Back in 2001, I was in a social work masters program at NYU, assigned to an adolescent ward at a mental hospital for my field training.
My placement did not go well, because after a few weeks of listening to the teenage girl to whom I was assigned - diagnosed as oppositional-defiant and other things — and also listening to my social worker supervisor, I though the girl’s aggressive responses to the threatening world in which she actually lived when outside the hospital (and possibly when inside it) made a lot more sense than the social worker’s efforts to get her to stop fighting.
I thought it would be useful to provide kids with more effective tools to fight back against their abusers and escape, and harmful to teach them to suppress their self-protective responses altogether.
Only lasted that one semester in the program, but learned a lot about social control mechanisms.
I was thrilled to see the Corona Investigative Committee *finally* interviewed you as I recommended you to them when they invited me several months ago. I love that you and Catherine did this together and am looking forward to listening to what is sure to be an engaging discussion.
Well CJ, you have a new fan! Unlike some other substacks you came through on the good side! And I am getting older so I really appreciate when people leave an impression that they hate to waste time! Cheers mate. Out of rainy Zagreb in tiny Croatia, home land of Nikola Tesla
As I drive down the street near my home in Istanbul, the early fall morning sunlight glinting off of cars’ passing windshields and store windows, I realize just how much trauma we were exposed to and targeted by these past two years. What we went through was literally like a tunnel of horror, and everyone who made it through mentally unscathed, or scathed, deserves a pat on the back. What *really* strikes me is how manufactured the horror of it all was; the enforced closures of schools and businesses, the enforced masking of citizens, here in Turkey the enforced digital passes to gain entry to malls and markets: all designed to instill a sense of panic and fear in people. And it worked. And now we are like all people who were at a giant party that got invaded by armed intruders who threatened us and made us lie on the floor while waving enormous guns over our bodies. And then they suddenly left and slowly slowly the party comes back to life, but the music sounds different now.
Look, I'm no PhD psychologist or anything, but I've come to my own conclusions about the mass embrace of the blatant lies the covid propaganda operation. And I'm 70 years old, so I'm admittedly getting a little crotchety - maybe in part because even at my age I still think I know "what a woman is" - in a society that seems to have suddenly found this somehow a rather challenging task. Go figure.
I call my theory: "Mass Formation Idiocy." Regular, everyday, good, honest, hardworking people simply become "hypnotized" into "idiocy" as a "mass" - basically because when it comes to critically thinking for themselves (rather than following the herd) they simply - "couldn't find their own ass if they used both of their hands." I know, I know, my "theory" doesn't seem all that complex or psychologically sophisticated, but trust me, it explains everything from the American people's acceptance of the "magic bullet" to explain how JFK "wasn't killed in a conspiracy," to my same "fellow American's" later accepting that steel and concrete buildings can simply pulverize into dust in mid-air - because, well, the "authorities" said so.
My theory of "Mass Formation Idiocy" accurately predicts that if trusted societal "authorities" tell people it is impossible to "define what a woman is" - that a significant segment of the population - that segment that "couldn't find their own ass if they used both their hands" - will suddenly have a really really hard time "defining what a woman is." See how this works?
The words Charles de Gaulle spoke to one of his assistants after returning from JFK's funeral still seem the best concise summary of the "mass" phenomenon of people simply "accepting the official story - because." De Gaulle believed that elements within the American CIA and military were behind JFK's assassination, and these same forces had participated in attempts to assassinate de Gaulle himself, coordinating with similar forces in France. But, De Gaulle had no faith whatsoever that the American people had the stomach to actually want to know the truth of who publicly murdered their president. Of the American people de Gaulle told his assistant the following: ("They don't want to know. They don't want to find out. They won't let themselves find out.")
In the immortal words of Yogi Berra - "It's deja vu all over again."
CJ draws a hard, fundamental distinction between a mental state of "hypnosis" vs. simply obeying the demands of totalitarian political order. I'll have to meditate on that some more, because it isn't a distinction I've arrived at on my own. I DO perceive my family as living in a trance-like state. The repetition of slogans like "masks work" and "follow the science" DOES seem to whip them into a state of un-thinking compliance with absurdities. Hypnosis as metaphor (if not actuality) has also been a useful construct for me insofar as it helps depersonalize my family's rejection: their disinvitation from holidays, disinvitation to be a part of the kids' lives, etc.
I'll keep thinking about the distinctions between mass-formation and cult-formation. The significance isn't clear to me as yet.
After reading your replies in this article, I decided to order your book on amazon. There was a big scary warning that I should seek my covid propaganda... uh... info from the CDC directly. I deftly dodged the hypnosis effect and came over here to the comments section to blow off a little freely floating anxiety. Feeling pretty good to be honest.
One valuable skill I've gained over the course of the pandemic is the ability to revise my beliefs quickly and without too much of an ego hit upon encountering new information.
Although I have never been overly interested or invested in the term 'Mass Formation', it has been rattling around in my head a bit (due to reading materials from people such as Dr. Malone) and I kinda glossed over it thinking "eh well that seems like a reasonable description/explanation of people's behavior" even though the whole time I already accepted that the powers that be deliberately manipulated people into a state of fear and panic for their own ends.
Reading your article on the subject simply made me realize that the concept of Mass Formation is in no way necessary to explain how people have behaved as the Covid narrative has unfolded...as you said, "mass hysteria" seems perfectly apt as a descriptive term. The explanation for why this happened is due to deliberate manipulation by elite actors.
I can understand why people believe it was individuals doing this to each other: I remember very early on, in 2020 before we were all sent home from work, that some employees were asking us to implement mandatory hand sanitization in the break rooms. But you have to ask, who made them feel that fear? Obviously it was the media at the time blowing it way out of proportion and telling lies about what was going on in Wuhan.
I've just upgraded my subscription to paid. Take my money. I was somewhat onboard with the Desmet theory for a while, but hearing you eloquently (and not eloquently sometimes haha) refute it made me think. I like thinking, it's nice. So, thank you.
On an entirely unrelated note, you talk about the new normal a lot. Did you know that Russians say "normal" to mean good? For example you could ask, how are you? And a Russian might reply, everything is normal. Всё нормально, как у тебя?
This is neither here nor there, just an interesting tidbit of information. From the Russian language point of view, the WEF crowd is really carrying on about "The new good." That's kind of funny, and fitting, in a way.
Hi CJ, I have no problem holding different theories in my mind, recognizing that all are probably false in some ways and true in others. So you/they/you all/eir/vous/ustedes/boomboom have to try harder to make me hate you or Desmet or Malone or Berenson. You're all cool and make me feel less insane. I don't hold any of you to full consistency either. Stretch those meanings! That's what the handles are for!!
You are right. Your mail was extremely boring. Some dragons aren't worth slaying.
Whew, I have to say I'm really put off by the personal attacks elicited by your dislike (envy?) of Desmet. It appears that your mind is closed to any genuine intellectual exchange on the merits of his research. I am reminded of the flaws in human nature that prevent most dissident groups from putting up a united front against any sort of tyranny. I am currently reading your book, principally because it was banned and I generally enjoy your substack with the exception of the anti-mass formation rants, and I will follow it with reading Desmet's book if I can find the time.
Greatly enjoyed your latest conversation (Session 120) with Catherine Austin Fitts. Wanted to add my 2pworth on the Buddha's teaching of impermanence, after 40 years of effort to get to the bottom of it -- b/c it's generally not well understood.
The Buddha said, exactly, that all samskaras are impermanent & full of suffering, whereas all dharmas are empty of self-existence. He didn't say, as often misquoted that everything is (or all forms are) impermanent, full of suffering, and empty / not self.
It's taken me the longest time to begin to understand the distinction between fabricated samskaras (confected things, works of conditioning, works of conditioned karma, karmic formations, constructs, fictions) and empty dharmas (real happenings).
A real happening, like - say - a theatre production, is empty of self-existence. As such it has no beginning or end, and is beyond impermanence. The same is true of all dharmas. Happenings are empty of self-existence and therefore beyond impermanence.
This teaching of the Buddha finds its echo in the findings of physicist Carlo Rovelli, who uses the metaphor of things like stones vs happenings like kisses. Carlo says that at the level he studies what happens, there are no things like stones, only happenings like kisses.
The Buddha's point is that we shouldn't think of the latter as impermanent. The fiction of separately-existing stone is impermanent. As an empty happening, a theatre production (or indeed a stone) is beyond impermanence.
Probably you speak of "forms" as shorthand for samskaras, and I am preaching to the converted. Probably you know this distinction already. But just in case anybody didn't.... here endeth my 2pworth.
Back in 2001, I was in a social work masters program at NYU, assigned to an adolescent ward at a mental hospital for my field training.
My placement did not go well, because after a few weeks of listening to the teenage girl to whom I was assigned - diagnosed as oppositional-defiant and other things — and also listening to my social worker supervisor, I though the girl’s aggressive responses to the threatening world in which she actually lived when outside the hospital (and possibly when inside it) made a lot more sense than the social worker’s efforts to get her to stop fighting.
I thought it would be useful to provide kids with more effective tools to fight back against their abusers and escape, and harmful to teach them to suppress their self-protective responses altogether.
Only lasted that one semester in the program, but learned a lot about social control mechanisms.
I was thrilled to see the Corona Investigative Committee *finally* interviewed you as I recommended you to them when they invited me several months ago. I love that you and Catherine did this together and am looking forward to listening to what is sure to be an engaging discussion.
Well CJ, you have a new fan! Unlike some other substacks you came through on the good side! And I am getting older so I really appreciate when people leave an impression that they hate to waste time! Cheers mate. Out of rainy Zagreb in tiny Croatia, home land of Nikola Tesla
As I drive down the street near my home in Istanbul, the early fall morning sunlight glinting off of cars’ passing windshields and store windows, I realize just how much trauma we were exposed to and targeted by these past two years. What we went through was literally like a tunnel of horror, and everyone who made it through mentally unscathed, or scathed, deserves a pat on the back. What *really* strikes me is how manufactured the horror of it all was; the enforced closures of schools and businesses, the enforced masking of citizens, here in Turkey the enforced digital passes to gain entry to malls and markets: all designed to instill a sense of panic and fear in people. And it worked. And now we are like all people who were at a giant party that got invaded by armed intruders who threatened us and made us lie on the floor while waving enormous guns over our bodies. And then they suddenly left and slowly slowly the party comes back to life, but the music sounds different now.
Look, I'm no PhD psychologist or anything, but I've come to my own conclusions about the mass embrace of the blatant lies the covid propaganda operation. And I'm 70 years old, so I'm admittedly getting a little crotchety - maybe in part because even at my age I still think I know "what a woman is" - in a society that seems to have suddenly found this somehow a rather challenging task. Go figure.
I call my theory: "Mass Formation Idiocy." Regular, everyday, good, honest, hardworking people simply become "hypnotized" into "idiocy" as a "mass" - basically because when it comes to critically thinking for themselves (rather than following the herd) they simply - "couldn't find their own ass if they used both of their hands." I know, I know, my "theory" doesn't seem all that complex or psychologically sophisticated, but trust me, it explains everything from the American people's acceptance of the "magic bullet" to explain how JFK "wasn't killed in a conspiracy," to my same "fellow American's" later accepting that steel and concrete buildings can simply pulverize into dust in mid-air - because, well, the "authorities" said so.
My theory of "Mass Formation Idiocy" accurately predicts that if trusted societal "authorities" tell people it is impossible to "define what a woman is" - that a significant segment of the population - that segment that "couldn't find their own ass if they used both their hands" - will suddenly have a really really hard time "defining what a woman is." See how this works?
The words Charles de Gaulle spoke to one of his assistants after returning from JFK's funeral still seem the best concise summary of the "mass" phenomenon of people simply "accepting the official story - because." De Gaulle believed that elements within the American CIA and military were behind JFK's assassination, and these same forces had participated in attempts to assassinate de Gaulle himself, coordinating with similar forces in France. But, De Gaulle had no faith whatsoever that the American people had the stomach to actually want to know the truth of who publicly murdered their president. Of the American people de Gaulle told his assistant the following: ("They don't want to know. They don't want to find out. They won't let themselves find out.")
In the immortal words of Yogi Berra - "It's deja vu all over again."
Thanks from me for your patience and eloquency. Huge fan.
Peace. Love. Freedom.
CJ draws a hard, fundamental distinction between a mental state of "hypnosis" vs. simply obeying the demands of totalitarian political order. I'll have to meditate on that some more, because it isn't a distinction I've arrived at on my own. I DO perceive my family as living in a trance-like state. The repetition of slogans like "masks work" and "follow the science" DOES seem to whip them into a state of un-thinking compliance with absurdities. Hypnosis as metaphor (if not actuality) has also been a useful construct for me insofar as it helps depersonalize my family's rejection: their disinvitation from holidays, disinvitation to be a part of the kids' lives, etc.
I'll keep thinking about the distinctions between mass-formation and cult-formation. The significance isn't clear to me as yet.
You forgot the part where you told us all to go fuck ourselves.
desmet is a pfraud
After reading your replies in this article, I decided to order your book on amazon. There was a big scary warning that I should seek my covid propaganda... uh... info from the CDC directly. I deftly dodged the hypnosis effect and came over here to the comments section to blow off a little freely floating anxiety. Feeling pretty good to be honest.
One valuable skill I've gained over the course of the pandemic is the ability to revise my beliefs quickly and without too much of an ego hit upon encountering new information.
Although I have never been overly interested or invested in the term 'Mass Formation', it has been rattling around in my head a bit (due to reading materials from people such as Dr. Malone) and I kinda glossed over it thinking "eh well that seems like a reasonable description/explanation of people's behavior" even though the whole time I already accepted that the powers that be deliberately manipulated people into a state of fear and panic for their own ends.
Reading your article on the subject simply made me realize that the concept of Mass Formation is in no way necessary to explain how people have behaved as the Covid narrative has unfolded...as you said, "mass hysteria" seems perfectly apt as a descriptive term. The explanation for why this happened is due to deliberate manipulation by elite actors.
I can understand why people believe it was individuals doing this to each other: I remember very early on, in 2020 before we were all sent home from work, that some employees were asking us to implement mandatory hand sanitization in the break rooms. But you have to ask, who made them feel that fear? Obviously it was the media at the time blowing it way out of proportion and telling lies about what was going on in Wuhan.
I've just upgraded my subscription to paid. Take my money. I was somewhat onboard with the Desmet theory for a while, but hearing you eloquently (and not eloquently sometimes haha) refute it made me think. I like thinking, it's nice. So, thank you.
On an entirely unrelated note, you talk about the new normal a lot. Did you know that Russians say "normal" to mean good? For example you could ask, how are you? And a Russian might reply, everything is normal. Всё нормально, как у тебя?
This is neither here nor there, just an interesting tidbit of information. From the Russian language point of view, the WEF crowd is really carrying on about "The new good." That's kind of funny, and fitting, in a way.
Hi CJ, I have no problem holding different theories in my mind, recognizing that all are probably false in some ways and true in others. So you/they/you all/eir/vous/ustedes/boomboom have to try harder to make me hate you or Desmet or Malone or Berenson. You're all cool and make me feel less insane. I don't hold any of you to full consistency either. Stretch those meanings! That's what the handles are for!!
You are right. Your mail was extremely boring. Some dragons aren't worth slaying.
You're the cat's pyjamas!!
Whew, I have to say I'm really put off by the personal attacks elicited by your dislike (envy?) of Desmet. It appears that your mind is closed to any genuine intellectual exchange on the merits of his research. I am reminded of the flaws in human nature that prevent most dissident groups from putting up a united front against any sort of tyranny. I am currently reading your book, principally because it was banned and I generally enjoy your substack with the exception of the anti-mass formation rants, and I will follow it with reading Desmet's book if I can find the time.
It’s pretty bloody simple. Avoid humourless people at all costs.
Greatly enjoyed your latest conversation (Session 120) with Catherine Austin Fitts. Wanted to add my 2pworth on the Buddha's teaching of impermanence, after 40 years of effort to get to the bottom of it -- b/c it's generally not well understood.
The Buddha said, exactly, that all samskaras are impermanent & full of suffering, whereas all dharmas are empty of self-existence. He didn't say, as often misquoted that everything is (or all forms are) impermanent, full of suffering, and empty / not self.
It's taken me the longest time to begin to understand the distinction between fabricated samskaras (confected things, works of conditioning, works of conditioned karma, karmic formations, constructs, fictions) and empty dharmas (real happenings).
A real happening, like - say - a theatre production, is empty of self-existence. As such it has no beginning or end, and is beyond impermanence. The same is true of all dharmas. Happenings are empty of self-existence and therefore beyond impermanence.
This teaching of the Buddha finds its echo in the findings of physicist Carlo Rovelli, who uses the metaphor of things like stones vs happenings like kisses. Carlo says that at the level he studies what happens, there are no things like stones, only happenings like kisses.
The Buddha's point is that we shouldn't think of the latter as impermanent. The fiction of separately-existing stone is impermanent. As an empty happening, a theatre production (or indeed a stone) is beyond impermanence.
Probably you speak of "forms" as shorthand for samskaras, and I am preaching to the converted. Probably you know this distinction already. But just in case anybody didn't.... here endeth my 2pworth.