A Brief Exploration of COVID-Induced Mass Psychosis
*Originally published on 2nd January 2022 as a guest post on Ben Bartee’s site Armageddon Prose.
We can draw upon popular culture across film, fiction, and a vast array of dystopian novels to reference, attempt to make sense of, and draw parallels to our current shared plight.
A lesser-known, less readily-acknowledged social affliction at play — which requires a relatively high degree of critical thinking along with a lengthy attention span to truly comprehend — is the concept of a mass delusional psychosis:
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” —Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
A psychosis can be defined as a detachment from reality, or the loss of an adaptive relationship to reality. In the place of facts and thoughts based in objective reality in the world, those afflicted by psychosis become overwhelmed by delusions — false beliefs that are believed to be true, in spite of the available evidence presented, even if witnessed first-hand by the eyes and ears of the psychotic.
One of the most notable examples of a mass delusional psychosis was that of the American and European witch-hunts of the 16th & 17th centuries.
Thousands of people, especially women, were killed during the witch-hunts, because they were blamed as the scapegoats or the “others” by societies that had collectively gone completely mad.
For a mass delusional psychosis to occur, a society first needs to be put under an intense and prolonged state of fear, along with isolation and a severance of the usual familiar social bonds and support networks that people have in their everyday lives.
Then follows the “othering” – the persecution, demonisation and scapegoating of a cohort of people, likening them to animals or something sub-human.
Once the population’s rational and logical faculties are overrun with fear, they can no longer think critically; unchecked, that fear quickly becomes an existential threat to the “others.”
“All one’s neighbours are in the grip of some uncontrolled and uncontrollable fear…In lunatic asylums it is a well-known fact that patients are far more dangerous when suffering from fear than when moved by rage or hatred.” – Carl Jung.
Anecdotally, a friend of mine surmised the cultish behaviour we are witnessing worldwide as a case of everyone believes, because everyone believes that everyone else believes! I found this to be a very apt description.
What has stumped and frustrated those of us living within the smaller island of sanity (within the larger island of the dominant Covidian cult culture, as referenced by CJ Hopkins) is the seemingly catatonic unbreakable spell we find our friends, families, and colleagues mesmerised by.
I would like to share a few short exchanges I’ve experienced first-hand, along with those of my friends who can see.
A friend overhears a colleague talking about her adverse reactions post-injection; she’s had a terrible fever and feels like she’s been hit by a train. Those listening to her say that means it is working. The next day she cannot move the entire left side of her upper body whilst in the office. People tell her to get well soon and that we are in this together.
I tell someone close to me about the quarantine (concentration) camps in Australia and the despairing plea from the aboriginal tribes, I stress that they are calling it genocide. She replies with “Well, you just have to get on with it really, don’t you? There’s nothing we can do.”
I share a link with a friend of mine on the Swedish company that has announced its microchip covid pass, and I joke that another conspiracy theory I mentioned in 2020 has become reality. His response is that he’s “not falling for my traps today and won’t be opening any links.”
Whilst referencing the reality of the situation in Australia with a colleague based there, I draw upon the news of the police, without provocation, firing openly on protestors with rubber bullets. I use the words tyranny, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and mention that the public is concerned with an increasingly militaristic police force.
Incredulous, my colleague scoffs that I must be getting my news from Sky News Australia, and the public is not at all concerned about the police. Apparently the public are most concerned with those pesky nuisance anti-vaxxer protests!
The common denominator across these exchanges is two-fold. Firstly, a complete refusal to acknowledge objective reality, in spite of irrefutable evidence. Secondly, any semblance of empathy, shock, or outrage that would be expected by a free-thinking, feeling human, is entirely absent.
For to forsake our ability (or cognitive choice?) to empathise with someone else’s suffering, or to be indifferent to humans inhumanely treating other humans, is to forsake our humanity itself. It reminds me of another exchange I had with a lifelong friend, whom I was particularly disheartened to learn was “captured”. In response to me detailing all the atrocities being carried out, she was puzzled at why I was at all bothered, because I was not directly affected by it, still full time employed with a roof over my head and food in my belly.
There are no words. Only realisations.
Circling back to popular culture on how and why some people can see and some cannot, we may borrow a line from the film The Animatrix:
“…must posses a rare degree of intuition,
sensitivity and a questioning nature.”
This reinforces Leonardo da Vinci once having said:
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”
I will hold my hand up at being in the second of these aforementioned classes of people. I spent March-April of 2020 wearing a mask, wiping down door handles, taking my own pen to the supermarket for receipt signing and other cringeworthy “rituals”.
I had a taste of what it must be like to be fully immersed in the new normal ideology. I can recall the anger I felt at seeing people unmasked. Not because I thought they were dangerous biohazards, but because they weren’t following the rules, and I was.
I will be eternally grateful to the friends who persisted with showing me the light. Once the Wizard of Oz’s curtain fell away, it was extremely disorientating, yet I’ve never felt more alive and self-aware. Perhaps it is the loss of face, pride and ego that prevents a lot of people from questioning the narrative.
For those that can see, or see when shown, you will need to be spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally strong enough to let this mass delusional psychosis burn itself out. You may be persecuted, blamed, demonised, attacked, imprisoned, or worse. Yet simultaneously, you will be increasingly looked to for answers, for truth, for guidance, for leadership, for hope and eventually for history.
Keep going.
What will it take for people to see? Do they have a line in the sand? Are they truly, irrevocably, unsalvageable, and beyond the pale?
Nicholas Creed is a Bangkok-based journalistic infidel impervious to propaganda. If you liked this content and wish to support the work, buy him a coffee or consider a crypto donation:
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