Understanding the Psychology Behind the COVID Pandemic

by Dr. Joseph Mercola, public domain

(Dec. 18, 2021) — In the video above, Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology,¹ reviews a theory professor Mattias Desmet, a Belgian psychologist and statistician, believes explains the absurd and irrational behavior we’re now seeing worldwide with regard to the COVID pandemic and its countermeasures.

He calls this phenomenon “mass formation psychosis,” a type of crowd hypnosis that results in literally converting a large segment of the population into psychosis. Mass formation psychosis is the explanation for how the Germans accepted the atrocities by the Nazi party in the 1930s, and it’s the explanation for why so many around the world support medical apartheid and the destruction of the unvaccinated now.

It’s so irrational and inhumane, many have wondered how we got here. As it turns out, the psychology of totalitarianism has been studied for decades, and the whole thing is in fact explainable as a psychiatric phenomenon that arises when certain conditions exist in a society.

The Four Base Conditions for ‘Mass Formation’

The four central conditions that need to exist in order for mass formation psychosis to take root are:

1. Lack of social bonding — Social isolation was a widespread problem long before the pandemic. In one survey, 25% of respondents said they didn’t have a single close friend. The COVID lockdowns also contributed and worsened already existing isolation. We were all told that any contact with others, including members of our own family, could be a death sentence.

2. Seeing life as meaningless, purposelessness and senseless, and/or being faced with persistent circumstances that don’t make rational sense — Desmet cites research showing that half of all adults feel their jobs are completely meaningless, providing no value to either themselves or others.

In another poll, done in 2012, 63% of respondents said they were “sleepwalking” through their workdays, putting no passion into their work whatsoever. So, condition No. 2 for mass formation hypnosis was also fulfilled, even before the pandemic hit.

Events that occurred in late 2019 and early 2020, such as the many questions surrounding the presidential election and the initial COVID lockdowns, added fuel to the widespread confusion and uncertainty, resulting in the next condition: free-floating anxiety.

3. Widespread free-floating anxiety and free-floating discontent — Free-floating anxiety refers to anxiety that has no apparent or distinct cause. Judging by the popularity of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, condition No. 3 was also fulfilled long before the pandemic, but additional fuel was piled on just before the pandemic.

Many felt, and still feel, that “things just aren’t right.” Through 2020, it became increasingly apparent to many that most if not all of the systems we depend on are broken, and likely broken beyond repair, including our medical system, our voting system and our judicial system.

4. Widespread free-floating frustration and aggression — This tends to naturally follow the previous three. Here, again, the frustration and aggression have no discernible cause.

How Mass Formation Allows Totalitarianism to Rise

When these four conditions are fulfilled by a large enough portion of society, they are ripe for the picking to convert to a psychosis, being totally out of touch with reality, which in turn leads to the rise of totalitarianism. As explained by Malone, when the pandemic broke out, people around the world became obsessed with one thing: the virus.

People everywhere thought about, read about and talked about the virus almost exclusively to everything else. This singular focus, this obsession, having the base conditions for mass formation already firmly in place, allowed for large portions of the population to enter into a hypnotic-like state.

In that hypnotic-like state (it’s very similar to conventional hypnotism but with minor differences), people lose their ability to have rational thought and judgment.

As noted by Malone, there is evidence that suggests at least parts of this psychological operation were done intentionally, by “some entity that has financial benefit or power to gain from doing this, which gets to the point of global totalitarianism.” Now, once a large portion of a society is hyper-focused on and fused in their joint discontent and anxiety, all a leader or leaders need to do to convince many that totalitarian control and loss of their freedom is best for them is to:

a) Present a story in which the cause of the anxiety is identified, and then

b) Offer a strategy for neutralizing that cause

Social Bonding Is Key

By accepting and participating in whatever that strategy is, people with free-floating anxiety feel equipped with the means to control their anxiety and avoid panic. They also feel a strong bond with others, because they’ve all identified the same nemesis. As explained by Desmet in the Peak Prosperity interview below:

“Because many people participate in the same strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, a new kind of social bond emerges a new kind of solidarity. So, people feel connected again in a new way. And that’s actually the most crucial thing.

If you look at the corona crisis and listen to the mainstream narrative, you will hear that everything is about solidarity. You have to participate, you have to accept the vaccine. You have to respect social distancing, because if you don’t, you lack citizenship, you show no solidarity. That’s the most crucial thing, always, in mass formation.

That’s the real reason why people buy into the story, even if it is utterly absurd. It’s not because they believe in the narrative. It is because the narrative leads to a new social bond. That’s the real reason.

There’s [also another] advantage. All the frustration and aggression can be directed at an object. And that object is the people who, for one reason or another, do not want to participate in the mass formation …

So, you have this very strange situation where people start from a very negative and divisive mental state; [they have a] lack of social bond, lack of meaning-making, free floating anxiety and a lot of frustration and aggression.

They switch from this very highly aversive mental state to a symptomatic positive state where they feel connected. Their life makes sense again through this heroic struggle with the object of anxiety … That’s why people continue to believe in the narrative, even if it is utterly absurd.”

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