One of the things I’ve puzzled over this past year and a half is the amount of information I’ve found easily, related to treatment of the coronavirus, including scientific data, doctors with clinical experience—not some random opinion of someone on social media—and yet how many people, this many months in, have no idea about these same things. I’m aware a lot is being censored. And I’ve puzzled over that as well. But why, when the information is available, do people never encounter it? And why, even when they do come across it, do they dismiss it and keep calling out “Follow the science!” at the rest of us?
I came across a plausible answer this week. Dr. Mattias Desmet is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University in Belgium, who also happens have a degree in statistics. He was on a Pandemic Podcast with Dan Astin-Gregory, who was asking the question, “Why do so many still buy into the narrative?”
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| Dan-Astin-Gregory (left) and Dr. Mattias Desmet screenshot from here |
Dr. Desmet says that, from the beginning, he thought there
was something strange about the public narrative. It didn’t match what he was
seeing in the data. And he wasn’t alone; he was in the company of
world-renowned scientists; he mentioned Ioannidis of Stanford as an example. These
scientists tried telling people—and governments—that the coronavirus was likely
much less dangerous than early models predicted. But their voices didn’t seem
to have an impact.
It took him about four months to recognize that what he was
seeing was the phenomenon that he calls mass formation. Some might call
it mass hypnosis, and he does describe things that are similar to hypnosis. We’ll
get to that, but I think we ought to see how he walks us through the thought
process. Dr. Desmet says,
By the end of May 2020, it was proven beyond doubt that the
initial mathematical models overestimated the mortality of the virus. For
instance, we all know that the mathematical models that had most impact on the
corona measures were probably those issued by Imperial College in London, and
these models actually predicted that, by the end of May 2020, in a country like
Sweden about 80,000 people would die if the country would not go into lockdown.
And the country did not go into lockdown, and by the end of May 2020 the virus
claimed about 6,000 people in Sweden, and no more than that, which meant that
the models actually overestimated the mortality of the virus by a factor of 50,
which is huge.
Oddly, he observes, the strategies—the lockdowns, the panic
over sanitizing things, the masks—weren’t corrected based on the clear new
data. He says,
That was like a turning point for me. I think I started to
take a different perspective then. I switched then from the perspective of a
statistician to the perspective of a clinical psychologist. And I started to
wonder, how is it possible that an entire society, even the world population,
is going along with the narrative that shows so many absurd characteristics?
New data, presented by the United Nations, warned of the
likelihood that more people would die of starvation or hunger in developing
countries because of the lockdowns than the number of coronavirus victims—even
if no measures were taken at all. But no one seemed to take notice. Everyone
stayed focused on coronavirus victims only, to the exclusion of damage from any
other threats.
Despite the warnings, “People were willing to buy into the
story and go along with the story,” which was really strange.
So that’s what he could observe in May 2020. But it wasn’t
until August 2020 that the light dawned on him:
I suddenly felt that I had really hit the nail, and that I
could say what we’re dealing with here is a process of large-scale mass
formation. That’s what’s happening. And, looking backward, looking back at
that, it really surprised me that it took me so long, because I had been
lecturing on mass formation for four years at Ghent University.
So, to begin with, what is mass formation, and what causes
it? Then, what does it lead to? And how do we get out of it?
What Mass
Formation Looks Like, and What Causes It
Mass formation is a specific phenomenon which emerges in a
society if a few conditions are met. There are at least four conditions that
have to be fulfilled before a large-scale phenomenon of mass formation can
emerge:
1. a
lot of people experiencing a lack of social bonds, a lack of social
connectedness.
2. a
lot of people who experience a lack of meaning making.
3. a
lot of people who experience a lot of free-floating anxiety.
4. a
lot of free-floating frustration and aggression.
The first two are related. “Humans are social beings, and if
they experience a lack of social connectedness, a lack of social bond, they
will probably also experience a lack of meaning making.” And the last two are
similar as well. Free-floating anxiety means it’s not connected to something
tangible. For instance, he says, if you see and lion and you’re scared of it,
then you know what you’re scared of. “Your anxiety in that case is connected to
a mental representation.” However, if your anxiety isn’t connected to a mental
representation, it’s just something you sense without knowing why, it’s harder
to control the anxiety. Similarly, free-floating frustration and aggression is
something “you feel inside of yourself, but that you cannot direct or aim at a
certain object or cause.” I’m assuming people who come home frustrated, or
maybe just tired or hungry, but irritable after work and unsure why might kick
their dog, who has done nothing but be convenient to kick. That kind of
aggression.
Dr. Desmet explains what happens when all of these four conditions
are met:
When these conditions are met, something really typical can
happen in a society. When under these conditions, narrative is distributed,
through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety and at the same time
providing a strategy to deal with this object of anxiety, then there might be a
huge willingness in the population to go along, to participate in the strategy.
And why? Because all this free-floating anxiety, which is so hard to control,
connects to this object of anxiety in this way. That’s the first advantage. All
this free-floating anxiety is not connected to a mental representation; and
then, just by participating in the strategy, you can mentally control the
object of anxiety.
That explains the extraordinary willingness of people to
participate in lockdowns and other compliant behaviors—to battle the enemy virus—even
though the strategies in the narrative are absurd. What is most important, he
says, is what participants get out of it:
When people start to participate all together in the strategy
to deal with the object of anxiety, a new kind of social bond and a new kind of
meaning making emerges. Which means that, there is like a new kind of
solidarity that emerges. And this makes the people switch from a highly
aversive negative mental state of social isolation, interpersonal isolation, to
the exact opposite, to the extremely high level of connectedness that exists in
a crowd or a mass. So, and then people start a heroic battle with the object of
anxiety, which leads to a kind of mental intoxication of connectedness, which
is the real reason why people continue to buy into the narrative—even if it’s
utterly absurd or blatantly wrong.
He uses the word ritual to describe what people are doing—a
sort of sign they’re in the group:
A ritual is a kind of behavior that people participate in to
show that they belong to a group—to create a group, to create a collective, to
create solidarity. And you can even say about rituals that, the more absurd
they are from a practical perspective, the better they function as a ritual. Of
course, because then, the more absurd they are, the more purely they become a
sign that shows that they belong to a group.
In other words, if you’re a mask wearer, even when you’re
outside at the beach or riding a bike, you’re signaling your belonging in the
group who are battling the common enemy.
That does seem to describe what we see in people around us. I
could add, people who signal that they’ve had the vaccine are doing this—and
the less effective the vaccine is known to be, particularly in comparison to
natural immunity, the more the mass formation doubles down to insist you are
part of the problem if you don’t buy into the narrative.
The host, Dan Astin-Gregory, gives a nice summary at this
point:
So, what I understand is that this situation gives people the
opportunity essentially to attach. Like, it becomes an object of attachment. So
they can therefore transfix their own anxieties onto this external object,
which therefore then takes away the need to actually do the inner work, to
actually tackle their own anxieties, which perhaps they haven’t really got a
handle on.
Yes. They don’t have to deal with the anxiety they were
already experiencing, because this coronavirus enemy gives them an object, and
that makes them feel sane—even when onlookers see clearly that they are not.
Here’s where Dr. Desmet explains how mass formation is
similar to hypnosis:
It leads to a very narrow field of attention. People seem to
be only able to be aware, both cognitively and emotionally, of a very small
part of reality on which the mass narrative focuses their attention. So that’s
something extremely problematic.
Victims only of the coronavirus. All the other victims,
children who risk to starve, or people who lost their jobs, or treatments that
were delayed. And there was huge collateral damage. But in one way or another
it never had the same effects as the damage caused by the coronavirus….
The field of attention is so limited that it seems almost
impossible to provide arguments that are in conflict with the narrative.
Because all the arguments that you can raise rationally against the narrative,
they do not fall into this small field of attention that is really counting for
people in the mass.
I didn’t know before that hypnosis was, at least in part,
about focusing attention away from one thing and onto another. He explains:
In hypnosis this is very clear. You can—by a simple hypnotic
procedure, you can make someone so insensitive to pain that you can cut
straight through his flesh, that even you can carry out, perform surgical
operations in which you cut straight through the breastbone. It’s very strange.
But a simple hypnotic procedure in which the hypnotist focuses the attention on
something positive, for instance, will often make people completely insensitive
to physical pain.
That’s what’s happening with this mass formation: limited
focus, limited field of vision:
People are even not aware of the things that are usually
extremely important for them in a normal state, like their psychological and
physical health, their wealth, their well-being, and so on, in a condition of
hypnosis or mass formation. You can take all these things away from people;
they won’t even notice it. It will seem as if they lose a lot of things that
are personally important to them. And in the same way, they are also
insensitive to psychological pain, because, if their attention remains focused
on the solidarity and the shared narrative, they will not notice that they are
losing the wealth and the well-being of themselves, even their children.
What Results from Mass Formation
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| Stalin (upper left), Hitler (upper right), Mao Zedong (bottom left), Mussolini, Kim Il-sung; image from Wikipedia |
Dr. Desmet spends some time here delineating the difference
between what he calls classic dictatorship and totalitarianism.
In a classic dictatorship, the tyrant rules by fear—of him and what he’ll do to
the disobedient. People obey because they are coerced to, not because they want
to do what he says. And everyone knows this. But, when the people are
compliant, the dictator becomes more benevolent, knowing that keeping people
somewhat mollified and unwilling to revolt will keep him in power.
A totalitarian ruler is different. This tyrant uses mass
formation—facilitated typically with a crisis, maybe one he has invented or
caused—to get people to buy into his narrative. People willingly make the
sacrifices he requires. They love him. They want to go along. They don’t mind
giving up what they’re giving up, because it’s required for the collective, to
which they belong.
And, a further difference is that, the more compliant the
populace, the more sacrifice the totalitarian ruler requires. In the
totalitarian’s mass formation, people “are willing to sacrifice all their
individual freedom and all their individual advantages in favor of the
collective well-being of this new kind of extreme solidarity.”
There are a couple of big problems with getting people to
notice the sort of mass hypnosis they’re in:
· People don’t want to go back to the old normal;
that would mean going back to the anxiety and frustration that they had no way
to control.
· Therefore, people become extremely intolerant of
dissenting voices; they consider them a threat to the entire society.
Astin-Gregory verifies that he
knows people—
who have separated from their loved ones, they’ve fallen out
with family members, they’ve lost friends—all because they’re asking different
questions. And even if those questions lead to very profound different answers from
what we’re seeing in the mainstream media, people are just rationally unwilling
to tolerate it.
Dr. Desmet agrees. If you try to show someone that “the narrative” is wrong—with data about the virus, or about mask wearing, or about the vaccines—you make the person feel “he is at risk of waking up.” He doesn’t want to face the initial free-floating anxiety or the lack of social bond.
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| hypnosis image found here |
He says,
It’s far more easy for someone who is in a hypnotized—or
grasped in the process of mass formation—to, instead of believing the one who
tries to convince him that the story is wrong, it’s far more easy to direct all
this free-floating frustration and aggression, that existed before the crisis,
to this dissonant voice.
Nevertheless, it is essential that dissonant voices, voices
at odds with the mass formation’s narrative, continue to speak out. He says,
Because, if the opposition is silenced, then the hypnosis
will become even deeper than it is now, and then the masses will start to
commit atrocities. That’s so typical. History has shown it time and
time again. It’s quintessential that people continue to speak out. They will
not be able to stop the process of mass formation, but they will be able—they
will prevent the hypnosis to become so deep that atrocities are committed.
I would say atrocities have already been committed. Hundreds
of thousands of people have died because the narrative said there was no
treatment—when there has been all along, and the data proving it continues to
mount. Thousands have died and tens of thousands injured from a “vaccine” that
isn’t really a vaccine, and hasn’t been long tested—a medical intervention that
has caused more deaths and serious vaccine injuries than any vaccine in history
without being banned—yet it is still called “safe.” And people continue to get
the disease, spread it, end up in the hospital, and possibly even die—after
they get the vaccine. Yet it is still called “effective.”
All this against it, and people are losing their jobs, or
ability to buy and sell and travel and associate—if they do not succumb to take
the vaccine—even the ones who have had the disease and therefore have lasting
robust natural immunity, and including the ones who have legitimate health and religious reasons to be exempted.
How to Avoid Mass Formation
It’s hard to say exactly why some people succumb to Mass
Formation and some do not. Dr. Desmet says that typically about 30% of a
population is truly hypnotized, willingly attached to the narrative. Another
40% or so are not fully engaged in the narrative, but the go along and do not resist
it. Then there’s another 25% to 30% who clearly see the narrative as false, do
not succumb to the mass formation, and resist it. Since that includes me, I
wondered why me?
Astin-Gregory questioned whether it had to do with factors
like intelligence, education level, or maybe the level of anxiety the person is
feeling. Dr. Desmet was uncertain. However, highly educated people are still
very likely to be involved in the mass formation. But he does offer an unproven,
maybe unprovable theory:
I think in this crisis, whether you buy into the story or
not, whether you’re hypnotized or not, has a lot to do with your broader
ideological preferences. Like, I feel that most people who really go along with
the narrative now, and who are really identifying with the narrative, have no
problem at all with a very mechanistic biological reductionist view on man in
the world.
I think that most people, for instance, are convinced that
vaccines are the best way to boost your immune system and so on. So I think
that most of the people who really go along with the narrative now are people
who feel good with the broader ideology, the biological reductionist, even the
transhumanist ideology that is seizing the population now. Because I’m
convinced that, if we, if this process continues, we will end up in a
transhumanist society, or they will try to reorganize society according to the
ideals and the principles of transhumanism.
As for intelligence level, one thing that happens is that
the mass formation levels the population:
Highly educated and highly intelligent people become exactly
as intelligent as everybody else in the masses. It is something very typical
for mass formation that everybody becomes equally intelligent, which usually
means extremely stupid, in the masses. And people—as soon as someone is seized
by mass formation, he usually loses all capacity for critical and rational thinking.
That’s something, one of the most salient characteristics of an individual that
is in mass formation.
That explains a lot. It certainly describes what we
resistors see in the hypnotized. And, might I add, the coronavirus narrative is
not the only apparent mass formation going on in our society; anything related to “wokeness” says
to us actual awake ones that someone is not aware of reality.
How Do We Get Out of This Mess
There is some hopeful news. People do eventually wake up.
Totalitarians fear this, because, typically when the people wake up, they get
angry and kill the perpetrators, which happen to be the leaders. Let’s hope
ours can be more civil.
A lot has to do with totalitarianism being self-destructive.
Totalitarianism and mass formation
always ends up destroying itself. So the self-destructive character of mass
formation and totalitarianism is something that has been observed and described
by all scholars that study the phenomenon.
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| member of the French Resistance (FFI), 1944 image found here |
We should be aware that we are dealing with an extremely
strong enemy, but an enemy who will always destroy himself. So, the only thing
that we have to do is we have to make sure that our story continues to be
present in public space, and that we survive for a few years…. And we never
should try to beat the enemy, because the enemy can only be beaten by himself….
And as soon as you realize that, you realize that the only
thing you have to do is continue to speak and to make sure that in one way or
another you can survive outside of the system. These two things. And then, you
can quietly wait until totalitarianism destroys itself….
And you will see the small group, the small group will
survive. And that, in one way or another, after the collapse, it will play an
important role, I think, in the rebuilding of society according to new and more
human, more ethical principles.
Surviving for a few years—while continuing to speak the
truth. One of those simple but not easy solutions to world problems. But that’s
our lot.
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