WHY DO SO MANY STILL BUY INTO THE NARRATIVE? #MassFormation

me good afternoon greetings welcome to the pandemic podcast today we are asking the question why do so many still buy into the narrative does it sometimes feel like you're surrounded by people who've been hypnotized in some way well maybe you are my guest tonight is professor mattias desmond he's the professor of clinical psychology at ghent university in belgium and his observations over the past 18 months have led him to conclude that the overwhelming majority have indeed fallen under some kind of spell except that it's not actually a spell there's no witchcraft here or maybe there is but the term for this is mass formation and right now it's manifesting as a psychological response not unlike hypnosis to the unrelenting single focus campaign of fear to which we've all been subjected over the last 12 to 18 months so tonight i'm gonna be exploring with matthias some of the triggers and what sustains this mass response and where this could ultimately lead us and why a minority somehow manage uh to remain unaffected and whether there's anything we can collectively do to break the spell before it's too late we'll be exploring how socialization uh isolation a lack of sense making some of the background factors around free-floating anxiety and other factors how these elements lead to mass formation and ultimately totalitarian thinking uh as we've witnessed during uh the coronavirus crisis so it's a huge pleasure to welcome on the back of our interview with rona formic last night uh professor matthias desmond he's been an expert witness within uh reiner's coronavirus committee and we've got him here tonight to explore these important issues a huge welcome to the pandemic podcast thank you dan thanks so this is a fascinating subject um you've got a background in psychology you work as a psychoanalyst um what what fascinates me is is is the human aspects of this uh coronavirus pandemic and and we were discussing prior to broadcasting here you know why so many people who um are in the field of psychology have taken time to recognize what's going on so um i'd like to start by asking you the question what led you to personally recognize um what you're being told may not be right was there a defining moment did you know straight away what led you to recognize that something wasn't quite right well i immediately from the beginning of the crisis uh uh i had a feeling that there was something wrong with the mainstream narrative but i couldn't um really indicate what exactly i i thought there was wrong but i started actually i have a double degree on the one hand i i i'm a professor that's like in clinical psychology but uh i also have a got a master degree degree in statistics and in the beginning of the crisis i actually started to analyze some figures and some graphs and and and some statistics on the mortality of the virus the infection fatality rate the case fatality rate and all this kind of stuff and uh immediately i i i i know i noticed that uh most statistics um uh dramatically overestimated the dangerousness of the virus and i was not alone there were several other statisticians sometimes world famous medical statisticians such as ioannidis of stanford for instance who also want try to warn the people and the governments that there was a good possibility that the coronavirus was much less dangerous than most models claimed but in one way or another all these uh dissonant voices did not really have much effect um but for me personally uh by the end of may 2020 uh it was proven beyond doubt uh that uh the initial uh uh uh mathematical models um uh um uh overestimated uh the the mortality of the virus for instance we all know that uh the mathematical models that had most impact on the corona measures were probably those issued by uh imperial college in london and these models actually predicted that by the end of may 2020 in a country like sweden about 80 000 people would die if the country would not go into lockdown and the country did not go into lockdown and by the end of may 2020 the virus claimed about 6 000 people in sweden and no more than that which meant that the models actually overestimated the mortality of the virus by a factor 50 so which is huge and the strangest thing for me was that uh while uh the the the the corona measures actually uh present themselves as measures that are really scientifically based that are based on mathematical modeling and stuff the strangest thing is that at the moment it was proven beyond doubt that the initial models overestimated the dangerousness of the virus dramatically the the measures and the approach was not corrected it just continued as it uh it just continued as in the beginning and at that moment for me that was like a turning point for me i think i i started to take a different perspective then uh i i started i switched then from the perspective of a statistician uh due to the perspective of uh of a clinical psychologist and i started to wonder like like how is it possible that a an entire society even even the world population is is is going along with the narrative that shows so many absurd characteristics another example of an absurd characteristic of the story was that from the beginning of the crisis um institutions such as the united nations actually weren't warned us that probably more people would die as a cause of starvation or hunger in developing countries because of the lockdowns then the number of victims the coronavirus could claim even if no measures were taken at all so which meant as much as that the remedy was far worse than the disease in this case and then still and nobody seemed to notice and everybody seemed to be focused so much on these corona victims and on the possible damage caused by the corona by the coronavirus that everybody continued and that people continued to be willing to buy into the story and to go along with the story which is actually extremely strange and from then on like in in from may 2020 on i started to try to understand what psychological processes were going on in society and it took me about three or four months i think it was in august 2020 because i suddenly felt that i could really hit the nail and that i could say what you're dealing with here is a process of large scale mass formation that's what's happening and looking backward looking back at that that really surprised me that it took me so long because i had been lecturing on mass formation for four years at ghent university so but at that moment i had a feeling like that's what's going on and they also uh uh could really show uh how exactly this process had been emerging in our society uh and how it it it provoked the effects that it had in our society brilliant can i actually very briefly define what mass formation is could you just can you summarize yes mars formation is a specific phenomenon which emerges in a society if a few conditions are met so there are there are at least four conditions that have to be fulfilled before a large scale phenomenon of mass formation can emerge and the first and most important condition is that there should be a lack of people experiencing a a lack of social bond a lack of social connectedness second condition is that there have to be a lot of people who experience a lack of meaning making and these two are actually associated to each other people are human uh humans are are are are social beings and if they experience a lack of social connectedness a lack of social bond they will probably also experience a lack of meaning making and then the third condition is that there have to be a lot of people who experience a lot of free floating anxiety this means anxiety that is not connected to a mental representation for instance if you see a lion and you're scared then you know what you're scared of you your anxiety in that case is connected to a mental representation um but if it is not connected to a mental representation you end up in an extremely aversive negative emotional state in which you deal with the kind of anxiety that you cannot control so first condition lack of social bond second condition lack of meaning making or sense making in life the third condition a lot of free floating anxiety and psychological discontent and then the fourth condition a lack of free floating frustration and aggression a kind of aggression that is that you feel inside of yourselves but that you cannot direct or aim at a certain object or cause so and then under these when these conditions are met something really typical can happen in a society when under these conditions a narrative is distributed through the mass media indicating an object of anxiety and at the same time providing a strategy to deal with this object of anxiety then there might be a huge willingness in the population to go along to participate in the strategy and why because all this free-floating anxiety which is so hard to control connects to this object of anxiety and in this way that's the first advantage all this free-floating anxiety is now connected to another to a mental representation and then just by participating in the strategy you can mentally control the object of anxiety for instance if a narrative has distributed which says that there is a very dangerous virus and that we should go into lockdown if these four conditions are met then there might be an extremely extraordinary willingness to participate in the strategy and the lockdowns even when uh the the the the narrative in itself is absolutely absurd so and what happens is actually something very important when people start to participate all together in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety a new kind of social bond and a new kind of meaning making emerges which means that there is like a new kind of solidarity that emerges and this makes that people switch from a highly aversive negative mental state of social isolation uh interpersonal isolation to the exact opposite to the extremely high level of connectedness that exists in a crowd or a mass so and then people start a heroic battle with the object of anxiety which leads to kind of mental intoxication of connectedness which is the real reason why people continue to buy into the narrative even if it's utterly absurd or blatantly wrong it's kind of a ritual it's a kind of a ritual it has exactly the same function as a ritual a ritual as a kind of behavior that people participate in to show that they belong to a group to create a group to create a collective to create solidarity and you can even say about rituals that the more absurd they are from a practical perspective the better they function as a ritual of course because then the more absurd they are the more purely they become a sign that shows that they belong to a group yeah it becomes unique to that group i i mean just to unpack some of those things you know talking about free-floating anxiety in the western world that we face i mean just just take ourselves out of the present moment you know we've been living very busy stressful lives i mean if you look at any statistic about job satisfaction it shows that most people either dislike or hate their jobs you know people are living leading busier and busier lifestyles people have health challenges you know we live in this very fast pace um consumerist world and it's it life just comes with background tension without uh people's the burden of responsibilities that people have so undoubtedly these can this condition uh it was is existing at a high level so so what what i understand is that this this this um uh this this situation gives people the opportunity essentially to um attach like a it becomes an object of attachment so they can therefore transfix their own anxieties onto this external object um which which therefore then takes away the need to actually do the inner work to actually tackle their own anxieties which perhaps they haven't really got a handle on exactly yes exactly these four conditions were met in our society to a high extent of course i don't know if you know the book jobs of graber a professor of law from university in london who who studied the level of meaning making people experienced in their jobs in the first in the beginning of the 20th century and uh of the 21st century and he discovered that actually 50 of the people do not experience any meaning at all they feel as if their job was completely meaningless and also the free-floating anxiety and depression and civil uh psychological discontent in a country like belgium 300 million doses of antidepressants were used each year 300 million doses on a population of 11 million people you it's unbelievable that's it so these conditions were definitely met and indeed as you say uh when people can indeed connect their anxiety to a false representation because the real origin or because of their anxiety was not as virus they were already anxious they were already confronted with a lot of psychological discontent but then there was this virus narrative which allowed them to connect it to a representation and in a symptomatic way for a certain period of time this corona narrative allows them to deal in a less painful way with their anxieties it's a symptomatic solution which and all symptomatic solutions in the end become highly destructive and the real solution as you say as you said uh would be to start to think all together how we ended up in this terrible state of social isolation of uh lack of meaning making of free-floating anxiety and of all this frustration and aggression that's the real question we should ask ourselves from what's in our view on men and the world what in our society made that we ended up in this uh and there's a problematic uh psychological conditions um well yeah that's absolutely a big question really important questions because actually if you look at you know the background discontent for instance you know in the united kingdom we've been through um brexit which is hugely divisive you know that's just one example of um something that's created background discontent but if you take that issue off the table but look at how the media operates full stop you know the media has become increasingly um uh partisan is increasingly uh polarizing and as a result this is prior to the pandemic you know so it it it divides society and you know these these these to me when i i will come on to the talk with this later is that you know how do we move forward is the big piece from here because you're absolutely right we're not asking those questions what's it's this type of conversation is fascinating because it helps us understand not just the problem but some of the root causes of the problem and that's and you know we were discussing offline prior to 2020 i spent most of my time in entrepreneurship innovation and one of the first things we look for is what is the problem and then what's the root cause because once we identify that then we can start to look at solutions and i think this this this this for me this these are big issues you know the preconditions of massive issues but unsurprisingly have created the foundation for this mass formation now what what does mass formation lead to and how has this manifested over the last uh 18 months during the the coronavirus pandemic yes um so the first one of the most important effects of mass formation is that it leads to to a very narrow field of attention so meaning that people seem to be only able to to be aware both cognitively and emotionally of a very small part of reality on which uh the the the mass narrative focuses their attention on so that's something extremely problematic for instance you see this and the fact that uh people in one way or another uh only seem to be sensitive uh emotionally uh for victims uh uh of the corona virus and then all the the other victims children who start who who risk to starve uh who are people who lost their jobs people or treatments that were delayed and there was huge collateral damage but in one way or another it never had the same effects as the as the damage caused by the coronavirus so it's extremely problematic the field of attention is so limited that it seems almost impossible to provide arguments that are uh in conflict with the with the narrative because all the arguments that you can raise rationally against the narrative they do not fall into this small field of attention that uh that that that is really uh uh accounting for for for people in the mass so one of the most important effects is that people are the attention focused just like in hypnosis it's focused on a small part of reality and people are even not aware of the things that are usually extremely important for them in a normal state like their psychological and physical health their wealth their well-being and so on in a in a condition of hypnosis or mass formation you can take all these people away you can take all these things away of people they won't even notice it it will seem as if they don't notice that they lose a lot of things that are personally important to them in hypnosis this is very clear you can by a simple hypnotic procedure you can make someone so insensitive to pain that you can cut straight to his flesh that even you can carry out uh perform surgical operations in which you cut straight through the breastbone it's very strange but a simple hypnotic procedure in which the the hypnotist focuses the attention on something positive for instance will make will often make people completely insensitive to physical pain and in the same way they are also insensitive to psychological pain because their if their attention remains focused on the solidarity and the the the the the shared narrative uh they will not notice that they are losing uh the the wealth and the well-being of themselves even their children you will people will be able to take it away without the population noticing it so that's one of the most problematic effects which was also described when the totalitarian states of the first half of the 20th century emerged in the soviet union in nazi germany one of the most striking observations was that in a strange way all these people seem to be willing to really sacrifice everything that was precious to them as if they didn't notice it and then stalin for instance he liquidated 50 percent of the members of his own communist party and the strange thing was that these these uh communist leaders even uh did not object or did not protest they they accepted uh their uh uh the death penalty but in in and as if they they they they admitted that they had done something wrong but while they actually haven't been doing anything wrong and so uh uh the the the strange way in which people are insensitive to personal losses is one of the most striking consequences of of mass formation and also shows that actually mass formation does not lead up as not that you cannot compare the emotional insensitivity that manifests during mass formation with a kind of ordinary egoism it's something completely different people are not egoistic at all in the masses on to the contrary they are willing to sacrifice all their individual uh uh freedom and all their uh individual advantages uh in favor of the collective well-being and the of the of this new kind of extreme solidarity well absolutely i mean i've spoken about this on the podcast before it's this i describe it as radical collectivism or fundamental collectivism which which i believe is you know we'll come on to talk about this it becomes a precursor to totalitarianism because you're absolutely right it becomes of course you know excess uh you know it's it's such excess uh bias towards collectivism that we forego individual rights and there were some fascinating papers written during the pandemic um one i think in arizona one in new zealand talking about how the moralization of policy does exactly what you've just described that you know people could lose out in their education they could lose their job they could lose their homes you know they could be miss out on a major life-changing uh health health diagnosis and willingly accept that for this collective interest of protecting one another or or you know doing this together for society and the governments clearly in the uk have recognized this you know it's all about you know protecting one another save the nhs and all these different things which which give people not only a sense of solidarity but a sense of meaning and a sense of higher purpose which actually as you described is something that was missing and i've i've also identified that many of the policymakers now um of course there's businesses that are profiting from this situation right now and they obviously don't want the situation to change uh because they're gaining significantly financially but i think a lot of people are gaining psychology psychologically because they get a sense of purpose i think for a lot of the politicians they don't they don't want to go back to their normal day job you know they're happy operating in crisis mode because it gives them a sense that's one of the hidden secrets of this of this crisis that nobody wants to go back or most people don't want to go back to the old normal so if we try to wake people up we should avoid giving them the impression that we want them to go back to the old normal because they don't want to go back to the jobs they don't want to go back to this terrible state of anxiety we should try to show them and try to to to to to show them that there are other ways to change this all normal that's the most important thing i think and indeed politicians well they were losing their grasp on society before the crisis and now they have they have a narrative uh which allows them to to give direction to society again to be true leaders again so all these kinds all these factors together uh make that uh that that that that uh it's impossible at this moment to uh to go back to the old normal um yeah i mean i just want to touch on another piece before we move on but uh you know in in the sense of this you know i consider myself you know i started this show back in october we've probably done over 300 episodes now really just to start asking the questions that most seemed unwilling to ask but as a consequence you know i've had to suffer an all manner of abuse and uh insults um accusations um you know i truly believe i have a solid heart and uh and live with integrity but i've had to be i've endured all kinds of i know what you're talking about but i know i'm far from alone you know even people who question things privately and i know many of my audience will explain will experience this frustration i've heard stories uh from from as close people in my team who have who's separated from their loved ones uh they've fallen out with family members they've lost friends all because they're asking different questions um and and even if those questions lead to very profound uh different answers to what we're seeing in the um the mainstream media people are just rationally unwilling to to tolerate it could you comment on that piece here because i think for a lot a lot of people on an individual level have lost you know fallen out of people and it's very hard you know it magnifies the issue really yes yes indeed one one characteristic of mass formation is that it makes people extremely intolerant for dissonant voices for other voices and actually we can easily understand that if we know that these other voices these these these different voices uh uh uh uh threatened to wake people up and to confront them again with these problematic conditions before the mass formation existed so meaning that if someone tries to convince someone that the the the corona narrative is wrong or that the mass narrative is wrong then the people feels that he is at risk of waking up and in that case that he will be confronted again with um the initial free-floating anxiety uh and the the lack of social bond and stuff and so that's one of the reasons why people are highly intolerant that the masses are highly intolerant for dissonant voices second one is of course that actually it's far more easy for someone who is uh in in hypnotized or grasped in the process of mass formation to instead of believing the one who tries to convince him that the story is wrong it's far more easy to direct all this free-floating frustration and aggression that existed before the crisis to this uh dissonant voice that's exactly what happens in in a mass people constantly masses tend to commit atrocities as if they perform a holy duty or something that's very typical and at the same but what they actually feel is that by being uh by trying to destroy the dissonant voices um we actually protect the collective and that's true to a certain extent they don't realize it but that's why they they it fused to them as if they it's something like a holy duty to to a sacral duty to uh to to to be cruel to dissonant voices and at the same time they protect the collective but also they channel all this uh free-floating frustration and aggression uh they concentrated on one point and in that way they satisfy a certain need uh uh uh to to channel frustration and aggression so uh but indeed uh gustavo lebon already described that somewhere in the 19th century that one of the major characteristics of the masses of the crowds is their intolerance for people who do not go along with the masses and they they want everything everyone to to be part of the masses and at the same time it's very strange at the same time they will usually not really destroy their last enemy because they need enemies so the masses can only exist if they have an enemy if they have an object of anxiety that's something that was very well described by orwell in 1984 [Music] where he where he talked about the eurasian warrior who was a constant threat but nobody actually knew whether he really existed or not but but uh the masses and the totalitarian system always have uh have to invent new enemies new objects of anxiety because if there would be no object of anxiety the masses would not have a reason to exist because one of the main reasons is the the controlling anxiety so and the leaders of the masses feel that if there would be no object of anxiety anymore the masses would wake up and what would they do if they wake up the first thing they would do is kill their leaders that means that something typical because then when they wake up they start to realize uh the losses they they they suffered while being under process and they will blame their leaders for the law for their losses that's typically what happens also describes that he says everybody who puts himself in charge of a mass better prepares to be killed by them well i would like to hold that thought and come back to that because i think that's something i'd like to come to towards the next phase of the conversation because undoubtedly people will think you know where are we in the cycle because at some point i do think that that moment will come um where people will suddenly realize all the sacrifices they've made were made in ver you know were made needlessly in many ways um and and the great great loss uh personally and collectively to be quite frank because what i do what i don't understand about the collectivist mindset is that and i've said you know my followers who've been watching this all the way through will hear me say this over and over again you can't save the entire forest by protecting one tree you know we're happy to become collectivist around covet cases but simultaneously allow the economy education uh the healthcare system to basically flatline and i said i say what is collectivist about that you know allowing society to collapse um it doesn't feel like a very collective uh methodology to me but that again that's rational thought uh it's you know it's it's it's they're not operating rationally am i right yes it's it's completely irrational and that's something very strange so that's exactly i think that's a consequence of of this of this narrowing of the field of attention yes people see people seem to be aware of only one small part of reality and and and and the way in which and and and as a consequence all the decisions uh uh are made as if only that part of reality counts so and all decisions and all measures are really disproportionate that's something that was so typical for the totalitarian systems as well um it's a really imbalanced disproportionate uh way to deal with reality um uh yes but that that difference between a totalitarian state and classical dictatorships is something really important as soon as you understand that you understand the power of the masses and so like a classical dictatorship in a classical dictatorship the population obeys the dictator because they are scared of him that's all but in a totalitarian state people are hypnotized by the by the very totalitarian leaders and they are in one way or another this makes that uh the totalitarian state behaves in a completely different way than a classical dictatorship for instance if in a totalitarian state if in a dictatorship a classical dictatorship the opposition is silenced if there is no opposition anymore in the public space then usually the dictator becomes milder he becomes he becomes friend friendlier because he understands that he has to create a positive image in the population in order to to uh to uh to uh to remain their leader in a classical in a totalitarian state some exactly the opposite happens as soon as the opposition is silenced as soon as there is no opposition anymore in the public space then the totalitarian system becomes really crazy and starts to commit its most absurd atrocities that was the case in 1930 in the soviet union and in 1935 in nazi germany actually as soon as the opposition was silenced uh the the the the the the the totalitarian system becomes to use the words of hana iron it becomes a monster that divorce its own children and then it becomes radically absurd it starts to to to to to uh to uh to destroy everyone no matter whether they are loyal to the system or not so that's something extremely important as a the difference between a classical dictatorship and a totalitarian system is extremely important and it shows us one thing one central quintessential thing in this crisis we have to continue to speak out because if the opposition is silenced then the hypnosis will become even deeper than it is now and then the masses will start to commit atrocities that's so typical it has history has shown it time and time again it's quintessential that people continue to speak out they will not be able to stop the process of mass formation but they will be able they will prevent the the hypnosis to become so deep that uh atrocities are committed and uh well so so i think usually uh in a process of mass formation there are three groups there are always three groups there is one group only about 30 of the people is really hypnotized that's something strange and also in a totalitarian state only 30 percent of the population is really totalitarian there is a second group of about 40 percent who usually does not go against the the mass or the crowd so they also they follow the crowd and in that way there is a group of 70 who is going along with the system or with the masses and then there is an additional group of about 30 percent who is also not hypnotized and who tries to speak out or to do something and that group is extremely heterogeneous it's of all political backgrounds of all socio-economic statuses of all ethnic ethnic uh groups it's very hard to define what that group is this third group but this third group is usually also about 25 or 30 so if this group could really unify as soon as this group is really one group as soon as this group finds a way to really identify with each other the crisis is over and the mass formation stops that's uh the challenge well i mean there's there's some really fascinating distinctions i think the first important one is the distinction between total talent here in it so totalitarianism and dictatorships because a lot of people saying you know how do we how do we how do we overturn this uh you know in a classical dictatorship it's very simple you know it's it's there's usually one clear leader and they've probably got um comrades alongside them but but clearly there's there's a clear focal point but but what we're experiencing is something a bit a bit different to that under this uh almost totalitarian global regime but we'll perhaps talk more about that in a minute the next piece is around this this breakdown almost 30 seemingly indoctrinated uh and perhaps won't change their mind no matter what you do but perhaps there's 40 percent they follow along but could be swayed maybe more neutral and then the the 30 percent who are more rebellious or or dissenting um which leads to my next question really is is is why are some people apparently not affected by mass formation you know if we look at those like myself who are questioning um and uh actively seeking to create change you know that 30 percent rebel group effectively why why why are we not affected by mass formation in the same way that's a very very good question many people have tried to answer that question and usually everybody or most or almost always people fail to give a real answer i think in this crisis whether you buy into the story or not whether you hypnotize or not has a lot to do with your broader ideological preferences like i feel that most people who really go along with the narrative now and who are really identifying with the narrative uh have no problem at all with a very mechanistic biological reductionist view on man in the world so i think i think that most people for instance are convinced that uh vaccines are the best way to uh boost your uh boost your immune system and so on so i think that most of the people who really go along with the narrative now are people who feel good with the more with the broader ideology the biological reductionist even the transhumanist ideology uh that is seizing uh the population now because i'm i'm convinced that if we if this process continues we will end up in a transhumanist society or they will try to reorganize society uh according to the ideals and the principles of transhumanism um [Music] and i think that i as far as i i think that that that people who who uh uh who who object and who who who protest and who uh who uh who are not sensitive to the mass formation now that usually they are people who who really uh have enough version for uh for this this biological reductionist ideology that's my two cent word opinion uh um do you think linked to your previous point around the kind of background factors is is it possible that perhaps those who are um more inclined to be indoctrinated or fall under the spell of this kind of mass formation is it possible that they potentially have higher levels of background anxiety and you know this idea of biological reductiveness into vaccines you know i i made a comment on a um there's an american um spiritual leader who who was commenting on the situation and i said is it possible that people's erosion of faith is what's leading to this almost dogmatic ideological um savior-like response when it comes to vaccines they want to place their anxieties into this external solution you know as a vehicle to to overcome their inner anxieties is it possible that this group have potentially a higher background level of anxiety and also to comment if you will on the you know the there's a marker of intelligence i believe it's you know the people you would you would expect you know the most educated the most academic seem to be the ones that uh are most compliant with the ideology and uh both of these points fascinate me yes of course of course yes um that was something that that was already mentioned by gustav le bon in the 19th century in his book the psychology of the crowd uh he he writes that actually the higher the level of education the more sensitive people are to mass formation usually of course always usually and also the level of education and even the level of intelligence actually uh the level of intelligence for instance uh highly educated and highly intelligent people uh uh uh become exactly as intelligent uh uh as everybody else in the masses it has something very very typical for mass formation that everybody becomes equally intelligent which usually means extremely stupid in the masters and people as soon as someone is seized by by mass formation he usually loses all capacity for critical and rational thinking that's something some one of the most uh characteristic uh uh most salient characteristics of an individual that is in mass formation um uh so and then yes well uh what about the level of anxiety as maybe does the level of anxiety play a role uh when it comes to being sensitive for a mass formation i'm not sure about that because i feel that many people who are not sensitive for mass formation now are also very anxious but their anxiety is connected to a different object and one in one way or another it's not attracted by the object of the virus for instance in my case from the beginning i've never been really anxious for the virus never i i don't know why but i've never been really anxious for the virus maybe at some moments a little bit in the beginning i don't know but but but from the beginning of the crisis i had the feeling that there were social dynamics that were emerging and that were emerging that could be that could potentially be very risk uh risky and that potentially could be very dangerous and in the first weeks of the weeks of the crisis i wrote an opinion paper already warning that this dynamic showed all characteristics of the first steps of the emergence of a totalitarian state and i was anxious too but i was anxious for these social consequences and not for the virus so in my opinion it could be that the general level of anxiety is higher prior to the crisis uh in the people sensitive for mass formation but i'd rather think that it has more to do with a tendency of an incarnation to connect your anxiety to a certain object i think that's more important here um yes um that's that's really interesting um uh now uh linked to this part then um you know there's this concept of emotional intelligence which daniel goldman has written about you know i think there's perhaps a level of emotional intelligence as opposed to in you know the traditional iq that perhaps plays a role if have you looked at any aspects around that because it feels like the the more people are emotionally aware are able to have that intuitive connection a lot of people i speak to who have perhaps questioned the narrative have have have even if they didn't realize it at the beginning say that something in their gut something intuitively didn't feel right and i think that's having that ability to tune into one's intuition is perhaps some a marker you know i think that's very difficult to to study but would you say that plays a role i doubt it also i don't know okay i know a lot of emotionally sensitive people who are now so much into the story into the devil okay yes and and i think it has a for instance it might have a lot to do with the the balance the internal balance between uh individualism and collectivism like uh like so so what's really characteristic of the emergence of the of the the 20th century masses was that it were all people who were socially atomized who are socially who felt socially isolated disconnected and then in one step switched from extreme isolation to extreme the extreme connectedness of the masses does emotional intelligence has a lot to do with it perhaps perhaps one to explore you know it's it's interesting it's just an observation i think um you know it's very difficult to quantify uh you know this um but but nonetheless it's an interesting so i mean what i'd like to progress to talking about now you know we will you know you talked about when people um uh come to wake up uh they want to tear down the totalitarian state that they're in when they come to their senses take down the leaders um but obviously prior to to achieving that point it takes a certain percentage of people you know 30 percent you said uh will feel a certain way i think it's taken us a long time to get anywhere close to that from the beginning uh perhaps some of them are more silent um as i was actually for much of the time i was constantly moaning about it to my wife uh but but not not publicly um so so is it what can we get what what insights can we gather to to actually wake you know in simplistic terms wake people up and and as part of that answer would you would you mind sharing you know is there any insights from your own journey because you said at the beginning you didn't you did you know you were looking at the statistics and even though rationally it didn't make sense but it got to a point where you had a moment of realization is there something from your own experience that perhaps uh uh is an indicator of what leads people to make these kind of distinctions yes well i you know in my opinion really the most important thing is to continue to speak out just to say that you do not agree with the mainstream narrative that's the most basic thing because mass formation is a kind of hypnosis and as such it is a phenomenon that is provoked by the vibration of a voice but really you have to take this literally total italian leaders know this very well they start every new day with 30 minutes of propaganda in which the voice of the leader uh constantly penetrates the consciousness of uh of uh of the population so without mass media and without the ability to confront people time and time again with the voice of the leaders no mass formation would uh continue as long as it continued uh in germany and then the and then in the soviet union so and the opposite is also true so if other voices are available in the public space or sound in a public space then hypnosis will be disturbed or well become less deep so i think in any case so what we what we have to convince each other of time and time again is that we all together have to continue to speak out and um sorry can you come again with the second part of your question because sorry yeah it's a bad habit of asking two questions in one um i was asking about your own experience you had your own point of inflection you know was there anything that you observed that led to that point of inflection because there's lots of people that even within my audience and if i ask them to share and perhaps uh you may want to do this in the comments if you're watching live what was your turning point because i i've asked the question in many different forums and groups and people often find that there was something that just triggered them and said no this doesn't make sense anymore because i think if we can find these points of inflection and create content around those points of inflection we create these points of relatability that perhaps could wake more people up so if for the audience watching at home if there's a point of inflection for you whether you realize things weren't quite right please do share it in the comments but for yourself matthias that that point where you re where you really recognized this was mass formation you know you'd look at the statistics was there something that that tipped you over the edge no uh because as i mentioned as i just mentioned like uh in the first week of the coronavirus i always i i wrote my first opinion paper and the title of the paper was the fear of the virus is more dangerous than the virus itself and because from the beginning i had a feeling like like look the psychological process here is more threatening than the biological danger or the biological and even more uh two months before the onset of the crisis so in december uh the end of 2019 in late december 2019 i went to the bank to pay back my mortgage because and the and the bank director asked me but why do you want to pay back your mortgage you will lose your your tax advantages and stuff why would you pay it back and i said because i feel and i know that this society is going to a tipping point i had at university nothing functioned anymore there were so many burnouts that that that there was always someone lacking to do a certain task or to to to finish a certain project and i knew i felt there were several indicators that were negative indicators that would really that were really increasing exponentially and in december 2019 i went to the bank and they said i want to be as free as possible and i want to pay back my mortgage and i talked for one and a half hour to the bank director who tried to convince me like that i didn't that that he felt like it was not necessary to pay back my mortgage but i did pay it back and i knew that two or two two or three months later i told my wife luke that's a tipping point that was about to happen and and uh so i had the feeling that of course there were certain insights and certain information that sometimes i doubted during the crisis because for one reason or another my uh first opinion paper i was in with my first opinion paper i was uh i was suddenly famous in belgium because everybody everybody read it and everybody was talking about it and and and then the weeks after the publication of that paper i i really was i was really scared sometimes because i i felt like well maybe i was wrong and maybe we are really danger confronted with the with the killer virus here and and of course there were certain information who really convinced me that or who took away my doubts for instance as i said by the end of may the fact that uh the the the the models of imperial college college proved to be completely wrong and stuff but i had a feeling that i was more or less a little bit awake from the beginning of the crisis yes well i think this this is the next point i'd like to move to because what you did there what you explained there is you you then went back to the statistics to rationalize your your instinct yeah and the reason i want to make that point is because actually um you know we could do a whole episode on this and um i've got people coming up on the show to talk about this but you know you say keep keep talking keep keep sharing information now one of the things we've recognized over the last 18 months is that we try and we try and uh influence with logic and statistics and data and evidence it just seems like it hits up against a brick wall so is there any principles of influence that you could share you know is there a different approach that we could take in order to to psychologically uh make this process easier yes i think and we have to continue to share rational counter argumentations because they make the hypnosis less deep i'm convinced of that so we should not stop it but if we do only that it might be frustrating and so because because indeed uh while the hypnosis becomes less deep you're never really able to wake people up with these rational argumentations and that's something very logical if you consider the process of mass formation actually the beginning point of mass formation is an effective process is something at the emotional level meaning uh namely this connection there's this connect connecting of uh the free-floating anxiety to the the representation of an object of anxiety such as the virus so these two things this free-floating anxiety and the mental representation of the virus they melted together and to use a metaphor you could say that it were like two pieces of metal that were heated up until they melted a little bit and then were pushed together and they merged so and that's why they are connected they are connected because they were pushed against each other at a high level of heat in the psych in the psychological system at a higher level of anxiety so what you can do is uh you can make people even more scared of a new object of anxiety for instance the risk of a totalitarian state and then the temperature in this in the in the psychological system will increase again and the two pieces of metal will separate and then if you provide then a new object of anxiety you might be able to connect the anxiety to this new object of anxiety and then it makes sense then you can start to provide uh rational argumentations and that's exactly what happens sometimes i gave a few interviews here in belgium and holland on the risk of totalitarianism and they they were like they got maybe two or even three hundred thousand views i think it were they were really uh many people watched it and they received many emails of people telling me that it was as if they woke up while watching to the to the interviews and it sparked my interest and i asked them like why do you think what did make you wake up when you watch the interviews and some people described it in detail and they said it was because i got really anxious of what you were telling about the risk of totalitarianism and that's what happens if you if people start to be even more scared of a new object of anxiety and you also offer a new strategy to deal with this new object of anxiety you might you might be able to to wake them up and to connect all their emotional stuff and their anxiety to a new strategy to a new a new narrative so that's something that sometimes works quite well and i we've always so i've i've been involved in uh in um the making of some movies for some political uh um parties that uh want to uh to uh to provide an alternative to the corona to the mainstream corona measures and the these narratives these uh propaganda films were sometimes quite successful and it was because i think because i i i i first we first presented some some frightening images of of totalitarian states and then started to provide rational argumentations uh why the corona measures actually were not uh were wrapped in or good form not good at all for society stuff like that so the the basic principle is the following first you have to deal with the effective component and then you can start to provide rational argumentation but of course this is not always possible and i think nevertheless that it makes sense to continue to provide time and time again the same rational counter-argumentations because in this way you will not be able to make the the masses up but you will make the hypnosis less deep or prevent it to become even deeper yes and in many ways it strengthens the bonds amongst those who are uh dissident voices as well because it gives them a greater certainty in their position by by having that rational uh backup uh i mean there's plenty of examples around the one of the issues i find is that there's this notion of it will never happen to me or it will never happen to us and you know i i take a metaphor form or a comparison from the world of health you know people make decisions about what they eat and consume today not really thinking about the health consequences 10 20 years down the line they're not thinking you know if if they smoke or they drink or or eat poor diets they don't they don't think about the long-term consequences but similarly you could look at what's happening in australia for instance or other parts of the world and say well that's never going to happen here and that's the kind of mentality that i see happening even though it's happening in a comparable economy you know if it's happening in a you know when uh there was uh one of the countries they they took they took down their internet for three days and you know you could imagine in a western world in the united kingdom in belgium people say well the governments would never take down the internet but this is the mentality because time and time again we've seen over the last 12 18 months people say that won't happen to us and then within a month there it is you know we've got this lock step type arrangement where these things seemingly do happen so how do you overcome that piece around it will never happen to us is that is there anything you you've learned that that can kind of overcut to bring a sense of immediacy because unless it unless it feels immediate like an immediate threat you know i share that i share the fear with you i i fear the totalitarian regime i fear the erosion of liberties and rights they're a real anxiety for me they really are but i get a sense of immediacy i see it happening i have the sense of urgency to act but a lot of people it feels like a distant horizon you know what can we do to bring that sense of urgency to people that's a that's yes yes yes yeah well um yes you know i often ask people what in this kind of logic that now sees a society would prevent you from building new concentration camps what in this kind of logic if you feel it's justified to isolate people in their houses to force pregnant women to wear mouth masks to if you uh make older people die alone and then isolation and isolation if you and so on and so on why would we not take the next step to building a new camps in which we could isolate the people who tested positively on the corona virus and why would we not take the next steps that's what hana iron also says that typical of totalitarianism a population is seized by a very simple and absurd logic that transcresses that makes them transgress all ethical limits as if there is no other option if a is true then b c d and all the rest follow from it unavoidably and she said until the end of the deadly totalitarian alphabet and so and indeed that's that's something very typical if the the contaminations increase we have to go into lockdown again and so on it's like a series of of of of of consequences uh that that seemed strictly necessary and indeed that's what i often try to explain like i don't believe that that that we could not end up with the same kind of measures that hitler considered necessary to create his pure race yeah but but how to access yeah i you know uh it will be to be honest uh i think it will be quite difficult to avoid uh ending up in a kind of new totalitarianism but it will be a neutrality it will be on the one hand the same as the old totalitarianism of the of the first half of the 20th century but it will always be radically different because it will be a worldwide totalitarian system uh it will not have external enemies it will only have internal enemies and it will treat these internal enemies in a different way as the external enemies were treated that's something that is really typical for the logic of totalitarian system totalitarian systems need an enemy at an enemy they collapse so i think that there is a good chance that the new totalitarian system will tolerate the existence of the enemies but it will marginalize them uh push them outside of uh mainstream society that's one of the things that i think will be uh hard to avoid um we're already seeing that you know unless particularly you know we haven't talked we're not here to talk about your views on the vaccine but nonetheless we're seeing it with those who are not taking the vaccine you know that you know the steps of classification symbolization dehumanization of course you know or the discrimination all of these things are happening you know it's it's the great i mean them and us situations whereby you're all the great unwashed you're the ones creating the infections you know it's it's it's completely false but it's it's creating that internal enemy uh and and growing that but that's that's the piece that shocks me and concerns me the most is that that mentality and and the things i see people coming out with on social media again saying rational people normally that the kind of things that they're posting the kind of things if social media existed in the 30s i can see that's what they would be saying you know it's just unbelievable to see but that's that's my worry is that we're on that path of course of course we are yes absolutely yes and then totalitarianism doesn't care whether their claims are true or not the only thing the the the the the narrative has to do is it has to connect the people it has to uh uh make the collective stronger it has to uh reorganize uh the to bind the anxiety uh and so on that's the only thing that matters all the rest uh the more absurd the narrative is uh uh the better it functions as a ritual that's the the drama of of of of totalitarianism like our our prime minister uh two days ago uh said in the news that uh actually this pandemic was a pandemic of the non-vaccinated uh and and and that they had to stop to put the vaccinated at risk so that's so contradictory because if only the non-vaccinated or or are vulnerable for contamination with the coronavirus then the then the the the the vaccinated or not at the risk at all because they cannot be contaminated anymore so it's it's but but the so such claims are truly absurd but in one way or another people continue to buy into them and to to to to to go along with the narrative that's uh showing that uh uh whether the narrative is correct or wrong uh doesn't play any role at all really um no i appreciate we're over time do you have time to answer one more question yes yeah so uh you know the role of the totalitarianism to me that's the thing i fear the most now in terms of a counter narrative in terms of creating an opposition to this there is a lack of opposition do you think if a a compelling vision you know a more compelling vision for the future a better alternative can be projected uh would that would that in some way become more attractive to people or are they just too you know particularly that middle 40 percent you know i appreciate the 30 percent maybe too far down the track the ones that are most indoctrinated but if there's a more compelling vision for the future a more compelling vision for society a more compelling set of solutions to deal with the problems we're facing is that is that is that going to be enough of a motivator i know i know more people move away from pain and they do move towards pleasure typically but if we if we create that compelling vision and create an alternative is that something you think could play a role in in transforming the situation we're in yes no yes it can play a role we have to make our our own narrative as strong as possible as convincing as possible but what we should realize in the first place is that totalitarianism and mass formation always ends up destroying itself so the self-destructive character of mass formation and authoritarianism is something that has been observed and described by all scholars that study the phenomenon so on the one hand um uh so if we think about the best strategy to deal with the situation then we should be aware that we that we are dealing with an extremely strong enemy but an enemy who will always destroy himself so the only thing you have to do is we have to make sure that our story continues to be present in public space and that we survive for a few years that are but that's our realistic goals and we never should try to beat the enemy because the enemy can only be beaten by himself that's but something that really it's you can't explain it psychologically in a very nice and convincing way why the masses and totalitarianism are always so destructive and as soon as you realize that you realize that the only thing you have to do is to continue to speak and to make sure that in one way or another you can survive outside of the system these two things and then you can quietly wait until total italianism destroys itself but of course i don't say that it will be easy but but that is the strategy to deal with it and i'm sure that it will work you will see that the small group this small group will survive and that in one way or another [Music] after the collapse it will play an important role i think in the rebuilding of a society according to new and more human more ethical principles um i agree i you know i think in the shell of the old will emerge something more beautiful and vibrant uh and that's where uh i think that that excitement for me comes um lastly so in terms of your studies with totalitarianism where are we on that line you know how far away are we from the serpent destroying itself here you know you know is there a typical pattern that's a good question um well i think we have to some steps to go actually yes i think so of course i think this totalitarian system probably will destroy itself much quicker than the totalitarian systems of the 20th century because none of the of this totalitarian system has intruded the bodies of its population in such a systematic and straightforward way so whether the vaccination campaigns and so on and my purely reasoning from a psychological point of view if you know that all the totalitarian projects ended up as a disaster that's something really striking you can read for example the book of hana iron on the origins of totalitarianism and then the book of sol cinechin the gulag archipelago i don't know if you know the book but they all they describe the processes in the soviet union in a very detailed way and they both conclude exactly the same every project that was undertaken by the totalitarian leaders ended up as a disaster and they continued until the population was completely exhausted exterminated destroyed and so on and that's why you need a large population for a true full-fledged totalitarian system to emerge you need a very large population that's the only reason why the so that's the main the most important reason why in the soviet union totalitarianism was pushed to the most extreme limit because the population in germany was not large enough and there were totalitarian trends in several other countries as well but if the population is too small a full-fledged totalitarian system can never emerge but so everything these totalitarian leaders did ended up as a disaster it ended it always for certain very i'm describing them in my book for for certain psychological reasons or the nature of the psychological process of mass formation makes that in one way or another all projects end as in a self-destructive way and that's why i'm very very uh you know that i think that the entire vaccination campaign might end up in the most spectacular disaster uh we've ever seen at the medical level and then maybe even uh throughout history scientists are are human beings and throughout their research and throughout their uh their their the their work in the laboratory they constantly make subjective decisions and these subjective decisions are driven by psychological powers psychological factors that they do not have under control themselves i could give perfect examples of how every scientific process is driven unconsciously by the by by by deeper psychological processes and if people are saturated with destructive tendencies in themselves eventually they will end up by producing a destructive product and that's that's what we are at risk of with the vaccination campaign i think um uh that's one of the most complicated and and most difficult parts of the of the of the of the of the totalitarian uh thinking to explain but it can be perfectly explained why it is self-destructive in nature and why it always by well why all projects totalitarian projects end up in self-destruction um uh well uh but uh maybe it would lead us too far now to to to go into this to really uh yes yes no thank you for answering those extra questions i think the good the good news is you know this is a was it's a call set in motion we also know from history it's likely to be self-destructive uh but we can all play our part i believe in accelerating that pathway by continuing to speak out and having the courage to to to share this type of information so um if you found value in this conversation today i mean i've been trying to take notes as i go along it's been so fascinating please do share this just take a moment what i think what's what i think is most pertinent about this type of conversation is it's not about the virus it's not about the contentious issues it's about taking that helicopter view looking at what's happening socially politically psychologically and actually with that by doing that you can start to make sense of the different pieces so i think these types of conversations in particular are some of the most powerful um so please if you haven't done so hit the share button or send us via telegram you know the the content's available on youtube odyssey facebook twitter you know go find the platform that you tend to use and share this share the link to this conversation uh either publicly or individually because it will help it'll help accelerate this pathway out of this but i want you to speak out absolutely and the next piece is for those of you who are really in the game now uh in london this saturday there's a there's a major march happening i'll be there with a pandemic podcast uh with my team uh covering the events of the day uh come and make your voices heard join us in london this saturday uh do spread the word as well we hope to see you there uh and and again lastly my final call to action is to please subscribe to the pandemic podcast you know we've done over 300 episodes to date we've reached over 6 million views and we're really just warming up and really want to continue to play our role in asking these critical questions and bringing you amazing guests like we've had today with dr matthias desmond uh a fantastic conversation thank you very much for being with us today to subscribe to the show please just go to danjaygregory.com forward slash supporter it'll take literally a minute of your time to enter your name and email and we'll keep you up to date with fascinating interviews like this one uh matthias it's been a real pleasure having you with us here today what a fascinating conversation and thank you to everyone who's tuned in live thank you dad thank you and thank you to the audience as well for listening great good night to everyone i'll be back again tomorrow uh giving you an update on some of the current events that we've seen over the last couple of weeks and sharing what i believe we can do over the coming months to continue to tackle the situation we face so good night for now and i'll see you again on our next episode tomorrow evening thanks very much everyone

Channel: Dan Astin-Gregory

Views: 1,041,510

Keywords: mass formation, mass formation psychosis, mass formation joe rogan, mass formation jordan peterson, mass formation phychosis dr. malone, mass formation psychosis jre, mass formation robert malone, mass formation malone, mass formation mattias desmet, mattias desmet, professor mattias desmet

Id: uLDpZ8daIVM

Length: 74min 35sec (4475 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/William_Rosebud]

This was a fascinating talk. Thanks for sharing!

[u/mousedropping]

Submission Statement: A conversation on mass formation with Mattias Desmet, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University in Belgium

“What I think is most pertinent about this type of conversation is, it’s not about the virus, it’s not about the contentious issues, it’s about taking that helicopter view, looking at what’s happening socially, politically, psychologically. And by doing that you can start making sense of the different pieces.”

I’m interested in your thoughts on this discussion.

[u/Khaba-rovsk]

Well this certainly fits for mass hysteria like reactions on the made up CRT narrative in the US for example.

[u/DropsyJolt]

He lost me from the start. His first example is about the UN warning that lockdowns might cause more deaths due to famine than Covid would without any measures at all, and then stating that it is absurd that this was not the mainstream concern.

When has the developed world ever really been bothered by famine deaths? Millions have died from it every year for decades and very little has been done. What could possibly make a professor think that Covid would somehow be different? You don't need a psychology degree to realize that the more distant a stranger is socially, geographically and politically the less their life matters to people.

[u/Lenmatkao]

I know so many people that aren’t seeing the full picture. Great discussion.