Great stuff. I hope it isn't the final essay in the series - I understand Desmet's final chapters get rather more metaphysical, and I'd enjoy reading your take on that material.
I assume the general in question is Canadian? He has the look - the mustache is fashionable amongst Canadian officers, or was in his generation. Fascinating that he seems to have intuited his way towards a practical understanding of ponerology. I believe he's also entirely correct about the nature of Canada's current leadership.
Yep, Redman is Canadian. He was intrigued to hear about ponerology when I told him about it. He refused a review copy, insisting on buying a copy himself. :)
While I had planned this to be the final part, I suppose I can return to some of his metaphysical ideas in another context. I breezed over those chapters in my review mainly because I was already familiar with most of the material and wanted to focus on the political/psychological parts. I'm planning on reading some Langan, so maybe when I do that, I'll write some more metaphysically oriented posts and bring in Desmet's work too.
You're gonna dive into Langan? Prepare for your brain to hurt ;) His CTMU material is pretty deep, in my opinion, but it's also a bit of a struggle to wrap your head around due to his usage of neologisms and various mathematical concepts drawn from e.g. set theory. I think I was able to understand just enough of it to know there's a 'there', there ... but to be honest when I try to explain it to people I sound like a babbling idiot.
Speaking of review copies, I meant to say. Reading this essay in particular it occurred to me that you're developing a rather interesting synthesis of the concepts that Desmet, and others, touch upon. You might want to consider consolidating that understanding in a book of your own, assuming you're not already working on such a project. It would be a valuable contribution to the literature given your wide perspective.
On Langan, LOL. Yes, anyone talking about telors, conspansion, and multiplex unity pretty much sounds like a crazy person. It may be hopeless, as despite high grades, I gave up on math after high school, but I'll see how it goes.
Re: a book. Currently not in the works, but I've thought about it. I'm treating substack as practice for now.
Sounds like you're deep in the thick of it lol. It would be extremely cool if you could get Langan as a guest. He seems to be a much better speaker than a writer - I've found his interviews to be generally excellent and thought-provoking.
So you are thinking about a book. Excellent. Honestly you've probably written close to a book's worth here already, in terms of word-count, and frankly also depth.
Far deeper than most, actually. I am familiar with many of the concepts discussed, but even then...I will need to go back and re-read the whole series to digest all of the details. Harrison has thought it out very well, and his writing (to me) is clear and to the point.
I wonder what is meant by "Normal.". America has never been normal. Hysteria runs deep in every state and since 1920's advertising on mass media has dominated the imagination. In fact, I suspect totalitarians thrive in cultures that are atomized. .The Lonely Crowd is another way of talking about this mass formation. Men crave community.. We are atomized outside it.
Well, you can see by US history this is a bit difficult. Yes a "terrible sociomorphism" makes us all normal. However the normalness of say abortion is rather outre from the MMPI used in WW2 without a key. Or the normal use of drugs (to include tobacco and liquor) makes me ponder a baseline. At 65 I inhabit a abnormal world that breeds psychopaths.
I can see how anyone can come to that conclusion, for sure!
But what's wrong with tobacco and alcohol??
To clarify, I still think psychopaths still make up a small percentage of the population (though perhaps higher than other countries). But at the same time, the majority can be sick--just in other ways. All humans have selective empathy, for example, but when it comes down to it, even a person raised from birth to see some other group as subhuman, or to make excuses for some heinous practice, have more human feeling than your average psychopath.
I hope you can take some comfort in this:
"The great majority of the population gradually forms the society of normal people, creating a network rooted in mutual understanding. It behooves us to wonder why these people reject the advantages conformity affords, consciously preferring the opposing role: poverty, harassment, and curtailment of human freedoms."
We're in a tough time, it will probably get worse, but that will not hold forever.
Well maybe nothing or maybe something. Tylenol now is thought to blunt emotions. Tobacco has multiple chemicals (cigarettes) and alcohol has other issues. I wonder if on the balance our cultures manufacture psychological disorders as a side effect of Industrialism by poisoning people.
McGilchrist has a fun part in one of the appendices of Matter with Things on alcohol. In his reading of all the papers, there's no evidence of any health problems associated with most levels of drinking. (Though alcohol abuse is a different story, especially its link with violence, IMO.)
Wouldn't be surprised if longterm poisoning is on the list, but along with several other things!
Psychiatrist Murray Bowen came up with his Family Systems Theory in the 50s-70s. A major pillar of that is the concept of the togetherness-force and self-differentiation. The togetherness-force must be matured-out-of in order to define the Self, according to Bowen. In other words, dependency on parents/family or herd past young adulthood will eventually cut off development of Self. Once a person has self-differentiated to a certain degree, they might return to group community as an individual, versus being just a part of the groupthink mass.
How does this fit here? Totalitarianism includes heavy and very dysfunctional groupthink/loss of Self. The targets tend to be those who have not resolved dependency needs of one kind or another. And no, I do not think you will find a single work presenting this viewpoint. It is the coming-together of many threads.
"Rather, the propagandist-professors attempted to fish out susceptible individuals (Lobaczewski’s “6%”) from the mostly resistant student population. As he puts it, “some people from every social group … suddenly start changing their personality and worldview” (PP, pp. 219-220)—'a spellbinder’s activities ‘husk out’ amenable individuals with an astonishing regularity and psychological accuracy” (p. 149)"
Much like cult recruitment. They have a feel for the vulnerable targets.
I really appreciate this series. I'm troubled that Desmet's seems to ignore the psychopaths in the room. I found that the Breggins make a decent case for why we ought focus on the psychopaths, whom they call predators:
Mass Formation/Mob Formation/Folie à Plusiers/Shared Psychosis is what follows when a Cluster-B personality gains infectious mind authority over several targets, who then begin coalescing into groupthink along the lines of the group narrative, You see Mass Formation in cults and gangs pretty prominently.
I think that Mattias Desmet misses a great deal. Nice fellow, but his claim to fame was that he was the first to use a podcast to state the obvious to the COVID crowds a few years ago. He was not the first by far to realize it was a Psy Op. In fact, Mattias was late to the parrty on that one. Many other people knew within weeks what we were dealing with....they just did not make podcasts. These days, whoever gets to the masses first seems to become a cultural hero, even though others may know the material at least as well.
I don't think that Mattias particularly understands the implications of the Cluster-B spectrum. Although he is correct that there is a two-way relationship going on within totalitarianism. He sometimes goes over my head with his metaphysical angle, however. I cannot judge how much of that is correct.
I agree, they are both important. The question, to me, is "Who is Driving the Bus?"
Who knows what's going on? Who's paid for the research into psychological manipulation? Who's energy is focused on manipulating the situation? In my map, it's not the people inside the mass... It's the men behind the curtain. They're the ones who know they have skin in the game, no?
I look forward to reading the Desmet reply you kindly linked.
You are of course welcome to "support Israel". So is Peter Breggin. The question is whether one's support includes "lying on behalf of". Breggin, for example, attributes the deaths on Oct 7 to Hamas, when the reality is that most of Israelis who died that day were killed by the IDF. I've seen the documentary Tantura, and judge Breggin's assertions from the perspective I came to after watching what IDF veterans and Tantura survivors had to say.
It seems that mass formation could be a step after the individual ponerization (Lobaczewski's teacher example); does a "teacher's stuff" always lead to it? I suppose not if the starting process fails.
It seems to me that mass formation can have multiple causes; lobaczewski with the teacher example explain some form of very narrow distillation, very specific; I am wondering if we could apply "imposed by force/artificially/homegrown" as starting actions for ponerization (teacher's stuff would fall into one of those).
Or is "mass formation" a very specific form of ponerization? As the name says, mass formation is something global; should we take in consideration a ponerizing effort exclusively applied to the global mind? But I suppose that it could as well find a start with a "teacher's situation".
It seems that mass formation is like when the phenomenon got to a macro scale; is it still at the level of possibility for pathocracy?
I'm asking the question of the pertinence of the use of "mass formation"; it could be a "step" in the process. Or is it a homemade term, not defined enough meant to dig into the mechanisms of the formation of a pathocracy with another approach than Lobaczewski? I need to read Desmet's book to know about that answer.
In any case I find it suitable somehow but a bit vague; well, by essence... "formation"; "mass"; it's like studying a wave in motion.
I have to reread Lobaczewski to check what words he has for mass formation.
At first glance it could apply to:
° the teacher's story - or after it, what those guys then went to do (or even the whole teacher's stuff is a mass formation somehow, so mass formation would actually be the term
"ponerization"... After all that's what we are after... development of totalitarism... well then not toatlitarism itself but its development)
"in a country where pathocracy is imposed (like Poland), mass formation per se might have a much reduced role, if any."
> does it mean that in that case it's because they get beaten and forced to accomplish ponerological stuffs, so there is no real mass formation? People would keep their mind but obey? I suppose that there is a mass formation at that level still; in Germany when normal people became SS, at first they obeyed, they had to, but then they found themselves brainwashed, mass formatione'd and Sebastian Haffner shows how he got completely unrecognizable by himself.
You say:
"This is something different than mass formation ordinarily understood. It's not a group process per se, though a group is formed (or rather, supplemented with additional members)"
> I agree with this; thank you for your analysis. In this case we must have "mass formation" discerned than "individual formation"
> "mass ponerology" vs "individual ponerology
> Interesting is that it leads to "mass formation" (a group is formed)
So:
individual ponerology / micro level
a group is supplemented with additional members
then
ponerologic group or not (if fails)
then
taking part in collective [efforts of ponerology]
(mass formation already present or not at that level)
then
mass formation increases or starts or pushes to pathocracy
You say:
"This is something different than mass formation ordinarily understood. It's not a group process per se, though a group is formed (or rather, supplemented with additional members)"
But at some point the receiver is individual; so it's about the scope of the message, the will of the origin of the ponerological source: is it meant to fish wide or reach individual? Is it meant to get people used to produce homegrown stuffs? Is there a will of ponerology? Is it meant to produce a group? Is it meant to infect an individual? Does it has a will of ponerologization meant for an individual to spread it to individuals?
As well, mass formation has that "vague" feeling.. Mass.. formation... I suppose that the author sticks his finger on something specific after all; he may well try to describe some form of ponerology that attacks core things... Things concerning a very specific level. Better put, impalpable and hard to discuss things, because hard to characterize. The unconscious. What if mass formation would be describing a specific targetting? Like unconscious? Hmmm I suppose that there could well be something that specifically targets the "substract" mentionned by Lobaczewski. I link that "vagueness" to it, so rather in a sense of substract's feature, rather than being pejorative.
You say
"This is different than mass formation ordinarily understood"
> I agree with the fact that there is such thing as the common understanding of "mass formation" and that Desmet could intend to have some other usage; I need to reread his work. As well, I am fighting between the "common usage" and tentatives of characterizing it better/differently/Desmet's way/... in my post. Sorry for the noise.
You say:
"group process per se, though a group is formed (or rather, supplemented with additional members)"
> Is it because the teacher is the core of the group so no real group is formed, they join the ranks? I see the notion of "an already existing group" in your analysis. True that otherwise it would be "homegrown"; this checks the question of a "core", a starting influence.
Christophe Dejour's three level model could provide some milestones as well, because he identified the same model all the time for evil; Level 1, the managers, functional level; level 2, operational guys; level 3 people getting ponerized by those two levels. Still, level 1 ponerizes level 2. They are the real pupetteers that take over at some point when pathocracy is established. The three levels exert each a different ponerizing influence to the lower one, that's what's interesting, so we could use this as a mean to characterize three types of ponerizing efforts.
I wish I had developped about the solutions; still I like all the details of the mechanisms and believe this has to be layed down very precisely. Sorry for my naïve, personal, subjective post!
EDIT: I did the exercise of having 10 Sebastian Haffner's Story of a German's quotes; it's very accessible because his book is like an ever flowing of "and when we believed that this new phenomenon was over, then came..."... And after five "periodes", "episodes", he goes on "then from that point Germany was - not ready for nazism especially - but for whatever crazy adventure would pop up next".
His book is the operating manual of Lobaczewski, it's very striking. I suppose that people could understand with proper quotes and then Lobaczewski. I noticed that the recent heatwave hysteria could be one of those "phases"; people's defense got down. What's the next one? I mean, it's story of a German unfolding right onto my eyes. There is no way to talk to the people about it when they mention the "heatwave" in the conversation, it's hard. I suppose that bad russians and good ukrainians is a layer too, and that it has its roots in the Irak times; if one did not mindfight the irak stuff, one has few chances of reaching truth about Ukraine.
As well, if I may add another comment, it's that Lobaczewski mentioned several times that real intelligence was normal basic people's way of dealing with things. I can see an affection of this characteristic that would make people not able to tap into that basic intelligence.. As your correspondance with John Carter mentioned strenghtening the social bond, I would talk about "training basic common logic" or something like that. I noticed that doing math was useful, and manipulating squared X's and Y's helped me to keep a "basic structuring"; as I noticed that people got to complain about summer's hot temperature, it's alarming and people need to get back to "sky is blue" stuffs.
"It seems that mass formation could be a step after the individual ponerization (Lobaczewski's teacher example); does a "teacher's stuff" always lead to it? I suppose not if the starting process fails."
I think direct indoctrination can play a role, as we see now in the West. But in Poland back then it didn't seem to be effective. In that case, the ponerization of the Party was pretty much complete (ready-made and imported via the USSR). In our case, ponerization and indoctrination are proceeding at the same time, it seems to me.
"It seems to me that mass formation can have multiple causes; lobaczewski with the teacher example explain some form of very narrow distillation, very specific; I am wondering if we could apply "imposed by force/artificially/homegrown" as starting actions for ponerization (teacher's stuff would fall into one of those)."
Yep. In this case, the professor was part of a pathocracy imposed by force. And I guess you could call it a small, specific type of mass formation. But I'm not comfortable using that phrase, because it has connotations of mass hysteria that aren't really present in this example.
"Or is "mass formation" a very specific form of ponerization? As the name says, mass formation is something global; should we take in consideration a ponerizing effort exclusively applied to the global mind? But I suppose that it could as well find a start with a "teacher's situation"."
I think mass formation is a phenomenon that by its nature leads to ponerization. But it isn't necessarily a form of ponerization itself. It just creates the environment for pathologicals to gain influence and makes ponerization easier.
"It seems that mass formation is like when the phenomenon got to a macro scale; is it still at the level of possibility for pathocracy?"
Only in the contemporary case of Covid. Mass formation just means group formation. It can be relatively small.
"I'm asking the question of the pertinence of the use of "mass formation"; it could be a "step" in the process. Or is it a homemade term, not defined enough meant to dig into the mechanisms of the formation of a pathocracy with another approach than Lobaczewski? I need to read Desmet's book to know about that answer."
Yeah, it was first used to describe the creation of mobs or crowds. I.e. mass/group/crowd formation/creation.
"I have to reread Lobaczewski to check what words he has for mass formation."
I think the closest he comes is when he talks about mass hystericization (and groups which become ponerized - ponerogenic associations). So I place mass formation in the very first stages, on the cusp between the height of the hysteroidal cycle and the first stages of pathocracy.
"does it mean that in that case it's because they get beaten and forced to accomplish ponerological stuffs, so there is no real mass formation? People would keep their mind but obey? I suppose that there is a mass formation at that level still; in Germany when normal people became SS, at first they obeyed, they had to, but then they found themselves brainwashed, mass formatione'd and Sebastian Haffner shows how he got completely unrecognizable by himself."
Yeah, because for the most part Poles perceived communism as a foreign imposition. In the Germany context, all the active supporters of Hitler among the general population could be considered part of a mass formation, I think.
"mass formation increases or starts or pushes to pathocracy"
This is the one place where I think your sequence is off. I'm arguing that there was essentially no mass formation in the Polish professor example. Pathocracy existed from the beginning and the "individual ponerization" process just supplemented the existing ponerogenic association (the socialist Party in power). The mass formation applies to examples like revolutionary Russia and Hitler at the height of his popularity.
"But at some point the receiver is individual; so it's about the scope of the message, the will of the origin of the ponerological source: is it meant to fish wide or reach individual? Is it meant to get people used to produce homegrown stuffs? Is there a will of ponerology? Is it meant to produce a group? Is it meant to infect an individual? Does it has a will of ponerologization meant for an individual to spread it to individuals?"
I think it is meant to "fish wide", but the only effect is to reach a small number of individuals. Pathocrats BELIEVE they can transform people, but they can't. Instead, slowly a "society of normal people" develops, because only a small minority are pathological.
"Is it because the teacher is the core of the group so no real group is formed, they join the ranks? I see the notion of "an already existing group" in your analysis. True that otherwise it would be "homegrown"; this checks the question of a "core", a starting influence."
I may have answered this already above. Yeah, the core group (the pathological leadership in the form of the Party) already existed. Only the susceptible individuals responded to the indoctrination, and then joined the ranks.
"Christophe Dejour's three level model could provide some milestones as well, because he identified the same model all the time for evil; Level 1, the managers, functional level; level 2, operational guys; level 3 people getting ponerized by those two levels. Still, level 1 ponerizes level 2. They are the real pupetteers that take over at some point when pathocracy is established. The three levels exert each a different ponerizing influence to the lower one, that's what's interesting, so we could use this as a mean to characterize three types of ponerizing efforts."
Lobaczewski mentions something similar: the core pathocratic leadership, the new bourgeoisie, and those "just doing their jobs", even if they don't like it.
Hope I answered some of your questions and clarified my thoughts! Thanks for the extensive comment!
For what it is worth, I have looked a great deal at the Cluster-B disorders as they play out in the family, up to and including Parental Alienation. Mass Formation/Shared Psychosis/Folie à Plusieurs is indeed seen in Parental Alienation. The Cluster-B parent mind-snaps first, then draws in the children....designating the other parent as the object of hatred and cruelty. The children then fawn towards the disordered parent to an astonishing degree.
Hi, thank you much for your answer; sorry for the long comment; here is another somehow long comment, but there is only one question (and if you don’t feel to answer it, that’s super fine and it will balance the previous message :)
We talked about the teacher’s example from Lobaczewski, and you expressed me that pathocracy was already at stage. I got it now; I suppose that pathocracy rings to me as some form of concentration camps situation, so there is no “going to university”.
I re-read since some on Desmet, and it helped me clarify several points. After isolating his process, I noticed stuffs you spotted as well (it’s clinical + he starts when symptoms appear and does not talk about the objective big structure that precedes those + focus on normal people).
I found a strong sensitivity in his work and sayings, and I personally found the following points helpful:
° “the narrative” (Loba. articulates his work around a ponerized ideology; today, there is no ideology so they have to create one or do around something; the “narrative", pure fakery and corruption of what is happening)
° development of a strategy to deal with free-floating anxiety...uncertainty
But it’s ambulance job. When Lobaczewski’s work will find fruitition, his clinical observations may well fit somewhere.
I still have one or two cents remaining, and I hope it’s constructive:
1. To go back to the John Carter’s solution (strengthening social bond), I suppose that Loba actually discerns three:
quote:
“
The second chapter sketched the human instinctive substratum’s role in
° our personality development,
° the formation of the natural world view
° societal links and structures.
“
2. I notice that somehow the “whole stuff” could be about affecting the instinctive substratum.
3. I mentioned Dejours in my previous comment; he analyzed ponerization at the level of hand workers; Loba. talks about intellectuals, another strate, in those terms: "...natural vision of the world seems refined, but does it mirror...". If Dejours analyzed the instinctive substratum’s affections for the social strate of hand workers, and determined something akin to skirtoidism for that specific “pool” (natural tendency of bullying grows there etc), would be interesting to do the same job for the social strate of intellectuals.
4. In my case, naïve tentatives to work on Lobaczewski lead me to produce “data sheets” or “forms”. One for the schizoid, with main features. This exercise fits well Loba.’s book because many excerpts can be isolated, so it does not have to stay at the level of “description of schizoid”, for example. I did one for the “three-level” system, in this case using Dejours as well, bolding the super nasty STS domination stuff at the core. Basically, 2x2 or 2x3 (...) matrix, sometimes with a header. Helped to keep organized and work on specific ideas. Naive will was to be able to identify clearly the different forms of pathocracy, and the steps. Did not yet managed to succeed, something scrambles this process. Seems to be some organic stuff around or something that makes many possibilities for its development. Still, I wanted then to have that grid and then look at myself and discern at which “step” I was, so as to spot the causes. And ideally having a “woreking” form set to help others.
5. As well, I found out that Loba.’s book has a high level of truth, and just by reading it, one is “in contact with the truth”, which, in itself, provides psychological immunization and sanity. I suppose that it’s one feature of Loba’s work.
6. A past article about Lobaczewski mentionned that hysteria was almost a biological factor; I really could not understand this after many reading of the book.
quote: “The pathological character of such people, generally contains a component of hysteria. “
This one was important to me. It’s because hysteria, until then, was associated to my understanding as a kind of phenomenon. Well, no, in this article, it seems to be an indentifiable and isolable component.
So I am asking myself if the hysterical type is a psychopathological type in itself.
Anyway, until then, I was picturing psychopaths behind a curtain operating from a distance, providing normal people some ways of getting entangled with an hysterical phenomenon, well starting it through using them into “cool times” and then start the hostilities. It seems that an inherent hysterical component would implicate an individual closeness for contamination and as a mean of spreading hysteria. I suppose I was believing that hysteria was some form of normal people’s feature that could be triggered if they did not care enough; still, it seems that it’s at the level of psychopaths. It changes my views of the “collective substratum”. It means that, as hysteria is not a feature of the normal people; a seed of hysteria is first planted long time ago in the collective (or individual) and then triggered, then. Until then I saw hysteria as some form of “manipulation of the collective substratum from outside”. This, because it’s said that psychos know which buttons to push to trigger normal people, and I applied this concept to a situation where they would push the “hysteria” button. But in this case, THEY are carrier of the anomaly, so the scope of my approach and the culprit-ness would really not be the same.
7. Lobaczewski mentions at various places that, at some point, there is a “takeover” by the higher echelons of pathocratic movement; if I remember correctly, characteropaths, skirtoïds etc are eliminated. I am wondering to what extent does this elimination amounts to, and if they bring on fresh new LEVEL 2 guys. Proxy war concept made me understand that there is a big aspect of using others do some job and that something could be done because if they knew they would not carry it on.
Thank you for having commented the point about the teacher’s example (well, I am as well very grateful for the whole answer, I thank you very much), mentioning which kind of ponerization was taking place. I am stunned that you spot with that much accuracy the qualities of it for a given content. And you go on with mentioning an “imposition by force” in the teacher’s case, when, attached to a concept of slow indoctrination, I would have expressed a contamination process. Thank you as well for having taken the time to answer my questions.
Would you accept to tell me what you would believe would be the most fruitful to work on, in Lobaczeswki’s work, according to you, please? I am a follower, of course naively wishing to be able to provide a working milestone, but sincerely interested in the ponerology book and train as well. I love it and it helps me, and I am in ave to read from people analyzing and using his work. My question is basic, akin to what point is, according to you, is a leading one that deserves study, or is eager to provide further development? Something like that... What can we do on our side, please?
I understand that Desmet does not have a “piece of the puzzle”, so I need to stick with something else. I am still grateful to have some more about psychopathology so I am thankful for his work. I am grateful he got support because studying those stuffs are somehow hard, and I wish him the very good that his courage deserves. I like Ariane Bilheran, but she’s French. She has very clear and serious talks about totalitarism. I noticed she had a podcast about fakery in mathematics; as you mentioned that specs, I will listen to it.
I wish you much success, and I hope that we will be able to read more of your works! We care much about news and work on ponerology.
Oh yeah, I wished we could address the point of biological factors aka what to do to get those identified by the science. That’s scientist kind of DNA job and I feel that I should build myself a labo and starts to draw blood and start analyzing it, because nobody started it (and nobody does)! Is it that hard to find a guy that has a labo, has the basics, and could start this job? Pfff he would dig a trench.
Great stuff. I hope it isn't the final essay in the series - I understand Desmet's final chapters get rather more metaphysical, and I'd enjoy reading your take on that material.
I assume the general in question is Canadian? He has the look - the mustache is fashionable amongst Canadian officers, or was in his generation. Fascinating that he seems to have intuited his way towards a practical understanding of ponerology. I believe he's also entirely correct about the nature of Canada's current leadership.
Yep, Redman is Canadian. He was intrigued to hear about ponerology when I told him about it. He refused a review copy, insisting on buying a copy himself. :)
While I had planned this to be the final part, I suppose I can return to some of his metaphysical ideas in another context. I breezed over those chapters in my review mainly because I was already familiar with most of the material and wanted to focus on the political/psychological parts. I'm planning on reading some Langan, so maybe when I do that, I'll write some more metaphysically oriented posts and bring in Desmet's work too.
You're gonna dive into Langan? Prepare for your brain to hurt ;) His CTMU material is pretty deep, in my opinion, but it's also a bit of a struggle to wrap your head around due to his usage of neologisms and various mathematical concepts drawn from e.g. set theory. I think I was able to understand just enough of it to know there's a 'there', there ... but to be honest when I try to explain it to people I sound like a babbling idiot.
Speaking of review copies, I meant to say. Reading this essay in particular it occurred to me that you're developing a rather interesting synthesis of the concepts that Desmet, and others, touch upon. You might want to consider consolidating that understanding in a book of your own, assuming you're not already working on such a project. It would be a valuable contribution to the literature given your wide perspective.
On Langan, LOL. Yes, anyone talking about telors, conspansion, and multiplex unity pretty much sounds like a crazy person. It may be hopeless, as despite high grades, I gave up on math after high school, but I'll see how it goes.
Re: a book. Currently not in the works, but I've thought about it. I'm treating substack as practice for now.
Sounds like you're deep in the thick of it lol. It would be extremely cool if you could get Langan as a guest. He seems to be a much better speaker than a writer - I've found his interviews to be generally excellent and thought-provoking.
So you are thinking about a book. Excellent. Honestly you've probably written close to a book's worth here already, in terms of word-count, and frankly also depth.
We'll probably reach out to him once we've put in the suffering of trying to understand some of his writing. ;)
We'll see how things go. I'll think about it some more. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Far deeper than most, actually. I am familiar with many of the concepts discussed, but even then...I will need to go back and re-read the whole series to digest all of the details. Harrison has thought it out very well, and his writing (to me) is clear and to the point.
I second that. Seems to be multigenerational in the case of JT.
I wonder what is meant by "Normal.". America has never been normal. Hysteria runs deep in every state and since 1920's advertising on mass media has dominated the imagination. In fact, I suspect totalitarians thrive in cultures that are atomized. .The Lonely Crowd is another way of talking about this mass formation. Men crave community.. We are atomized outside it.
For Lobaczewski "normal" essentially just means "not personality disordered." Not necessarily "healthy."
Well, you can see by US history this is a bit difficult. Yes a "terrible sociomorphism" makes us all normal. However the normalness of say abortion is rather outre from the MMPI used in WW2 without a key. Or the normal use of drugs (to include tobacco and liquor) makes me ponder a baseline. At 65 I inhabit a abnormal world that breeds psychopaths.
I can see how anyone can come to that conclusion, for sure!
But what's wrong with tobacco and alcohol??
To clarify, I still think psychopaths still make up a small percentage of the population (though perhaps higher than other countries). But at the same time, the majority can be sick--just in other ways. All humans have selective empathy, for example, but when it comes down to it, even a person raised from birth to see some other group as subhuman, or to make excuses for some heinous practice, have more human feeling than your average psychopath.
I hope you can take some comfort in this:
"The great majority of the population gradually forms the society of normal people, creating a network rooted in mutual understanding. It behooves us to wonder why these people reject the advantages conformity affords, consciously preferring the opposing role: poverty, harassment, and curtailment of human freedoms."
We're in a tough time, it will probably get worse, but that will not hold forever.
Well maybe nothing or maybe something. Tylenol now is thought to blunt emotions. Tobacco has multiple chemicals (cigarettes) and alcohol has other issues. I wonder if on the balance our cultures manufacture psychological disorders as a side effect of Industrialism by poisoning people.
McGilchrist has a fun part in one of the appendices of Matter with Things on alcohol. In his reading of all the papers, there's no evidence of any health problems associated with most levels of drinking. (Though alcohol abuse is a different story, especially its link with violence, IMO.)
Wouldn't be surprised if longterm poisoning is on the list, but along with several other things!
Psychiatrist Murray Bowen came up with his Family Systems Theory in the 50s-70s. A major pillar of that is the concept of the togetherness-force and self-differentiation. The togetherness-force must be matured-out-of in order to define the Self, according to Bowen. In other words, dependency on parents/family or herd past young adulthood will eventually cut off development of Self. Once a person has self-differentiated to a certain degree, they might return to group community as an individual, versus being just a part of the groupthink mass.
How does this fit here? Totalitarianism includes heavy and very dysfunctional groupthink/loss of Self. The targets tend to be those who have not resolved dependency needs of one kind or another. And no, I do not think you will find a single work presenting this viewpoint. It is the coming-together of many threads.
"Rather, the propagandist-professors attempted to fish out susceptible individuals (Lobaczewski’s “6%”) from the mostly resistant student population. As he puts it, “some people from every social group … suddenly start changing their personality and worldview” (PP, pp. 219-220)—'a spellbinder’s activities ‘husk out’ amenable individuals with an astonishing regularity and psychological accuracy” (p. 149)"
Much like cult recruitment. They have a feel for the vulnerable targets.
I really appreciate this series. I'm troubled that Desmet's seems to ignore the psychopaths in the room. I found that the Breggins make a decent case for why we ought focus on the psychopaths, whom they call predators:
https://www.americaoutloud.com/mass-formation-and-mass-psychosis-a-false-and-dangerous-concept-that-threatens-our-freedom/
Here's Desmet's response: https://mattiasdesmet.substack.com/p/am-i-an-expert-in-mass-formation
I think while Desmet places too little focus on psychopaths, the Bregginses place too little focus on mass formation. They're both important, IMO.
Mass Formation/Mob Formation/Folie à Plusiers/Shared Psychosis is what follows when a Cluster-B personality gains infectious mind authority over several targets, who then begin coalescing into groupthink along the lines of the group narrative, You see Mass Formation in cults and gangs pretty prominently.
I think that Mattias Desmet misses a great deal. Nice fellow, but his claim to fame was that he was the first to use a podcast to state the obvious to the COVID crowds a few years ago. He was not the first by far to realize it was a Psy Op. In fact, Mattias was late to the parrty on that one. Many other people knew within weeks what we were dealing with....they just did not make podcasts. These days, whoever gets to the masses first seems to become a cultural hero, even though others may know the material at least as well.
I don't think that Mattias particularly understands the implications of the Cluster-B spectrum. Although he is correct that there is a two-way relationship going on within totalitarianism. He sometimes goes over my head with his metaphysical angle, however. I cannot judge how much of that is correct.
I agree, they are both important. The question, to me, is "Who is Driving the Bus?"
Who knows what's going on? Who's paid for the research into psychological manipulation? Who's energy is focused on manipulating the situation? In my map, it's not the people inside the mass... It's the men behind the curtain. They're the ones who know they have skin in the game, no?
I look forward to reading the Desmet reply you kindly linked.
No, it is not the Useful Idiots inside the mass. It is the men behind the curtain.
I agree about what Breggin displays. He recently published a revealing article:
Why the Jews must never lose a battle, let alone a war
Living under the threat of extermination
https://gingerbreggin.substack.com/p/why-the-jews-must-never-lose-a-battle
Wherein he reveals how he prioritizes what he sees as the narrative that serves him and his people over Truth.
Actually Jerome, I support Israel. Although that does not make Peter Breggin my best buddy.
You are of course welcome to "support Israel". So is Peter Breggin. The question is whether one's support includes "lying on behalf of". Breggin, for example, attributes the deaths on Oct 7 to Hamas, when the reality is that most of Israelis who died that day were killed by the IDF. I've seen the documentary Tantura, and judge Breggin's assertions from the perspective I came to after watching what IDF veterans and Tantura survivors had to say.
https://archive.org/details/tantura_2022
I do nothing on behalf of Peter Breggin. He is a stranger to me, apart from my having read some of what he has written.
Let's leave it at that.
Thank you for this. I will have to look at your other parts more closely.
Thanks for your article;
It seems that mass formation could be a step after the individual ponerization (Lobaczewski's teacher example); does a "teacher's stuff" always lead to it? I suppose not if the starting process fails.
It seems to me that mass formation can have multiple causes; lobaczewski with the teacher example explain some form of very narrow distillation, very specific; I am wondering if we could apply "imposed by force/artificially/homegrown" as starting actions for ponerization (teacher's stuff would fall into one of those).
Or is "mass formation" a very specific form of ponerization? As the name says, mass formation is something global; should we take in consideration a ponerizing effort exclusively applied to the global mind? But I suppose that it could as well find a start with a "teacher's situation".
It seems that mass formation is like when the phenomenon got to a macro scale; is it still at the level of possibility for pathocracy?
I'm asking the question of the pertinence of the use of "mass formation"; it could be a "step" in the process. Or is it a homemade term, not defined enough meant to dig into the mechanisms of the formation of a pathocracy with another approach than Lobaczewski? I need to read Desmet's book to know about that answer.
In any case I find it suitable somehow but a bit vague; well, by essence... "formation"; "mass"; it's like studying a wave in motion.
I have to reread Lobaczewski to check what words he has for mass formation.
At first glance it could apply to:
° the teacher's story - or after it, what those guys then went to do (or even the whole teacher's stuff is a mass formation somehow, so mass formation would actually be the term
"ponerization"... After all that's what we are after... development of totalitarism... well then not toatlitarism itself but its development)
° to the hysteroidal cycle.
° not-yet pathocracy's (imposed, artificial, homegrown) growth phases
You say:
"in a country where pathocracy is imposed (like Poland), mass formation per se might have a much reduced role, if any."
> does it mean that in that case it's because they get beaten and forced to accomplish ponerological stuffs, so there is no real mass formation? People would keep their mind but obey? I suppose that there is a mass formation at that level still; in Germany when normal people became SS, at first they obeyed, they had to, but then they found themselves brainwashed, mass formatione'd and Sebastian Haffner shows how he got completely unrecognizable by himself.
You say:
"This is something different than mass formation ordinarily understood. It's not a group process per se, though a group is formed (or rather, supplemented with additional members)"
> I agree with this; thank you for your analysis. In this case we must have "mass formation" discerned than "individual formation"
> "mass ponerology" vs "individual ponerology
> Interesting is that it leads to "mass formation" (a group is formed)
So:
individual ponerology / micro level
a group is supplemented with additional members
then
ponerologic group or not (if fails)
then
taking part in collective [efforts of ponerology]
(mass formation already present or not at that level)
then
mass formation increases or starts or pushes to pathocracy
You say:
"This is something different than mass formation ordinarily understood. It's not a group process per se, though a group is formed (or rather, supplemented with additional members)"
But at some point the receiver is individual; so it's about the scope of the message, the will of the origin of the ponerological source: is it meant to fish wide or reach individual? Is it meant to get people used to produce homegrown stuffs? Is there a will of ponerology? Is it meant to produce a group? Is it meant to infect an individual? Does it has a will of ponerologization meant for an individual to spread it to individuals?
As well, mass formation has that "vague" feeling.. Mass.. formation... I suppose that the author sticks his finger on something specific after all; he may well try to describe some form of ponerology that attacks core things... Things concerning a very specific level. Better put, impalpable and hard to discuss things, because hard to characterize. The unconscious. What if mass formation would be describing a specific targetting? Like unconscious? Hmmm I suppose that there could well be something that specifically targets the "substract" mentionned by Lobaczewski. I link that "vagueness" to it, so rather in a sense of substract's feature, rather than being pejorative.
You say
"This is different than mass formation ordinarily understood"
> I agree with the fact that there is such thing as the common understanding of "mass formation" and that Desmet could intend to have some other usage; I need to reread his work. As well, I am fighting between the "common usage" and tentatives of characterizing it better/differently/Desmet's way/... in my post. Sorry for the noise.
You say:
"group process per se, though a group is formed (or rather, supplemented with additional members)"
> Is it because the teacher is the core of the group so no real group is formed, they join the ranks? I see the notion of "an already existing group" in your analysis. True that otherwise it would be "homegrown"; this checks the question of a "core", a starting influence.
Christophe Dejour's three level model could provide some milestones as well, because he identified the same model all the time for evil; Level 1, the managers, functional level; level 2, operational guys; level 3 people getting ponerized by those two levels. Still, level 1 ponerizes level 2. They are the real pupetteers that take over at some point when pathocracy is established. The three levels exert each a different ponerizing influence to the lower one, that's what's interesting, so we could use this as a mean to characterize three types of ponerizing efforts.
I wish I had developped about the solutions; still I like all the details of the mechanisms and believe this has to be layed down very precisely. Sorry for my naïve, personal, subjective post!
EDIT: I did the exercise of having 10 Sebastian Haffner's Story of a German's quotes; it's very accessible because his book is like an ever flowing of "and when we believed that this new phenomenon was over, then came..."... And after five "periodes", "episodes", he goes on "then from that point Germany was - not ready for nazism especially - but for whatever crazy adventure would pop up next".
His book is the operating manual of Lobaczewski, it's very striking. I suppose that people could understand with proper quotes and then Lobaczewski. I noticed that the recent heatwave hysteria could be one of those "phases"; people's defense got down. What's the next one? I mean, it's story of a German unfolding right onto my eyes. There is no way to talk to the people about it when they mention the "heatwave" in the conversation, it's hard. I suppose that bad russians and good ukrainians is a layer too, and that it has its roots in the Irak times; if one did not mindfight the irak stuff, one has few chances of reaching truth about Ukraine.
As well, if I may add another comment, it's that Lobaczewski mentioned several times that real intelligence was normal basic people's way of dealing with things. I can see an affection of this characteristic that would make people not able to tap into that basic intelligence.. As your correspondance with John Carter mentioned strenghtening the social bond, I would talk about "training basic common logic" or something like that. I noticed that doing math was useful, and manipulating squared X's and Y's helped me to keep a "basic structuring"; as I noticed that people got to complain about summer's hot temperature, it's alarming and people need to get back to "sky is blue" stuffs.
"It seems that mass formation could be a step after the individual ponerization (Lobaczewski's teacher example); does a "teacher's stuff" always lead to it? I suppose not if the starting process fails."
I think direct indoctrination can play a role, as we see now in the West. But in Poland back then it didn't seem to be effective. In that case, the ponerization of the Party was pretty much complete (ready-made and imported via the USSR). In our case, ponerization and indoctrination are proceeding at the same time, it seems to me.
"It seems to me that mass formation can have multiple causes; lobaczewski with the teacher example explain some form of very narrow distillation, very specific; I am wondering if we could apply "imposed by force/artificially/homegrown" as starting actions for ponerization (teacher's stuff would fall into one of those)."
Yep. In this case, the professor was part of a pathocracy imposed by force. And I guess you could call it a small, specific type of mass formation. But I'm not comfortable using that phrase, because it has connotations of mass hysteria that aren't really present in this example.
"Or is "mass formation" a very specific form of ponerization? As the name says, mass formation is something global; should we take in consideration a ponerizing effort exclusively applied to the global mind? But I suppose that it could as well find a start with a "teacher's situation"."
I think mass formation is a phenomenon that by its nature leads to ponerization. But it isn't necessarily a form of ponerization itself. It just creates the environment for pathologicals to gain influence and makes ponerization easier.
"It seems that mass formation is like when the phenomenon got to a macro scale; is it still at the level of possibility for pathocracy?"
Only in the contemporary case of Covid. Mass formation just means group formation. It can be relatively small.
"I'm asking the question of the pertinence of the use of "mass formation"; it could be a "step" in the process. Or is it a homemade term, not defined enough meant to dig into the mechanisms of the formation of a pathocracy with another approach than Lobaczewski? I need to read Desmet's book to know about that answer."
Yeah, it was first used to describe the creation of mobs or crowds. I.e. mass/group/crowd formation/creation.
"I have to reread Lobaczewski to check what words he has for mass formation."
I think the closest he comes is when he talks about mass hystericization (and groups which become ponerized - ponerogenic associations). So I place mass formation in the very first stages, on the cusp between the height of the hysteroidal cycle and the first stages of pathocracy.
"does it mean that in that case it's because they get beaten and forced to accomplish ponerological stuffs, so there is no real mass formation? People would keep their mind but obey? I suppose that there is a mass formation at that level still; in Germany when normal people became SS, at first they obeyed, they had to, but then they found themselves brainwashed, mass formatione'd and Sebastian Haffner shows how he got completely unrecognizable by himself."
Yeah, because for the most part Poles perceived communism as a foreign imposition. In the Germany context, all the active supporters of Hitler among the general population could be considered part of a mass formation, I think.
"mass formation increases or starts or pushes to pathocracy"
This is the one place where I think your sequence is off. I'm arguing that there was essentially no mass formation in the Polish professor example. Pathocracy existed from the beginning and the "individual ponerization" process just supplemented the existing ponerogenic association (the socialist Party in power). The mass formation applies to examples like revolutionary Russia and Hitler at the height of his popularity.
"But at some point the receiver is individual; so it's about the scope of the message, the will of the origin of the ponerological source: is it meant to fish wide or reach individual? Is it meant to get people used to produce homegrown stuffs? Is there a will of ponerology? Is it meant to produce a group? Is it meant to infect an individual? Does it has a will of ponerologization meant for an individual to spread it to individuals?"
I think it is meant to "fish wide", but the only effect is to reach a small number of individuals. Pathocrats BELIEVE they can transform people, but they can't. Instead, slowly a "society of normal people" develops, because only a small minority are pathological.
"Is it because the teacher is the core of the group so no real group is formed, they join the ranks? I see the notion of "an already existing group" in your analysis. True that otherwise it would be "homegrown"; this checks the question of a "core", a starting influence."
I may have answered this already above. Yeah, the core group (the pathological leadership in the form of the Party) already existed. Only the susceptible individuals responded to the indoctrination, and then joined the ranks.
"Christophe Dejour's three level model could provide some milestones as well, because he identified the same model all the time for evil; Level 1, the managers, functional level; level 2, operational guys; level 3 people getting ponerized by those two levels. Still, level 1 ponerizes level 2. They are the real pupetteers that take over at some point when pathocracy is established. The three levels exert each a different ponerizing influence to the lower one, that's what's interesting, so we could use this as a mean to characterize three types of ponerizing efforts."
Lobaczewski mentions something similar: the core pathocratic leadership, the new bourgeoisie, and those "just doing their jobs", even if they don't like it.
Hope I answered some of your questions and clarified my thoughts! Thanks for the extensive comment!
For what it is worth, I have looked a great deal at the Cluster-B disorders as they play out in the family, up to and including Parental Alienation. Mass Formation/Shared Psychosis/Folie à Plusieurs is indeed seen in Parental Alienation. The Cluster-B parent mind-snaps first, then draws in the children....designating the other parent as the object of hatred and cruelty. The children then fawn towards the disordered parent to an astonishing degree.
Hi, thank you much for your answer; sorry for the long comment; here is another somehow long comment, but there is only one question (and if you don’t feel to answer it, that’s super fine and it will balance the previous message :)
We talked about the teacher’s example from Lobaczewski, and you expressed me that pathocracy was already at stage. I got it now; I suppose that pathocracy rings to me as some form of concentration camps situation, so there is no “going to university”.
I re-read since some on Desmet, and it helped me clarify several points. After isolating his process, I noticed stuffs you spotted as well (it’s clinical + he starts when symptoms appear and does not talk about the objective big structure that precedes those + focus on normal people).
I found a strong sensitivity in his work and sayings, and I personally found the following points helpful:
° “the narrative” (Loba. articulates his work around a ponerized ideology; today, there is no ideology so they have to create one or do around something; the “narrative", pure fakery and corruption of what is happening)
° development of a strategy to deal with free-floating anxiety...uncertainty
But it’s ambulance job. When Lobaczewski’s work will find fruitition, his clinical observations may well fit somewhere.
I still have one or two cents remaining, and I hope it’s constructive:
1. To go back to the John Carter’s solution (strengthening social bond), I suppose that Loba actually discerns three:
quote:
“
The second chapter sketched the human instinctive substratum’s role in
° our personality development,
° the formation of the natural world view
° societal links and structures.
“
2. I notice that somehow the “whole stuff” could be about affecting the instinctive substratum.
3. I mentioned Dejours in my previous comment; he analyzed ponerization at the level of hand workers; Loba. talks about intellectuals, another strate, in those terms: "...natural vision of the world seems refined, but does it mirror...". If Dejours analyzed the instinctive substratum’s affections for the social strate of hand workers, and determined something akin to skirtoidism for that specific “pool” (natural tendency of bullying grows there etc), would be interesting to do the same job for the social strate of intellectuals.
4. In my case, naïve tentatives to work on Lobaczewski lead me to produce “data sheets” or “forms”. One for the schizoid, with main features. This exercise fits well Loba.’s book because many excerpts can be isolated, so it does not have to stay at the level of “description of schizoid”, for example. I did one for the “three-level” system, in this case using Dejours as well, bolding the super nasty STS domination stuff at the core. Basically, 2x2 or 2x3 (...) matrix, sometimes with a header. Helped to keep organized and work on specific ideas. Naive will was to be able to identify clearly the different forms of pathocracy, and the steps. Did not yet managed to succeed, something scrambles this process. Seems to be some organic stuff around or something that makes many possibilities for its development. Still, I wanted then to have that grid and then look at myself and discern at which “step” I was, so as to spot the causes. And ideally having a “woreking” form set to help others.
5. As well, I found out that Loba.’s book has a high level of truth, and just by reading it, one is “in contact with the truth”, which, in itself, provides psychological immunization and sanity. I suppose that it’s one feature of Loba’s work.
6. A past article about Lobaczewski mentionned that hysteria was almost a biological factor; I really could not understand this after many reading of the book.
quote: “The pathological character of such people, generally contains a component of hysteria. “
https://www.sott.net/article/447958-Political-Ponerology-A-Psychological-Anatomy-of-Evil-Politics-And-Public-Trauma
This one was important to me. It’s because hysteria, until then, was associated to my understanding as a kind of phenomenon. Well, no, in this article, it seems to be an indentifiable and isolable component.
So I am asking myself if the hysterical type is a psychopathological type in itself.
Anyway, until then, I was picturing psychopaths behind a curtain operating from a distance, providing normal people some ways of getting entangled with an hysterical phenomenon, well starting it through using them into “cool times” and then start the hostilities. It seems that an inherent hysterical component would implicate an individual closeness for contamination and as a mean of spreading hysteria. I suppose I was believing that hysteria was some form of normal people’s feature that could be triggered if they did not care enough; still, it seems that it’s at the level of psychopaths. It changes my views of the “collective substratum”. It means that, as hysteria is not a feature of the normal people; a seed of hysteria is first planted long time ago in the collective (or individual) and then triggered, then. Until then I saw hysteria as some form of “manipulation of the collective substratum from outside”. This, because it’s said that psychos know which buttons to push to trigger normal people, and I applied this concept to a situation where they would push the “hysteria” button. But in this case, THEY are carrier of the anomaly, so the scope of my approach and the culprit-ness would really not be the same.
7. Lobaczewski mentions at various places that, at some point, there is a “takeover” by the higher echelons of pathocratic movement; if I remember correctly, characteropaths, skirtoïds etc are eliminated. I am wondering to what extent does this elimination amounts to, and if they bring on fresh new LEVEL 2 guys. Proxy war concept made me understand that there is a big aspect of using others do some job and that something could be done because if they knew they would not carry it on.
Thank you for having commented the point about the teacher’s example (well, I am as well very grateful for the whole answer, I thank you very much), mentioning which kind of ponerization was taking place. I am stunned that you spot with that much accuracy the qualities of it for a given content. And you go on with mentioning an “imposition by force” in the teacher’s case, when, attached to a concept of slow indoctrination, I would have expressed a contamination process. Thank you as well for having taken the time to answer my questions.
Would you accept to tell me what you would believe would be the most fruitful to work on, in Lobaczeswki’s work, according to you, please? I am a follower, of course naively wishing to be able to provide a working milestone, but sincerely interested in the ponerology book and train as well. I love it and it helps me, and I am in ave to read from people analyzing and using his work. My question is basic, akin to what point is, according to you, is a leading one that deserves study, or is eager to provide further development? Something like that... What can we do on our side, please?
I understand that Desmet does not have a “piece of the puzzle”, so I need to stick with something else. I am still grateful to have some more about psychopathology so I am thankful for his work. I am grateful he got support because studying those stuffs are somehow hard, and I wish him the very good that his courage deserves. I like Ariane Bilheran, but she’s French. She has very clear and serious talks about totalitarism. I noticed she had a podcast about fakery in mathematics; as you mentioned that specs, I will listen to it.
I wish you much success, and I hope that we will be able to read more of your works! We care much about news and work on ponerology.
Oh yeah, I wished we could address the point of biological factors aka what to do to get those identified by the science. That’s scientist kind of DNA job and I feel that I should build myself a labo and starts to draw blood and start analyzing it, because nobody started it (and nobody does)! Is it that hard to find a guy that has a labo, has the basics, and could start this job? Pfff he would dig a trench.