Template:MFP

Mattias Desmet is the author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism - Desmet, Mattias, Professor of clinical psychology at Gent University with a Master's in statistics.
Tucker Carlson produced a quality interview of Mattias Desmet.
The Epoch Times also has an excellent commentary "The Psychology of Totalitarianism"
Mattias Desmet's Substack,
Mattias Desmet, Research Gate.
"Under the influence of great fear, almost everybody becomes superstitious. Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Fear generates impulses of cruelty, and therefore promotes such superstitious beliefs as seem to justify cruelty. Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear." ~Bertrand Russell.

Mass Psychosis

Mass formation of psychosis did not begin with the term. It has been a part of the mind of man since the beginning of the fear of the unknown. The more we are in denial about the truth the more we will be controlled by that fear.

"What is mass formation actually?

1. Blind to contradictory facts

It’s a specific kind of group formation that makes people radically blind to everything that goes against what the group believes in. In this way, they take the most absurd beliefs for granted." Mattias Desmet

• Sacrifice truth

2. Sacrifice individual interest

"A second characteristic of an individual in the grip of mass formation is that they become willing to radically sacrifice individual interest for the sake of the collective." Mattias Desmet

• Sacrifice individual interests out of fear

3. Intolerant for dissonant voices

"Thirdly, individuals in mass formation become radically intolerant for dissonant voices. In the ultimate stage of the mass formation, they will typically commit atrocities toward those who do not go along with the masses. And even more characteristic: they will do so as if it is their ethical duty." Mattias Desmet

• Sacrifice others

Dancing plagues would breakout in villages involving hundreds of people dancing for days unable to stop. Dr. Malone is not the first person to mention this psychosis. The masses have often believed a lie due to similar circumstances. Nor was Dr. Mattias Desmet's phrase Mass Formation Psychosis the first mention of this phenomena. https://youtu.be/ZltdPfal5x0

Four Elements

Four elements to Mass Formation Psychosis which produces a group think which can lead to a Lemming effect in society or if left unchecked to a bloody inquisition of self destruction:

1. Isolation; prolonged social isolation limiting interaction.
2. Deprivation; removal of normal comforts.
3. Anxiety; Free floating anxiety and reminders of fear.
4. Single solution; A singular solution offered from an authoritarian. position.

Accordingly, this Psychosis produces a population that is radically intolerant. This intolerance and fear will lead to irrational compulsions with no limit to the extremes that will be acceptable to unify that solution.

Delving into disorder

Psychosis is "a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality."

Reality is the truth and the Psychosis is the result caused by am unperceived disconnect from that reality. That disconnect from understanding from rea;oty, that real truth, is preceeded by a disconnect or isolation from other by weakening or severing bonds of natural relationships that are important to the mental health of the entity.

Social bonds include the emotional, physical, intellectual, economic, and spiritual ties of love, friendship, fellowship, partnership, association, and affiliation created qithin the family, community, and society.

These bonds themselves are invisible and may only be be marked by symbols through tokens and rituals or evidenced by patterns of behavior considered virtuous based on cultural created norms and morality.

A disorder is in essence an unknowing departure from what is real and it "is characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behaviour."

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” Mark Twain

Even though the reality people think they believe is not true, but is actually a lie, they persist in thinking it to be true because of the pain of their personal cognitive dissonance is to great. Having already accepted somethings as if they are true but that contradict each other they become trapped in a dark place and are unable to see clearly the whole problem. This Psychosis or impairment of thoughts and emotions has existed long before the modern term was created.

A Psychosis is a modern medical term that amounts to the persons mind being "darkened" so that they cannot see reality and reason clearly. People suffering from mental Psychosis are said to sit in darkness. The Psychosis may be produced by choices made prior to the Psychosis taking hold of the mind.

There have been interviews talking about the subject.

Immunity

Are there customs and cultural practices that will make one society more immune to the negative effects of Mass Formation Psychosis just as certain practices can enhance the psychosis?

Who is more likely to fall prey to the irrational compulsions that leads to a mass psychosis? Is it the weak minded and uneducated?

"Even more, the higher the level of education, the easier, the more vulnerable people are for mass information." Mattias Desmet

Is it the education or the vanity perpetuated by catering to the idea that one class of citizen is better than another?

The problem today with depression is that we have created a culture where survival no longer requires that you care about others as much as you care about yourself causing social bonds to degenerate which isolates us as individuals even in a crowd. We were not meant to be alone.

That isolation will usher in a psychosis within society which could usher in a loyalty to the doctrines of the blind until the masses are under such a strong delusions that they willing commit national suicide rather than see the truth.

To not love or prize the value of your neighbor as much as yourself will wedge a divide into the social bonds of a free society.

Liberty of the individual is essential to strengthen the social bonds of a healthy nation.

“The real destroyers of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and benefits.” Plutarch

When those dainties of a Social welfare State are provided by men who exercise authority one over the other the whole of society will degenerate because of those covetous practices.

To reverse this proccess the people must choose to gather voluntarily to care for the true needy of their society through fervent charity in hope instead of fear.

The production of a mass psychoses has always been the direct result of the masses developing an appetite for benefits at the expense of others. This cause a degeneration of the Social bonds of society.

Out from psychosis and into the light

1. The antitheses of Isolation is community and fellowship.
2. The reverse of deprivation is liberty of choice, unrestrained right to pursue happiness, private property, and an abundance of fervent charity
3. Anxiety is also reversed by hope and faith as well as mutual daily practice of love.
4. Instead of a central authoritarian rulers offering a controlled solution through legal charity in a state run welfare system there needs to be an almost religious commitment to the perfect law of liberty, and equal love for the individual rights as much as your own.

2 Thessalonians 2:9 [Even him], whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

The Psychology of Totalitarianism quotes

“People perturbed by loneliness, lack of meaning, and indefinable anxiety and unease generally feel increasingly irritable, frustrated, and/or aggressive and look for objects to take these feelings out on. The sharp increase of racist and threatening language on social media during the last decade (tripling between 2015 and 2020, see chapter 5) is a striking example. What accelerates mass formation is not so much the frustration and aggression that are effectively vented, but the potential of unvented aggression present in the population—aggression that is still looking for an object.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“As Hannah Arendt states, totalitarianism is ultimately the logical extension of a generalized obsession with science, the belief in an artificially created paradise: 'Science [has become] an idol that will magically cure the evils of existence and transform the nature of man.'” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“I refer to Arendt who argued that this first condition is the most important: “The chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships.”

"This deterioration of social connectedness leads to the second condition: lack of meaning in life. This second condition follows mainly from the first. Man, as a social being par excellence, lives for the Other. Remove the bond with the Other and he will experience his life as meaningless (whether he sees the connection with his loneliness or not).” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“We can honor the right to freedom of expression and the right to self-determination without feeling threatened by each other,” Desmet writes. “But there is a point where we must stop losing ourselves in the crowd to experience meaning and connection. That is the point where the winter of totalitarianism gives way to a spring of life.”

“For example, the aristocracy under Stalinism, the Jews under Nazism, the virus, and, later, the anti-vaxxers during the coronavirus crisis—and at the same time offers a strategy to deal with that object of anxiety, there is a real chance that all the free-flowing anxiety will attach itself to that object and there will be broad social support for the implementation of the strategy to control that object of anxiety.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“This process yields a psychological gain. Firstly, the anxiety that previously roamed through society as a tenebrous fog is now linked to a specific cause and can be mentally controlled via the strategy put forward in the story. Secondly, through a common struggle with “the enemy,” the disintegrating society regains its coherence, energy, and rudimentary meaning. For this reason, the fight against the object of anxiety then becomes a mission, laden with pathos and group heroism (for example, the Belgian government’s “team of 11 million” going to war against the coronavirus). Thirdly, in this fight all latent brewing frustration and aggression is taken out, especially on the group that refuses to go along with the story and the mass formation. This brings an enormous release and satisfaction to the masses, which they will not let go of easily. Through this process,” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“The great minds who followed reason and facts most rigorously came to the conclusion that, ultimately, the essence of things is beyond logic and cannot be grasped.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Although the Enlightenment tradition arose from man’s optimistic and energetic aspiration to understand and control the world, it has led to the opposite in several respects: namely, the experience of loss of control. Humans have found themselves in a state of solitude, cut off from nature, and existing apart from social structures and connections, feeling powerless due to a deep sense of meaninglessness, living under clouds that are pregnant with an inconceivable, destructive potential, all while psychologically and materially depending on the happy few, whom he does not trust and with whom he cannot identify.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Free-floating anxiety can be traced back to the first two conditions. A person who has lost his bond with the Other and does not feel meaning typically experiences an indefinable unease and anxiety. This condition has been strongly present in the first decades of the twenty-first century. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one in five people worldwide has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. These numbers are striking, all the more so because they are likely an underestimation. And the incidence of mental suffering in general, including the cases that go undiagnosed, is of course even higher. This can, amongst others, be concluded from the enormous consumption of psychotropic drugs. In a small country like Belgium, with eleven million inhabitants, no fewer than three hundred million (!) doses of antidepressants are taken every year.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Anxiety and unease, once tied to the oppression and abuse of the aristocracy and clergy, began to drift ineffably around in the human soul. Frustration and aggression, once held in check by fear of hell and the last judgment, proved increasingly easy to mobilize. The prospect of an afterlife dwindled and was readily replaced by belief in an artificially created, mechanistic-scientific paradise.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Totalitarian systems have always been maintained primarily by systematic indoctrination and propaganda, injected into the population on a daily basis via mass media (without mass media, it is not possible to generate such long-lasting mass formation as that which gave rise to Stalinism and Nazism). This way, the population is literally kept on the vibrational frequency of the voice of totalitarian leaders.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Religious discourse, with its system of dogmas derived from ancient texts, lost its authority. Instead of something that had to be revealed to man by God, knowledge became something man could come to on his own. All he had to do was observe phenomena with his eyes and think logically.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Dare to think! Have the courage to use your own reason!’ is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment,” as stated in 1784 by the great German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant.1” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“As such, science stumbles upon an unknowable and mysterious essence that escapes logical explanation and which can be described only in the language of poetry and metaphor.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“prohibitions of the past were declared superfluous, unnecessary to steer society in the right direction. An increasingly loose morality would eventually reconcile man with carnal desires, formerly perceived as threatening. The crippling censorship of anything contrary to the religious discourse disappeared. Freedom of speech became a basic right, education became universally available, legal assistance became a right for all, love was stripped of its duty to marry and have children, sexuality was restored and its coupling with sin and corruption was undone.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Social connections were also transformed beyond recognition. The invention of radio and television led to the rise of the mass media and a corresponding decline in direct human interactions with a merely social function. Evening meetings between neighbors, pub gatherings, harvest festivals, rituals, and celebrations—they were progressively replaced by consumption of what the media presented.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“No risk of arguing; no confrontation with painful jealousy, shame, or embarrassment; no need to dress up or to even leave the house. It also uniformized social exchanges. Public space, including the political sphere, was increasingly dominated by a shrinking number of voices that conquered the living room via the mass media.1 In other words, social relationships lost their diversity and originality.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“The worker became, as they say, a cog in the industrial machine, lubricated only by the thought of wages due. Labor changed from a cumbersome but inherently meaningful existential task into a disembodied utilitarian necessity.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“If human relationships are characterized by fundamental distrust, life becomes hopelessly complicated and society spends its energy at creating all kinds of “security mechanisms,” which in fact fuel mistrust even more and are, above all, psychologically exhausting.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“remarkable that it’s mainly the people who perform work that is directly useful—health care workers, garbage collectors, craftsmen, farmers—who get fired or whose work is so poorly rewarded that they have to almost live on the breadline or survive from subsidies (think of farmers, who produce food, the most necessary material object of all). On the other hand, the most meaningless jobs, such as administrative work, are steadily increasing in number and are, in comparison, rewarded more and more generously.” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

“Due to the industrialization, mechanization, and technologization of the world, production capacities, economic power (via a self-centralizing banking system), and psychological power (via mass media) fell into the hands of an ever-decreasing number of people. The Enlightenment tradition had promised people autonomy and freedom, but, in a way, it brought people greater (feelings of) dependence and powerlessness than ever before. This powerlessness caused people to increasingly mistrust those in power. Throughout the nineteenth century, fewer and fewer people felt that political leaders really represented their voice in public space or defended their interests. As a result, man also became disassociated from the social classes that were represented” ― Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism

---

To come into harmony with the Law of Nature you must articulate your sincere opinion without fear of conflict or loose your soul. The purpose of being informed about the strong delusion is not for the purpose of judging others but to help guard against harm to yourself or others due to ignorance, and lose your soul.

Without a chaos of conversations in which the conflict of free wills are allowed there can be no harmony occurring within the space and time that our individual lives occupy.

To keep company with those who continue to oppress the freewill of others is to keep company with the adversary, the Satan and demons.

To accept the counsel of oppressors of free opinions without descent is to become a demon opposed to the quest for truth. T

The cities of blood spread a net of malcontent which will give license to sacrifice their neighbor's liberty to obtain the benefit at the expense of others.