puzzle without which he is floundering...
that for me Desmet was the first other than Jung to understand this topic at least to some degree, so understanding at least beyond the limits of a Noam Chomsky level of understanding which failed him badly, and now after reading Desmet book and Political Ponerology i now have leads on sources that i did not know existed, like just a few months ago i figured our who Mark Miller was, that propaganda studies was an academic subject, just assumed, fail, no funding source so did not expect it to exist, giving me a lesson in you tend not find what you don't look for...
but all this being said i am still trying to determine the limits of what Desmet knows, that sure he seems to have rushed out a book based on possibly as much of a hunch vs having a deep understanding of this topic, yet his hunch from what i know so far seems to be basically correct even if rather incomplete...
See Rene Girard on his mimetic theory and contagion. Girard rearranged my molecules (his body of work).
Latter part of article includes Girard’s piece as it relates to hive mind, mobs, mass whatever....
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-psychology-of-mimetic-contagion/
One case of the deliberate use of propaganda was chile. Since the 1960s the usg was in the influence business there. Documentation is available in that case, but since the 70s the usg has increasingly shut down access to information on what it does both abroad and domestically. Perhaps this is the golden age of corruption and even the beneficiaries know it can’t last, hence the crackdown on us crazies who dare ask questions
agree that Chile/Pinochet was a rather dark example of, but then would contend that the history of this goes way back, that another example of is discussed within Sigmund Freud's last book, Moses and Monotheism, which suggest to me that some of what is darkly providing the shadowed form for our current mass formation has long standing historical roots...
Interesting. Hope you plan to write up what you find ...
just an add of a quote that seems relevant...
Again, the view that good and evil are spiritual forces outside us, and that man is caught in the conflict between them, is more bearable by far than the insight that the opposites are the ineradicable and indispensable preconditions of all psychic life, so much so that life itself is guilt. ~Carl Jung, CW 14, par. 206
Hope you’ll feel better soon.
Thank you and I hope you feel better
Here's what we had to say about the controversy:
https://icthruit.substack.com/p/hanlons-razor-and-other-fake-aphorisms
This is the review we wrote; it was mixed:
https://icthruit.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-totalitarianism
Ask him about heart surgery performed with hypnosis as the only anesthesia. Ask him how many people his serial killer patient murdered during and after therapy with Desmet. Ask yourself why you would promote this charlatan.
Why don't YOU ask him? You're quoting the attacks as if they're gospel truth; but I'll bet you haven't read his book. Have you? I for one find Breggin's critique over-stated. Am I wrong?
Please tell me.
My gut tells me Breggin is not arguing in good faith. Beware the mind-identified ego that viciously attacks different points of view. I've never seen that behavior from Desmet or Malone, but have seen it from the Breggins. Which gives me pause.
Not wrong. Desmet’s book is far more interesting and nuanced than his detractors give credit for.
I don't have a platform, I'm just a random commenter. My real vocation is rescuing street cats. I'm hands on with that. The political stuff, I leave to people who are good at journalism. I will, however, volunteer to operate the guillotine.
No I haven't read the book and don't intend to. I saw his interview with Bret Weinstein and was bored and disappointed. Still love Bret though. If you see enough interviews and read enough excerpts, that tells you what something's about. This fellow isn't worth my time.
I don't know if the serial killer stories and heart surgery stories are real, as they're second hand, but that's all we ever have. The sources are from people I trust, more or less. Are you denying that Desmet claimed to have witnessed heart surgery with hypnosis? Are you denying that he protected his serial killer patient? IMO, due to the sources, it's more likely than not that this fellow is a charlatan and I don't want to waste my time reading a book by someone who didn't even impress me when I was prepared to be impressed, because he did a long interview that I watched, with my hero Bret.
You DO have a platform - you're speaking on it. Desmet has a Substack - he answered my question (something unrelated). He is human.
By the way the surgery under hypnosis is real and easy to research. There have been many documentaries. Allegedly, the queen gave birth under hypnosis - she, like Rockefeller, only had homeopathic doctors, i.e. natural solutions - we got pharma.
But you won't do the research will you? Maybe you could ask your hero Bret?
As I already explained, after giving Desmet a fair hearing by sitting through the entire boring interview and reading some excerpts from his book, I decided not to go any further. It's like, if you get a few free samples from the new ice cream shop and you don't like it, why go in to get the real scoop. Often, making a decision based on the free samples is good enough and saves you the trouble, especially if aren't a professional ice cream tester (substack person, psychology expert, etc.) Also, I am fairly woo myself. I sort of agree with homeopathy, haven't used it yet, but would try it. I walk barefoot on the beach to get the good vibes of the earth through my feet. I love natural medicine. That doesn't mean that we should trust everyone who does it. Lots of charlatans out there. My psoriasis was cured by kittens from Mars. What, you don't believe the Queen used homeopathy?
I know the British Royal family have long used homeopathy, going back to Elizabeth's mother and I personally have found it very effective. However, if you doubt the power of hypnosis in heart or other surgery, here's what popped up on the first Google search page:-
https://www.wantedinmilan.com/news/82-year-old-woman-undergoes-heart-surgery-using-hypnosis.html
https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/French-news/Health/Hypnosis-used-in-France-for-heart-valve-operation
https://www.markpowlett.co.uk/myblog/read_146983/turkish-surgeons-using-hypnosis-for-open-heart-surgery.html
Thanks, I'll read that later, I'm open to it. The serial killer thing is a lot more important anyway.
Suggested reading. For all, teachers like Desmet and students alike:
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arent, 1951
A description and analysis of Nazism and Stalinism, the major totalitarian political movements of the 20th century
https://archive.org/details/TheOriginsOfTotalitarianism/mode/2up
This is a long book, 500+ pages. If you don't have time to read it all (which you should) then focusing on Chapters 9-12 is a good place to start. Too many parallels today to ignore or be coincidental. This book describes the template that has been followed by today's totalitarians.
While some read history so as not to repeat the worst atrocities found in the past, others read history so as not to get caught committing the worst atrocities found in the past. Believing they are necessary to achieve a greater good. The same beliefs as those who committed the atrocities.
"Sometimes you have to break eggs to make an omelet," they say:
New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty
https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/
By "eggs" they mean our skulls.
Desmet was strongly influenced by Arendt's book.
Freedom Travel Alliance should not entertain Desmet's book or theories, imo.
What, specifically, do you find so appalling in that book? And WHICH "theories"
do you mean? His mass formation theory takes up little space in The Psychology
of Totalitarianism.
I hope you'll share your thoughts about the book, which you've evidently read with care.
Dr. Breggin has reached out to Mattias. Why does he refuse to have a conversation?
Desmet says the same thing about the Breggins.