I heard something this week that was very similar to what I said in my January 4th post. If you’ll remember, my post was talking about the “herd mentality,” and my observation was that “the herd” was mainly driven by fear, and individuals within the herd instinctively did what everybody else was doing without questioning the sanity of it all.
But what I heard this week was an explanation that was deeper and more thorough. It was also more scholarly, so let me explore it and break it down a bit.
We are in the middle of what is called “mass formation psychosis.” So says Dr. Robert Malone, whose credentials are much too long to include in a parenthetical phrase. It will have to suffice to say that he is a vaccinologist, the inventor of the core mRNA technology that drives the Covid shots. Granted, he is apparently still thinking it’s okay to shoot up old people with the clot shot, because they are the “most vulnerable,” and I think that’s not a very good idea simply because old people are more easily killed by it.
But regarding the mass formation, or the madness of crowds, he was mostly quoting what he’d learned from Dr. Mattias Desmet concerning the weird phenomenon we are seeing these days. Dr. Desmet had taught classes in this psychological condition for years, but then missed it when it was actually happening to us. Two months into it, he came to that realization and spoke out, noting that he himself had been blind to its beginnings.
Dr. Malone passed it on because it explained why he himself, who understood the workings of the mRNA technology probably better than any other human being, had been canceled by Google as being a purveyor of dangerous disinformation when he said it was wrong to inject children with it.
Mass formation psychosis is understood to be mass hypnosis on a group of vulnerable, lonely people.
They are vulnerable because they have an underlying anxiety or anger that is “free floating,” which means they don't have anyone or anything to blame for it. When a common enemy is pinpointed, this group of disjointed, unrelated individuals somehow bands together, and with a fearless leader and a feeling of camaraderie, the mass sets out to extinguish that enemy.
The danger lies in this group’s feeling that anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy, and their urgent need to cancel anyone who is not part of the mass. Have you ever heard the term “We’re all in this together”? Remember when Joe Biden appealed to that mass in his now famously divisive speech with: “I know you’re angry at those people who refuse to get vaccinated, and I’m angry too”? He pointed out the “unvaxed” as the cause of all our problems with Covid, and then began a propaganda campaign, saying we were experiencing a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
The mass mainstream media has gone along with this narrative, repeating it over and over again. The anger is only getting worse. There are reports of people saying that the unvaxed who get Covid should be left to die without getting any treatment, and others think they should be put in concentration camps such as those the Aussies have been using. The mass is willing to order all people to stop saying anything in opposition to their belief system. Neil Young, joined by Joni Mitchell and even Megan Markle and her esteemed husband Harry, announced that he would not allow his (old and tired) music to be played on Spotify if Joe Rogan’s podcast remained. Joe Rogan, of course, had been spreading “disinformation” too, saying monoclonal antibodies and other early treatment had saved his life when he had Covid.
And there is a real possibility that the mass, after the “Mr. Nice Guy” techniques like deplatforming and gaslighting don’t change the minds of the unvaxed, will turn very ugly on us, and that they will begin to “cancel” us in the same way the French did to the aristocracy, or as the Nazis did to the Jews.
Did you hear Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor hysterically claiming that there were 100,000 children on ventilators in this country from Covid, and that that’s why we need Biden’s vaccine mandates? Did you wonder how she, one of the most powerful women in America, could perpetuate that whopper and still, even after being fact-checked, never apologize for her “error”?
The point is, people in the mass are unconcerned about whether what they believe might be a lie, whether it is intentional propaganda or an accidental misstatement. They have to believe what they do and rally around their fearless leader, even if their current beliefs are clearly the opposite of their past beliefs, or even if real statistics and truths are held before their very eyes. It’s the old adage, “Don’t confuse me with facts: my mind is made up.” They feel better if they are part of something bigger than themselves, and they must not waver in their loyalty.
Ah, the human mind! How complex it is! No, it is not just the bubbly-looking mass of neurons inside the skull. It has the ability to think and reason for itself -- or to bypass and ignore reasonable thought when convenient so that the once-troubled mind can remain in a comfort zone it has defined.
Lying has become mainstream, and a sense of shame when caught in a lie is exceedingly rare. There may be an attempt at cover-up, but when a liar has been exposed, and when calls to resign surround him, he will usually dig in and stay. Eventually the incident is back-paged and forgotten. And what of those who believed the lie? They usually just go on believing it -- at least until it is far too embarrassing to admit that they do. (Case in point: the talking heads who kept on saying Kyle Rittenhouse was a racist because he had shot two black men.)
What can we do when a large percentage of Americans have fallen for the lie and are shamelessly and loudly perpetuating it, hyper-resistant to the truth? How can we do anything about the mass that may in time choose to physically cancel us? And when falling for the lies tends towards global authoritarianism, is there a solution?
Dr. Malone says that people like himself and others, who are knowledgeable, need to stay on the fore-front and lead a resistance movement. We need to make people understand that there’s a larger threat than Covid. And we need to form local communities that care for the lonely. Network with people. Don’t give up.
Another mass, he says, will naturally form in response to the first one.
We’re witnessing that kind of pushback with the Canadian truckers, who braved bone chilling weather this week to bring their rigs and their horns and Canadian flags to the capital in a convoy 43 miles long, and demand that Trudeau lift the vaccine mandates for truckers who cross the nation’s borders. Trudeau is conveniently hiding out from the tens of thousands of truckers in an undisclosed location. He says he goes to rallies and talks to people on occasion, as long as he agrees with them -- like BLM for example.
How could he intentionally block out the sound of thousands and thousands of honking horns and discredit the working class, calling them a “fringe element”? It is hard to understand, except that he is a member of the mass, and the mass cancels out those with whom they disagree. He still contends that the only way they can fight the virus is to get everybody vaxxed -- while, ironically, announcing that he has himself contracted Covid.
But the mass formation psychosis theory hinges upon emotionally disturbed people who need a target -- a scapegoat to assuage themselves of any guilt.
Now that I mention it … hey, we have Someone who answers that description. In fact, that scapegoat idea is an Old Testament sacrifice, and it is said that all of those sacrifices were instituted to illustrate Christ and His mission. Jesus voluntarily took all our sins and the accompanying guilt and blame upon Himself, and then He was punished for them in our place. He was our Scapegoat.
But there is a prayer in John 17 that shows the bigger and better plan for Mankind, masterminded before the world began by The One True God. In these verses, Jesus prays for His people outside of time and space, and His disciples are simply awestruck hearing Him praying specifically for them and hearing the marvelous plans He has. But Jesus also includes people who will hear His words and believe, someday in the future, because of the witness of the disciples … and that’s me, too!
In His prayer, Jesus tells the Father that His great desire is that His people will be “one” as He and the Father are “one.” In this plan, He has formed us believers into a Body -- not just a shapeless, hulking mass, but a functional, attractive, faithful, living Body, with whom He will be united as a man takes a bride. This is what He said:
"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
"Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
This passage of Scripture is so mind-bogglingly beautiful that I named my blog after it. But we have yet to see this fulfilled. The jokes abound concerning Heaven:
“Walk softly past this room. That’s the Pentecostals (or a different denomination), and they think they’re the only ones here.”
With the Church so fractured in its beliefs and so much of it corrupted, how can we ever be “one” in the same way God the Son is “one” with God the Father? To be perfectly frank, there are some ministers that we would be loath to invite to speak from our pulpits because of doctrinal differences, and apart from standing next to us at pro-life gatherings, there are some who claim to be members of Christ’s Body that we truly think are quite weird and with whom we rarely interact. Connectedness seems rather elusive these days.
In these verses, Jesus wants this relationship between us because we will become “perfect,” and because if the world sees us in this kind of unity, they will know that Jesus is who He says He is.
That hit me this morning. Jesus has in mind a “more perfect union,” built upon the Truth of His Word, and focused on the Person of the Son of God. This is the answer for the lonely and disconnected who fall victim to mass formation psychosis. This plan is the one that will truly set people free. We may not succeed, but the Church is the answer to the mass, and we must proclaim it to those lonely people. And we must demonstrate God’s love for them by our love for one another.
This song is much more meaningful than I ever gave it credit for. May it be our prayer.
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
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