This is an essay which focuses on the power of false narratives, using a recent example from my own experience to illustrate the media ecosystem (large and small) which powers these. My objective is to help you, the reader, better understand how this works, and what you can do to “immunize” yourself from the power of false narratives.
Consider this a case study with observations and conclusions.
“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrators) too plainly proves a deliberate, systemic plan of reducing us to slavery”
Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Saturday, while on stage with Dr. Paul Marik preparing to speak at a local event hosted by the Virginia Medical Freedom alliance, entitled Virginia’s COVID Management: A Public Forum, I received a text from a close colleague (who I will not name). The key points here are that this friendly advice came into my mental space at a very inopportune time (as I was mentally preparing for a presentation to a sold out crowd), but was delivered by personal text from a trusted colleague and supporter, so I felt it necessary to read and respond (by text, while on stage).
I get a fair number of these bits of friendly advice. Many see and respond to the damage being done by the various forms of the promoted narrative asserting that I am “controlled opposition”, and which circulate in the dark crevices of the web. Many offer advice for how I should or should not respond (which advice is often contradictory). I listen to all, and then have to integrate all of this into evolving strategy and tactics for the unrestricted information/media war battlefront that I deal with on a daily basis. There are no textbooks or manuals for how to manage these types of situations, and so I have to learn by trial and error. Hopefully we can both learn a bit from examining the following case study.
Walk with me for a while, and put yourself in my shoes- Here comes the text message…
Time for damage repair:
Having witnessed and participated in many high profile scandals where a person required media damage control, I have a few suggestions for you. Some of these might not land yet as they are outside of your current belief system. But in witnessing your humble journey of awakening to new realities I will offer these ideas with the hope that you will soon open to these possibilities.
I’ll be blunt, because our friendship calls for it:
1. The day you walk back the idea that some people benefit from covid vaccines is the day things turn in a powerfully good direction for you. It’s this statement that sustains much of the distrust. Like the Trump dilemma, we all can see that if he simply apologized for praising the vaccines he would win back half the country. Same for you. My guess is that you’ve held onto this position, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid being labeled an anti-vaxxer. I trust that you believe it to be true or you wouldn’t be saying it. However, it would do you much good to reconsider. I held that belief until 2021. I’m now crystal clear that NO ONE, not even the elderly, should be inoculated for COVID. I also once bought into the lies that vaccines eradicated such threats as polio. Maybe you already know the truth about this? If not, the evidence is solid against that narrative. I’m now of the belief that only under very rare circumstances should any child or adult be vaccinated for any reason. Most of the doctors I’ve interviewed have arrived there as well.
2. Breggin will have no platform to slander you from should you (and Mattias) make a public statement that counters the idea that you support the term “mass formation psychosis.” The addition of psychosis to that phrase has caused psychiatrist like Breggin to protect against what they fear is the “ weaponization of psychiatry.” I know Mattias (and I assume you) is against the use of the word, but it needs to be made very clear out there. Apparently, in the documentary that featured the both of you, there was something said in jest about the use of “ psychosis.“ I’ve not seen this moment, but from what I’ve heard, the way this was expressed, with laughter, has raised concerns that it was an intentional ploy to gain attention. Does Mattias say something to the effect of, “it made me famous?” That’s was one persons interpretation, which might be totally off. I don’t know.
3. This one is for Matias: he should make it clear that in his book he did not intend to take attention away from the genocide committed by Hitler. Breggin and one other Jewish person I’ve spoken with felt that he left the blame on the victims and not the man who organized the holocaust. This is a very delicate subject to approach as you know. Jews are quick to condemn anyone who dare attempt to examine the many ways we the people enable the Hitlers of the world. I find Mattias’ perspective critical to prevent these things from occurring again. But it would serve him to publicly state the obvious loud and clearly. I’m sure he’s done this by now, but it must be done in a way that reaches beyond limited platforms. I’m open to mediating a Zoom with the both of you.
All for now. Thank you for taking this in!
Well there it is. The false narrative being promoted by detractors has come back at me stated as truth from a supporter, who (with the best of intent) is offering to mediate a resolution to a bunch of lies. And having read it while on the stage getting ready to speak, I decided to respond. That was probably the wrong decision, but this text message was like a mind worm - once infected, my mind could not let it rest. I felt compelled to respond, while on the stage awaiting my time to talk. Bad decision, and I own that.
As the dogs woke me up early Sunday, this exchange was the first thing that came to my mind. What does this really mean, in terms of what is going on at present?
First, let’s examine the facts pertaining to the text message:
Point 1: See the attached video (above) from the Global COVID Summit / Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists. This press conference and video was first posted May 11, 2022. Here is the text of the declaration, which I was deeply involved in developing and editing together with many other physicians and medical scientists. Pretty strong stuff, and pretty edgy for May 11, 2022.
Point #1 is clearly based on a lie that is being promoted by someone or some group that seeks to sow division.
17,000 physicians and medical scientists declare that the state of medical emergency must be lifted, scientific integrity restored, and crimes against humanity addressed.
We, the physicians and medical scientists of the world, united through our loyalty to the Hippocratic Oath, recognize that the disastrous COVID-19 public health policies imposed on doctors and our patients are the culmination of a corrupt medical alliance of pharmaceutical, insurance, and healthcare institutions, along with the financial trusts which control them. They have infiltrated our medical system at every level, and are protected and supported by a parallel alliance of big tech, media, academics and government agencies who profited from this orchestrated catastrophe.
This corrupt alliance has compromised the integrity of our most prestigious medical societies to which we belong, generating an illusion of scientific consensus by substituting truth with propaganda. This alliance continues to advance unscientific claims by censoring data, and intimidating and firing doctors and scientists for simply publishing actual clinical results or treating their patients with proven, life-saving medicine. These catastrophic decisions came at the expense of the innocent, who are forced to suffer health damage and death caused by intentionally withholding critical and time-sensitive treatments, or as a result of coerced genetic therapy injections, which are neither safe nor effective.
The medical community has denied patients the fundamental human right to provide true informed consent for the experimental COVID-19 injections. Our patients are also blocked from obtaining the information necessary to understand risks and benefits of vaccines, and their alternatives, due to widespread censorship and propaganda spread by governments, public health officials and media. Patients continue to be subjected to forced lock-downs which harm their health, careers and children’s education, and damage social and family bonds critical to civil society. This is not a coincidence. In the book entitled “COVID-19: The Great Reset”, leadership of this alliance has clearly stated their intention is to leverage COVID-19 as an “opportunity” to reset our entire global society, culture, political structures, and economy.
Our 17,000 Global COVID Summit physicians and medical scientists represent a much larger, enlightened global medical community who refuse to be compromised, and are united and willing to risk the wrath of the corrupt medical alliance to defend the health of their patients.
The mission of the Global COVID Summit is to end this orchestrated crisis, which has been illegitimately imposed on the world, and to formally declare that the actions of this corrupt alliance constitute nothing less than crimes against humanity.
We must restore the people’s trust in medicine, which begins with free and open dialogue between physicians and medical scientists. We must restore medical rights and patient autonomy. This includes the foundational principle of the sacred doctor-patient relationship. The social need for this is decades overdue, and therefore, we the physicians of the world are compelled to take action.
After two years of scientific research, millions of patients treated, hundreds of clinical trials performed and scientific data shared, we have demonstrated and documented our success in understanding and combating COVID-19. In considering the risks versus benefits of major policy decisions, our Global COVID Summit of 17,000 physicians and medical scientists from all over the world have reached consensus on the following foundational principles:
We declare and the data confirm that the COVID-19 experimental genetic therapy injections must end.
We declare doctors should not be blocked from providing life-saving medical treatment.
We declare the state of national emergency, which facilitates corruption and extends the pandemic, should be immediately terminated.
We declare medical privacy should never again be violated, and all travel and social restrictions must cease.
We declare masks are not and have never been effective protection against an airborne respiratory virus in the community setting.
We declare funding and research must be established for vaccination damage, death and suffering.
We declare no opportunity should be denied, including education, career, military service or medical treatment, over unwillingness to take an injection.
We declare that first amendment violations and medical censorship by government, technology and media companies should cease, and the Bill of Rights be upheld.
We declare that Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Janssen, Astra Zeneca, and their enablers, withheld and willfully omitted safety and effectiveness information from patients and physicians, and should be immediately indicted for fraud.
We declare government and medical agencies must be held accountable.
Point 2: The reaction of Google and the corporate press regarding my saying the three words “Mass Formation Psychosis” on the famous Joe Rogan Experience/Malone podcast episode #1757 was to assert that there is no such term in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American psychiatric association, and that I (personally) made up the phrase. Of course, this overlooks that the DSM of the APA focuses on the psychopathology of individuals, and not the psychopathology of groups.
Here is Breggin’s article on all of this, which misinterprets banter between two friends who have been through the barrel together as something more sinister. This seems to be the source of that part of the false narrative which my friend was repeating to me in his text.
Just to help prevent memory holing, here is another analysis of the Google overreaction after I said those three little words on Rogan. Frankly, I think that the response generated was a tell, and Google knows all too well that they are employing propaganda tactics to hypnotize and control thinking. And here is Vice telling you what you should be thinking about the topic.
Here is one podcast (with Mattias Desmet not involving me) dated 06 Dec 2021 employing the term. Before I went on Rogan.
This is the podcast where I first learned of the work of Mattias Desmet. What was the title, you ask? Psychological Tricks | What Is Mass Formation Psychosis? | Prof. Mattias Desmet| AMP. Note the date - October 20,2021.
851,626 views Oct 20, 2021 What are the conditions in any society that will cause a people to willingly sacrifice their freedoms? Mattias Desmet has studied and lectured extensively on this phenomenon called mass formation. He is a professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University has and holds a masters 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. He cautions against the dangers of our current societal landscape and offers solutions both individually and collectively to prevent the willing sacrifice of our freedoms.
Then there is this obscure psychologist named Carl Jung that uses the term as well as developed aspects of the concept, as well as Joost Merloo, and Hannah Arendt. And of course Plato and the Allegory of the Cave.
Example summaries:
How Ideas can Trigger a Mass Psychosis 410,724 views Mar 31, 2021
The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis - Can Sanity Return to an Insane World 1,304,816 views Apr 24, 2021
The Mass Psychosis and the Demons of Dostoevsky March 31,2021
Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity? February 26, 2021
And this classic:
MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL
5,284,807 views Aug 3, 2021 This video was made in collaboration with Academy of Ideas. They create videos explaining the ideas of history's great thinkers in order to help supply the world with more knowledge, to empower the individual, and to promote freedom. Please check out their youtube channel for more brilliant content. https://www.youtube.com/c/academyofideas or visit their website to learn more
https://academyofideas.com/
In this video we are going to explore the most dangerous of all psychic epidemics, the mass psychosis. A mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of a society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions. Such a phenomenon is not a thing of fiction. Two examples of mass psychoses are the American and European witch hunts 16th and 17th centuries and the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century. This video will aim to answer questions surrounding mass psychosis: What is it? How does is start? Has it happened before? Are we experiencing one right now? And if so, how can the stages of a mass psychosis be reversed?
So, should I apologize or make light of using a term that is well established in the psychology literature long ago, and was commonly used long before I became aware of the theories and work of Mattias Desmet after October 20, 2021?
No, this is yet another false narrative, promoted by an 86 year old American psychiatrist who is trying to sell a book. And by the corporate media.
I think not. There is nothing to apologize for. I did not invent the term.
Point 3: I do not understand this whole false narrative that Mattias Desmet and I are somehow excusing the Nazis. To my eye, this is just bizarre; a complete inversion of truth. Here is the relevant transcript and context, courtesy of Real Clear Politics. The relevant video clip from the Rogan interview is here. The original Real Clear Politics transcript has been edited, but here is the actual clip in which I speak about Germany.
“DR. ROBERT MALONE: It's hard for me to reconcile the behavior of the government and its public health decisions with the data. It is like there are two bins -- is it incompetence or malevolence?
Is there some ulterior political motive or are they just dumb/stupid?
JOE ROGAN: If there is a political motive and that is written somewhere, someone is going to jail. If that somehow, that's scary. I might be totally naive.
...
DR. ROBERT MALONE: For me, the disclosure of emails that Cliff Lane, Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins actively conspired to destroy any discussion of the appropriateness of lockdown strategies, and the mainstream press hardly covers it, and there are no consequences...
We're in an environment in which truth and consequences are fungible. This is modern media management warfare. The truth is what those that are managing the Trusted News Initiative say it is.
JOE ROGAN: That is wild. And for me personally, it is so confusing [that] I find myself in this position where I'm compelled to have people like you on because I don't know where else this is going to get out.
DR. ROBERT MALONE: Thank you... You can label me however you want to label me. I've done what I want in my career... This is not a fun thing to be doing at this stage...
Medicine is being destroyed, globally. People are losing faith in the whole system, in the scientific enterprise, they're losing faith in our government, they're losing faith in the vaccine enterprise.
What is going to be the long-term consequence on public health when you have a large fraction of the population who wasn't "anti-vaxxer" before, who are now saying: "Oh Gosh, if this is how these people make decisions, I don't want anything to do with it, and I certainly don't want it jabbed into my kid."
...
Pfizer is one of the most criminal pharmaceutical organizations in the world, based on their past legal history and fines. What do those fines include? Bribing physicians. It is a cost-benefit analysis in the pharmaceutical industry about misbehavior. They are not grounded in the ethical principles that you and I, average people, believe in. They don't live in that world. They are about profit, return on investment.
Furthermore, the overlords that own them -- Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street, whatever -- these massive funds that are completely decoupled from nation-states have no moral core or moral purpose. Their only purpose is the return on investment. That is the core problem here, and the fact that we as a society have become grossly fragmented...
This leads to the issue of mass formation psychosis that professor Mattias Desmet of the University of Ghent has promoted... When the psychiatrist/statistician (interesting combination) made this public, a lot of us said it made sense. That was like the brain blast when I encountered the Trusted News Initiative...
How does this happen? How do we have this emergent phenomenon? The "how" question. And behind that is the "why" question.
How is a third of the population basically being hypnotized, and totally wrapped up in whatever the mainstream media and Dr. Fauci feeds them and whatever CNN tells them is true?
The other day I was reading the New York Times about Omicron and pediatrics and I saw this headline from an epidemiologist: How to Think About Omicron’s Risk for Children
It was blatantly saying this is how you should think, we're going to tell you how to think. People have to get that in their heads. That's the world we're in right now.
What Mattias Desmet has shared with us is another ["a-ha" moment]. This comes from European intellectual inquiry into what the heck happened in Germany in the 1930s... How did that happen?
The answer is mass formation psychosis.
When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in the sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it. And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis. They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.
And one of the aspects of that phenomenon is the people they identify as their leaders, who come in and recognize their pain and say "I alone can fix this for you," they will follow that person through hell...
Anybody who questions that narrative is immediately attacked. This is what has happened. We have all those conditions.”
The part edited out by Real Clear Politics in their transcript is as follows:
This comes from European intellectual inquiry into what the heck happened in Germany in the 1930s. Very intelligent, highly educated population, and they went barking mad. How did that happen?
So, please review the video. Read the words. Am I excusing what the Nazis did? No, I am clearly stating (“Barking mad”) that what happened with the German People enabling the horror of Hitler’s “Final Solution” was this process of mass formation, or mass psychosis, or mass formation psychosis. Now, is this my insight? Hell no. It traces in large part to the work of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975).
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organizations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).
So, in this case, we have an 86 year old American psychiatrist who happens to be Jewish criticizing me for citing the work of one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, who happens to have been born into a German-Jewish family, who experienced the horrors of the German madness and was a major intellectual force in developing a psychologic understanding of what happened in Germany.
OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
Remember what I wrote at the start of this essay? This is not about me, but I am using a case study based on my own experience to illustrate some key points that we can all make use of.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
― Mark Twain
There are a few key strategies which this whole case study illustrates. And by case study, I refer to the above as well as the following three prior substack essays:
Well Being: Stoking Rage. Business Models Based on Fear and Rage are bad for your health (Sept 06, 2022)
J'Accuse! A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing in the hands of the uninformed (Sept 13, 2022)
More Fever Swamp. When will they ever learn (to do their research before popping off with conspiracies)? (Sept 18, 2022)
From corporate media all the way down to obscure podcasters, if you want to perform character assassination by defamation, but you cannot find some smut on someone no matter how hard you try, you make something up and then attack the false story line. This is a well known tactical error in logic and debate, commonly referred to as “Strawman”. Please refer to one of my favorite websites, “Your Logical Fallacy Is”. Here is their definition of the “strawman” logical fallacy:
Strawman
You misrepresented someone's argument to make it easier to attack.
By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's argument, it's much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate.
Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenceless by cutting military spending.
Again and again, the Strawman attack is coupled with the “Appeal to Authority” logical fallacy. In the case of Peter Breggin, he represents authority by virtue of his training, certification, and CV, and so is able to easily employ this strategy. By the way, notice that - unlike all other physicians that I am aware of involved in the resistance to the globalists and the US Government policies, his Wikipedia page has not been aggressively edited in the way that the pages of the rest of us have been?
Appeal to authority
You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.
It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However, it is entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.
Example: Not able to defend his position that evolution 'isn't true' Bob says that he knows a scientist who also questions evolution (and presumably isn't a primate).
The corporate media uses “Appeal to Authority” all the time. It is one of their favorite go-to fallacies to attack a position. Basically, you can always find someone, an academic, a lawyer, an administrator, a govie, a person on the street, that will disagree with almost anything. So find that person and then cite them and only them to prove your case. Breggin is not the only Jewish person with insight into the holocaust, and I argue that Vera Sharav is a much more authentic expert on this than Dr. Breggin. And Dr. Breggin’s credentials are certainly not “superior” to those of Professor Dr. Mattias Desmet in this area- this is Dr. Desmet’s speciality and has been for years as an academic Professor.
There are many other logical fallacies which, once you become aware of, you can pick out at random in both internet chat as well as corporate media. So learn to recognize them, and learn to think for yourself. That is the best weapon against mind control by outside actors which seek to promote a false narrative for one reason or another.
Controlled opposition is an interesting thing. One way that federal agents (including both FBI and CIA/DIA/NSA etc) and other parties can easily “convert” someone to acting as controlled opposition is to find an individual who is in some sort of legal jeopardy, and then offer them a deal of dismissal of charges or reduction in charges. There are many other ways - blackmail via honeytraps is another common one, and then of course offering money, particularly to someone who is experiencing some form of financial stress.
I have personally been through a months long Department of Defense security clearance process, and this is precisely the type of thing that they look for: signs of financial stress, moral improprieties, substance abuse, or current/pending/completed arrest or other charges. Because any of these can be exploited by an opponent to “turn” someone.
Why do I bring this up? Because before Stew Peters became a podcaster and promoter of conspiracy theories, he was facing domestic violence legal charges, as reported by the Daily Beast in November of 2021. Note the similarities in Stew Peters strategy in attacking Vernon Jones with the strategies he used with me in accusing me of being a mass murderer for inventing the initial technology platform employed in developing these current COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Reading the full history of Mr. Stew Peters is quite enlightening. Impersonating a cop. Accused of domestic violence (pleaded guilty).
Then there is this:
Peters’s bounty hunting turned tragic in 2017, when Peters tried to catch a fugitive who had absconded to Texas. At a Texas car dealership, two bounty hunters working for Peters located the suspect, who was wanted on charges of DUI, assaulting a police officer, and possession of cocaine. As they attempted to detain the man, he pulled a gun, prompting a shootout in a dealership crowded with customers and employees.
At the end of the gunfight, the suspect and the two bounty hunters had all been fatally shot. Later, the dealership’s owner claimed the bounty hunters had falsely identified themselves as federal agents.
And this summary from Raw Story, titled “Meet the new Alex Jones: Conspiracy nut with a troubling criminal past is MAGA's new favorite 'shock jock'“ dated November 05, 2021
"Now, Peters is starting Red Voice Media to launch "The Stew Peters Show," where he is going to war against Republicans he doesn't like." "Later, he (Peters) was charged with domestic assault, assault and disorderly conduct, which are all misdemeanors. " "He (Peters) was convicted of theft as a youngster, years later he was arrested in Florida in 2006 for falsely impersonating an officer and robbery with a deadly weapon among other things. The charges were ultimately dropped, though it isn't clear why."
If you seek to identify controlled opposition, take some time to do your diligence. Look at who is throwing the sand in the sandbox. Who is acting like a bully. Who is obsessively seeking out some damaging fact regarding someone else. That is how you will find those who have been converted, and who is pushing a false narrative. But don’t fall for the loud shouting of proven (and self confessed) liars and convicts with sketchy backgrounds.
In the meantime, please, please spend some time learning about Logical Fallacies. And think for yourself!
That is how we can break the back of those in media (corporate and alternative) who seek to develop and weaponize false narratives, and who seek to control how we think. Both corporate media and small podcasters do this all the time. This is how we can immunize ourselves against those who spread lies and sow division. And who develop and promote false narratives.
Power and Strategy of False Narratives