One of the more mysterious phenomena that have emerged in society, at least mysterious to me, is how quickly we in America simply ceded our liberty to unelected government authorities during the almost two years of pandemic panic. There was not then, nor is there now, a single logical or factual explanation I could fathom as to why this should happen so fast.
I have known, as have many others, that the conditions in society were at least headed in the direction where America was vulnerable to attacks both without and within. However, I didn’t imagine the attack would not only come from within but would succeed in convincing the majority of Americans that they must give away their basic human rights because the government says so.
I believed at the beginning of the pandemic panic, in early April of 2020, that the American people would start to understand that this was not about our health at all. What it was really about was state control beginning with perpetuating the control of our movements and our breathing through lockdowns and mask mandates.
Moreover, I wrote about this very threat in the previous incarnation of this journal. I stated the threats to both the First and Second Amendments clearly in that piece.
However, I underestimated the power of a combination of the state and the Leftmedia (which is to say the two operate as one entity) to infect the minds of formerly free people. That is perhaps the reason I often wondered why it seemed that as we moved from Spring into Summer of 2020 that we had basically lost our collective minds over COVID-19?!
Of course, not everyone acted in a blatantly irrational manner in response to the plandemic. There was a remnant of reasonable observers who would not participate in the panic regardless of how strongly media and state pressure was applied.
Thus, our society has become divided into two different psychological realms. We are, in effect, living in parallel worlds of the mind, the rational and the irrational, concerning COVID-19 and all that comes with it.
The irrational world of mass fear
I was frustrated with what seemed almost insane actions that were being taken in society to combat the threat of COVID-19. I searched for an explanation as to why so many people gave in to a manufactured fear and panic so quickly.
The best psychological explanation for this came to my attention via a video on BitChute. The video is very informative, however, it gets deep and technical to a certain extent, so I will attempt to explain it clearly here.
The video’s title is Why people willingly give up their freedoms. It is a discussion between podcaster Aubrey Marcus and Dr. Mattias Desmet,
He is a professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University has and holds a master’s degree in statistics. After noticing some anomalies in the statistical analyses conducted during the pandemic, he became concerned by the consensus narrative. He joined me today to discuss his expertise in a phenomenon called ‘mass formation,’ a type of collective hypnosis essential for the rise of totalitarian regimes. He provides the step by step formula for this collective psychosis to take hold and how this relates to our current situation.
This discussion was on the podcast in late October 2021, and the video was uploaded on November 1, 2021. Dr. Mattias first noticed some irrational anomalies in the mathematical models used to assess the threat of COVID-19.
What struck him was that no model used to predict the potential harm from COVID-19 was balancing both sides of the risk-reward calculations. That is, would the risk of damage and death caused by the virus be more or less than the risk of damage and death because of severe measures such as mandated lockdowns of the economy?
While there were no strict mathematical models that did this basic, rational act, there did emerge early in the pandemic panic a medical model that did so. It is known as the Great Barrington Declaration, which I wrote about in an article published almost a year ago.
The GBD is based upon the recommendations of a host of physicians, scientists, and medical professionals from around the globe. It was and remains a reasoned approach to fighting COVID-19, however, it was not implemented and an irrational approach dominated most of the world.
This led Dr. Mattias to begin exploring the psychology of this situation. Here is where a form of a sort of general hypnosis known as “mass formation” comes into play.
There are certain social conditions that must be met in order for “mass formation” to occur. The first and most important is social isolation among the populace.
Anyone with a current lifespan of more than 40 years or so would probably recognize that in society, people have been becoming more and more isolated from each other in our world. In fact, according to a national survey in the American Sociological Review, 25% of Americans reported that they did not have a single close friend and that the 75 million people who comprise Millenials and GenZ were lonelier than any other population in the country.
It is safe to say that this precondition for “mass formation” to occur has been met, especially among the younger adult generation. The second condition to be met is that a lot of people are perceiving life as meaningless.
Social isolation contributes to such a perception, and as people communicate and ‘relate’ in the digital arena rather than in social and family gatherings, “meaninglessness” increases among them. Recent sociological evidence cited by Dr. Mattias reveals that when asked if their job was meaningful, 50% said it wasn’t meaningful at all.
Condition number three follows the other two and it requires that there be a large sense of “free-floating anxiety” within the society. This means that a lot of people have a general sense of anxiety but can’t pin down the specific reason they are so anxious.
The evidence for this is found in the enormous amounts of anti-depressants sold to the public in countries all over the world. Dr. Mattias notes that in Belgium, with a population of about 11 million, 300 million doses of anti-depressants are used.
The fourth and final condition is that there must be a lot of “free-floating frustration” among people. This is a general frustration and even aggression without a specific cause or object to channel it toward.
Once these conditions are in place, it is a simple matter of introducing an object to channel the fear and frustration towards, and COVID-19 has served that function nicely. Basically, because our society was already primed by fear, it was easy to irrationally overreact to the actual, minimal threat posed by the virus.
This has been fueled by the Leftmedia hysteria over COVID and their relentless focus on the virus as a lethal threat to human existence. Remember the marquis scrolls from corporate media outlets from the networks to cable reminding everyone of the death toll from the virus coupled with the singular insistence that only a “vaccine” could save us from the COVID menace.
These irrational fears not only affect a large portion of the population in general, but they also can and do affect many of the leaders in society and push their decisions more toward the irrational response, such as denial and even censorship of proven and successful treatments for COVID-19 such as Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, and Budesonide.
The rational world of common sense
The parallel world of the mind that exists counter to the irrational thinking of mass fear is a smaller but increasingly growing and vocal remnant of society. It consists of people who have weighed the costs and benefits of the draconian measures taken against a manufactured health emergency versus the costs and benefits of exercising our God-given liberties and right to exist in a free society.
Individuals of the rational bent are essentially those who employ the wisdom of common sense thinking. That is, they observe the situation, gather facts and data from many different sources, and then make a reasoned decision based on the information.
For example, these are individuals who would examine the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, VAERS, to see what damage and death is being incurred as a result of the COVID jabs. If one did that, one finds that the levels of damage and death far exceed the total numbers reported for all vaccines in the history of the system combined!
Moreover, and in my mind, perhaps more important, is that the rational thinker will ask some key questions about what they are being told by the Left-media, the state, and the healthcare bureaucracy, as well as the pharmaceutical companies that make the jab formulations. Two of these important questions are very basic, i.e. ‘Why?’ and ‘How do you know this is so?’
If one asks, “Why the lockdowns?” the immediate answer is to stop COVID. But when one asks, “How do you know this is so?” no fact-based answer comes back.
In fact, if one points out that the numbers do not support a lockdown philosophy, one is met with the irrationality of censorship instead of any counterargument. That’s because the facts obliterate any argument those of the fear mentality could produce.
For example, as noted in a previous piece, in the state of New York,
The data has revealed that some 84% of those hospitalized in the state obeyed the state and local ‘stay at home’ orders! It would appear that the ‘experts’ recommending that everybody stay in their homes were completely off base in this instance.
A rational thinking person using common sense would conclude that the lockdowns were totally ineffective and probably did far more harm than good! Those kinds of conclusions are often met with unreasonable anger and vitriol from the fearful masses in society.
Yet, the common-sense wisdom of many people is beginning to make progress despite the insanity spewing from the COVID fear mongers and their followers. The following is a recent video of an unnamed rational thinker who breaks down the propaganda over COVID and shows how the word “just” has poisoned the society around us into submission, and how more and more people are awakening from the thrall of irrational thinking.
https://static-3.bitchute.com/live/cover_images/Y6vVPUnAzPDa/uzoMysqdsJMb_640x360.jpg
Engaging in common sense wisdom is the way out of the mental slavery that has been inflicted upon us by the panicked reactions of a large portion of society, and perhaps more so in regards to the authorities in nations around the world. This is a critical element of a way forward that results in freedom triumphing over fear.
However, it is not the final factor involved in assessing and alLeviating the situation of parallel worlds that have formed in opposition because of the pandemic panic. Next week we will conclude this series by looking at the morality of these parallel worlds and what that means for our future in America and the world.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 [ESV]
D.T. Osborn
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