26/03/2021
Who is shaking the jar?
“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?” – Shera Starr
The Emerging Totalitarian Dystopia: Interview With Professor Mattias Desmet
Few phenomena have had a profound impact on a global level as quickly as the current corona outbreak. In no time, human life has been completely reorganised. I asked Mattias Desmet, Psychotherapist and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University, how this is possible, what the consequences are, and what we can expect in the future.
Almost a year after the start of the corona crisis, how is the mental health of the population?
MD: For the time being, there are few figures that show the evolution of possible indicators such as the intake of antidepressants and anxiolytics or the number of suicides. But it is especially important to place mental well-being in the corona crisis in its historical continuity. Mental health had been declining for decades. There has long been a steady increase in the number of depression and anxiety problems and the number of suicides. And in recent years there has been an enormous growth in absenteeism due to psychological suffering and burnouts. The year before the corona outbreak, you could feel this malaise growing exponentially. This gave the impression that society was heading for a tipping point where a psychological 'reorganization' of the social system was imperative. This is happening with corona. Initially, we noticed people with little knowledge of the virus conjure up terrible fears, and a real social panic reaction became manifested. This happens especially if there is already a strong latent fear in a person or population.
The psychological dimensions of the current corona crisis are seriously underestimated. A crisis acts as a trauma that takes away an individual's historical sense. The trauma is seen as an isolated event in itself, when in fact it is part of a continuous process. For example, we easily overlook the fact that a significant portion of the population was strangely relieved during the initial lockdown, feeling liberated from stress and anxiety. I regularly heard people say: "Yes these measures are heavy-handed, but at least I can relax a bit." Because the grind of daily life stopped, a calm settled over society. The lockdown often freed people from a psychological rut. This created unconscious support for the lockdown. If the population had not already been exhausted by their life, and especially their jobs, there would never have been support for the lockdown. At least not as a response to a pandemic that is not too bad compared to the major pandemics of the past. You noticed something similar when the first lockdown came to an end. You then regularly heard statements such as "We are not going to start living again like we used to, get stuck in traffic again" and so on. People did not want to go back to the pre-corona normal. If we do not take into account the population's dissatisfaction with its existence, we will not understand this crisis and we will not be able to resolve it. By the way, I now have the impression that the new normal has become a rut again, and I would not be surprised if mental health really starts to deteriorate in the near future. Perhaps especially if it turns out that the vaccine does not provide the magical solution that is expected from it.
Desperate cries of young people regularly appear in the media. How seriously do you take them?
MD: Well, you should know that the lockdowns and the associated measures are completely different for young people than for adults. Unlike a middle-aged adult, the time span of a year for a young person means a period in which one undergoes enormous psychological development, much of which takes place in dialogue with peers. Today's young people are living through this period in isolation, and it may well be that it will have negative consequences for the majority of them. But everything is complex where young people are concerned. For example, those who previously experienced acute social anxiety or social isolation may now feel better because they are no longer the misfits. But in general, the youth is undoubtedly the hardest hit by this corona crisis.
What about anxiety in the adults?
MD: In adults there is also fear, but the object of the fear differs. Some are primarily afraid of the virus itself. There are people living in my street who hardly dare to leave their homes. Others fear the economic consequences of the measures. And still others fear the social changes brought about by the corona measures. They fear the emergence of a totalitarian society. Like me (laughs).
Are the mortality and morbidity rates associated with the coronavirus commensurate with the fearful responses?
MD: Well, sickness and suffering are always bad, but the deleterious effects of the government response are disproportionate to the health risk of the virus. Professionally, I am involved in two research projects on corona. As a result, I have been working fairly intensively with the data. Clearly, the virus mortality rate is quite low. The numbers that the media are announcing are based on, let's say, an overly enthusiastic count. Regardless of any pre-existing medical problems, just about every elderly person who died was added to the list of corona deaths. I personally only know one person who was registered as a corona death. He was a terminal cancer patient who died with rather than from corona. Adding these sorts of deaths to corona deaths increases the numbers and increases anxiety in the population.
Several emergency doctors called me during the second wave. Some told me that their ward was absolutely not overrun with corona patients. Others told me that more than half of the patients in the ICU did not have corona or showed such mild symptoms that they would have been sent home to recover, were they diagnosed with influenza. But given the prevailing panic, this turned out to be impossible. Unfortunately, these doctors wished to remain anonymous, so their message did not reach the media and public opinion. Some of them later also told their story to a journalist from the VRT news network, but unfortunately nothing has come of this to date. And I want to mention that there were other doctors who interpreted the apparent facts in a completely different fashion than portrayed in the conventional narrative.
We are struck by the disappearance of the ability to criticise the consensus and the corona measures, even within the academic world where scientific ideals require critical thinking. How do you explain this?
MD: Make no mistake: at university and in the medical world there are many people who are amazed by what is going on. I have quite a few friends in the medical field who don't accept the conventional narrative. They say "open your eyes, can't you see this virus isn't the plague?" But all too often they don't take the step to say this publicly. Moreover, for each critical voice, thirty others do go along with the story, even if this means that they have to abandon their critical scientific standards.
Is this a sign of cowardice?
MD: In some cases it is. In fact you can distinguish three groups everywhere. The first group does not believe the story and says so publicly. The second group does not believe in the story either, but publicly goes along with it anyway, because, given the social pressure, they dare not do otherwise. And the third group really believes in the dominant narrative and has a real fear of the virus. The latter group is certainly also found at the universities.
It is striking how scientific studies, also in this corona crisis, reveal very diverse results. Based on these results, scientists can defend almost diametrically opposed theories as the only truth. How is this possible?
MD: The research on corona is indeed brimming with contradictions. For example, regarding the effectiveness of face masks or hydroxychloroquine, the success of the Swedish approach, or the effectiveness of the PCR test. Even more curiously, the studies contain a huge number of improbable errors that a normally sane person would not be expected to make. This is still the case in terms of establishing the absolute number of infections, while a schoolchild knows that this means nothing as long as the number of infections detected is not compared with the number of tests taken. Obviously, the more tests you carry out, the more likely your infection rate will increase. Is this so difficult? In addition, it should be kept in mind that the PCR test can yield a large number of false positives, because the technique is widely misused for diagnosis. Together, this means that the inaccuracy of the figures distributed daily by the media is so great that some people understandably suspect a conspiracy, albeit apocryphally, in my opinion.
Again, this phenomenon is better placed in an historical perspective, because the problematic quality of scientific research is not a new issue. In 2005 the so-called "replication crisis" erupted in the sciences. Several committees set up to investigate scientific fraud cases found that scientific research is teeming with errors. Often the stated conclusions are of very dubious value. In the wake of the crisis, several papers appeared with titles that leave little to the imagination. In 2005, John Ioannidis, Professor of Medical Statistics at Stanford, published Why most published research findings are false. In 2016, a different research group wrote about the same topic, in Reproducibility: a Tragedy of Errors published in the medical journal Nature. These are just two examples of the very extensive literature describing this problem. I myself am well aware of the shaky scientific foundation of many research results. In addition to my master's degree in clinical psychology, I earned a master's in statistics. My doctorate dealt with measurement problems in the field of psychology.
How was the criticism received within the scientific world?
MD: Initially it led to a shock wave, after which an attempt was made to resolve the crisis by demanding more transparency and objectivity. But I don't think this solved much. Rather, the cause of the problem lies in a specific kind of science that emerged during the Enlightenment. This science is based on an absolute belief in objectivity. According to the adepts of this view, the world is almost totally objectifiable, measurable, predictable and verifiable. But science itself has shown that this idea is untenable. There are limits to objectivity and, depending on the scientific domain, one is highly likely to encounter these limits. Physics and chemistry are still relatively suitable for measuring. But this is much less successful in other research areas such as economics, biomedical science, or psychology, where an investigator is more likely to discover that a researcher's subjectivity has had a direct influence on his or her observations. And it is precisely this subjective core that scientists have sought to eliminate from scientific debate. Paradoxically - but not surprisingly - this nucleus flourishes in its exile, leading to the complete opposite of the hoped-for result. Namely, a radical lack of objectivity and a proliferation of subjectivity. This problem has persisted even after the replication crisis, it was not resolved in spite of the efforts of critics. As a result, now, 15 years later, in the throes of the corona crisis, we continue to face exactly the same problems.
Are current politicians basing the corona measures on incorrectly established scientific principals?
MD: I think so. Here, too, we see a kind of naive belief in objectivity that turns into its opposite: a serious lack of objectivity with masses of errors and carelessness. Moreover, there is a sinister connection between the emergence of this kind of absolutist science and the process of manipulation and totalitarianisation of society. In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, the German-American political thinker Hannah Arendt brilliantly describes how this process took place in Nazi Germany, among other places. For example, nascent totalitarian regimes typically fall back on a 'scientific' discourse. They show a great preference for figures and statistics, which quickly degenerate into pure propaganda, characterised by a radical "disregard for the facts". For example, Nazism based its ideology on the superiority of the Aryan race. A whole series of so-called scientific data substantiated their theory. Today we know that this theory had no scientific validity, but scientists at the time used the media to defend the regime's positions. Hannah Arendt describes how these scientists proclaimed questionable scientific credentials, and she uses the word "charlatans" to emphasize this. She also describes how the emergence of this kind of science and its industrial applications was accompanied by an inevitable social change. Classes disappeared and normal social ties deteriorated, with much indefinable fear, anxiety, frustration, and lack of meaning. It is under such circumstances that the masses develop very specific psychological qualities. All fears that haunt society become linked to one 'object' - for example, the Jews - so that the masses enter into a kind of energetic struggle with this object. And onto that process of social conditioning of the masses, a completely new political and constitutional organisation subsequently grafts itself: the totalitarian state.
Today, one perceives a similar phenomenon. There is widespread psychological suffering, lack of meaning, and diminished social ties in society. Then a story comes along that points to a fear object, the virus, after which the population strongly links its fear and discomfort to this dreaded object. Meanwhile, there is a constant call in all media to collectively fight the murderous enemy. The scientists who bring the story to the population are rewarded with tremendous social power in return. Their psychological power is so great that, at their suggestion, the whole of society abruptly renounces a host of social customs and reorganises itself in ways that no one at the beginning of 2020 thought possible.
What do you think will happen now?
MD: The current corona policy temporarily restores some social solidarity and meaning to society. Working together against the virus creates a kind of intoxication, resulting in an enormous narrowing of attention, so that other matters, such as the concern for collateral damage, vanish into the background. However, the United Nations and several scientists warned from the outset that the global collateral damage could generate far more deaths than the virus, for instance from hunger and delayed treatment.
Social conditioning of the masses has another curious effect: it causes individuals to psychologically put aside selfish and individual motives. In this way, one can tolerate a Government that takes away some personal pleasures. To give just one example: catering establishments where people worked their entire lives can be closed without much protest. Or also: the population is deprived of performances, festivals and other cultural pleasures. Totalitarian leaders intuitively understand that tormenting the population in a perverse way reinforces the social conditioning even more. I can't fully explain that now, but the process of social conditioning is intrinsically self-destructive. A population affected by this process is capable of enormous atrocities towards others, but also towards itself. It has absolutely no hesitation about sacrificing itself. This explains why, unlike simple dictatorships, a totalitarian state cannot survive. It eventually devours itself completely, as it were. But the process usually takes many human lives.
Do you recognise totalitarian traits in the current crisis and the government response to it?
MD: Definitely. When one steps away from the virus story, one discovers a totalitarian process par excellence. For example, according to Arendt, a pre-totalitarian state cuts through all social ties of the population. Simple dictatorships do that at the political level - they ensure that the opposition cannot unite - but totalitarian states also do this among the population, in the private sphere. Think of the children who - often unintentionally - reported their parents to the government in the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Totalitarianism is so focused on total control that it automatically creates suspicion among the population, causing people to spy on and denounce each other. People no longer dare to speak out against the majority and are less able to organise themselves due to the restrictions. It is not difficult to recognise such phenomena in today's situation, in addition to many other features of emerging totalitarianism.
What is it that this totalitarian state ultimately wants to achieve?
MD: At first, it doesn't want anything. Its emergence is an automatic process coupled on the one hand with great anxiety on the part of the population and, on the other hand, a naive scientific thinking that considers total knowledge possible. Today there are those who believe that society should no longer be based on political narratives but on scientific facts and figures, thus rolling out the red carpet for rule by technocracy. Their ideal image is what the Dutch philosopher Ad Verbrugge calls "intensive human husbandry". Within a biological-reductionist, virological ideology, continuous biometric monitoring is indicated and people are subjected to continuous preventive medical interventions, such as vaccination campaigns. All this to supposedly optimise public health. And a whole range of medical hygiene measures must be implemented; avoiding touch, wearing face masks, continuously disinfecting hands, vaccination, etc. For the supporters of this ideology, one can never do enough to achieve the ideal of the greatest possible 'health'. A newspaper article appeared in which one could read that the population ought to be made even more afraid. Only then would they stick to the measures recommended by the virologists. In their view, stirring up fear will work to produce good. But when drawing up all these draconian measures, the policymakers forget that people cannot be healthy, either physically or mentally, without sufficient freedom, privacy and the right to self-determination, values that this technocratic totalitarian view totally ignores. Although the Government aspires to enormous health improvement for its society, its actions will ruin the health of society. By the way, this is a basic characteristic of totalitarian thinking according to Hannah Arendt: it ends in the exact opposite of what it originally pursued.
Today, the virus creates the necessary fear on which totalitarianism rests. Will finding a vaccine, and the subsequent vaccination campaign, allay this fear and end this totalitarian flare-up?
MD: A vaccine will not resolve the current impasse. For in truth, this crisis is not a health crisis, it is a profound social and even cultural crisis. By the way, the Government has already announced that the measures will not just disappear after the vaccination. A recent article even stated that it is striking that the countries that are already very advanced with the vaccination campaign - such as Israel and Great Britain - are strangely enough still seriously tightening the measures. Rather, I foresee this scenario: despite all the promising studies, the vaccine will not bring about a solution. And the blindness that social conditioning and totalitarianisation entails will blame those who do not go along with the story and/or refuse to be vaccinated. They will serve as scapegoats. There will be an attempt to try to silence them. And if that succeeds, the dreaded tipping point in the process of totalitarianisation will come: only after it has completely eliminated the opposition will the totalitarian state show its most aggressive form. It then becomes - to use Hannah Arendt's words - a monster eating his own children. In other words, the worst is perhaps yet to come.
What are you thinking about these days?
MD: Totalitarian systems generally all have the same tendencies to methodically isolate and that, in order to guarantee the health of the population, the 'sick' portions of the population will be further isolated and locked up in camps. That idea was actually suggested several times during the corona crisis, but dismissed as "not feasible" due to social resistance. But will that resistance persist if the fear continues to increase? You may suspect me of being overly paranoid, but who would have thought in early 2020 that our society would look like this today? The process of totalitarianisation is based on the hypnotic effect of a story and it can only be broken by another story. Hence, I hope more people will question the supposed danger of the virus and the necessity of current corona measures, and dare to speak publicly about this.
Why is this fear response not occurring with the climate crisis?
MD: The climate crisis may not be suitable as a fear object. It may be too abstract and we cannot associate it with the instant death of a loved one or ourselves. And as an object of fear, it is also less directly related to our medical-biological view of man. Hence, a virus is a privileged object of fear.
What does the current crisis tell us about our relationship with death?
MD: The dominant science perceives the world as a mechanistic interaction of atoms and other elemental particles that collide randomly and produce all kinds of phenomena, including humans. This science makes us desperate and powerless in the face of death. At the same time, life is experienced as a totally meaningless and mechanistic given, but we cling to it as if it is all we have, and we want to eliminate any behaviour that might risk the loss of it. And that is impossible. Paradoxically, radically trying to avoid risks, for example through corona measures, creates the greatest risk of all. Just look at the colossal collateral damage that is being caused.
You perceive the current social evolution as going in a negative direction. How do you see the future?
MD: I am convinced that something beautiful will come out of all this. Materialistic science starts from the idea that the world consists of material particles. Yet precisely this science reveals that matter is a form of consciousness, that there is no certainty, and that the human mind fails to grasp the world. For example, the Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr argued that the elementary particles and atoms behave in a radically irrational and illogical way. According to him, they were better understood by using poetry than by using logic.
We will experience something similar on a political level. In the near future, we will perhaps historically be making the most far-reaching attempt to control everything in a technological, rational way. Ultimately, this system will prove itself to not work and show that we need a completely different society and policy. The new system will rely more on respect for what is ultimately elusive to the human mind and on respect for the art and intuition that were central to the religions.
Are we in a paradigm shift today?
MD: Doubtless. This crisis heralds the end of a cultural historical paradigm. Part of the transition has already been made in the sciences. The geniuses who laid the foundations of modern physics, complex and dynamic systems theory, chaos theory and non-Euclidean geometry already understood that there is not one but many different logics, that there is something intrinsically subjective in everything, and that people live in direct resonance with the world around them and all the complexities of nature. Moreover, Man is a being who is dependent on his fellow man in his energetic existence. The physicists have known this for some time, now for the rest of us! We are now witnessing the latest upsurge of the old culture based on control and logical understanding that will demonstrate at breakneck speed what utter failure it brings and its inability to truly organise a society in a decent and humane way.
Almost a year after the start of the corona crisis, how is the mental health of the population?
MD: For the time being, there are few figures that show the evolution of possible indicators such as the intake of antidepressants and anxiolytics or the number of suicides. But it is especially important to place mental well-being in the corona crisis in its historical continuity. Mental health had been declining for decades. There has long been a steady increase in the number of depression and anxiety problems and the number of suicides. And in recent years there has been an enormous growth in absenteeism due to psychological suffering and burnouts. The year before the corona outbreak, you could feel this malaise growing exponentially. This gave the impression that society was heading for a tipping point where a psychological 'reorganization' of the social system was imperative. This is happening with corona. Initially, we noticed people with little knowledge of the virus conjure up terrible fears, and a real social panic reaction became manifested. This happens especially if there is already a strong latent fear in a person or population.
The psychological dimensions of the current corona crisis are seriously underestimated. A crisis acts as a trauma that takes away an individual's historical sense. The trauma is seen as an isolated event in itself, when in fact it is part of a continuous process. For example, we easily overlook the fact that a significant portion of the population was strangely relieved during the initial lockdown, feeling liberated from stress and anxiety. I regularly heard people say: "Yes these measures are heavy-handed, but at least I can relax a bit." Because the grind of daily life stopped, a calm settled over society. The lockdown often freed people from a psychological rut. This created unconscious support for the lockdown. If the population had not already been exhausted by their life, and especially their jobs, there would never have been support for the lockdown. At least not as a response to a pandemic that is not too bad compared to the major pandemics of the past. You noticed something similar when the first lockdown came to an end. You then regularly heard statements such as "We are not going to start living again like we used to, get stuck in traffic again" and so on. People did not want to go back to the pre-corona normal. If we do not take into account the population's dissatisfaction with its existence, we will not understand this crisis and we will not be able to resolve it. By the way, I now have the impression that the new normal has become a rut again, and I would not be surprised if mental health really starts to deteriorate in the near future. Perhaps especially if it turns out that the vaccine does not provide the magical solution that is expected from it.
Desperate cries of young people regularly appear in the media. How seriously do you take them?
MD: Well, you should know that the lockdowns and the associated measures are completely different for young people than for adults. Unlike a middle-aged adult, the time span of a year for a young person means a period in which one undergoes enormous psychological development, much of which takes place in dialogue with peers. Today's young people are living through this period in isolation, and it may well be that it will have negative consequences for the majority of them. But everything is complex where young people are concerned. For example, those who previously experienced acute social anxiety or social isolation may now feel better because they are no longer the misfits. But in general, the youth is undoubtedly the hardest hit by this corona crisis.
What about anxiety in the adults?
MD: In adults there is also fear, but the object of the fear differs. Some are primarily afraid of the virus itself. There are people living in my street who hardly dare to leave their homes. Others fear the economic consequences of the measures. And still others fear the social changes brought about by the corona measures. They fear the emergence of a totalitarian society. Like me (laughs).
Are the mortality and morbidity rates associated with the coronavirus commensurate with the fearful responses?
MD: Well, sickness and suffering are always bad, but the deleterious effects of the government response are disproportionate to the health risk of the virus. Professionally, I am involved in two research projects on corona. As a result, I have been working fairly intensively with the data. Clearly, the virus mortality rate is quite low. The numbers that the media are announcing are based on, let's say, an overly enthusiastic count. Regardless of any pre-existing medical problems, just about every elderly person who died was added to the list of corona deaths. I personally only know one person who was registered as a corona death. He was a terminal cancer patient who died with rather than from corona. Adding these sorts of deaths to corona deaths increases the numbers and increases anxiety in the population.
Several emergency doctors called me during the second wave. Some told me that their ward was absolutely not overrun with corona patients. Others told me that more than half of the patients in the ICU did not have corona or showed such mild symptoms that they would have been sent home to recover, were they diagnosed with influenza. But given the prevailing panic, this turned out to be impossible. Unfortunately, these doctors wished to remain anonymous, so their message did not reach the media and public opinion. Some of them later also told their story to a journalist from the VRT news network, but unfortunately nothing has come of this to date. And I want to mention that there were other doctors who interpreted the apparent facts in a completely different fashion than portrayed in the conventional narrative.
We are struck by the disappearance of the ability to criticise the consensus and the corona measures, even within the academic world where scientific ideals require critical thinking. How do you explain this?
MD: Make no mistake: at university and in the medical world there are many people who are amazed by what is going on. I have quite a few friends in the medical field who don't accept the conventional narrative. They say "open your eyes, can't you see this virus isn't the plague?" But all too often they don't take the step to say this publicly. Moreover, for each critical voice, thirty others do go along with the story, even if this means that they have to abandon their critical scientific standards.
Is this a sign of cowardice?
MD: In some cases it is. In fact you can distinguish three groups everywhere. The first group does not believe the story and says so publicly. The second group does not believe in the story either, but publicly goes along with it anyway, because, given the social pressure, they dare not do otherwise. And the third group really believes in the dominant narrative and has a real fear of the virus. The latter group is certainly also found at the universities.
It is striking how scientific studies, also in this corona crisis, reveal very diverse results. Based on these results, scientists can defend almost diametrically opposed theories as the only truth. How is this possible?
MD: The research on corona is indeed brimming with contradictions. For example, regarding the effectiveness of face masks or hydroxychloroquine, the success of the Swedish approach, or the effectiveness of the PCR test. Even more curiously, the studies contain a huge number of improbable errors that a normally sane person would not be expected to make. This is still the case in terms of establishing the absolute number of infections, while a schoolchild knows that this means nothing as long as the number of infections detected is not compared with the number of tests taken. Obviously, the more tests you carry out, the more likely your infection rate will increase. Is this so difficult? In addition, it should be kept in mind that the PCR test can yield a large number of false positives, because the technique is widely misused for diagnosis. Together, this means that the inaccuracy of the figures distributed daily by the media is so great that some people understandably suspect a conspiracy, albeit apocryphally, in my opinion.
Again, this phenomenon is better placed in an historical perspective, because the problematic quality of scientific research is not a new issue. In 2005 the so-called "replication crisis" erupted in the sciences. Several committees set up to investigate scientific fraud cases found that scientific research is teeming with errors. Often the stated conclusions are of very dubious value. In the wake of the crisis, several papers appeared with titles that leave little to the imagination. In 2005, John Ioannidis, Professor of Medical Statistics at Stanford, published Why most published research findings are false. In 2016, a different research group wrote about the same topic, in Reproducibility: a Tragedy of Errors published in the medical journal Nature. These are just two examples of the very extensive literature describing this problem. I myself am well aware of the shaky scientific foundation of many research results. In addition to my master's degree in clinical psychology, I earned a master's in statistics. My doctorate dealt with measurement problems in the field of psychology.
How was the criticism received within the scientific world?
MD: Initially it led to a shock wave, after which an attempt was made to resolve the crisis by demanding more transparency and objectivity. But I don't think this solved much. Rather, the cause of the problem lies in a specific kind of science that emerged during the Enlightenment. This science is based on an absolute belief in objectivity. According to the adepts of this view, the world is almost totally objectifiable, measurable, predictable and verifiable. But science itself has shown that this idea is untenable. There are limits to objectivity and, depending on the scientific domain, one is highly likely to encounter these limits. Physics and chemistry are still relatively suitable for measuring. But this is much less successful in other research areas such as economics, biomedical science, or psychology, where an investigator is more likely to discover that a researcher's subjectivity has had a direct influence on his or her observations. And it is precisely this subjective core that scientists have sought to eliminate from scientific debate. Paradoxically - but not surprisingly - this nucleus flourishes in its exile, leading to the complete opposite of the hoped-for result. Namely, a radical lack of objectivity and a proliferation of subjectivity. This problem has persisted even after the replication crisis, it was not resolved in spite of the efforts of critics. As a result, now, 15 years later, in the throes of the corona crisis, we continue to face exactly the same problems.
Are current politicians basing the corona measures on incorrectly established scientific principals?
MD: I think so. Here, too, we see a kind of naive belief in objectivity that turns into its opposite: a serious lack of objectivity with masses of errors and carelessness. Moreover, there is a sinister connection between the emergence of this kind of absolutist science and the process of manipulation and totalitarianisation of society. In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, the German-American political thinker Hannah Arendt brilliantly describes how this process took place in Nazi Germany, among other places. For example, nascent totalitarian regimes typically fall back on a 'scientific' discourse. They show a great preference for figures and statistics, which quickly degenerate into pure propaganda, characterised by a radical "disregard for the facts". For example, Nazism based its ideology on the superiority of the Aryan race. A whole series of so-called scientific data substantiated their theory. Today we know that this theory had no scientific validity, but scientists at the time used the media to defend the regime's positions. Hannah Arendt describes how these scientists proclaimed questionable scientific credentials, and she uses the word "charlatans" to emphasize this. She also describes how the emergence of this kind of science and its industrial applications was accompanied by an inevitable social change. Classes disappeared and normal social ties deteriorated, with much indefinable fear, anxiety, frustration, and lack of meaning. It is under such circumstances that the masses develop very specific psychological qualities. All fears that haunt society become linked to one 'object' - for example, the Jews - so that the masses enter into a kind of energetic struggle with this object. And onto that process of social conditioning of the masses, a completely new political and constitutional organisation subsequently grafts itself: the totalitarian state.
Today, one perceives a similar phenomenon. There is widespread psychological suffering, lack of meaning, and diminished social ties in society. Then a story comes along that points to a fear object, the virus, after which the population strongly links its fear and discomfort to this dreaded object. Meanwhile, there is a constant call in all media to collectively fight the murderous enemy. The scientists who bring the story to the population are rewarded with tremendous social power in return. Their psychological power is so great that, at their suggestion, the whole of society abruptly renounces a host of social customs and reorganises itself in ways that no one at the beginning of 2020 thought possible.
What do you think will happen now?
MD: The current corona policy temporarily restores some social solidarity and meaning to society. Working together against the virus creates a kind of intoxication, resulting in an enormous narrowing of attention, so that other matters, such as the concern for collateral damage, vanish into the background. However, the United Nations and several scientists warned from the outset that the global collateral damage could generate far more deaths than the virus, for instance from hunger and delayed treatment.
Social conditioning of the masses has another curious effect: it causes individuals to psychologically put aside selfish and individual motives. In this way, one can tolerate a Government that takes away some personal pleasures. To give just one example: catering establishments where people worked their entire lives can be closed without much protest. Or also: the population is deprived of performances, festivals and other cultural pleasures. Totalitarian leaders intuitively understand that tormenting the population in a perverse way reinforces the social conditioning even more. I can't fully explain that now, but the process of social conditioning is intrinsically self-destructive. A population affected by this process is capable of enormous atrocities towards others, but also towards itself. It has absolutely no hesitation about sacrificing itself. This explains why, unlike simple dictatorships, a totalitarian state cannot survive. It eventually devours itself completely, as it were. But the process usually takes many human lives.
Do you recognise totalitarian traits in the current crisis and the government response to it?
MD: Definitely. When one steps away from the virus story, one discovers a totalitarian process par excellence. For example, according to Arendt, a pre-totalitarian state cuts through all social ties of the population. Simple dictatorships do that at the political level - they ensure that the opposition cannot unite - but totalitarian states also do this among the population, in the private sphere. Think of the children who - often unintentionally - reported their parents to the government in the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Totalitarianism is so focused on total control that it automatically creates suspicion among the population, causing people to spy on and denounce each other. People no longer dare to speak out against the majority and are less able to organise themselves due to the restrictions. It is not difficult to recognise such phenomena in today's situation, in addition to many other features of emerging totalitarianism.
What is it that this totalitarian state ultimately wants to achieve?
MD: At first, it doesn't want anything. Its emergence is an automatic process coupled on the one hand with great anxiety on the part of the population and, on the other hand, a naive scientific thinking that considers total knowledge possible. Today there are those who believe that society should no longer be based on political narratives but on scientific facts and figures, thus rolling out the red carpet for rule by technocracy. Their ideal image is what the Dutch philosopher Ad Verbrugge calls "intensive human husbandry". Within a biological-reductionist, virological ideology, continuous biometric monitoring is indicated and people are subjected to continuous preventive medical interventions, such as vaccination campaigns. All this to supposedly optimise public health. And a whole range of medical hygiene measures must be implemented; avoiding touch, wearing face masks, continuously disinfecting hands, vaccination, etc. For the supporters of this ideology, one can never do enough to achieve the ideal of the greatest possible 'health'. A newspaper article appeared in which one could read that the population ought to be made even more afraid. Only then would they stick to the measures recommended by the virologists. In their view, stirring up fear will work to produce good. But when drawing up all these draconian measures, the policymakers forget that people cannot be healthy, either physically or mentally, without sufficient freedom, privacy and the right to self-determination, values that this technocratic totalitarian view totally ignores. Although the Government aspires to enormous health improvement for its society, its actions will ruin the health of society. By the way, this is a basic characteristic of totalitarian thinking according to Hannah Arendt: it ends in the exact opposite of what it originally pursued.
Today, the virus creates the necessary fear on which totalitarianism rests. Will finding a vaccine, and the subsequent vaccination campaign, allay this fear and end this totalitarian flare-up?
MD: A vaccine will not resolve the current impasse. For in truth, this crisis is not a health crisis, it is a profound social and even cultural crisis. By the way, the Government has already announced that the measures will not just disappear after the vaccination. A recent article even stated that it is striking that the countries that are already very advanced with the vaccination campaign - such as Israel and Great Britain - are strangely enough still seriously tightening the measures. Rather, I foresee this scenario: despite all the promising studies, the vaccine will not bring about a solution. And the blindness that social conditioning and totalitarianisation entails will blame those who do not go along with the story and/or refuse to be vaccinated. They will serve as scapegoats. There will be an attempt to try to silence them. And if that succeeds, the dreaded tipping point in the process of totalitarianisation will come: only after it has completely eliminated the opposition will the totalitarian state show its most aggressive form. It then becomes - to use Hannah Arendt's words - a monster eating his own children. In other words, the worst is perhaps yet to come.
What are you thinking about these days?
MD: Totalitarian systems generally all have the same tendencies to methodically isolate and that, in order to guarantee the health of the population, the 'sick' portions of the population will be further isolated and locked up in camps. That idea was actually suggested several times during the corona crisis, but dismissed as "not feasible" due to social resistance. But will that resistance persist if the fear continues to increase? You may suspect me of being overly paranoid, but who would have thought in early 2020 that our society would look like this today? The process of totalitarianisation is based on the hypnotic effect of a story and it can only be broken by another story. Hence, I hope more people will question the supposed danger of the virus and the necessity of current corona measures, and dare to speak publicly about this.
Why is this fear response not occurring with the climate crisis?
MD: The climate crisis may not be suitable as a fear object. It may be too abstract and we cannot associate it with the instant death of a loved one or ourselves. And as an object of fear, it is also less directly related to our medical-biological view of man. Hence, a virus is a privileged object of fear.
What does the current crisis tell us about our relationship with death?
MD: The dominant science perceives the world as a mechanistic interaction of atoms and other elemental particles that collide randomly and produce all kinds of phenomena, including humans. This science makes us desperate and powerless in the face of death. At the same time, life is experienced as a totally meaningless and mechanistic given, but we cling to it as if it is all we have, and we want to eliminate any behaviour that might risk the loss of it. And that is impossible. Paradoxically, radically trying to avoid risks, for example through corona measures, creates the greatest risk of all. Just look at the colossal collateral damage that is being caused.
You perceive the current social evolution as going in a negative direction. How do you see the future?
MD: I am convinced that something beautiful will come out of all this. Materialistic science starts from the idea that the world consists of material particles. Yet precisely this science reveals that matter is a form of consciousness, that there is no certainty, and that the human mind fails to grasp the world. For example, the Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr argued that the elementary particles and atoms behave in a radically irrational and illogical way. According to him, they were better understood by using poetry than by using logic.
We will experience something similar on a political level. In the near future, we will perhaps historically be making the most far-reaching attempt to control everything in a technological, rational way. Ultimately, this system will prove itself to not work and show that we need a completely different society and policy. The new system will rely more on respect for what is ultimately elusive to the human mind and on respect for the art and intuition that were central to the religions.
Are we in a paradigm shift today?
MD: Doubtless. This crisis heralds the end of a cultural historical paradigm. Part of the transition has already been made in the sciences. The geniuses who laid the foundations of modern physics, complex and dynamic systems theory, chaos theory and non-Euclidean geometry already understood that there is not one but many different logics, that there is something intrinsically subjective in everything, and that people live in direct resonance with the world around them and all the complexities of nature. Moreover, Man is a being who is dependent on his fellow man in his energetic existence. The physicists have known this for some time, now for the rest of us! We are now witnessing the latest upsurge of the old culture based on control and logical understanding that will demonstrate at breakneck speed what utter failure it brings and its inability to truly organise a society in a decent and humane way.
25/03/2021
Researchers believe the drug might help loosen the brain's fixed pathways, which can then be "reset" with talking therapy afterwards.
A powerful hallucinogenic drug known for its part in shamanic rituals is being trialled as a potential cure for depression for the first time.
Participants will be given the drug DMT, followed by talking therapy.
It is hoped this could offer an alternative for the significant number of people who don't respond to conventional pills for depression.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy might offer longer-term relief from symptoms, some researchers believe.
A growing body of evidence indicates other psychedelic drugs, particularly alongside talking therapy, are safe and can be effective for treating a range of mental illnesses.
This will be the first time DMT is given to people with moderate to severe depression in a clinical trial.
Dr Carol Routledge, the chief scientific officer of Small Pharma, the company running the trial said: "We believe the impact will be almost immediate, and longer lasting than conventional antidepressants."
'Spirit molecule'
The drug is known as the "spirit molecule" because of the way it alters the human consciousness and produces hallucinations that have been likened to a near-death experience.
It is also the active ingredient in ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian plant medicine used to bring spiritual enlightenment.
Researchers believe the drug might help loosen the brain's fixed pathways, which can then be "reset" with talking therapy afterwards.
Dr Routledge likened the drug to "shaking a snow globe" - throwing entrenched negative thought patterns up in the air which the therapy allows to be resettled into a more functional form.
But this hypothesis still needs to be proven.
The team is consulting Imperial College London, which runs the pioneering Centre for Psychedelic Research.
As part of the study, they hope to investigate whether the drug can be administered as a one-off or as part of a course.
Subjects will be followed up for at least six months to see how long the effects of the treatment last.
‘The ketamine blew my mind’: can psychedelics cure addiction and depression?
Participants will be given the drug DMT, followed by talking therapy.
It is hoped this could offer an alternative for the significant number of people who don't respond to conventional pills for depression.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy might offer longer-term relief from symptoms, some researchers believe.
A growing body of evidence indicates other psychedelic drugs, particularly alongside talking therapy, are safe and can be effective for treating a range of mental illnesses.
This will be the first time DMT is given to people with moderate to severe depression in a clinical trial.
Dr Carol Routledge, the chief scientific officer of Small Pharma, the company running the trial said: "We believe the impact will be almost immediate, and longer lasting than conventional antidepressants."
'Spirit molecule'
The drug is known as the "spirit molecule" because of the way it alters the human consciousness and produces hallucinations that have been likened to a near-death experience.
It is also the active ingredient in ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian plant medicine used to bring spiritual enlightenment.
Researchers believe the drug might help loosen the brain's fixed pathways, which can then be "reset" with talking therapy afterwards.
Dr Routledge likened the drug to "shaking a snow globe" - throwing entrenched negative thought patterns up in the air which the therapy allows to be resettled into a more functional form.
But this hypothesis still needs to be proven.
The team is consulting Imperial College London, which runs the pioneering Centre for Psychedelic Research.
As part of the study, they hope to investigate whether the drug can be administered as a one-off or as part of a course.
Subjects will be followed up for at least six months to see how long the effects of the treatment last.
Ketamine clinic
Meanwhile, a ketamine-assisted therapy clinic is set to open in Bristol next week.
First ketamine-assisted psychotherapy clinic opens
While the drug is already used for depression in clinics like the ketamine treatment service in Oxford, it is not accompanied by psychotherapy.
Rather, it is used to provide temporary relief from symptoms for people who have very serious, treatment-resistant depression.
So-far unpublished researched presented at a conference by professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Exeter, Celia Morgan, suggests ketamine accompanied by therapy has much longer-lasting effects.
Prof Morgan said there was mounting evidence that drugs, including psilocybin, LSD, ketamine and MDMA (Ecstasy), were safe and could play a role in the treatment of mental health disorders.
And there was some early evidence they could have longer-term effects than the medicines conventionally prescribed as antidepressants, known as SSRIs, but more research was needed.
They also worked using a completely different mechanism, Prof Morgan explained.
'Long-lasting change'
While conventional drugs may numb negative feelings, "these drugs seem to allow you to approach difficult experiences in your life, sit with that distress and process them," she said.
"It might be getting at something more fundamental" that was the root cause of the problem, Prof Morgan said.
"Through that we think you can get much more long-lasting change."
Prof Michael Bloomfield, a consultant psychiatrist at University College London, said although it was a "really exciting" area of research, caution was needed in overpromising the drugs' potential.
It was also a field of therapy that could be open to abuse and misuse, he said.
Prof Morgan also stressed the importance the drugs being used within the context of therapy as there were concerns that "people might think they can give it a go with some recreational drugs".
"But it's really not how it works" she said.
Meanwhile, a ketamine-assisted therapy clinic is set to open in Bristol next week.
First ketamine-assisted psychotherapy clinic opens
While the drug is already used for depression in clinics like the ketamine treatment service in Oxford, it is not accompanied by psychotherapy.
Rather, it is used to provide temporary relief from symptoms for people who have very serious, treatment-resistant depression.
So-far unpublished researched presented at a conference by professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Exeter, Celia Morgan, suggests ketamine accompanied by therapy has much longer-lasting effects.
Prof Morgan said there was mounting evidence that drugs, including psilocybin, LSD, ketamine and MDMA (Ecstasy), were safe and could play a role in the treatment of mental health disorders.
And there was some early evidence they could have longer-term effects than the medicines conventionally prescribed as antidepressants, known as SSRIs, but more research was needed.
They also worked using a completely different mechanism, Prof Morgan explained.
'Long-lasting change'
While conventional drugs may numb negative feelings, "these drugs seem to allow you to approach difficult experiences in your life, sit with that distress and process them," she said.
"It might be getting at something more fundamental" that was the root cause of the problem, Prof Morgan said.
"Through that we think you can get much more long-lasting change."
Prof Michael Bloomfield, a consultant psychiatrist at University College London, said although it was a "really exciting" area of research, caution was needed in overpromising the drugs' potential.
It was also a field of therapy that could be open to abuse and misuse, he said.
Prof Morgan also stressed the importance the drugs being used within the context of therapy as there were concerns that "people might think they can give it a go with some recreational drugs".
"But it's really not how it works" she said.
Psilocybin might produce rapid and lasting antidepressant effects
Scientists in Denmark believe the psychedelic substance psilocybin might produce rapid and lasting antidepressant effects in part because it enhances neuroplasticity in the brain. Their new research, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, has found evidence that psilocybin increases the number of neuronal connections in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of pig brains.
Psilocybin — the active component in so-called “magic” mushrooms — has been shown to have profound and long-lasting effects on personality and mood. But the mechanisms behind these effects remain unclear. Researchers at Copenhagen University were interested in whether changes in neuroplasticity in brain regions associated with emotional processing could help explain psilocybin’s antidepressant effects.
“Both post-mortem human brain and in vivo studies in depressed individuals have shown a loss of synapses through the down-regulation of synaptic proteins and genes,” the authors of the study wrote. “Hence, upregulation of presynaptic proteins and an increase in synaptic density may be associated with the potential antidepressive effects of psychedelics.”
The researchers had previously conducted tests to establish the proper dose of psilocybin needed to produce psychoactive effects in pigs, who were examined because their brains are anatomically similar to the brains of humans.
A group of 12 pigs received a psychoactive dose of psilocybin, while a separate group of 12 pigs received inert saline injections. Half of the pigs were euthanized one day after the administration of psilocybin, while the rest were euthanized one week later.
An examination of brain tissue from the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex revealed increases in the protein SV2A in pigs who had received psilocybin. SV2A, or synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A, is commonly used as a marker of the density of synaptic nerve endings in the brain. SV2A is typically reduced in patients with major depressive disorder.
“We find that a single dose of psilocybin increases the presynaptic marker SV2A already after one day and that it remains higher seven days after,” the researchers said, adding that the “increased levels of SV2A after intervention with a psychedelic drug adds to the scientific evidence that psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity, which may explain the mechanism of action of its antidepressant properties.”
The study, “A Single Dose of Psilocybin Increases Synaptic Density and Decreases 5-HT2A Receptor Density in the Pig Brain“, was authored by by Nakul Ravi Raval, Annette Johansen, Lene Lundgaard Donovan, Nídia Fernandez Ros, Brice Ozenne, Hanne Demant Hansen, and Gitte Moos Knudse.
Psilocybin — the active component in so-called “magic” mushrooms — has been shown to have profound and long-lasting effects on personality and mood. But the mechanisms behind these effects remain unclear. Researchers at Copenhagen University were interested in whether changes in neuroplasticity in brain regions associated with emotional processing could help explain psilocybin’s antidepressant effects.
“Both post-mortem human brain and in vivo studies in depressed individuals have shown a loss of synapses through the down-regulation of synaptic proteins and genes,” the authors of the study wrote. “Hence, upregulation of presynaptic proteins and an increase in synaptic density may be associated with the potential antidepressive effects of psychedelics.”
The researchers had previously conducted tests to establish the proper dose of psilocybin needed to produce psychoactive effects in pigs, who were examined because their brains are anatomically similar to the brains of humans.
A group of 12 pigs received a psychoactive dose of psilocybin, while a separate group of 12 pigs received inert saline injections. Half of the pigs were euthanized one day after the administration of psilocybin, while the rest were euthanized one week later.
An examination of brain tissue from the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex revealed increases in the protein SV2A in pigs who had received psilocybin. SV2A, or synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A, is commonly used as a marker of the density of synaptic nerve endings in the brain. SV2A is typically reduced in patients with major depressive disorder.
“We find that a single dose of psilocybin increases the presynaptic marker SV2A already after one day and that it remains higher seven days after,” the researchers said, adding that the “increased levels of SV2A after intervention with a psychedelic drug adds to the scientific evidence that psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity, which may explain the mechanism of action of its antidepressant properties.”
The study, “A Single Dose of Psilocybin Increases Synaptic Density and Decreases 5-HT2A Receptor Density in the Pig Brain“, was authored by by Nakul Ravi Raval, Annette Johansen, Lene Lundgaard Donovan, Nídia Fernandez Ros, Brice Ozenne, Hanne Demant Hansen, and Gitte Moos Knudse.
What about the mushrooms we don’t notice? And how many of them are endangered?
For almost a decade, one lone mushroom was classified as an endangered species, and scientists say more could be in trouble.
When Italian botanist Giuseppe Inzenga first tasted the white ferula mushroom in 1863, he described it as one of the tastiest he had ever had.
Found primarily in Sicily’s Madonie mountain range growing in limestone and at elevations of over 1,000 feet, the prized mushroom is sold for around 50 euros for two pounds.
“This mushroom is really delicious. You can eat it raw and also cooked,” says Giuseppe Venturella, a mycologist at the University of Palermo in Sicily. He compares it to a porcini, notes that it’s rich in B vitamins, and says the best way to experience the taste is eating it raw, with a little olive oil and parmesan cheese.
Picking the mushroom is off limits in protected areas inside the Madonie National Park region, but foragers can pluck mature mushrooms, indicated by a cap with sides growing longer than three centimeters, in surrounding regions. Unlike most mushroom species, the white ferula fruits in spring, with its season lasting from April to late May.
The white ferula was the first mushroom to be recognized for the impact humans were having on its survival, and from 2006 to 2015 it was the only one of its kind to be globally recognized as endangered.
“It was so beloved by people in [Sicily] that when the numbers began to decline, it was part of popular conversation,” says Nicholas Money, a mycologist at Miami University in Ohio.
But what about the mushrooms we don’t notice? And how many of them are endangered?
“We think the true biodiversity of fungi is somewhere between one million and six million species,” says Anne Pringle, a University of Wisconsin-Madison mycologist—as fungus experts are called—and a National Geographic explorer. Yet despite their global prevalence, fungi have historically been left out of conservation initiatives.
So how do we conserve organisms we can’t see and don’t understand? And why should we try?
“Life on the planet wouldn’t exist without fungi as we know it,” says Greg Mueller, a mushroom conservation expert and the chief scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Conserving them, Money says, “is an urgent concern because of their relationship with forests and trees. You can’t have the trees without the fungi…. We cannot survive without them. In terms of the health of the planet, they’re incredibly important.”
24/03/2021
Neurologist: Masks Are a Crime Against Humanity
Dr. Margarite Griesz-Brisson MD, PhD is a Consultant Neurologist and Neurophysiologist with a PhD in Pharmacology, with special interest in neurotoxicology, environmental medicine, neuroregeneration and neuroplasticity. This is what she has to say about masks and their effects on our brains:
“The rebreathing of our exhaled air will without a doubt create oxygen deficiency and a flooding of carbon dioxide. We know that the human brain is very sensitive to oxygen depravation. There are nerve cells for example in the hippocampus, that can’t be longer than 3 minutes without oxygen – they cannot survive. The acute warning symptoms are headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, issues in concentration, slowing down of the reaction time – reactions of the cognitive system.
However, when you have chronic oxygen depravation, all of those symptoms disappear, because you get used to it. But your efficiency will remain impaired and the undersupply of oxygen in your brain continues to progress.
We know that neurodegenerative diseases take years to decades to develop. If today you forget your phone number, the breakdown in your brain would have already started 20 or 30 years ago.
While you’re thinking, that you have gotten used to wearing your mask and rebreathing your own exhaled air, the degenerative processes in your brain are getting amplified as your oxygen deprivation continues.
The second problem is that the nerve cells in your brain are unable to divide themselves normally. So in case our governments will generously allow as to get rid of the masks and go back to breathing oxygen freely again in a few months, the lost nerve cells will no longer be regenerated. What is gone is gone.
[..]I do not wear a mask, I need my brain to think. I want to have a clear head when I deal with my patients, and not be in a carbon dioxide induced anaesthesia.
[..]There is no unfounded medical exemption from face masks because oxygen deprivation is dangerous for every single brain. It must be the free decision of every human being whether they want to wear a mask that is absolutely ineffective to protect themselves from a virus.
For children and adolescents, masks are an absolute no-no. Children and adolescents have an extremely active and adaptive immune system and they need a constant interaction with the microbiome of the Earth. Their brain is also incredibly active, as it is has so much to learn. The child’s brain, or the youth’s brain is thirsting for oxygen. The more metabolically active the organ is, the more oxygen it requires. In children and adolescents every organ is metabolically active.
To deprive a child’s or an adolescent’s brain from oxygen, or to restrict it in any way, is not only dangerous to their health, it is absolutely criminal. Oxygen deficiency inhibits the development of the brain, and the damage that has taken place as a result CANNOT be reversed.
The child needs the brain to learn, and the brain needs oxygen to function. We don’t need a clinical study for that. This is simple, indisputable physiology. Conscious and purposely induced oxygen deficiency is an absolutely deliberate health hazard, and an absolute medical contraindication.
An absolute medical contraindication in medicine means that this drug, this therapy, this method or measure should not be used – is not allowed to be used. To coerce an entire population to use an absolute medical contraindication by force, there must be definite and serious reasons for this, and the reasons must be presented to competent interdisciplinary and independent bodies to be verified and authorised.
When in ten years, dementia is going to increase exponentially, and the younger generations couldn’t reach their god-given potential, it won’t help to say “we didn’t need the masks”.
[..]How can a veterinarian, a software distributer, a business man, an electrical car manufacturer and a physicist decided on matters regarding the health of the entire population? Please dear colleagues, we all have to wake up.
I know how damaging oxygen depravation is for the brain, cardiologist knows it for the heart, the pulmonologist knows it for the lungs. Oxygen deprivation damages every single organ.
Where are our health departments, our health insurance, our medical associations? It would have been their duty to be vehemently against the lockdown and to stop it and stop it from the very beginning.
Why do the medical boards give punishments to doctors who give people exemptions? Does the person or the doctor seriously have to prove that oxygen depravation harms people? What kind of medicine are our doctors and medical associations representing?
Who is responsible for this crime? The ones who want to enforce it? The ones who let it happen and play along, or the ones who don’t prevent it?[..]It’s not about masks, it’s not about viruses, it’s certainly not about your health. It is about much much more. I am not participating. I am not afraid.
[..]You can notice, they are already taking our air to breathe.
The imperative of the hour is personal responsibility.
We are responsible for what we think, not the media. We are responsible for what we do, not our superiors. We are responsible for our health, not the World Health Organisation. And we are responsible for what happens in our country, not the government.”
“The rebreathing of our exhaled air will without a doubt create oxygen deficiency and a flooding of carbon dioxide. We know that the human brain is very sensitive to oxygen depravation. There are nerve cells for example in the hippocampus, that can’t be longer than 3 minutes without oxygen – they cannot survive. The acute warning symptoms are headaches, drowsiness, dizziness, issues in concentration, slowing down of the reaction time – reactions of the cognitive system.
However, when you have chronic oxygen depravation, all of those symptoms disappear, because you get used to it. But your efficiency will remain impaired and the undersupply of oxygen in your brain continues to progress.
We know that neurodegenerative diseases take years to decades to develop. If today you forget your phone number, the breakdown in your brain would have already started 20 or 30 years ago.
While you’re thinking, that you have gotten used to wearing your mask and rebreathing your own exhaled air, the degenerative processes in your brain are getting amplified as your oxygen deprivation continues.
The second problem is that the nerve cells in your brain are unable to divide themselves normally. So in case our governments will generously allow as to get rid of the masks and go back to breathing oxygen freely again in a few months, the lost nerve cells will no longer be regenerated. What is gone is gone.
[..]I do not wear a mask, I need my brain to think. I want to have a clear head when I deal with my patients, and not be in a carbon dioxide induced anaesthesia.
[..]There is no unfounded medical exemption from face masks because oxygen deprivation is dangerous for every single brain. It must be the free decision of every human being whether they want to wear a mask that is absolutely ineffective to protect themselves from a virus.
For children and adolescents, masks are an absolute no-no. Children and adolescents have an extremely active and adaptive immune system and they need a constant interaction with the microbiome of the Earth. Their brain is also incredibly active, as it is has so much to learn. The child’s brain, or the youth’s brain is thirsting for oxygen. The more metabolically active the organ is, the more oxygen it requires. In children and adolescents every organ is metabolically active.
To deprive a child’s or an adolescent’s brain from oxygen, or to restrict it in any way, is not only dangerous to their health, it is absolutely criminal. Oxygen deficiency inhibits the development of the brain, and the damage that has taken place as a result CANNOT be reversed.
The child needs the brain to learn, and the brain needs oxygen to function. We don’t need a clinical study for that. This is simple, indisputable physiology. Conscious and purposely induced oxygen deficiency is an absolutely deliberate health hazard, and an absolute medical contraindication.
An absolute medical contraindication in medicine means that this drug, this therapy, this method or measure should not be used – is not allowed to be used. To coerce an entire population to use an absolute medical contraindication by force, there must be definite and serious reasons for this, and the reasons must be presented to competent interdisciplinary and independent bodies to be verified and authorised.
When in ten years, dementia is going to increase exponentially, and the younger generations couldn’t reach their god-given potential, it won’t help to say “we didn’t need the masks”.
[..]How can a veterinarian, a software distributer, a business man, an electrical car manufacturer and a physicist decided on matters regarding the health of the entire population? Please dear colleagues, we all have to wake up.
I know how damaging oxygen depravation is for the brain, cardiologist knows it for the heart, the pulmonologist knows it for the lungs. Oxygen deprivation damages every single organ.
Where are our health departments, our health insurance, our medical associations? It would have been their duty to be vehemently against the lockdown and to stop it and stop it from the very beginning.
Why do the medical boards give punishments to doctors who give people exemptions? Does the person or the doctor seriously have to prove that oxygen depravation harms people? What kind of medicine are our doctors and medical associations representing?
Who is responsible for this crime? The ones who want to enforce it? The ones who let it happen and play along, or the ones who don’t prevent it?[..]It’s not about masks, it’s not about viruses, it’s certainly not about your health. It is about much much more. I am not participating. I am not afraid.
[..]You can notice, they are already taking our air to breathe.
The imperative of the hour is personal responsibility.
We are responsible for what we think, not the media. We are responsible for what we do, not our superiors. We are responsible for our health, not the World Health Organisation. And we are responsible for what happens in our country, not the government.”
19/03/2021
On the psychology of the conspiracy denier
Tim Foyle
Reporting For Beauty
Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:17 UTC
Reporting For Beauty
Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:17 UTC
Why is it that otherwise perfectly intelligent, thoughtful and rationally minded people baulk at the suggestion that sociopaths are conspiring to manipulate and deceive them? And why will they defend this ill-founded position with such vehemence?
History catalogues the machinations of liars, thieves, bullies and narcissists and their devastating effects. In modern times too, evidence of corruption and extraordinary deceptions abound.
We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms - that corruption surrounds us.
We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice.
We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true vigour.
We know that in the intelligence services and law enforcement wrongdoing on a breathtaking scale is commonplace and that, again, justice is never forthcoming.
We know that governments repeatedly ignore or trample on the rights of the people, and actively abuse and mistreat the people. None of this is controversial.
So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension? Why, against all the evidence, do they sneeringly and contemptuously defend the crumbling illusion that 'the great and good' are up there somewhere, have everything in hand, have only our best interests at heart, and are scrupulous, wise and sincere? That the press serves the people and truth rather than the crooks? That injustice after injustice result from mistakes and oversights, and never from that dread word: conspiracy?
What reasonable person would continue to inhabit such a fantasy world?
The point of disagreement here is only on the matter of scale. Someone who is genuinely curious about the plans of powerful sociopaths won't limit the scope of their curiosity to, for example, one corporation, or one nation. Why would they? Such a person assumes that the same patterns on display locally are likely to be found all the way up the power food chain. But the conspiracy denier insists this is preposterous.
Why?
It is painfully obvious that the pyramidical societal and legal structures that humanity has allowed to develop are exactly the kind of dominance hierarchies that undoubtedly favour the sociopath. A humane being operating with a normal and healthy cooperative mindset has little inclination to take part in the combat necessary to climb a corporate or political ladder.
So what do conspiracy deniers imagine the 70 million or more sociopaths in the world do all day, born into a 'game', in which all the wealth and power are at the top of the pyramid, while the most effective attributes for 'winning' are ruthlessness and amorality? Have they never played Monopoly?
Sociopaths do not choose their worldview consciously, and are simply unable to comprehend why normal people would put themselves at such an incredible disadvantage by limiting themselves with conscientiousness and empathy, which are as beyond the understanding of the sociopath as a world without them are to the humane being.
All the sociopath need do to win in the game is lie publicly whilst conspiring privately. What could be simpler? In 2021, to continue to imagine that the world we inhabit is not largely driven by this dynamic amounts to reckless naiveté bordering on insanity. Where does such an inadvertently destructive impulse originate?
The infant child places an innate trust in those it finds itself with - a trust which is, for the most part, essentially justified. The infant could not survive otherwise.
In a sane and healthy society, this deep instinct would evolve as the psyche developed. As self-awareness, the cognitive and reasoning abilities and scepticism evolved in the individual, this innate trust impulse would continue to be understood as a central need of the psyche. Shared belief systems would exist to consciously evolve and develop this childish impulse in order to place this faith somewhere consciously - in values and beliefs of lasting meaning and worth to the society, the individual, or, ideally, both.
Reverence and respect for tradition, natural forces, ancestors, for reason, truth, beauty, liberty, the innate value of life, or the initiating spirit of all things, might all be considered valid resting places in which to consciously place our trust and faith - as well as those derived from more formalised belief systems.
Regardless of the path taken to evolve and develop a personal faith, it is the bringing of one's own consciousness and cognition to this innate impulse that is relevant here. I believe this is a profound responsibility - to develop and cultivate a mature faith - which many are, understandably, unaware of.
What occurs when there is a childish need within us which has never evolved beyond its original survival function of trusting those in our environment who are, simply, the most powerful; the most present and active? When we have never truly explored our own psyches, and deeply interrogated what we truly believe and why? When our motivation for trusting anything or anyone goes unchallenged? When philosophy is left to the philosophers?
I suggest the answer is simple, and that the evidence of this phenomenon and the havoc it is wreaking is all around us: the innate impulse to trust the mother never evolves, never encounters and engages with its counterbalance of reason (or mature faith), and remains forever on its 'default' infant setting.
While the immature psyche no longer depends on parents for its well-being, the powerful and motivating core tenet I have described remains intact: unchallenged, unconsidered and undeveloped. And, in a world in which stability and security are distant memories, these survival instincts, rather than being well-honed, considered, relevant, discerning and up to date, remain, quite literally, those of a baby. Trust is placed in the biggest, loudest, most present and undeniable force around, because instinct decrees that survival depends on it.
And, in this great 'world nursery', the most omnipresent force is the network of institutions which consistently project an unearned image of power, calm, expertise, concern and stability.
In my view, this is how conspiracy deniers are able to cling to and aggressively defend the utterly illogical fantasy that somehow - above a certain undefined level of the societal hierarchy - corruption, deceit, malevolence and narcissism mysteriously evaporate. That, contrary to the maxim, the more power a person has, the more integrity they will inevitably exhibit. These poor deluded souls essentially believe that where personal experience and prior knowledge cannot fill in the gaps in their worldview - in short, where there is a barred door - mummy and daddy are behind it, working out how best to ensure that their little precious will be comfortable, happy and safe forever.
This is the core, comforting illusion at the root of the conspiracy denier's mindset, the decrepit foundation upon which they build a towering castle of justification from which to pompously jeer at and mock those who see otherwise.
This explains why it is that the conspiracy denier will attack any suggestion that the caregiving archetype is no longer present - that sociopaths are behind the barred door, who hold us all in utter contempt or disregard us completely. The conspiracy denier will attack any such suggestion as viciously as if their survival depended on it - which, in a way, within the makeup of their unconscious and precarious psyche, it does.
Their sense of well-being, of security, of comfort, even of a future at all, is completely (and completely unconsciously) invested in this fantasy. The infant has never matured, and, because they are not conscious of this, other than as a deep attachment to their personal security, they will fiercely attack any threat to this unconscious and central aspect of their worldview.
The tediously common refrain from the conspiracy denier is, 'there couldn't be a conspiracy that big'.
The simple retort to such a self-professed expert on conspiracies is obvious: how big?
The biggest 'medical' corporations in the world can go for decades treating the settling of court cases as mere business expenses, for crimes ranging from the suppressing of adverse test events to multiple murders resulting from undeclared testing to colossal environmental crimes.
Governments perform the vilest and most unthinkable 'experiments' (crimes) on their own people without consequence.
Politicians habitually lie to our faces, without consequence.
And on and on. At what point, exactly, does a conspiracy become so big that 'they' just couldn't get away with it, and why? I suggest it's at the point where the cognitive ability of the conspiracy denier falters, and their unconscious survival instinct kicks in. The point at which the intellect becomes overwhelmed with the scope of events and the instinct is to settle back into the familiar comforting faith known and cultivated since the first moment one's lips found the nipple. The faith that someone else is dealing with it - that where the world becomes unknown to us, a powerful and benevolent human authority exists in which we have only to place our faith unconditionally in order to guarantee eternal emotional security.
This dangerous delusion may be the central factor placing humanity's physical security and future in the hands of sociopaths.
To anyone in the habit of dismissing people who are questioning, investigative and sceptical as tin foil hat wearing, paranoid, science-denying Trump supporters, the question is: what do you believe in? Where have you placed your faith and why? How is it that while no one trusts governments, you appear to trust nascent global governance organisations without question? How is this rational?
If you are placing faith in such organisations, consider that in the modern global age, these organisations, as extraordinarily well presented as they are, are simply grander manifestations of the local versions we know we can't trust. They are not our parents and demonstrate no loyalty to humane values. There is no reason to place any faith whatsoever in any of them.
If you haven't consciously developed a faith or questioned why you believe as you do to some depth, such a position might seem misanthropic, but in truth, it is the opposite. These organisations have not earned your trust with anything other than PR money and glossy lies. True power remains, as ever, with the people.
There is a reason why Buddhists strongly advise the placing of one's faith in the Dharma, or the natural law of life, rather than in persons, and that similar refrains are common in other belief systems.
Power corrupts. And, in the world today, misplaced and unfounded trust could well be one of the greatest sources of power there is.
Massive criminal conspiracies exist. The evidence is overwhelming. The scope of those currently underway is unknown, but there is no reason to imagine, in the new global age, that the sociopathic quest for power or the possession of the resources required to move towards it is diminishing. Certainly not while dissent is mocked and censored into silence by gatekeepers, 'useful idiots', and conspiracy deniers, who are, in fact, directly colluding with the sociopathic agenda through their unrelenting attack on those who would shine a light on wrongdoing.
It is every humane being's urgent responsibility to expose sociopathic agendas wherever they exist - never to attack those who seek to do so.
Now, more than ever, it is time to put away childish things, and childish impulses, and to stand up as adults to protect the future of the actual children who have no choice but to trust us with their lives.
This essay has focussed on what I consider to be the deepest psychological driver of conspiracy denial.
There are certainly others, such as the desire to be accepted; the avoidance of knowledge of, and engagement with, the internal and external shadow; the preservation of a positive and righteous self-image: a generalised version of the 'flying monkey' phenomenon, in which a self-interested and vicious class protect themselves by coalescing around the bully; the subtle unconscious adoption of the sociopathic worldview (e.g. 'humanity is the virus'); outrage addiction/superiority complex/status games; a stunted or unambitious intellect that finds validation through maintaining the status quo; the dissociative protective mechanism of imagining that crimes and horrors committed repeatedly within our lifetime are somehow not happening now, not 'here'; and plain old fashioned laziness and cowardice.
My suggestion is that, to some degree, all of these build on the foundation of the primary cause I've outlined here.
On-the-psychology-of-the-conspiracy-denier
We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms - that corruption surrounds us.
We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice.
We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true vigour.
We know that in the intelligence services and law enforcement wrongdoing on a breathtaking scale is commonplace and that, again, justice is never forthcoming.
We know that governments repeatedly ignore or trample on the rights of the people, and actively abuse and mistreat the people. None of this is controversial.
So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension? Why, against all the evidence, do they sneeringly and contemptuously defend the crumbling illusion that 'the great and good' are up there somewhere, have everything in hand, have only our best interests at heart, and are scrupulous, wise and sincere? That the press serves the people and truth rather than the crooks? That injustice after injustice result from mistakes and oversights, and never from that dread word: conspiracy?
What reasonable person would continue to inhabit such a fantasy world?
The point of disagreement here is only on the matter of scale. Someone who is genuinely curious about the plans of powerful sociopaths won't limit the scope of their curiosity to, for example, one corporation, or one nation. Why would they? Such a person assumes that the same patterns on display locally are likely to be found all the way up the power food chain. But the conspiracy denier insists this is preposterous.
Why?
It is painfully obvious that the pyramidical societal and legal structures that humanity has allowed to develop are exactly the kind of dominance hierarchies that undoubtedly favour the sociopath. A humane being operating with a normal and healthy cooperative mindset has little inclination to take part in the combat necessary to climb a corporate or political ladder.
So what do conspiracy deniers imagine the 70 million or more sociopaths in the world do all day, born into a 'game', in which all the wealth and power are at the top of the pyramid, while the most effective attributes for 'winning' are ruthlessness and amorality? Have they never played Monopoly?
Sociopaths do not choose their worldview consciously, and are simply unable to comprehend why normal people would put themselves at such an incredible disadvantage by limiting themselves with conscientiousness and empathy, which are as beyond the understanding of the sociopath as a world without them are to the humane being.
All the sociopath need do to win in the game is lie publicly whilst conspiring privately. What could be simpler? In 2021, to continue to imagine that the world we inhabit is not largely driven by this dynamic amounts to reckless naiveté bordering on insanity. Where does such an inadvertently destructive impulse originate?
The infant child places an innate trust in those it finds itself with - a trust which is, for the most part, essentially justified. The infant could not survive otherwise.
In a sane and healthy society, this deep instinct would evolve as the psyche developed. As self-awareness, the cognitive and reasoning abilities and scepticism evolved in the individual, this innate trust impulse would continue to be understood as a central need of the psyche. Shared belief systems would exist to consciously evolve and develop this childish impulse in order to place this faith somewhere consciously - in values and beliefs of lasting meaning and worth to the society, the individual, or, ideally, both.
Reverence and respect for tradition, natural forces, ancestors, for reason, truth, beauty, liberty, the innate value of life, or the initiating spirit of all things, might all be considered valid resting places in which to consciously place our trust and faith - as well as those derived from more formalised belief systems.
Regardless of the path taken to evolve and develop a personal faith, it is the bringing of one's own consciousness and cognition to this innate impulse that is relevant here. I believe this is a profound responsibility - to develop and cultivate a mature faith - which many are, understandably, unaware of.
What occurs when there is a childish need within us which has never evolved beyond its original survival function of trusting those in our environment who are, simply, the most powerful; the most present and active? When we have never truly explored our own psyches, and deeply interrogated what we truly believe and why? When our motivation for trusting anything or anyone goes unchallenged? When philosophy is left to the philosophers?
I suggest the answer is simple, and that the evidence of this phenomenon and the havoc it is wreaking is all around us: the innate impulse to trust the mother never evolves, never encounters and engages with its counterbalance of reason (or mature faith), and remains forever on its 'default' infant setting.
While the immature psyche no longer depends on parents for its well-being, the powerful and motivating core tenet I have described remains intact: unchallenged, unconsidered and undeveloped. And, in a world in which stability and security are distant memories, these survival instincts, rather than being well-honed, considered, relevant, discerning and up to date, remain, quite literally, those of a baby. Trust is placed in the biggest, loudest, most present and undeniable force around, because instinct decrees that survival depends on it.
And, in this great 'world nursery', the most omnipresent force is the network of institutions which consistently project an unearned image of power, calm, expertise, concern and stability.
In my view, this is how conspiracy deniers are able to cling to and aggressively defend the utterly illogical fantasy that somehow - above a certain undefined level of the societal hierarchy - corruption, deceit, malevolence and narcissism mysteriously evaporate. That, contrary to the maxim, the more power a person has, the more integrity they will inevitably exhibit. These poor deluded souls essentially believe that where personal experience and prior knowledge cannot fill in the gaps in their worldview - in short, where there is a barred door - mummy and daddy are behind it, working out how best to ensure that their little precious will be comfortable, happy and safe forever.
This is the core, comforting illusion at the root of the conspiracy denier's mindset, the decrepit foundation upon which they build a towering castle of justification from which to pompously jeer at and mock those who see otherwise.
This explains why it is that the conspiracy denier will attack any suggestion that the caregiving archetype is no longer present - that sociopaths are behind the barred door, who hold us all in utter contempt or disregard us completely. The conspiracy denier will attack any such suggestion as viciously as if their survival depended on it - which, in a way, within the makeup of their unconscious and precarious psyche, it does.
Their sense of well-being, of security, of comfort, even of a future at all, is completely (and completely unconsciously) invested in this fantasy. The infant has never matured, and, because they are not conscious of this, other than as a deep attachment to their personal security, they will fiercely attack any threat to this unconscious and central aspect of their worldview.
The tediously common refrain from the conspiracy denier is, 'there couldn't be a conspiracy that big'.
The simple retort to such a self-professed expert on conspiracies is obvious: how big?
The biggest 'medical' corporations in the world can go for decades treating the settling of court cases as mere business expenses, for crimes ranging from the suppressing of adverse test events to multiple murders resulting from undeclared testing to colossal environmental crimes.
Governments perform the vilest and most unthinkable 'experiments' (crimes) on their own people without consequence.
Politicians habitually lie to our faces, without consequence.
And on and on. At what point, exactly, does a conspiracy become so big that 'they' just couldn't get away with it, and why? I suggest it's at the point where the cognitive ability of the conspiracy denier falters, and their unconscious survival instinct kicks in. The point at which the intellect becomes overwhelmed with the scope of events and the instinct is to settle back into the familiar comforting faith known and cultivated since the first moment one's lips found the nipple. The faith that someone else is dealing with it - that where the world becomes unknown to us, a powerful and benevolent human authority exists in which we have only to place our faith unconditionally in order to guarantee eternal emotional security.
This dangerous delusion may be the central factor placing humanity's physical security and future in the hands of sociopaths.
To anyone in the habit of dismissing people who are questioning, investigative and sceptical as tin foil hat wearing, paranoid, science-denying Trump supporters, the question is: what do you believe in? Where have you placed your faith and why? How is it that while no one trusts governments, you appear to trust nascent global governance organisations without question? How is this rational?
If you are placing faith in such organisations, consider that in the modern global age, these organisations, as extraordinarily well presented as they are, are simply grander manifestations of the local versions we know we can't trust. They are not our parents and demonstrate no loyalty to humane values. There is no reason to place any faith whatsoever in any of them.
If you haven't consciously developed a faith or questioned why you believe as you do to some depth, such a position might seem misanthropic, but in truth, it is the opposite. These organisations have not earned your trust with anything other than PR money and glossy lies. True power remains, as ever, with the people.
There is a reason why Buddhists strongly advise the placing of one's faith in the Dharma, or the natural law of life, rather than in persons, and that similar refrains are common in other belief systems.
Power corrupts. And, in the world today, misplaced and unfounded trust could well be one of the greatest sources of power there is.
Massive criminal conspiracies exist. The evidence is overwhelming. The scope of those currently underway is unknown, but there is no reason to imagine, in the new global age, that the sociopathic quest for power or the possession of the resources required to move towards it is diminishing. Certainly not while dissent is mocked and censored into silence by gatekeepers, 'useful idiots', and conspiracy deniers, who are, in fact, directly colluding with the sociopathic agenda through their unrelenting attack on those who would shine a light on wrongdoing.
It is every humane being's urgent responsibility to expose sociopathic agendas wherever they exist - never to attack those who seek to do so.
Now, more than ever, it is time to put away childish things, and childish impulses, and to stand up as adults to protect the future of the actual children who have no choice but to trust us with their lives.
This essay has focussed on what I consider to be the deepest psychological driver of conspiracy denial.
There are certainly others, such as the desire to be accepted; the avoidance of knowledge of, and engagement with, the internal and external shadow; the preservation of a positive and righteous self-image: a generalised version of the 'flying monkey' phenomenon, in which a self-interested and vicious class protect themselves by coalescing around the bully; the subtle unconscious adoption of the sociopathic worldview (e.g. 'humanity is the virus'); outrage addiction/superiority complex/status games; a stunted or unambitious intellect that finds validation through maintaining the status quo; the dissociative protective mechanism of imagining that crimes and horrors committed repeatedly within our lifetime are somehow not happening now, not 'here'; and plain old fashioned laziness and cowardice.
My suggestion is that, to some degree, all of these build on the foundation of the primary cause I've outlined here.
On-the-psychology-of-the-conspiracy-denier
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)