Gab@StFerdinandIII - https://unstabbinated.substack.com/
Plenty of cults exist - every cult has its 'religious dogma', its idols, its 'prophets', its 'science', its 'proof' and its intolerant liturgy of demands. Cults everywhere: Corona, 'The Science' or Scientism, Islam, the State, the cult of Gender Fascism, Marxism, Darwin and Evolution, Globaloneywarming, Changing Climate, Abortion...
Tempus Fugit Memento Mori - Time Flies Remember Death
In 2021 psychologist Mattias Desmet wrote a book ascribing the Corona Plandemic Fascism and mass compliance from a supposedly ‘educated’ population, to ‘mass formation’ hypnosis. Many of us have seen Desmet, a professor at the University of Ghent in Belgium, interviewed and applaud his courage to call out the obvious about the Corona totalitarianism, which is usually a death sentence in quackademia.
There is, however, good and bad about this book, as given below. In general, the book is a worthwhile purchase and read, and should probably be read with Hannah Arendt’s work on Totalitarianism (The Origins of Totalitarianism), given that some of Desmet’s most important themes are derived from Arendt’s 1950 study.
There are issues however with this book, which tends to layer arcane psychological theory and often incorrect academic postulations on top of common-sense observations about the Corona fascism. Yes mass psychology and compliance was fundamental in the Corona plandemic, but exogenous and cultural-metaphysical forces, along with mass-media (psyops, not psychology) and coercion (lockdowns, jabs, diapers), do explain much of the supine mass compliance, as does the veneration of State power and ‘expert’ testimony.
Psychology is in my opinion, part of the problem with our not-so-modern-age. It is a massive industry which begets various and limitless sub-industries, some as inane as ‘evolutionary psychology’, or ‘gender transitioning’, quackeries looking for reality as they collect revenue streams and in the case of many sub-industries including gender-mental-illness, commissions from the criminal pharma industry. Psychology is mostly non-science, and much of it a fraud. Desmet confirms in his book that some 85% of psychological studies and ‘research’ is fraudulent. Freud taught his disciples well.
Psychology is, however, a massive industry. Globally, psychology and its discontents comprise a $500 billion plus market, annually. Convincing everyone that they suffer from some childhood mental aberration, or that their behaviour is ‘dysfunctional’ is a path to profits. It is mostly quackery.
There are few ‘insights’ granted by psychology that common sense and self-awareness will not reveal. The only real value might be to force the person to confront their inner demons, whether the evil is alcohol addiction, porn addiction, gambling, violence, or a mental disorder rendering normal functioning problematic. In this regard probably the most useful aspect of professional psychology might be group work and forcing people to be honest and share stories within a larger team and to seek colleague support and empathy.
The non-science of pop-psychology is far worse than ‘professional psychology’ of course and in general has nothing to say about the human condition that is relevant or real. The Book of Wisdom, Job, the Psalms, and Ecclesiastes are far more relevant if you want to understand yourself and humanity and learn how to live a good life. The worst incantation of pop-gibberish psychology is the execrable Oprah Winfrey, the child-trafficker, and her ilk. They are the modern Freudian rent-seekers, enriching themselves from the support of the gullible and stupid.
Freud was simply a word-smithing quack, and most of the praised elite from this non-science have long been dismissed and rubbished. Freud and the industry he created were profiteers, propounding their theories using fraudulent data, arcane language and pseudo-scientific babble paraded in long sentences and incomprehensible paragraphs, classified as ‘science’. If you want to understand the brain, a SPECT (single proton emission computerised tomography) scan will do more to uncover the brain’s secrets than paying £100 per hour talking to a BF Skinner devotee. Neurology was unknown to Freud and Skinner of course and makes a mockery of their expostulations. Excoriating psychology is not the main point here and would take a book to properly elaborate the discipline’s weaknesses, but suffice it to say, a psychologist’s view has little to do with ‘science’ and usually distorts reality.
Building on the above comment, Desmet’s work dresses up what should be known about ‘mass formation’ totalitarianism from Nazi and Communist history, in the suits and dresses of pseudo-intellectual phraseology and construction. Fundamentally and incorrectly, Desmet believes that mass hypnosis is the basis of ‘mass formation’. Mass compliance is really ‘mass formation’ and has nothing to do with being hypnotised.
The creation of general mass compliance during the Corona fascism had more to do with the alliance of governments, the police, criminal corporations including the pharma industry, fake news, and tech platforms, and their use of force, terror and propaganda; intersecting and aligning with the puerile and ignorant acceptance by the masses of authority, ‘experts’ and ‘science’. Corona was a centralised and coordinated military-grade event. Importantly the cultural and metaphysical philosophies of the Enlightenment and the ‘modern age’, were fundamental to mass compliance - a theme that Desmet elaborates on very well (see below).
In simple terms totalitarianism, and its bastard offspring of Fascism and Communism, rely on corporatism, violence and coercion, using a thin and ugly veneer of fake ‘science’ as propaganda to convince and cajole. This is what constituted the Corona fascism - the age old totalitarian impulse of the Corporate State allied with coercion, deceit and propaganda, and using ‘science’ as a cover and a casus belli to convince and command. Mass psychology is thus formed and it may or may not be ‘hypnotic’ depending on your definition. It certainly is a violent and fascistic program of terror. More here