Nazism and Stalinism are the classic examples, but the phenomenon is better observed in cults and other sub-cultural societal groups. Numerous examples will spring to mind: the Manson family, Jim Jones' People's Temple, the Church of Scientology, Heavens Gate, etc., each with its own psychotic official narrative: Helter Skelter, Christian Communism, Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy, and so on.
Looking in from the dominant culture (or back through time in the case of the Nazis), the delusional nature of these official narratives is glaringly obvious to most rational people. What many people fail to understand is that to those who fall prey to them (whether individual cult members or entire totalitarian societies) such narratives do not register as psychotic. On the contrary, they feel entirely normal. Everything in their social "reality" reifies and reaffirms the narrative, and anything that challenges or contradicts it is perceived as an existential threat.
These narratives are invariably paranoid, portraying the cult as threatened or persecuted by an evil enemy or antagonistic force which only unquestioning conformity to the cult's ideology can save its members from. It makes little difference whether this antagonist is mainstream culture, body thetans, counter-revolutionaries, Jews, or a virus. The point is not the identity of the enemy. The point is the atmosphere of paranoia and hysteria the official narrative generates, which keeps the cult members (or the society) compliant.
In addition to being paranoid, these narratives are often internally inconsistent, illogical, and ... well, just completely ridiculous. This does not weaken them, as one might suspect. Actually, it increases their power, as it forces their adherents to attempt to reconcile their inconsistency and irrationality, and in many cases utter absurdity, in order to remain in good standing with the cult. Such reconciliation is of course impossible, and causes the cult members' minds to short circuit and abandon any semblance of critical thinking, which is precisely what the cult leader wants.
Moreover, cult leaders will often radically change these narratives for no apparent reason, forcing their cult members to abruptly forswear (and often even denounce as "heresy") the beliefs they had previously been forced to profess, and behave as if they had never believed them, which causes their minds to further short circuit, until they eventually give up even trying to think rationally, and just mindlessly parrot whatever nonsensical gibberish the cult leader fills their heads with.
Also, the cult leader's nonsensical gibberish is not as nonsensical as it may seem at first. Most of us, upon encountering such gibberish, assume that the cult leader is trying to communicate, and that something is very wrong with his brain. The cult leader isn't trying to communicate. He is trying to disorient and control the listener's mind. Listen to Charlie Manson "rapping." Not just to what he says, but how he says it. Note how he sprinkles bits of truth into his stream of free-associated nonsense, and his repetitive use of thought-terminating clichés, described by Robert J. Lifton as follows:
"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis." — Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China, 1961If all this sounds familiar, good. Because the same techniques that most cult leaders use to control the minds of the members of their cults are used by totalitarian systems to control the minds of entire societies: Milieu Control, Loaded Language, Sacred Science, Demand for Purity, and other standard mind-control techniques. It can happen to pretty much any society, just as anyone can fall prey to a cult, given the right set of circumstances.
It is happening to most of our societies right now. An official narrative is being implemented. A totalitarian official narrative. A totally psychotic official narrative, no less delusional than that of the Nazis, or the Manson family, or any other cult.
Most people cannot see that it is happening, for the simple reason that it is happening to them. They are literally unable to recognize it. The human mind is extremely resilient and inventive when it is pushed past its limits. Ask anyone who has struggled with psychosis or has taken too much LSD. We do not recognize when we are going insane. When reality falls apart completely, the mind will create a delusional narrative, which appears just as "real" as our normal reality, because even a delusion is better than the stark raving terror of utter chaos.
This is what totalitarians and cult leaders count on, and exploit to implant their narratives in our minds, and why actual initiation rituals (as opposed to purely symbolic rituals) begin by attacking the subject's mind with terror, pain, physical exhaustion, psychedelic drugs, or some other means of obliterating the subject's perception of reality. Once that is achieved, and the subject's mind starts desperately trying to construct a new narrative to make sense out of the cognitive chaos and psychological trauma it is undergoing, it is relatively easy to "guide" that process and implant whatever narrative you want, assuming you have done your homework.
And this is why so many people — people who are able to easily recognize totalitarianism in cults and foreign countries — cannot perceive the totalitarianism that is taking shape now, right in front of their faces (or, rather, right inside their minds). Nor can they perceive the delusional nature of the official "Covid-19" narrative, no more than those in Nazi Germany were able to perceive how completely delusional their official "master race" narrative was. Such people are neither ignorant nor stupid. They have been successfully initiated into a cult, which is essentially what totalitarianism is, albeit on a societal scale.
Their initiation into the Covidian Cult began in January, when the medical authorities and corporate media turned on The Fear with projections of hundreds of millions of deaths and fake photos of people dropping dead in the streets. The psychological conditioning has continued for months. The global masses have been subjected to a constant stream of propaganda, manufactured hysteria, wild speculation, conflicting directives, exaggerations, lies, and tawdry theatrical effects. Lockdowns. Emergency field hospitals and morgues. The singing-dancing NHS staff. Death trucks. Overflowing ICUs. Dead Covid babies. Manipulated statistics. Goon squads. Masks. And all the rest of it.
Eight months later, here we are. The Head of the Health Emergencies Program at the WHO has basically confirmed an IFR of 0.14%, approximately the same as the seasonal flu. And here are the latest survival rate estimates from the Center for Disease Control:
- Age 0-19 ... 99.997%
- Age 20-49 ... 99.98%
- Age 50-69 ... 99.5%
- Age 70+ ... 94.6%
And then there is the existence of Sweden and other countries which are not playing ball with the official Covid-19 narrative, which makes a mockery of the ongoing hysteria.
I'm not going to go on debunking the narrative. The point is, the facts are all available. Not from "conspiracy theorist" websites. From mainstream outlets and medical experts. From the Centers for Fucking Disease Control.
Which does not matter in the least, not to the members of the Covidian Cult. Facts do not matter to totalitarians and cult members. What matters is loyalty to the cult or the party.
Which means we have a serious problem, those of us to whom facts still matter, and who have been trying to use them to convince the Covidian cultists that they are wrong about the virus ... for going on eight months at this point.
While it is crucial to continue reporting the facts and sharing them with as many people as possible — which is becoming increasingly difficult due to the censorship of alternative and social media — it is important to accept what we are up against. What we are up against is not a misunderstanding or a rational argument over scientific facts. It is a fanatical ideological movement. A global totalitarian movement ... the first of its kind in human history.
It isn't national totalitarianism, because we're living in a global capitalist empire, which isn't ruled by nation-states, but rather, by supranational entities and the global capitalist system itself. And thus, the cult/culture paradigm has been inverted. Instead of the cult existing as an island within the dominant culture, the cult has become the dominant culture, and those of us who have not joined the cult have become the isolated islands within it.
I wish I could be more optimistic, and maybe offer some sort of plan of action, but the only historical parallel I can think of is how Christianity "converted" the pagan world ... which doesn't really bode so well for us. While you're sitting at home during the "second wave" lockdowns, you might want to brush up on that history.
DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of Consent Factory's in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins' work and would like to support it, please go to his Patreon page (where you can contribute as little $1 per month), or send your contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he'll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian novel, Zone 23, or Volume I and II of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins' work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.
Reader Comments
I have literally been taught in school and in Universities that everything is subjective; in other words that objective reality does not exist. I have argued with younger people over interpretations of literature, where they have claimed that any interpretation is just as valid as any other. The last 5 years in particular, there has been a War on Words raging in social and traditional media. The meaning of language itself has been obscured.
And this has been done on purpose, to weaken the resolve against the Globalist bid to seize control of all private property and dissolve the Nation-State as a governing body.
The Great Reset is the endgame, and the vast majority of the leaders of the Nation-States are compliant. The media is cheering it on, and the cult is leading riots in the streets with calls for racial segregation and (racial) original sin.
Still, they will not succeed, because the cult leaders are obviously psychopaths using these techniques to gain wealth and power (as always). And psychopaths have an Achilles' Heel the size of the one in Mars Attacks!; they are incapable of keeping their masks on for any length of time, and they are also narcissists and machiavellians, which means that A) they are loyal only to themselves, and B) they will corrupt any common cause of their "movement" to their own ends. Ticking off all the points in the Dark Triad, they will impulsively, irresponsibly and selfishly corrupt the Great Reset before it has run its course - without normies doing a thing.
All the normies need to do is to carry on and keep calm.
An aware and younger soul? WAY too rare. Continue to share truth (as if you would not - HA!) GOOD JOB! Kudos!!!!!!
RC
Between this article and your commentary, that's the best read I've had in a long time. I truly appreciate the absorbing distraction of this dialog. Thanks. I needed that.
I'm not really satisfied with his explanation for this phenomenon, but his analysis felt refreshing to read. I can understand how national pride could evolve into Nazi racism. It seems logical. Covid-19 is bat-shit crazy from the get go. It's neither subtle or flattering, not for the regular people, anyway.
What I have seen it do, is empower jerks with baseless authority that they would have never earned in an honest way, because they are soulless turds, like Zuckerberg, who are so bankrupt of redeeming features that they feel like they have to steal and extort respect and concern.
Covid-19 has given an army of creepy management types (or even the Walmart greeter) god-like power to bully people around for literally no reason beyond that they said so. This counterfeit authority is also enforced by "hero cops" with actual beatings and imprisonment, too. I think these dweebs love it, and that's why it's here to stay. It's not a "cult," or brainwash, It's a viral bully fetish, I think.
RC
backwardforward [Link](probably will, sooner or later anyhow)
I knew right away that the lock down was a crime, and here we are almost eight months later, and they don't want to let go of the power that we let them usurp. Everyone should have refused and kept things open. People have learned to live with hundreds of diseases and went through previous "scamdemics" before. This is on the people for falling into a huge abyss of fear.
The question is how longer will the Covid Terrorists torture people with their fear mongering and shitdown regulations etc.
Signs and rally's won't matter.
" no more than those in Nazi Germany were able to perceive how completely delusional their official "master race" narrative was. Such people are neither ignorant nor stupid"
Wrong on both counts. A minority of people are most certainly immune to cult indoctrination. There were plenty of people in Nazi Germany who knew the master race narrative was pure propaganda. Those who didn't were, without a doubt, both ignorant and stupid. Some of them would have tested as having high IQs, but that's only part of intelligence. If you buy such crap you can't think deeply at all, which is required for real intelligence.
Great article otherwise.
1) Good points;
2) A good summary of those who bought in, relative to IQ: whether folks are STS or STO; and,
3) Folks who have higher IQ's are less likely to be fooled by propaganda, but, at the same time, have to fight even more against their own knowledge and nature so as to buy into the BS, and the smarter they are, the more that their actions reveal them to be STS.*
RC
*I've previously mentioned this as re Obysmal vs. Bushit II, as the former will, in whatever follows, be held more culpable due to his demonstrably greater intellect.
RC
Capitalism has created too much human freedom and growth and it needs to be brought to heel. Nation states are also hugely in debt and cannot continue in their present form.The censorship of alternative and social media is testament to their fear of free thinking.
What we are up against is a fanatical ideological movement spawned out of the elites at Davos - a global totalitarian technocracy ... the first of its kind in human history. The only enemy of our governments now, is us.
All under the guise of: Public Health, Environmental Science, Equality, Social Responsibility, Social Credit, enforced by Shame Tactics, etc. If you do not comply you will have points removed from your social credit score and reduced freedoms for being a: bigot, conspiracy theorist, right-wing extremist, a threat to security, the State, the People.
Clever use of language is everything in controlling the narrative, and there are enough insecure virtue signallers to be the unwitting enforcers of it all. The only enemy of our governments now, is the free-thinking libertarian.
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I