The author of the idea calls it mass formation and mass hypnosis. Others have added mass psychosis. He began promoting the concept in Europe to many enthusiastic media, intellectuals, scientists, and physicians. Then it took off in America, where “mass hypnosis” has become a buzzword among critics of COVID-19 policies and practices.
Many thoughtful people who listened to him felt, at long last, they had a label to put on their fellow citizens who were acting zombie-like, soulless, and compliant in response to draconian pandemic measures and all the lies they were being told. Some of the most dedicated reformers in the truth-in-science and freedom movement embraced his ideas. To many, it was a relief to be able to label it — mass formation or mass hypnosis — and to think that there was good science or psychology to bolster the diagnosis.
A THREE-PART SERIES – Mass Hypnosis Expert or Trojan Horse
One – Mattias Desmet Demoralizes the Freedom Movement
Two – Mattias Desmet Diagnoses Researchers as Mentally Disturbed
Three – Mattias Desmet Blames the Victims and Absolves the Perpetrators
Now the author of the concept, European psychoanalyst Mattias Desmet, has written a book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism.1 I’m a psychiatrist and, like Desmet, I’m a psychotherapist; but early in my career, I rejected joining one of Freud’s psychoanalytic institutes for special training. I did that for many reasons. First, it was apparent to me that psychoanalysis was an unscientific cult that demanded conformity to a number of very bizarre theories that degraded the human spirit. Second, the training itself required an incredible degree of daily submissiveness to authority. Trainees, many of them already psychiatrists, had to pay to lie on a couch for an hour five days a week while a “training psychoanalyst” would very occasionally make incisive remarks that were supposed to get to their unconscious mind. Third, it smacked of victim-blaming — a subject I will address further that is key to Desmet’s dogma.
Reading an advance copy of the Psychology of Totalitarian in July 2022 confirmed my fears that Desmet’s concepts lay in the general arena of an intellectual hoax, a nasty use of speculative psychoanalysis to dismiss serious researchers investigating the origins of COVID-19, and a purposeful cover-up of the elites and the globalists responsible for the worst outcomes inflicted on humanity during the pandemic.
There was no reason to invent or apply a new concept like mass formation to explain the misery, apathy, and docility, seen in the general population and even among our colleagues. Individual doctors had, and continue to have, many good reasons to feel helpless, marginalized, and overwhelmed. Physicians who so much as voice doubt about the dominant views on COVID-19 are continuing to lose their teaching appointments, their clinical positions, their board certifications, and even their medical licenses. They continue to be censored and removed from Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter for simply disagreeing with the CDC, FDA, NIH, or even the media like ABC or CNN. Very few in the medical community dare to refuse vaccinations for themselves or their patients.
Now, in one of the greatest betrayals of their patients in medical history, only the bravest among physicians are refusing to go along with jabbing infants, who have nothing to gain, since COVID-19 will not harm them, and everything to lose, including their good health, their reproductive capacities, and their lives.
Millions of other citizens are similarly intimidated and censored. Many are required to submit to vaccinations under threat of losing their jobs, educational opportunities, or participation in competitive sports. And if any dare questions the COVID-19 narrative, they continue to be ostracized, censored, shamed, and made to feel guilty by coworkers, friends, and family members — and even rejected by their personal physicians.
The simple truth is that what Desmet calls mass formation or mass hypnosis is the response of normal human beings to extreme threats and harassments, and the loss of personal freedom. Add to that the isolation that was more widespread and rampant when he was finishing his book in November 2021 and the escalating threat to our constitutional democracies — it would be a miracle if anyone survived unscathed.
The bewildered, stupefied, demoralized, and compliant looks on the faces of so many people, including many of our colleagues, are similar to the responses of abused children, battered women, inmates confined in state mental hospitals, inmates of prisons, and citizens of brutal totalitarian regimes. I saw the same look on the faces of people forced to live in East Berlin shortly before the Berlin Wall came down.
Rather than birds flying beautifully in unison, as Desmet analogizes to explain mass formation, during COVID-19, many people have become more like a flock of goldfinches huddled silently together in the bushes hiding from the hawk circling above. When the hawk is gone, they come alive again and go about their cheery business.
Furthermore, the so-called mass formation has nothing whatsoever to do with the madness of crowds or mass hypnosis, which are Desmet’s favorite comparisons and sources of “science.” Crowds were outlawed during the worst COVID-19 oppression. COVID-19 victims were suffering, and many continue to suffer, from isolation and political abuse, not from deranged hyperactive crowd misbehavior.
The victims of COVID-19 totalitarianism were not and are not energized and potentially violent, which is the model for the madness of crowds. They weren’t gathering in groups until very recently when resistance groups — including truckers and farmers — formed in Canada, the Netherlands, and other nations. Up until then, most of the time, the so-called “masses” were withdrawn and docile. The psychodynamics of abuse and submission to authority helps to explain what has been happening since early 2020 to all of us, while “mass formation” or the psychology of “mad” and out-of-control crowds has no relationship to the suffering of people under COVID-19.
Similarly, mass hypnosis has nothing to do with behavior during the height of COVID-19 oppression. If mass hypnosis does occur, which I doubt, it happens at Nazi-like Communist rallies where people are primed by ideology, inspired by pageantry and charismatic speakers, and energized by the group — while ultimately terrified of doing anything other than conform. It may happen when a worshipped cult leader harangues his followers, fomenting group cohesion and paranoia toward outsiders. It may happen during the ritual sexual abuse of groups of children. It does not happen when people feel so alone and isolated that it breaks their hearts and renders them apathetic and withdrawn.
Desmet’s book is a classic example of blaming the victim — the group hypnotizes itself, he argues. But he goes much further into a bizarre assertion that the abusers do not even exist!
If all this sounds bizarre to you, you are in good company. Both commonsense and genuine historical analyses of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes confirm how they were built and maintained on conspiracies and careful planning. Much like today’s Mexican cartels or the mafia, largescale abuse and control of people require perpetrators collaborating with each other and careful planning to have their way, usually with utter disregard for the misery inflicted on others. Indeed, there are criminal conspiracy laws, confirming the reality of conspiracy as a part of human malfeasance.
Here are the destructive themes that run through Desmet’s book:
1. Mass formation arises from the victims themselves, who communicate it to each other in a mysterious or even mystical fashion. Desmet compares it to mass hypnosis or to the madness of crowds.
2. Because the hypnotic force supposedly arises from the group itself, there are no leaders, authorities, or elites to blame for it. In fact, the concept of elites is a fiction generated by the mass formation. Even extreme totalitarian dictators like Hitler are really a product of the crowd and mass formation and are not to blame. He actually says this and cites historian/philosopher Hannah Arendt to confirm his argument.
3. Consistent with blaming the victim, Desmet says there are no conspiracies behind COVID-19. None. No one planned all the destructive policies, strategies, and practices. It was a series of human mistakes and poor judgment, typical of ordinary people doing their best. In fact, there were and are no malignant or purposefully destructive forces at work, and there is no evil either. Desmet argues there was not even enough secrecy to call it a conspiracy in what little planning was attempted. Desmet can only hold this position by ignoring the 8-10,000 year history of elites conspiring against everyone else to build fiefdoms and empires, and by neglecting the many contemporary reports and books about the elaborate planning behind the unfolding of the pandemic, including our book, COVID-!9 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey.
4. Desmet believes all the scholars, journalists, scientists, and other people who are, in fact, unearthing and documenting conspiracies behind COVID-19 are suffering from a variant of mass formation or mass hypnosis. They are emotionally disturbed — intensely “anxious,” “confused,” and “bewildered.” Out of their personal psychological “needs,” they make up simple-minded conspiracy theories in order to focus on something outside themselves. They must instead look inside themselves. So, while our nation collapses beneath totalitarianism, Desmet wants us, metaphorically, to lie on the couch and examine ourselves, while he makes pointed comments on our inner conflicts, needs, and, of course, our “conspiracy theories.”
5. Desmet’s concept of mass formation robs people of their individual value and free will. The “masses” and the scholars and researchers who unmask the conspiracies behind COVID-19 are described as helplessly driven by their unconscious motives and their needs. This is how authoritarian abusers always think about their victims — as devoid of value and free will — which enables these abusers to justify manipulating and controlling them.
6. Desmet’s emphasis on the dangerousness of crowds, Ginger Breggin observes, can serve a more insidious and destructive purpose. Those who now control the U.S. government have politically imprisoned individuals from January 6, 2021, protests in Washington DC, many of whom are still languishing in prison without trial dates. The government is using such unconstitutional, draconian, and abusive means against these individuals that protests by the freedom movement have been squelched. Desmet’s negative characterizations of groups and “masses” contributes to the narrative that discourages and even prevents the freedom movement from using one of the most important political actions available — massive peaceful group protests against the government’s oppressive policies.
7. Desmet’s misuse of psychological concepts is aimed at undermining people whom he perceives as political threats. Ginger Breggin warns that Desmet’s work can set the stage for other psychologists and for psychiatrists to create and apply new psychodiagnoses related to “mass hypnosis” or “mass psychosis” in the legal and political arenas to discredit, psychiatrically confine, and/or drug individuals who are critical of the establishment. This is precisely how psychiatrists and psychiatric diagnoses have been used in totalitarian countries such as the old USSR2 and in contemporary China to crush dissidents.3
Scholars for Hundreds of Years Have Known Better than Desmet
Evil people — tyrants and their collaborators — actually do conspire to control and exploit other human beings. To confirm how old this knowledge is, here are quotations from one of the greatest analysts of human freedom and human enslavement, Étienne de La Boétie, a writer and a judge (1530-1563). In his 1557 book, The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, he wrote about tyrants and their henchmen:4
Similarly, the more tyrants pillage, the more they crave, the more they ruin and destroy; the more one yields to them, and obeys them, by that much do they become mightier and more formidable, the readier to annihilate and destroy. (p 8)
[T]hey find no other means to impose this new tyranny than by tightening control and removing their subjects so far from any notion of liberty that even if the memory of it is fresh it will soon be eradicated. (p. 10)
In short, when the point is reached, through big favors or little ones, that large profits or small are obtained under a tyrant, there are found almost as many people to whom tyranny seems advantageous as those to whom liberty would seem desirable. (p. 17)
Nevertheless, observing those men who painfully serve the tyrant in order to win some profit from his tyranny and from the subjection of the populace, I am often overcome with amazement at their wickedness and sometimes by pity for their folly. (p. 18)
And in places where the wicked gather there is conspiracy only, not companionship: these have no affection for one another; fear alone holds them together; they are not friends, they are merely accomplices. (p. 19)
The tyrant died in 96 A.D. after three years of bestial government inspired by abject fear of conspirators. (p. 25) [emphases added]
Desmet’s book is a dangerous Trojan horse calculated to keep us feeling confused and self-blaming and for giving hostile forces ammunition for discrediting both the suffering of people under COVID-19 and for dismissing anyone who researches and finds conspiracies behind COVID-19. It pushes a psychology and philosophy in which human beings are devoid of individual value and the ability to make rational choices. It strengthens the enemies of freedom while discouraging research into the enormous organized, highly coordinated threat of growing totalitarianism throughout the world. Worse yet, it could discourage well-meaning individuals from taking action to defend our freedoms — and that appears to be a major unwritten purpose behind his book.
A THREE-PART SERIES – Mass Hypnosis Expert or Trojan Horse
One – Mattias Desmet Demoralizes the Freedom Movement
Two – Mattias Desmet Diagnoses Researchers as Mentally Disturbed
Three – Mattias Desmet Blames the Victims and Absolves the Perpetrators
References:
1 Desmet, Mattias. (2022). The Psychology of Totalitarianism. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.
2 Breggin, Peter. (2008). Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition. New York: Springer Publishing Company, p. 39 and Fireside, H. (1979). Soviet Psychoprisons. New York: W.W. Norton
3 van Voren, R. (2010). Political Abuse of Psychiatry—An Historical Overview Schizophr Bull. 2010 Jan; 36(1): 33–35.
4 Étienne de La Boétie (1942, original edition 1577). The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. New York, Columbia University Press. The book is searchable. https://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/biopolitics/Boetie.pdf
I think both your good selves and Desmet are correct. You can’t tar everyone with the same brush. I’ve not read his book but I’ve listened to many of his discussions. I do believe that there are people who gave in because they were beaten down. But I also have experienced people who took on the banner of “the current thing” with glee, delightedly taking their PCR tests, phoning police when they felt there were too many visitors next door and calling managers in shops when customers were caught without masks. Taking the plandemic on as a cause as if in a cult gives these people a new purpose in life. And they won’t listen to argument. These are the people under mass formation. A concept which, Desmet says, he himself did not come up with. So you’re both right. Let’s not do the divide and be conquered thing. With great compassion and understanding for all, know that we have a lot of grieving still to do, and need a lot of tolerance for those who are still under the spell of the covid plandemic
Thank you so much Abby for adding balance to this. Desmet critics criticise him harshly without offering one positive point about his thoughts and research. The saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. I could have received their critiques a bit easier if they took the chance to say one good thing about Desmet’s work. Thank you again Abby.
Yes I agree. Both types of people are out there in large numbers. I encounter more of Desmets description of those mesmerised by ‘pharmakeia.’ This is a bit of a polemic by Breggin. Ive not read Desmets book. I have read and listened to Breggin . I would have thought he would see it from both points but apparently not.
It’s compensated psychopathy.
I think, the model is a mix of “beaten down”, “mass formation” and “voluntarily complying”. Mass formation people didn’t disappear in 2022 but they have been always a minority. The problem were enablers of this behavior in the majority, and the majority believing that they’re a minority. Everybody looks the same wearing masks. In 2022 they took off the masks in our area and, voila, the majority were just complying, not believers. Now the crazies aren’t taken seriously and the dynamics changed. You don’t need to please an imaginary grandma anymore!
I agree with you totally.
i have read Desmet’s book twice now, (I am not philosophically trained) I think good honest open debate is what we need now, so desperatly.
I come at this with an open mind, respecting both you and Desmet’s work, and contributions over the last tumultuous years.
Desmet says that only around 25% of the population is under the “formation” 60 % or thereabouts, go along with the crowd and it’s only about 20% that are completely awake and aware, and willing to question the narrative.
In my mind this could go some way in answering some of your questions about Desmet’s theory. 60% of the population are like your Goldfinches, huddling in the bushes, unwilling to speak up or act against the mass, they are the Doctors injecting children, suppressing early treatment, teachers enforcing masks on children, etc. The majority are aware that it makes no sense, in fact it is detrimental, but they do it any way. It is only the small minority who speak out, and smaller still those who can openly challenge their institutions etc, you will note it is mostly those who are financially independent who are able to speak freely, as they have the means to do so.
I do believe, like you, that mass formation is not the only answer, there is design and direction at very high levels, of that there is no doubt. However, does this make Desmet a Trojan horse? Could he not be acting purely out of his own honest, experience as a Professor who taught Mass Formation? He comes across as thoroughly authentic, honest, caring and moral.
I hate to see discord in our community of people willing to speak up and question authority. It causes distraction and paranoia, but that is just a personal thought.
Surprised by this article from Breggin. Am usually a fan. Whilst agree there is a strong plandemic aspect to this, like Tolstoy, I never cared for the big man theory of history, passing the buck of tyranny onto the tyrants the public fawn and cheer for, who they actually vote for, in the West. Public not any better. Public fear freedom for the most part as Fromm pointed out. We all need to accept personal responsibility. I don’t mean the children. People masked even when mandates dropped, boasting of being vaxxed, ostracising the unvaxxed, just fine with vax apartheid, trusting the MSM and facebook, not seeking out alternative sources, naively trusting of the ‘good faith’ of Big Pharma like little kids, fine with the pseudo-medical abuse of their kids. Yet Breggin paints them as innocent victims. When these covid cultists ignore and cut off people – including friends, relatives – who warn them, are informed re the various aspects of the covid house of horrors; who are we going to blame – Fauci, Gates, Schwab? The blind, gullible public are as responsible. Not thinking for oneself as an adult is a personal failing. This is not victim blaming.
And whilst the money making of Pharma, their capture of our governments, the increasing power mania of our governments pushing the bio-security surveillance state – 1984 as a how-to guide – are real enough; there is plenty conspiracy twaddle out there that is nonsense. Yes it is hard to do the right thing when you risk losing your job, place at a uni etc. Nobody says courage is easy. (and I have failed personally here, decades ago. But I blame myself, not my parents, teachers or whoever) But if enough people did the right thing, the coercive mandates would have collapsed. Employers, unis, need their employees, students. It’s not a one way street. So compliance becomes a collaboration. It keeps feeding the monster.
And it applies to all tyranny. Including Hitler. Take it Breggin is not a fan of historian Daniel Goldhagen?
My reply was not meant as a reply to Lynn. But to Breggin’s review itself.
Sorry to say you’re very mistaken to blame the people who obeyed with a gun to their temple. Humans eat food, so they need a salary. Quit blaming the victims. Always keep in mind that HcQ and ivmctn were banned.
Also, the lock downs were meant to isolate physically and mentally. By the time people started openi g their eyes and realising how bad it was becoming, loads were I je Ted and the system put in place by armies of employees who were fearful for their livelihoods and not daring to speak, the media bei g very effective at attacking any one questioning anything.
I like CJ Hopkins view along with Dr. Breggin that many people were led to Mass Formation Psychosis bc of all the lockdowns, mandates, masks etc…. That makes more sense to me! Albeit, there are a number of people who seem to have little ability to think outside the box and/or refuse to hear anything they are biased against for whatever reason.
Massive, relentless, soul-beating propaganda
No one had a gun to their temple. My parents got vaccinated because they wanted to go on a cruise! There is strength in numbers. The fact that so many people confirmed to tyranny frightening. I personally believe COVID 2020 was nothing compared to what’s coming in the next decade or two. Buckle up.
Yes, SOME people got the injections to get access to travel, restaurants, and entertainment.
But not all.
I was faced with losing my job of 19 years where I had a middle-class paycheck, a comfortable arrangement, nice managers, felt competent, and also a good awareness of the many-pronged dangers of the jab. I was TERRIFIED of taking it; I also was literally ill with anxiety for weeks at my job being threatened.
Stacked for me was the agreement and support of my husband, and a bit of a financial cushion (though not nearly as much as we would have liked).
I refused it. But many of my colleagues didn’t have what I had – instead, they were in debt, some also had babies and mortgages and other responsibilities, and no one saying they’d support their decision to say no. So don’t blame those people: they’re victims. NO ONE should have been put in that position.
I have only listened to Desmet’s interviews and have not yet read his book – and if what is reported here is true then obviously Desmet is way off on some very important areas – but that does not mean that mass formation isn’t a real thing. I, for one, has witnessed it first hand as so many others for years and years and years – and these last couple of years more than ever. So Desmet is spot on in this regard. It would appear that Desmet and the Breggins need to come together and realize that they all have a pieces to the same larger puzzle.
Strange for Desmet to be so one-eyed. Me too thought he was an outsider telling the truth, but soon I changed my view of his academic spiel. It scarcely matters whether he is conscious of his, in my view extreme, bias or not. His is just one of many pieces of the puzzle facing the West. Since there is little chance of discussing this crucial issue in a public forum in depth, I think it is for each individual to understand what is going on here. That is a huge task.
I have to agree with many of the comments here- desmet has much right but is missing the obvious globalist conspiracy factor. It’s a combination of both Breggin and desmet
The first time I heard Desmet speak I noticed he was repetitive, “piétinement intellectuel” is thé perfect description of his speech. I think like many academics, he’s got a good idea, Explanation and is unable to see things from any other angle. And a major mistake is forgetting the facts like banned medicine, burnt stocks of ivmcn and right now in France, the sécurité sociale which is like gvt health insurance retroactively tracking doctors who prescribed ivmcn and HcQ to people who were ill in order to punish them, probably remove their licenses. Is that mass formation or active conspiring against the citizens out of corruption? Even vitamin D and antibiotics are being checked. Desmet needs to rewrite his copy. That is it.
Did you both really read the book? I have as reader an opposite opinion
Same here–he says he read the book, but it seems it was more of a “skim” perhaps. Throughout this article he paraphrases but does not offer any full quotes from the book. This is a suspect practice, imo. You can accuse all day long, but without offering examples to provide evidence it’s just an empty and unjust manner of attacking another.
I agree and unfortunately they didn’t accept his invitation to have an open discussion with him about their review. He reached out to Peter Breggin and his wife immediately after their review was published, proposing to have a constructive public or private conversation about their review. After two months still no reply. That’s why he responded here. https://mattiasdesmet.substack.com/p/am-i-an-expert-in-mass-formation
If it’s not mass psychosis/hypnosis then it means that people are too dumb to think for themselves about what is good for them. That’s a pretty sad thought about humanity.
If it is not mass psychosis or hypnosis, then there is something in the injections that alters people’s thought processes and personalities in my experience! 😢
The three prerequisites for mass formation that Desmet describes arise from a movement away from God, which did indeed begin over a century ago (and was planned as was everything). And as is typical, people lacking meaning need something to believe it–the pandemic with its rituals and “science gods” provided that. Hence the fierce antagonism toward anyone who was not a believer. Mass formation continues to this day. I live in a conservative area where antagonism has waned. But the believers still walk around with masks where few around them are wearing them. Only hypnosis can explain this.
I dont believe desmet is saying resistors suffer from mass formation: it is the aggressively compliant who attack the resistors who suffer from it.
I don’t understand why breggin attacks fellow resistors. We all will have varying understandings. That is ok and probably fruitful. It is a sign of freedom itself.
Breggin’s reactiveness seems jealous. In a way he is the mirror reflection of the covidians who demand obedience. He has a career of chasing away potential allies that seems nuts to me.
I think your criticism is unfortunate, while not the term, the concepts were around much longer than Desmet, my own favorite being Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power, which saw the light in 1960 when it was an acute question for many how Hitler and the nazis could have gotten so many behind them who seemingly did not see what was up. But the thinking goes back to antiquity. The old latin saying of Mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo is witness to that (the world wants to be deceived, therefore she will be). I may not agree with every detail of Desmet’s analysis, but he’s got it right and in no way is he exonerating the perpetrators. I attempted my response here. I tried achieve some balance. Surely whoever hands over control of their health to the government should take some responsibility, but that does not mean the perpetrators are exonerated.
For those who have watched, heard and read Peter Breggin this comes as no surprise. He has called out the murderous history of his own profession. The abusive practices and toxic drugs doing far more harm than good and the BS that underpins it is actually caused by the very drugs, setting up a cascade of harm and distortion of personality inducing suicide ideation, suicide and violence. Many years ago he went on a one on one debate with esteemed psychiatrist William Sargant and exposed Sargants lies with his own book.
It realy is a pity that you didn’t accept the invitation from Mattias Desmet to have an open discussion with him about your review. He wrote the following; I reached out to Peter Breggin and his wife immediately after their review was published, proposing to have a constructive public or private conversation about their review. It is about two months later now, and it seems that they refuse to accept my invitation. That’s why I will respond here. https://mattiasdesmet.substack.com/p/am-i-an-expert-in-mass-formation
I trust you accept this comment so other followers can read his comments.
Thank you.
Thank you ,
You understood NOTHING of his study!
At 1 hour 28mins Senator Ron Johnson asks: ‘the covid cartel, are they going to win’ ‘what do you think we need to do?’
But he is frustrated with Dr Malone’s answer who references Mattias Desmet and repeated what we all know without answering what we need to do about it. Senator Ron Johnson answers his own question asking for more whistle-blowers to come forward and ensures their anonymity:
https://rumble.com/v1ejdup-crony-capitalism-big-pharma-and-vaccines-ft.-sen.-johnson-dr.-kory-dr.-malo.html
How can it be mass formation when the impetus came from 24/7 coverage by the media and coordinated, planned lockdowns by all levels of government – federal, state and local. The majority were blindsided by the scary virus narrative and the illogical, abusive governmental response. This was inflicted on the public, not some organic response that arose from the people.
Had people been more skeptical of government, as earlier generations were, this whopper of a story would have been ridiculed. We have been conditioned for many years; the confusion so many feel now is the logical consequence of that conditioning.
Strongly disagree. Please read Desmet’s rebuttal. You have it all wrong. Why?
Thanks for the criticism and the hint ‘Étienne de La Boétie’. I just finished the book ‘Dissolving Illusions’ about the history of vaccination. Happily I also got knowledge of the book ‘The fallacy of vaccination’ written in 1899. Put together with the book ‘virus mania’ I get the idea that the present situation is a continuation of the past but now experienced worldwide at the cost of many more deaths and injured humans. It falls under strong utilitarianism: the profits are for both sides, BigMoney for BigBusiness and Healthiness for Everyone by means of vaccins. I just hear that the Dutch government has decided to promote new vaccination, in autumn, more effective against a few variants of corona and so on. It doesn’t matter how many deaths as they aren’t counted as death nor as injured because causation is a rather complex concept, so escaping being a murder is quite easy.
Wow! Thanks Dr. Berggin! While I have not read Desmet’s book, I have listened to many of his interviews.
My Background:
I have read extensively the academic literature of ‘Crowd Psychology’: LeBon (The Crowd), Ellul (Propaganda), Freud (Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego), Arendt (Banality of evil) and several of the books on the US research into these program. (BTW-Just finished Toxic Psychiatry last week !)
My Concern:
Never heard anything new from Desmet in the interviews I listened to, but I did get a nagging feeling that he was obfuscating the previous work’s mentioned and taking credit for discovering something new, something on his own. Why did Desmet not mention that these dynamics were both described previously AND then utilized as techniques by most/(all) of the most famous dictators of the early 20th century? From Hitlers inner group to Stalin and Mussolini, they all read, studied and applied the techniques from LeBon’s The Crowd’. Of course these techniques are known and were implemented by modern Crowd Psychologists (USA Human Terrain Teams) and the groups behind the Covid ‘Plandemic’. Isolation, Ritual, etc. Why did he not use the terminology of LeBon: ‘Crowd Contagion’? Why present that he discovered these ideas himself? Why hid the essential role of designers and implementers?
I think Berggin as he shows in the many case stories in Toxic Psychiatry, the naive psudeo intellectual and the public often blames the victim and ignores the cause – the Toxic Psychiatrist administering the toxic treatment to the victim.
That is not fair. I’ve seen many interviews with him and he definitely doesn’t act like he invented it. He often quotes from Le Bon, Hannah Arendt and others. He cites them as an example. I find his book and his interviews very enlightening and he gives good explanations, but certainly doe not pretend to have invented the wheel.
Not sure is Desmet is controlled opp or not. Inclined to NOT. But, he totally worked himself into a lather to disprove any Conspiracy angle in regard to guv Corona response. It was somewhat well argued academically, but carried the usual swerve in the wrong direction.
“Conspiracies can be a result of people looking for answers within chaos” kind of BS.
Sure, they can be. But was this one?
And he didn’t address that question AT ALL. He just made general sophistry style arguments that conspiracies in general are not real. Which is kind of sad, cuz in this case,
IT’S COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS THERE IS ONE!
otoh, his book had some great insights about mass formation. If only had gone the extra few steps and noted that this mass formation was deliberately foisted on the people by criminals in high office and not arisen by accident. fgs, Nudge is already strong evidence.
It kind of feels like you didn’t read all of it. Good attempt, I’ll keep my eye out for when you have.
Desmet is conspicuous “controlled opposition” here’s why…
The official framing of the mass formation (or mass psychosis) “phenomenon” is misleading and wrong. The false hope-addicted psychologists and their acolytes want you to believe this is “just some temporary occasional” madness by the masses when it is but a spike of a CHRONIC madness going on for aeons with “civilized” people — study the essay The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room –The Holocaustal Covid-19 Coronavirus Madness: A Sociological Perspective & Historical Assessment Of The Covid “Phenomenon” …. https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
One of these mainstream psychologists who have been spreading this whitewashed reality, Dr. Desmet, also fails to see that the PLANNED Covid Psyop is a TOTALLY deliberate ploy because he doesn’t think (after more than 1 year, even 2 years, into this total PLANNED scam!) it’s ALL intentionally sinister as he stated in a prior podcast.
In the May of 2022 podcast with James Corbett he stated that “some people tend to overestimate the degree of planning and intentions” (behind the COUNTLESS, VERIFIABLE, FULLY INTENTIONAL, FULLY PLANNED atrocities by the ruling tribe of psychopaths over the last century alone — see cited 2 Pink Elephant piece) and see all of it as being planned which Desmet called “an extreme position” … Sound logical thinking is “extreme” and therefore false and sick in his demented delusional view!!!
In his overpriced misleading whitewashing old material regurgitated book the psychology of totalitarianism he too states that “There are countless … examples that seem to point in the direction of a plan being implemented, such as the fact that the definition of ‘pandemic’ was adjusted shortly before the coronavirus crisis; that the definition of ‘herd immunity’ was changed during the crisis, implying that only vaccines can achieve it … [he continuous with several other obvious facts of an ENTIRELY PLANNED event, especially discerned through the totality of all these facts].” “SEEM to point in the direction of a plan”??? No! They most evidently, clearly, and irrefutably DO demonstrate and prove it IS a COMPLETELY AND FULLY DELIBERATE PlanDemic! A big scam. An Entirely Planned Holocaust against the non-ruling herd of people (see cited link above). A coherent 12-year old kid can figure that out.
It clearly shows Desmet’s own complete lunacy. But because almost everyone in the culture is a member of mass formation (madness), including the “woke” people of the alternative media domain, hardly anyone recognizes Desmet’s lunacy. Not surprising that he has even become some type of popular “guru” among the adherents of the alternative media landscape and his whitewashed fake narrative strongly resonates with both mainstream people and alternative mainstream folks.
With his false use of language Desmet obscures or hides the true reality instead of directly and uncompromising exposing it — aiding the obfuscation of the vital reality of what the ruling authorities really are. He does the same thing when he speaks of ‘the elite’ (as he does in a number of podcasts) when, in reality, they are THE SCUM OF HUMANS because they are REALITY-VERIFIED PSYCHOPATHS (see referenced source above). Yet in the Corbett podcast he “teaches” us that we, the masses, need to start thinking differently. Right… how about YOU start with sane instead of insane thinking/talking/”teaching”/etc, Dr. Desmet?
How do self-styled “truth-tellers” wake up the masses to the so-called truth when they THEMSELVES use lies with their deceitful fake language???
No one is “teaching” or “waking up” the ignorant masses to the CORE truths with lies, with the official “language of lies” (see cited source above).
This all means Desmet is ALSO a member of the masses of lunatics, an ACTIVE CARD-CARRYING MEMBER of mass formation!!! When, if at all, will he wake up from his state of mass psychosis, his “invisible” stupidity? When, if at all, will he face the TRUE and FULL reality instead of hiding behind fantasies such as his whitewashed “reality” of human civilization?
It shows we live in a global mental asylum with criminal and/or delusional mainstream psychologists, scientists, and docs as the guards, “teachers” and “therapists” … The blind/criminal/mad leading the blind/criminal/mad; the blind/criminal/mad adhere to the blind/criminal/mad = the human madhouse.
Worst of all, perhaps, the mass formation/mass psychosis notion frames the problem as the public being a mere unaccountable non-culpable victim in this phenomenon (the gist of the circular argument is: the masses should change their thinking but they got brainwashed so they’re victims). Nothing could be further from the truth (see referenced source above).
Desmet is right in that truth-activists must fight against mass formation psychosis (human madness). That also means exposing HIS deeply destructive mad part of it. This comment serves, in part, that objective.
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I had not heard about the Breggins’ criticisms but now that I have, I must say they echo exactly my own discomfort with Desmet’s hypothesis. From first hearing of his “Mass Formation Psychosis” it didn’t sit right with me, and now, after reading his rebuttal to the Breggins, I’m only more convinced my instincts were spot on.
In the first place, it would seem to me that some sort of explanation is required to define just what Desmet means by “mechanistic thinking” which fails to explain why so many “alternative” thinkers and practitioners such as midwives, herbalists, pagan-style healers, and musicians and artists, not to mention young adults who were home-schooled in order to learn to think for themselves… all these decidedly non-mechanistic thinkers also fell pray to the mass propaganda campaigns as perpetrated by those who wield power over every aspect of our existence.
Some more thoughts about this scenario. I do hope you, Peter and Ginger, will take up Mattias on his offer of a dialogue. Everyone could benefit. I modestly offer some other reflections on a possible compromise view.
Disclaimer – I’ve read The Real Anthony Fauci and the Breggins’ book. I haven’t read The Psychology of Totalitarianism. I listened to a couple of talks by Mattias Desmet.
There was clearly a conspiracy. If the population experiences anxiety, anything relieving it would be welcome. But censoring and suppressing early treatments is the opposite to it.
At the same time, there are clearly people hypnotized into an alternative reality. How would you explain people wearing masks while driving cars and walking outside in 100 degree heat, in a place where none of it was ever mandated? Today I saw a family in a restaurant putting on masks to walk out of the door, for 10 feet. A man wore a mask to go to the bathroom. All on their free will, the restaurant doesn’t require masks.
I take both models as oversimplified. Mass formation population is a minority (Desmet estimates it 30%, I think it was less than 10% in the US), it doesn’t describe the entire population. And, from the Breggin’s side, approaching the situation from the therapist standpoint is problematic. We are at war, not in a therapy session. A therapist sees their patient as a victim of psychological abuse. But it’s not the same as a victim of a totalitarian regime. I was born under a communist regime, my ancestors were executed and jailed for speaking up. Risking a comfortable life for speaking up (especially, when it’s your duty) isn’t the same as losing life and freedom. And, for the many, even a slightest discomfort of considering saying “no” was too much to handle, they were fine with isolation (plenty of entertainment on the internet), totalitarian approaches and took the vx before any mandates. I took the vx because I might need it for travelling! Totally cool. Anti-vxxers are slowing the process of re-opening.
The major factor was neither mass formation nor mass totalitarian persecution, but an epidemic of compliance and willful ignorance. Seeing everybody as a victim is discouraging to the resistance movement, it infantilizes people and deprives of their own agency. Who are those special heroes who are going to free humanity if everybody is a victim?
Sadly your words seem to smell of jealousy. This is always dangerous and destructive.
be happy for a fellow traveller who is trying to shine the light of truth.
Australia
If I read it correctly, you indirectly infer that during Covid 19 lockdown no “fomenting group cohesion and paranoia toward outsiders” occurred? Please elaborate, as I know many people who personally experience hostility towards them inflicted on them by normal people of the public.
This brings me to Mattias’s references to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil. Every day people become the active enablers of the system of oppression. Doing so, give it legitimacy, making the dynamics of resistance even more difficult. Where does your “psychodynamics of abuse and submission to authority” place this behaviour exactly?
The idea of 20% to 60% to 20% is not true. In every society it is different. Albania has
Guggenbuhl-Craig called it compensated psychopathy.
Apples, and Oranges…both fruit, but not the same.
Both these gentlemen speak about sheep, but not in the same context.
I’ve read the ‘original’ Dutch version of the Desmets’ book and wonder if something has been lost in translation but it is tough to find any victim-blaming at all. I’ll read the English version asap.
I do understand the conspiracy theory which it indeed looks like but think more or less random/separate incidents have been (actively?!) coagulating before rising above water level and coming into clear view.