Mattias, I have subscribed to your substack (I do not remember what made me do so), and today read a couple of your posts, your most recent one and this one. I did research on you, and your 2022 book on Totalitarianism. I also understand you have focused on mass formation in your work. I too write essays in retirement and have covered some of the topics you cover. So, I have several questions and if your work covers these I would be happy to explore it.
Totalitarianism - in the classic definition, a nation-state is the center of totalitarianism with a dictator leading it. In your most recent essay, you eliminate a coordinated cabal of totalitarians pulling the global strings, so if we are falling prey to a totalitarian control, what is its structure, how does its governance work? How do global corporations fit within this structure?
Mass Formation - is that different than mass psychosis? One of the essays I wrote (see link below) was a book review for clinicians titled Decoding Delusions - A Clinician’s Guide to Working With Delusions and Other Extreme Beliefs. In that book, they cover mass psychosis.
My own view of Post WWII American hegemony, what Aaron Good calls "American Exception" (see link below to my review of that), also relies on propaganda and mass formation: 1- Cold War fervent anti-communism, 1990s pause, then 2- Terrorism and GWOT, 3- global pandemics.
Regarding Russia and their guiding philosophy, others have written (see Dave Troy America 2.0 on substack) about this and there is much synergy between this thinking and that of the neo-reactionaries (Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Curtis Garvin, JD Vance) that have captured power within MAGA movement. This coming together for anti-democratic authoritarianism he calls convergence.
It is not psychosis. If you ever worked or saw a psychotic patient you would call it psychosis. It is mass formation blindness due to fear, laziness and comfort level that people in the west don’t want to be disturbed… Get it?
I learned from covid mass formation to recognize my “heart of truth” and trust/follow it more precisely… Mattias, “they” are losing as others have learned as I have learned, as you are teaching some listen with their heart of truth
Unfortunately, the Mass Formation is playing out again in the US with the anti-Musk TeslaTakedown movement. I’ve never seen so many older people completely losing their minds and moral compass to participate in vandalism and assault. It’s almost as if they’re automatons doing the bidding of an unseen entity.
Thank you Professor for your wise and insightful words, as usual.
The only 'bio-weapon' that was 'released' during the plandemic, was the warp speed MRNA injections. Why would the plandemic launch a meaningless pcr test in advance and base the whole campaign on meaningless results, if anything organic was actually happening?
Further, everyone stopped taking boosters in 2021. Do we really believe that after monkeypox, it was all a psyop but before this, it was all real? Really.
ich leihe mir hier einen Text aus (Schweizerischer Verein WIR) - spricht für sich -:
"In 60 Sekunden
Die bestbelegte Version der Corona-P(l)andemie
Was die Corona-Pandemie betrifft, werden auch heute, fünf Jahre später, noch unzählige Ablenkungsmanöver gefahren, damit der Durchschnittsschweizer den Überblick verliert und nicht mehr weiss, was er glauben soll. Mal war es eine Fledermaus, mal ein Laborunfall, mal die böse chinesische Regierung – Hauptsache, niemand schaut auf die echten Hintergründe. Das ist, als würde ein Brandstifter ein Haus anzünden, während die Feuerwehrleute mit den Anwohnern diskutieren, ob das Feuer durch einen Blitz oder eine umgefallene Kerze entstanden ist. Der eigentliche Skandal ist nicht, ob SARS-CoV-2 aus einem Labor „entwischt“ ist oder nicht, sondern dass die Pandemie als geplanter Vorwand genutzt wurde, um eine mRNA-Technologie-Plattform durchzudrücken, die ohne die orchestrierte Angstkampagne niemals akzeptiert worden wäre. Dabei ist die Sache in 60 Sekunden Lesezeit erklärt. Alles andere sind Märchen für Gutgläubige.
Hier die heute am besten belegte Erklärung:
Die Corona-Pandemie war keine spontane Naturkatastrophe, sondern das Ergebnis jahrelanger Planung. Deshalb: Plandemie! Bereits in den frühen 2000er-Jahren arbeiteten US-Forscher wie Ralph Baric an der Manipulation von Coronaviren. 2015 sagte Peter Daszak, dass die Öffentlichkeit erst durch einen „Medienhype“ zur Annahme eines globalen Impfstoffs gebracht werden müsse. Event 201 im Oktober 2019 war die Generalprobe: Eine inszenierte Pandemie-Simulation, die exakt die Massnahmen vorwegnahm, die wenig später weltweit als militärische Operation und internationale Gleichschaltung umgesetzt wurden.
Moderna und Pfizer hatten die mRNA-Technologie bereits Jahre vor der „Pandemie“ entwickelt und patentiert. Das angeblich neuartige „Impfstoff“-Design war längst fertig – die Pandemie war nur der Vorwand für den Rollout. Denn ohne die orchestrierte Panik hätten die Menschen diese Genmanipulations-Plattform niemals akzeptiert.
Im Dezember 2019 wurde SARS-CoV-2 schliesslich in Wuhan „entdeckt“. Ob ein realer Erreger freigesetzt wurde oder allein durch einen koordinierten Medienhype eine neue Pandemie erschaffen wurde, bleibt nach wie vor unklar. Fakt ist: Regierungen, Pharmaindustrie und Medien nutzten das Szenario, um die Welt in einen Ausnahmezustand zu versetzen. Angst und Zwangsmassnahmen ermöglichten es, die mRNA-Technologie erstmals in Milliarden Menschen zu injizieren.
Dafür wurde ein untauglicher PCR-Test genutzt, der keine Infektionen nachweisen konnte, aber durch Massentests eine „Test-Pandemie“ erzeugte. Zudem wurde der Test fast ausschliesslich per Nasenabstrich durchgeführt, wodurch weltweit DNA-Proben von hunderten Millionen Menschen gesammelt wurden – eine Tatsache, die definitiv in Zusammenhang mit globalen Genomprojekten steht.
Doch wer traf die Entscheidung für den globalen Ausnahmezustand?
Bereits am 4. Februar 2020 wurde COVID in den USA offiziell als „nationale Sicherheitsbedrohung“ eingestuft – ohne jegliche epidemiologische oder medizinische Grundlage. Bis heute ist unklar, welche Daten diese Einstufung rechtfertigten, denn es existierte weder ein validierter Virusnachweis noch belastbare Krankheitszahlen. Die Pandemie wurde nicht durch medizinische Notwendigkeit, sondern durch eine militärische Entscheidung ausgelöst – und diese Entscheidung bleibt bis heute unter Verschluss.
Aber warum?
Erstens: Kurzfristiger Profit.
Zweitens: Zukünftiger Profit. Die mRNA-Plattform ist gekommen, um zu bleiben – jetzt wird sie für Krebs-, Grippe- und RSV-Spritzen propagiert.
Drittens: Kontrolle. Mit „Impf“-Nachweisen und digitalen Gesundheitszertifikaten wurden die Weichen für eine neue Überwachungsinfrastruktur gestellt.
Viertens: Transhumanismus. Die mRNA-Technologie ist ein zentraler Baustein für die Verschmelzung von Mensch und Technologie – das „Internet of Bodies“.
Eine Gesundheitskrise war das nie – es war der Auftakt zur biotechnologischen Überwachung der Menschheit. Es dient, fünftens, zudem der Bevölkerungskontrolle und -reduktion.
Warum spricht praktisch niemand über diese belegbaren Fakten? Weil die Wahrheit schwer auszuhalten ist, denn sie würde bedeuten: Unsere eigenen Regierungen, Behörden und Institutionen haben uns selbst in die Falle geführt – und viele, die es heute besser wissen, schweigen, um ihre eigene Mitschuld zu vertuschen."
Wise and measured, thank you. I've seen with my own eyes those I thought of as intelligent caring beings call immediately to "nuke Putin" when this debacle began, and even declare on three different occasions "all Republicans should die" and no amount of measured speech seemed able to wake her up (by me, or her husband!). I was thinking she was "salvageable" since she allowed a heretical unvaccinated other into her home, and even complained about how in her hometown in California, she was being treated as a second class person simply for being white. But the programming truly works, and sadly I had to leave this longstanding friend behind. There are plenty of others I feel I've moved the dial with, however, certainly giving credence to the pattern you lay out in The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Most people are not so hypnotized that careful reasoning is useless. It's sad to think that I may be in this position for the rest of my days, but at least I have a solid core of family friends and community. I know far too many others who either live in isolation and fear or awake in the midst of such. Always the optimist, I've been talking about seeing "the turning of the ship" for a while, now. It just seems like the icebergs are large and looming and hidden in fog
Mattias Desmet’s essay opens with the claim that we are witnessing the collapse of the corona narrative while a new mass formation emerges around the war in Ukraine. From the outset, this parallel is asserted rather than argued, a pattern-recognition fallacy that assumes meaningful connection without offering causal or empirical justification. The idea that both developments occur “not by chance” is suggestive rather than analytical.
Desmet proceeds to claim that “everyone who wanted to know” already knew the virus came from a lab, which retrospectively discredits any dissenting view as willfully blind. This rhetorical move shuts down nuance and precludes legitimate uncertainty. Furthermore, the question of SARS-CoV-2’s origin remains unresolved in the scientific community. While lab-leak theories are not implausible, they are far from conclusive, and presenting them as settled truth undermines the complexity of the evidence.
He invokes Luc Montagnier, a Nobel laureate, to lend weight to the lab-leak theory. Yet this appeal to authority ignores Montagnier’s later marginalization in the scientific world due to controversial and widely discredited claims, including on homeopathy and electromagnetic waves. Meanwhile, the framing of fact-checkers as mere propaganda tools ignores the institutional variety, editorial standards, and ongoing debates about disinformation. The mention of Mark Zuckerberg’s podcast with Joe Rogan is also telling—used not as evidence, but as a cultural signal to suggest elite manipulation without substantiating the claim.
Desmet argues that the virus’s lab origin matters because it exposes the failure of the “technocratic and rationalist” worldview, suggesting that not only did technology fail to stop the virus (as seen in mRNA vaccines), but that it created the virus itself. This leap from a speculative lab origin to a wholesale indictment of rationalism is an overgeneralization, reducing complex biomedical realities to a metaphysical critique of modernity.
The next paragraph states as fact that the virus came from the Wuhan lab and questions Fauci’s involvement. Desmet again relies on controversial sources like RFK Jr., whose books are heavily criticized for misinformation. This method of citing fringe voices while ignoring mainstream research reveals a confirmation bias: only those who reinforce the narrative of deceit are considered credible.
His critique of pandemic measures includes valid concerns—such as overestimated mortality statistics and the social consequences of vaccine mandates—but the interpretation is deeply one-sided. He characterizes the treatment of the unvaccinated as dehumanizing, yet omits the context of public health urgency and the real uncertainties under which policies were made. His assertion that vaccines did not stop the spread is also misleading; while they did not fully prevent transmission, they significantly reduced it, especially with earlier variants.
Desmet’s description of the WHO adopting QR-code technologies and linking them to social credit systems is framed as a dystopian inevitability. This is a classic slippery slope argument, suggesting that any use of digital infrastructure will inevitably become authoritarian. No direct evidence is provided for this leap from digital health policy to a panopticon.
He then returns to his concept of mass formation, claiming that technocratic systems learn nothing and proceed fanatically toward disaster. The analogy of a mother proudly denouncing her child to the state is emotionally charged and historically resonant, but lacks contemporary equivalence. These hyperboles may be rhetorically effective, yet they obscure rather than clarify present-day realities.
In reflecting on why the “corona story” is collapsing now, Desmet dismisses the idea that public insight has gradually improved. Instead, he offers a metaphysical explanation: human behavior is governed by vital forces like fear and aggression, which have now attached themselves to the Ukraine war. This view undercuts rational debate by positing that people are not swayed by arguments but by unconscious drives. It is a fatalistic anthropology disguised as analysis.
Desmet attempts to draw a parallel between pandemic mass formation and the public’s emotional response to the Ukraine conflict. This analogy fails to account for the very different nature of the two crises. The Russian invasion is a geopolitical event with clear evidence of military aggression. Framing support for Ukraine as mass delusion risks trivializing genuine solidarity with a nation under siege.
He then criticizes European militarization and implies that leaders like Ursula von der Leyen are trying to confiscate personal savings to fund the war machine—a misleading framing, as it confuses European fiscal mechanisms with personal bank accounts. This stokes fear rather than fostering clarity.
While Desmet professes neutrality—“not pro-Putin, not anti”—his treatment of Russia is notably more sympathetic than his treatment of the West. He contextualizes Russian aggression as a defensive reaction to NATO expansion, a line of reasoning that risks justifying invasion as geopolitical necessity. The repeated invocation of historical analogies (e.g., Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard) adds intellectual gravitas but remains speculative.
Desmet outlines three reasons for Russia’s invasion: humanitarian concerns, economic threats, and strategic necessity. Yet he provides minimal critique of these justifications. Suggesting that Putin acted to protect ethnic Russians or prevent resource capture by the West is presented as plausible, while the agency of Ukrainians—their rights, voices, and resistance—is largely absent from his analysis. The portrayal of Russia as cornered and existentially threatened is a familiar talking point from Kremlin rhetoric.
He concludes that the struggle is between great powers driven by ego, fear, and aggression, all engaging in propaganda, persecution, and violence. While not untrue in broad strokes, this symmetrical framing leads to a moral equivalence that overlooks the disproportionate power exercised by Russia in initiating full-scale war.
The final reflection calls for diplomacy and the recognition of the Other as human. This is a noble sentiment. Yet it comes at the end of a text filled with asymmetrical critique, selective sourcing, and deeply conspiratorial overtones. His suggestion that mass formation is driven by a death drive—that those caught up in it have already chosen death—is chilling in tone and reminiscent of apocalyptic thinking. The idea that only a few courageous truth-tellers can pierce this veil of illusion casts the speaker in a quasi-messianic role.
In sum, Desmet’s essay blends legitimate questions with overreach, distortion, and speculative metaphysics. It expresses a deep mistrust of modern institutions but offers little in the way of verifiable analysis or constructive alternatives. It appeals to the reader's intuition and suspicion rather than their reason. As such, it is valuable as an artifact of disillusionment, but it falls short as a basis for coherent political or scientific understanding. Desmet’s frequent reliance on fallacious arguments—such as appeals to authority, slippery slopes, false equivalences, and conspiratorial framing—undermines the intellectual credibility of his entire argument. Rather than fostering critical thinking, it creates a closed narrative system that resists challenge and invites belief over evidence.
Your "critique" of Mattias Desmet's essay is an exercise in vapid semi-academic "analysis" that is more partisan complaining about an acknowledgement of the reality we lived through rather than a true, robust fact-filled response. I suspect that's because you know the facts do not support your opinion but allusion to their existence plumps up your support of a discredited narrative.
Thanks for your response. I'm always open to discussion, but it would be more helpful to point out where exactly you think my critique falls short, rather than just dismissing it as "vapid" or "partisan." If there are facts that contradict what I wrote, I’d genuinely like to see them. The issues Desmet raises are important, and that’s precisely why they deserve careful, evidence-based analysis—not just strong opinions. I'm open to being challenged, but that works best when it's done with arguments, not just accusations.
Good point. I am not going to respond with specific examples to your response in its entirety since it would take several hours to gather all of the evidence in support of my response. People rushed to embrace the Ukraine narrative, overnight. They posted flags in their social media before they could possibly have researched what was actually happening and the history that lead up to the invasion. Those who posted flags also rarely talk specifics but repeat rote slogans issued by the establishment in favor of war. Just as with the Covid narrative, these people do not consider nuance or exhibit any understanding of the fact that Britain instructed Ukraine to reject a peace settlement that had already been written up. They ignore the fact that the US was instrumental in the over-throw of the democratically-elected President nearly a decade earlier and that Victoria Nuland attended the revolution. They also show no concern for billions of taxpayer dollars going to Ukraine and then being washed back into the US to go to our weapons manufacturers. They ignore the reality of the biolabs in Ukraine and our involvement in them. Rapid, mass embrace of a narrative without acknowledging facts is a symptom of mass formation. Dissenting views from the lab leak theory were largely orchestrated by the NIH and the FDA who famously called for the "quick and devastating published takedown" of three fringe epidemiologists, graduates of Harvard, Stanford and Yale. Calling for the quick and devastating takedown of, what turned out to be the correct approach, is a shrill call based on fear and based on an effort to silence discourse. That statement, alone, should cause all who listen to those specific officials to employ large amounts of skepticism. Early in the pandemic Japanese researchers identified a furin cleavage site that could not have happened by natural evolution; a transcript of written communications was released that shows that most of the scientists who conferred with Fauci believed the virus was lab created. There is other evidence that in the minds of nearly all unconflicted scientists shows that the virus was lab created including the conclusion that the virus was a result of gain of function work that was outsourced because it was illegal (but still continues) in the US. Remaining in a place of indefinite uncertainty when overwhelming evidence points to a cause is unproductive. The task of a thinking human is to weigh the evidence and make a decision in order to solve a problem. The scientific community will alway have those who disagree with overwhelming evidence because many have conflicts of interest which is indisputable based on their pharma funding, royalties and employment pattern of running to pharma jobs after their work with the government is finished. Your dismissal of Luc Montagnier is unfounded. You stated that he has been marginalized and widely discredited. So was Dr. Paul Marik, the most published internal medicine doctor (I believe that was his specialty) in the world. He was told to stand down and watch five patients die (see his Congressional testimony) after he had the best recovery record in his hospital (his testimony) for his treatment of Covid patients. A leader in medical "consensus" then reported him for fraud for his sepsis treatment, a treatment that was affirmed effective after a one year clinical trial trying to discredit Dr. Marik. The accuser had no choice but to issue a weak apology that excused himself for any culpability for his false accusation. That didn't stop boards from stripping Dr. Marik of his license. Pierre Kory, Mary Tally Bowden, Dr. Hoffe, Dr. Merrill Nass and many others were also "discredited" and disciplined just as Ignaz Semmelweis was for telling physicians to wash their hands after dealing with a corpse and before examining pregnant women. Your efforts, therefore, to dismiss Luc Montagnier, fall on deaf ears. While you do not believe Dr. Desmet's mention of Zuckerberg's appearance on Joe Rogan may not be used as evidence (although I am a lawyer and believe it can be) his letter to Congress admitting that the government pressured him and his de-platforming of the vaccine injured are just two examples of elite manipulation (I assume we both agree due to his position, influence and wealth Mark Zuckerberg is an elite.) "Fact checkers" have proved themselves to be biased in favor of the platform and government sponsors that employ them. Fact checkers are frequently recent sociology graduates paid to "debunk" neuroscientists. It doesn't take a decades long study to show that they are unqualified to pass judgment on the conclusions of scientists. Fact checkers almost never cite studies or objective evidence in support of their judgment that a neuroscientist is wrong. Lacking any appropriate or relevant education they stand on the basis of a faux legitimacy granted by Facebook or the government. A retrospective examination of the record of fact checkers they were wrong on transmission, masks, social distancing and nearly every other pronouncement they made leading an objective person to conclude their purpose was to direct a narrative. You state that RFK JR is a controversial source and his books are widely criticized for misinformation. If that was in fact true, he would have been sued. It seems that you probably did not read his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, and the pages and pages of footnotes to sources. This last example regarding your dismissal of JFK is emblematic of the fuzzy, vaguely-accusative, based on no evidence statements made by those who try to discredit people but can only do so in tropes. I challenge you to identify ten inaccurate statements in RFK Jr.'s book, The Real Anthony Fauci. In closing, you accuse Mattias Desmet of being vague, rather than analytical, yet you offer no concrete refutations of his statements. You offer no evidence to support your discrediting of RFK Jr and others except to effectively say they are misinformation spreaders. After suffering injury and death over the last five years at the hands of bureaucrats and elitists, and after watching half a million men die in Ukraine and as many in Russia, I think the American people want more than vapid accusations of spreading misinformation if you challenge opinions that don't conform to an official narrative.
Thank you for taking the time to write such an extensive response. I appreciate the effort to clarify your perspective and to engage with my critique in more detail. I’d like to respond thoughtfully, not to argue for the sake of argument, but to explore where we may genuinely differ in approach, method, and interpretation.
You raise many points, but I think they can be grouped around a few key issues: evidence, authority, narrative framing, and what counts as legitimate critique. Allow me to address them in turn.
First, regarding the lab-leak theory: I did not claim it was false or implausible; I acknowledged it remains a live hypothesis. My point was that it is not settled fact, and to present it as such—as Desmet does—misrepresents the current state of scientific inquiry. It’s not a matter of indefinite uncertainty for its own sake; it’s a recognition that complex questions require proportional evidence. You cite researchers, emails, and lab signatures as if they conclusively establish the case. But much of this material remains contested, incomplete, or circumstantial. It’s not that evidence doesn’t exist—it’s that it hasn’t reached the threshold of conclusive proof. Good faith skepticism works both ways: questioning official claims and questioning counterclaims before embracing them as definitive.
Second, about Luc Montagnier and other “discredited” scientists: I agree that history is full of examples of lone figures vindicated against consensus (Semmelweis is a classic case). But not every marginalized scientist is a suppressed truth-teller; many are simply wrong. The burden of proof lies not in biography but in data. Montagnier’s later claims—about electromagnetic signals from DNA, water memory, and the like—were widely rejected not because of bias against his earlier Nobel but because his methods and results didn’t stand up to replication. Similarly, pointing to other physicians who lost licenses or faced institutional pushback does not, by itself, validate their claims. Each case needs to be evaluated on the merits of the evidence, not only on the injustice of the process.
Third, on RFK Jr.: you challenge me to find ten errors in his book. Frankly, I could, as have many reviewers who systematically catalogued inaccuracies, misinterpretations of studies, and selective quoting of data. But more importantly, the challenge itself reflects a problematic standard: the notion that because a work is heavily footnoted, it is therefore reliable. A citation is not an argument. One can fill pages with sources while misrepresenting their conclusions or context. I don't dismiss RFK Jr. because he’s controversial; I question him because many of his factual claims don’t align with the preponderance of peer-reviewed evidence. This is not trope, but methodological critique.
Fourth, on fact-checkers, Zuckerberg, and propaganda: I fully agree that institutions can be biased, fact-checkers can err, and censorship exists. But pointing to flaws in moderation does not automatically imply that all moderation is propaganda, or that the censored claim is therefore true. Likewise, elite influence on platforms is real, but its existence doesn’t validate every counter-narrative suppressed by those platforms. If everything boils down to “if they tried to silence it, it must be true,” we’re no longer doing critical thinking—we’re reacting reflexively to power dynamics without examining the content itself.
This brings me to the broader pattern I see in Desmet’s essay, and in some of your defense: the tendency to move from justified skepticism of official narratives to a sweeping metaphysical suspicion of all institutional knowledge, while simultaneously elevating dissenting voices without applying the same skepticism. Desmet’s theory of “mass formation” posits that the majority is caught in a trance of illusion, while a minority of “truth-tellers” stand outside it, seeing reality clearly. This framing flirts with a kind of epistemological exceptionalism: “we few who see through the matrix.” It may feel empowering, but it risks turning critique into a closed epistemic loop—where any challenge to the dissident narrative becomes further evidence of mass delusion.
That’s what I meant when I called his analysis metaphysical rather than analytical. It’s not just about missing data; it’s about a theory that explains opposition not by counterarguments but by psychological blindness or unconscious drives. In that sense, his model is unfalsifiable: any disagreement proves mass formation; any agreement confirms awakening.
Finally, I fully share your concern for accountability, transparency, and skepticism toward concentrations of power. But for me, skepticism is a discipline, not just a stance—it requires constant testing of our own beliefs, willingness to revise conclusions, and awareness of confirmation bias on all sides. Otherwise, distrust of authority becomes mere inversion, not emancipation.
Thank you again for the exchange. I respect the seriousness of the stakes, and I welcome any further dialogue that sharpens rather than entrenches our thinking.
Thank you for your well considered response. We have some points of agreement and disagreement. I agree with your analysis of the weaknesses of Desmet's theory of Mass Formation. I agree that we must evaluate anew each theory or recommendation from a scientist; their work does not stand above critique because they previously won an award or excelled in another treatment or area of research.
I also agree that citing sources, without more, is problematic; however, it is incumbent on the reader to review the sources to determine whether they support the evidence for which they are cited. During the Covid debacle I read many articles whose conclusions contradicted the evidence within the document. This was never more evident than in a video recorded by Tess Lawrie. https://www.bitchute.com/video/kV5dS0UeZn6K/. The video recorded a discussion between her and Andrew Hill regarding his conclusion in which he was calling for more trials of ivermectin, before use, despite the body of the Cochrane review that provided overwhelming evidence that ivermectin was necessary to stop deaths. He admitted pharma had a hand in his erroneous conclusion and that his conclusion was inaccurate. He asked for six weeks to correct his conclusion and together, he and Tess, calculated the number of people who would die, assuming an accurate conclusion would affect administration of ivermectin, during those six weeks. Lee Iacocca was CEO of Ford when the accountants calculated how many would die as a result of the faulty design of the Ford Pinto and Ford decided to move forward with sales because despite lawsuits the product would be profitable. The evidence of corruption, alone, disqualifies the CEO from being a reliable source for recommending vehicle purchase decisions.
Regarding our disagreements there remain several. Perhaps our primary disagreement concerns the quality and validity of theories posited by scientists and the amount of evidence required to reach a conclusion. Unanimous agreement is not required nor is it likely and it is unachievable until conflicts of interest are eliminated from research. The former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine admitted that "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine." The weight of the evidence of journal articles, therefore, must be heavily discounted until conflicts are cured.
Second, evidence will always remain incomplete, contested and circumstantial unless people involved in an event come forward with the truth. It is the reason we have jury trials - to reach a judgment based on imperfect information. As part of the process of evaluation facts and motives are examined. In the case of the question of murder or suicide, the defense will always employ experts to support their client. However, regardless the testimony of the expert, when you find a body that was shot in the head and the heart and chopped into little pieces, the expert's testimony, that the person committed suicide, must be disregarded even though the theory of death remains contested. Waiting around for consensus would be an injustice. So is the case with the lab leak. Based on the evidence and considering the motives and credibility of the witnesses including Fauci who denied gain of function research and who silenced the majority of dissenters from his narrative, there is sufficient evidence to conclude lab release or escape. And it is important that a conclusion, five or six years later, is finally reached for purposes of accountability and to help prevent future errors or defective policy decisions.
I attribute more agency and intent to the architects of information denial than you do in your statement: "Institutions can be biased, fact-checkers can err, and censorship exists." Yours is a benign characterization and in the case of censorship attributes passive action without agency. Censorship is always a deliberate act to silence contrary research opinions and critiques by those in power. While I agree that a censored person or work should not then, automatically, be accepted as legitimate or true, inquiry into the legitimacy of the censoree must include the question of motivation of the censor: "why was it censored."
When backed into a corner, Mark Zuckerborg claimed that fact checkers were just providing their "opinions." First, he mislead people with the title of "fact checker."
"Fact checker" implies a person examines and report on the facts - not their opinion about a statement. Based on the "opinion" of "fact checkers" legitimate research conclusions and highly credible individuals (Jay Bhattacharia) were censored and removed from discourse. Removal of legitimate opposing perspectives which, now, many admit were accurate, was not without lethal consequences.
"Institutions can be biased" is a marked understatement of the generally deplorable state of institutions in this country. We have an institutional crisis in medicine, politics, education and insurance. Institutions actively work for profits (at any cost in harms) and a globalist agenda to the detriment of the people.
Lastly, this is not a point of disagreement that has been raised, but I'm registering my rejection of the new bevy of words, created by the government, disparaging the validity of information that disagrees with its agenda. Those words, adopted my many, are: misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. That is the vocabulary of information censorship. They are intended to warn people away from speaking and to criminalize accurate information. They should be rejected in their entirety. Each time a censor or anyone else "accuses" someone of malinformation, they should be required, instead, to confirm the person is speaking the truth and then state the reason why the person should not be allowed to be honest. For example: "What you say about the mental and physical harms of masks is true but Dr. Fauci wants us to wear them so you should shut up." But we have lost transparency and "misinformation", "disinformation" and "malionformation" hide the truth and the motive behind the act of censorship. The truth is now a crime in the U.K. where speaking the truth results in immediate jail time while rapists go free.
Thanks for your comment—I really do understand where the frustration comes from. A lot of people feel disillusioned with institutions right now, and it’s not hard to see why. But I also think it’s worth looking closely and specifically at what went wrong, and where there’s still something worth preserving or rebuilding. Not everything is rotten to the core, even if some parts clearly need deep reform. I believe we get further by asking difficult questions and staying open to complexity—especially in times when trust is running low.
Mattias, I have subscribed to your substack (I do not remember what made me do so), and today read a couple of your posts, your most recent one and this one. I did research on you, and your 2022 book on Totalitarianism. I also understand you have focused on mass formation in your work. I too write essays in retirement and have covered some of the topics you cover. So, I have several questions and if your work covers these I would be happy to explore it.
Totalitarianism - in the classic definition, a nation-state is the center of totalitarianism with a dictator leading it. In your most recent essay, you eliminate a coordinated cabal of totalitarians pulling the global strings, so if we are falling prey to a totalitarian control, what is its structure, how does its governance work? How do global corporations fit within this structure?
Mass Formation - is that different than mass psychosis? One of the essays I wrote (see link below) was a book review for clinicians titled Decoding Delusions - A Clinician’s Guide to Working With Delusions and Other Extreme Beliefs. In that book, they cover mass psychosis.
My own view of Post WWII American hegemony, what Aaron Good calls "American Exception" (see link below to my review of that), also relies on propaganda and mass formation: 1- Cold War fervent anti-communism, 1990s pause, then 2- Terrorism and GWOT, 3- global pandemics.
Regarding Russia and their guiding philosophy, others have written (see Dave Troy America 2.0 on substack) about this and there is much synergy between this thinking and that of the neo-reactionaries (Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Curtis Garvin, JD Vance) that have captured power within MAGA movement. This coming together for anti-democratic authoritarianism he calls convergence.
Thanks. Jim
https://medium.com/@jylterps/i-cant-prove-it-it-s-just-what-i-believe-decoding-delusions-and-other-beliefs-through-5cef41345af1
https://medium.com/@jylterps/american-exception-empire-and-the-deep-state-book-review-essay-6a90f2588048
https://america2.news/convergence-is-here-and-were-not-prepared/
prof Luc died feb 8 2022
He said prion disease will be prevalent due to jabs
It is not psychosis. If you ever worked or saw a psychotic patient you would call it psychosis. It is mass formation blindness due to fear, laziness and comfort level that people in the west don’t want to be disturbed… Get it?
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
This is an excellent followup of my https://teunvansambeek.substack.com/p/from-bankers-to-corona article!
Actually an indictment of the idea that democracy is really possible with such people.
Wow!
Nicely done.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mattiasdesmet/p/from-corona-to-ukraine-the-new-mass?selection=c0cd40bf-26ed-49e1-99bc-b2f2d713b096&r=1nnxgl&utm_medium=ios
I’ll have to Exit the Train your Pulling up around the Mountain 🏔️
Honest Dialogue puts the Designed COVD xirus at Fort Detrick/Meade
I learned from covid mass formation to recognize my “heart of truth” and trust/follow it more precisely… Mattias, “they” are losing as others have learned as I have learned, as you are teaching some listen with their heart of truth
Unfortunately, the Mass Formation is playing out again in the US with the anti-Musk TeslaTakedown movement. I’ve never seen so many older people completely losing their minds and moral compass to participate in vandalism and assault. It’s almost as if they’re automatons doing the bidding of an unseen entity.
Thank you Professor for your wise and insightful words, as usual.
The only 'bio-weapon' that was 'released' during the plandemic, was the warp speed MRNA injections. Why would the plandemic launch a meaningless pcr test in advance and base the whole campaign on meaningless results, if anything organic was actually happening?
Further, everyone stopped taking boosters in 2021. Do we really believe that after monkeypox, it was all a psyop but before this, it was all real? Really.
Thank you Mattias. You Motivate me to go on with our Monday-evening demo for Peace in Diepholz.
ich leihe mir hier einen Text aus (Schweizerischer Verein WIR) - spricht für sich -:
"In 60 Sekunden
Die bestbelegte Version der Corona-P(l)andemie
Was die Corona-Pandemie betrifft, werden auch heute, fünf Jahre später, noch unzählige Ablenkungsmanöver gefahren, damit der Durchschnittsschweizer den Überblick verliert und nicht mehr weiss, was er glauben soll. Mal war es eine Fledermaus, mal ein Laborunfall, mal die böse chinesische Regierung – Hauptsache, niemand schaut auf die echten Hintergründe. Das ist, als würde ein Brandstifter ein Haus anzünden, während die Feuerwehrleute mit den Anwohnern diskutieren, ob das Feuer durch einen Blitz oder eine umgefallene Kerze entstanden ist. Der eigentliche Skandal ist nicht, ob SARS-CoV-2 aus einem Labor „entwischt“ ist oder nicht, sondern dass die Pandemie als geplanter Vorwand genutzt wurde, um eine mRNA-Technologie-Plattform durchzudrücken, die ohne die orchestrierte Angstkampagne niemals akzeptiert worden wäre. Dabei ist die Sache in 60 Sekunden Lesezeit erklärt. Alles andere sind Märchen für Gutgläubige.
Hier die heute am besten belegte Erklärung:
Die Corona-Pandemie war keine spontane Naturkatastrophe, sondern das Ergebnis jahrelanger Planung. Deshalb: Plandemie! Bereits in den frühen 2000er-Jahren arbeiteten US-Forscher wie Ralph Baric an der Manipulation von Coronaviren. 2015 sagte Peter Daszak, dass die Öffentlichkeit erst durch einen „Medienhype“ zur Annahme eines globalen Impfstoffs gebracht werden müsse. Event 201 im Oktober 2019 war die Generalprobe: Eine inszenierte Pandemie-Simulation, die exakt die Massnahmen vorwegnahm, die wenig später weltweit als militärische Operation und internationale Gleichschaltung umgesetzt wurden.
Moderna und Pfizer hatten die mRNA-Technologie bereits Jahre vor der „Pandemie“ entwickelt und patentiert. Das angeblich neuartige „Impfstoff“-Design war längst fertig – die Pandemie war nur der Vorwand für den Rollout. Denn ohne die orchestrierte Panik hätten die Menschen diese Genmanipulations-Plattform niemals akzeptiert.
Im Dezember 2019 wurde SARS-CoV-2 schliesslich in Wuhan „entdeckt“. Ob ein realer Erreger freigesetzt wurde oder allein durch einen koordinierten Medienhype eine neue Pandemie erschaffen wurde, bleibt nach wie vor unklar. Fakt ist: Regierungen, Pharmaindustrie und Medien nutzten das Szenario, um die Welt in einen Ausnahmezustand zu versetzen. Angst und Zwangsmassnahmen ermöglichten es, die mRNA-Technologie erstmals in Milliarden Menschen zu injizieren.
Dafür wurde ein untauglicher PCR-Test genutzt, der keine Infektionen nachweisen konnte, aber durch Massentests eine „Test-Pandemie“ erzeugte. Zudem wurde der Test fast ausschliesslich per Nasenabstrich durchgeführt, wodurch weltweit DNA-Proben von hunderten Millionen Menschen gesammelt wurden – eine Tatsache, die definitiv in Zusammenhang mit globalen Genomprojekten steht.
Doch wer traf die Entscheidung für den globalen Ausnahmezustand?
Bereits am 4. Februar 2020 wurde COVID in den USA offiziell als „nationale Sicherheitsbedrohung“ eingestuft – ohne jegliche epidemiologische oder medizinische Grundlage. Bis heute ist unklar, welche Daten diese Einstufung rechtfertigten, denn es existierte weder ein validierter Virusnachweis noch belastbare Krankheitszahlen. Die Pandemie wurde nicht durch medizinische Notwendigkeit, sondern durch eine militärische Entscheidung ausgelöst – und diese Entscheidung bleibt bis heute unter Verschluss.
Aber warum?
Erstens: Kurzfristiger Profit.
Zweitens: Zukünftiger Profit. Die mRNA-Plattform ist gekommen, um zu bleiben – jetzt wird sie für Krebs-, Grippe- und RSV-Spritzen propagiert.
Drittens: Kontrolle. Mit „Impf“-Nachweisen und digitalen Gesundheitszertifikaten wurden die Weichen für eine neue Überwachungsinfrastruktur gestellt.
Viertens: Transhumanismus. Die mRNA-Technologie ist ein zentraler Baustein für die Verschmelzung von Mensch und Technologie – das „Internet of Bodies“.
Eine Gesundheitskrise war das nie – es war der Auftakt zur biotechnologischen Überwachung der Menschheit. Es dient, fünftens, zudem der Bevölkerungskontrolle und -reduktion.
Warum spricht praktisch niemand über diese belegbaren Fakten? Weil die Wahrheit schwer auszuhalten ist, denn sie würde bedeuten: Unsere eigenen Regierungen, Behörden und Institutionen haben uns selbst in die Falle geführt – und viele, die es heute besser wissen, schweigen, um ihre eigene Mitschuld zu vertuschen."
Wise and measured, thank you. I've seen with my own eyes those I thought of as intelligent caring beings call immediately to "nuke Putin" when this debacle began, and even declare on three different occasions "all Republicans should die" and no amount of measured speech seemed able to wake her up (by me, or her husband!). I was thinking she was "salvageable" since she allowed a heretical unvaccinated other into her home, and even complained about how in her hometown in California, she was being treated as a second class person simply for being white. But the programming truly works, and sadly I had to leave this longstanding friend behind. There are plenty of others I feel I've moved the dial with, however, certainly giving credence to the pattern you lay out in The Psychology of Totalitarianism. Most people are not so hypnotized that careful reasoning is useless. It's sad to think that I may be in this position for the rest of my days, but at least I have a solid core of family friends and community. I know far too many others who either live in isolation and fear or awake in the midst of such. Always the optimist, I've been talking about seeing "the turning of the ship" for a while, now. It just seems like the icebergs are large and looming and hidden in fog
Incredibly thoughtful. Thank you. Stay on hard ground.
Mattias Desmet’s essay opens with the claim that we are witnessing the collapse of the corona narrative while a new mass formation emerges around the war in Ukraine. From the outset, this parallel is asserted rather than argued, a pattern-recognition fallacy that assumes meaningful connection without offering causal or empirical justification. The idea that both developments occur “not by chance” is suggestive rather than analytical.
Desmet proceeds to claim that “everyone who wanted to know” already knew the virus came from a lab, which retrospectively discredits any dissenting view as willfully blind. This rhetorical move shuts down nuance and precludes legitimate uncertainty. Furthermore, the question of SARS-CoV-2’s origin remains unresolved in the scientific community. While lab-leak theories are not implausible, they are far from conclusive, and presenting them as settled truth undermines the complexity of the evidence.
He invokes Luc Montagnier, a Nobel laureate, to lend weight to the lab-leak theory. Yet this appeal to authority ignores Montagnier’s later marginalization in the scientific world due to controversial and widely discredited claims, including on homeopathy and electromagnetic waves. Meanwhile, the framing of fact-checkers as mere propaganda tools ignores the institutional variety, editorial standards, and ongoing debates about disinformation. The mention of Mark Zuckerberg’s podcast with Joe Rogan is also telling—used not as evidence, but as a cultural signal to suggest elite manipulation without substantiating the claim.
Desmet argues that the virus’s lab origin matters because it exposes the failure of the “technocratic and rationalist” worldview, suggesting that not only did technology fail to stop the virus (as seen in mRNA vaccines), but that it created the virus itself. This leap from a speculative lab origin to a wholesale indictment of rationalism is an overgeneralization, reducing complex biomedical realities to a metaphysical critique of modernity.
The next paragraph states as fact that the virus came from the Wuhan lab and questions Fauci’s involvement. Desmet again relies on controversial sources like RFK Jr., whose books are heavily criticized for misinformation. This method of citing fringe voices while ignoring mainstream research reveals a confirmation bias: only those who reinforce the narrative of deceit are considered credible.
His critique of pandemic measures includes valid concerns—such as overestimated mortality statistics and the social consequences of vaccine mandates—but the interpretation is deeply one-sided. He characterizes the treatment of the unvaccinated as dehumanizing, yet omits the context of public health urgency and the real uncertainties under which policies were made. His assertion that vaccines did not stop the spread is also misleading; while they did not fully prevent transmission, they significantly reduced it, especially with earlier variants.
Desmet’s description of the WHO adopting QR-code technologies and linking them to social credit systems is framed as a dystopian inevitability. This is a classic slippery slope argument, suggesting that any use of digital infrastructure will inevitably become authoritarian. No direct evidence is provided for this leap from digital health policy to a panopticon.
He then returns to his concept of mass formation, claiming that technocratic systems learn nothing and proceed fanatically toward disaster. The analogy of a mother proudly denouncing her child to the state is emotionally charged and historically resonant, but lacks contemporary equivalence. These hyperboles may be rhetorically effective, yet they obscure rather than clarify present-day realities.
In reflecting on why the “corona story” is collapsing now, Desmet dismisses the idea that public insight has gradually improved. Instead, he offers a metaphysical explanation: human behavior is governed by vital forces like fear and aggression, which have now attached themselves to the Ukraine war. This view undercuts rational debate by positing that people are not swayed by arguments but by unconscious drives. It is a fatalistic anthropology disguised as analysis.
Desmet attempts to draw a parallel between pandemic mass formation and the public’s emotional response to the Ukraine conflict. This analogy fails to account for the very different nature of the two crises. The Russian invasion is a geopolitical event with clear evidence of military aggression. Framing support for Ukraine as mass delusion risks trivializing genuine solidarity with a nation under siege.
He then criticizes European militarization and implies that leaders like Ursula von der Leyen are trying to confiscate personal savings to fund the war machine—a misleading framing, as it confuses European fiscal mechanisms with personal bank accounts. This stokes fear rather than fostering clarity.
While Desmet professes neutrality—“not pro-Putin, not anti”—his treatment of Russia is notably more sympathetic than his treatment of the West. He contextualizes Russian aggression as a defensive reaction to NATO expansion, a line of reasoning that risks justifying invasion as geopolitical necessity. The repeated invocation of historical analogies (e.g., Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard) adds intellectual gravitas but remains speculative.
Desmet outlines three reasons for Russia’s invasion: humanitarian concerns, economic threats, and strategic necessity. Yet he provides minimal critique of these justifications. Suggesting that Putin acted to protect ethnic Russians or prevent resource capture by the West is presented as plausible, while the agency of Ukrainians—their rights, voices, and resistance—is largely absent from his analysis. The portrayal of Russia as cornered and existentially threatened is a familiar talking point from Kremlin rhetoric.
He concludes that the struggle is between great powers driven by ego, fear, and aggression, all engaging in propaganda, persecution, and violence. While not untrue in broad strokes, this symmetrical framing leads to a moral equivalence that overlooks the disproportionate power exercised by Russia in initiating full-scale war.
The final reflection calls for diplomacy and the recognition of the Other as human. This is a noble sentiment. Yet it comes at the end of a text filled with asymmetrical critique, selective sourcing, and deeply conspiratorial overtones. His suggestion that mass formation is driven by a death drive—that those caught up in it have already chosen death—is chilling in tone and reminiscent of apocalyptic thinking. The idea that only a few courageous truth-tellers can pierce this veil of illusion casts the speaker in a quasi-messianic role.
In sum, Desmet’s essay blends legitimate questions with overreach, distortion, and speculative metaphysics. It expresses a deep mistrust of modern institutions but offers little in the way of verifiable analysis or constructive alternatives. It appeals to the reader's intuition and suspicion rather than their reason. As such, it is valuable as an artifact of disillusionment, but it falls short as a basis for coherent political or scientific understanding. Desmet’s frequent reliance on fallacious arguments—such as appeals to authority, slippery slopes, false equivalences, and conspiratorial framing—undermines the intellectual credibility of his entire argument. Rather than fostering critical thinking, it creates a closed narrative system that resists challenge and invites belief over evidence.
Your "critique" of Mattias Desmet's essay is an exercise in vapid semi-academic "analysis" that is more partisan complaining about an acknowledgement of the reality we lived through rather than a true, robust fact-filled response. I suspect that's because you know the facts do not support your opinion but allusion to their existence plumps up your support of a discredited narrative.
Thanks for your response. I'm always open to discussion, but it would be more helpful to point out where exactly you think my critique falls short, rather than just dismissing it as "vapid" or "partisan." If there are facts that contradict what I wrote, I’d genuinely like to see them. The issues Desmet raises are important, and that’s precisely why they deserve careful, evidence-based analysis—not just strong opinions. I'm open to being challenged, but that works best when it's done with arguments, not just accusations.
Good point. I am not going to respond with specific examples to your response in its entirety since it would take several hours to gather all of the evidence in support of my response. People rushed to embrace the Ukraine narrative, overnight. They posted flags in their social media before they could possibly have researched what was actually happening and the history that lead up to the invasion. Those who posted flags also rarely talk specifics but repeat rote slogans issued by the establishment in favor of war. Just as with the Covid narrative, these people do not consider nuance or exhibit any understanding of the fact that Britain instructed Ukraine to reject a peace settlement that had already been written up. They ignore the fact that the US was instrumental in the over-throw of the democratically-elected President nearly a decade earlier and that Victoria Nuland attended the revolution. They also show no concern for billions of taxpayer dollars going to Ukraine and then being washed back into the US to go to our weapons manufacturers. They ignore the reality of the biolabs in Ukraine and our involvement in them. Rapid, mass embrace of a narrative without acknowledging facts is a symptom of mass formation. Dissenting views from the lab leak theory were largely orchestrated by the NIH and the FDA who famously called for the "quick and devastating published takedown" of three fringe epidemiologists, graduates of Harvard, Stanford and Yale. Calling for the quick and devastating takedown of, what turned out to be the correct approach, is a shrill call based on fear and based on an effort to silence discourse. That statement, alone, should cause all who listen to those specific officials to employ large amounts of skepticism. Early in the pandemic Japanese researchers identified a furin cleavage site that could not have happened by natural evolution; a transcript of written communications was released that shows that most of the scientists who conferred with Fauci believed the virus was lab created. There is other evidence that in the minds of nearly all unconflicted scientists shows that the virus was lab created including the conclusion that the virus was a result of gain of function work that was outsourced because it was illegal (but still continues) in the US. Remaining in a place of indefinite uncertainty when overwhelming evidence points to a cause is unproductive. The task of a thinking human is to weigh the evidence and make a decision in order to solve a problem. The scientific community will alway have those who disagree with overwhelming evidence because many have conflicts of interest which is indisputable based on their pharma funding, royalties and employment pattern of running to pharma jobs after their work with the government is finished. Your dismissal of Luc Montagnier is unfounded. You stated that he has been marginalized and widely discredited. So was Dr. Paul Marik, the most published internal medicine doctor (I believe that was his specialty) in the world. He was told to stand down and watch five patients die (see his Congressional testimony) after he had the best recovery record in his hospital (his testimony) for his treatment of Covid patients. A leader in medical "consensus" then reported him for fraud for his sepsis treatment, a treatment that was affirmed effective after a one year clinical trial trying to discredit Dr. Marik. The accuser had no choice but to issue a weak apology that excused himself for any culpability for his false accusation. That didn't stop boards from stripping Dr. Marik of his license. Pierre Kory, Mary Tally Bowden, Dr. Hoffe, Dr. Merrill Nass and many others were also "discredited" and disciplined just as Ignaz Semmelweis was for telling physicians to wash their hands after dealing with a corpse and before examining pregnant women. Your efforts, therefore, to dismiss Luc Montagnier, fall on deaf ears. While you do not believe Dr. Desmet's mention of Zuckerberg's appearance on Joe Rogan may not be used as evidence (although I am a lawyer and believe it can be) his letter to Congress admitting that the government pressured him and his de-platforming of the vaccine injured are just two examples of elite manipulation (I assume we both agree due to his position, influence and wealth Mark Zuckerberg is an elite.) "Fact checkers" have proved themselves to be biased in favor of the platform and government sponsors that employ them. Fact checkers are frequently recent sociology graduates paid to "debunk" neuroscientists. It doesn't take a decades long study to show that they are unqualified to pass judgment on the conclusions of scientists. Fact checkers almost never cite studies or objective evidence in support of their judgment that a neuroscientist is wrong. Lacking any appropriate or relevant education they stand on the basis of a faux legitimacy granted by Facebook or the government. A retrospective examination of the record of fact checkers they were wrong on transmission, masks, social distancing and nearly every other pronouncement they made leading an objective person to conclude their purpose was to direct a narrative. You state that RFK JR is a controversial source and his books are widely criticized for misinformation. If that was in fact true, he would have been sued. It seems that you probably did not read his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, and the pages and pages of footnotes to sources. This last example regarding your dismissal of JFK is emblematic of the fuzzy, vaguely-accusative, based on no evidence statements made by those who try to discredit people but can only do so in tropes. I challenge you to identify ten inaccurate statements in RFK Jr.'s book, The Real Anthony Fauci. In closing, you accuse Mattias Desmet of being vague, rather than analytical, yet you offer no concrete refutations of his statements. You offer no evidence to support your discrediting of RFK Jr and others except to effectively say they are misinformation spreaders. After suffering injury and death over the last five years at the hands of bureaucrats and elitists, and after watching half a million men die in Ukraine and as many in Russia, I think the American people want more than vapid accusations of spreading misinformation if you challenge opinions that don't conform to an official narrative.
Dear Musta,
Thank you for taking the time to write such an extensive response. I appreciate the effort to clarify your perspective and to engage with my critique in more detail. I’d like to respond thoughtfully, not to argue for the sake of argument, but to explore where we may genuinely differ in approach, method, and interpretation.
You raise many points, but I think they can be grouped around a few key issues: evidence, authority, narrative framing, and what counts as legitimate critique. Allow me to address them in turn.
First, regarding the lab-leak theory: I did not claim it was false or implausible; I acknowledged it remains a live hypothesis. My point was that it is not settled fact, and to present it as such—as Desmet does—misrepresents the current state of scientific inquiry. It’s not a matter of indefinite uncertainty for its own sake; it’s a recognition that complex questions require proportional evidence. You cite researchers, emails, and lab signatures as if they conclusively establish the case. But much of this material remains contested, incomplete, or circumstantial. It’s not that evidence doesn’t exist—it’s that it hasn’t reached the threshold of conclusive proof. Good faith skepticism works both ways: questioning official claims and questioning counterclaims before embracing them as definitive.
Second, about Luc Montagnier and other “discredited” scientists: I agree that history is full of examples of lone figures vindicated against consensus (Semmelweis is a classic case). But not every marginalized scientist is a suppressed truth-teller; many are simply wrong. The burden of proof lies not in biography but in data. Montagnier’s later claims—about electromagnetic signals from DNA, water memory, and the like—were widely rejected not because of bias against his earlier Nobel but because his methods and results didn’t stand up to replication. Similarly, pointing to other physicians who lost licenses or faced institutional pushback does not, by itself, validate their claims. Each case needs to be evaluated on the merits of the evidence, not only on the injustice of the process.
Third, on RFK Jr.: you challenge me to find ten errors in his book. Frankly, I could, as have many reviewers who systematically catalogued inaccuracies, misinterpretations of studies, and selective quoting of data. But more importantly, the challenge itself reflects a problematic standard: the notion that because a work is heavily footnoted, it is therefore reliable. A citation is not an argument. One can fill pages with sources while misrepresenting their conclusions or context. I don't dismiss RFK Jr. because he’s controversial; I question him because many of his factual claims don’t align with the preponderance of peer-reviewed evidence. This is not trope, but methodological critique.
Fourth, on fact-checkers, Zuckerberg, and propaganda: I fully agree that institutions can be biased, fact-checkers can err, and censorship exists. But pointing to flaws in moderation does not automatically imply that all moderation is propaganda, or that the censored claim is therefore true. Likewise, elite influence on platforms is real, but its existence doesn’t validate every counter-narrative suppressed by those platforms. If everything boils down to “if they tried to silence it, it must be true,” we’re no longer doing critical thinking—we’re reacting reflexively to power dynamics without examining the content itself.
This brings me to the broader pattern I see in Desmet’s essay, and in some of your defense: the tendency to move from justified skepticism of official narratives to a sweeping metaphysical suspicion of all institutional knowledge, while simultaneously elevating dissenting voices without applying the same skepticism. Desmet’s theory of “mass formation” posits that the majority is caught in a trance of illusion, while a minority of “truth-tellers” stand outside it, seeing reality clearly. This framing flirts with a kind of epistemological exceptionalism: “we few who see through the matrix.” It may feel empowering, but it risks turning critique into a closed epistemic loop—where any challenge to the dissident narrative becomes further evidence of mass delusion.
That’s what I meant when I called his analysis metaphysical rather than analytical. It’s not just about missing data; it’s about a theory that explains opposition not by counterarguments but by psychological blindness or unconscious drives. In that sense, his model is unfalsifiable: any disagreement proves mass formation; any agreement confirms awakening.
Finally, I fully share your concern for accountability, transparency, and skepticism toward concentrations of power. But for me, skepticism is a discipline, not just a stance—it requires constant testing of our own beliefs, willingness to revise conclusions, and awareness of confirmation bias on all sides. Otherwise, distrust of authority becomes mere inversion, not emancipation.
Thank you again for the exchange. I respect the seriousness of the stakes, and I welcome any further dialogue that sharpens rather than entrenches our thinking.
Warm regards,
Wouter
Thank you for your well considered response. We have some points of agreement and disagreement. I agree with your analysis of the weaknesses of Desmet's theory of Mass Formation. I agree that we must evaluate anew each theory or recommendation from a scientist; their work does not stand above critique because they previously won an award or excelled in another treatment or area of research.
I also agree that citing sources, without more, is problematic; however, it is incumbent on the reader to review the sources to determine whether they support the evidence for which they are cited. During the Covid debacle I read many articles whose conclusions contradicted the evidence within the document. This was never more evident than in a video recorded by Tess Lawrie. https://www.bitchute.com/video/kV5dS0UeZn6K/. The video recorded a discussion between her and Andrew Hill regarding his conclusion in which he was calling for more trials of ivermectin, before use, despite the body of the Cochrane review that provided overwhelming evidence that ivermectin was necessary to stop deaths. He admitted pharma had a hand in his erroneous conclusion and that his conclusion was inaccurate. He asked for six weeks to correct his conclusion and together, he and Tess, calculated the number of people who would die, assuming an accurate conclusion would affect administration of ivermectin, during those six weeks. Lee Iacocca was CEO of Ford when the accountants calculated how many would die as a result of the faulty design of the Ford Pinto and Ford decided to move forward with sales because despite lawsuits the product would be profitable. The evidence of corruption, alone, disqualifies the CEO from being a reliable source for recommending vehicle purchase decisions.
Regarding our disagreements there remain several. Perhaps our primary disagreement concerns the quality and validity of theories posited by scientists and the amount of evidence required to reach a conclusion. Unanimous agreement is not required nor is it likely and it is unachievable until conflicts of interest are eliminated from research. The former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine admitted that "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine." The weight of the evidence of journal articles, therefore, must be heavily discounted until conflicts are cured.
Second, evidence will always remain incomplete, contested and circumstantial unless people involved in an event come forward with the truth. It is the reason we have jury trials - to reach a judgment based on imperfect information. As part of the process of evaluation facts and motives are examined. In the case of the question of murder or suicide, the defense will always employ experts to support their client. However, regardless the testimony of the expert, when you find a body that was shot in the head and the heart and chopped into little pieces, the expert's testimony, that the person committed suicide, must be disregarded even though the theory of death remains contested. Waiting around for consensus would be an injustice. So is the case with the lab leak. Based on the evidence and considering the motives and credibility of the witnesses including Fauci who denied gain of function research and who silenced the majority of dissenters from his narrative, there is sufficient evidence to conclude lab release or escape. And it is important that a conclusion, five or six years later, is finally reached for purposes of accountability and to help prevent future errors or defective policy decisions.
I attribute more agency and intent to the architects of information denial than you do in your statement: "Institutions can be biased, fact-checkers can err, and censorship exists." Yours is a benign characterization and in the case of censorship attributes passive action without agency. Censorship is always a deliberate act to silence contrary research opinions and critiques by those in power. While I agree that a censored person or work should not then, automatically, be accepted as legitimate or true, inquiry into the legitimacy of the censoree must include the question of motivation of the censor: "why was it censored."
When backed into a corner, Mark Zuckerborg claimed that fact checkers were just providing their "opinions." First, he mislead people with the title of "fact checker."
"Fact checker" implies a person examines and report on the facts - not their opinion about a statement. Based on the "opinion" of "fact checkers" legitimate research conclusions and highly credible individuals (Jay Bhattacharia) were censored and removed from discourse. Removal of legitimate opposing perspectives which, now, many admit were accurate, was not without lethal consequences.
"Institutions can be biased" is a marked understatement of the generally deplorable state of institutions in this country. We have an institutional crisis in medicine, politics, education and insurance. Institutions actively work for profits (at any cost in harms) and a globalist agenda to the detriment of the people.
Lastly, this is not a point of disagreement that has been raised, but I'm registering my rejection of the new bevy of words, created by the government, disparaging the validity of information that disagrees with its agenda. Those words, adopted my many, are: misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. That is the vocabulary of information censorship. They are intended to warn people away from speaking and to criminalize accurate information. They should be rejected in their entirety. Each time a censor or anyone else "accuses" someone of malinformation, they should be required, instead, to confirm the person is speaking the truth and then state the reason why the person should not be allowed to be honest. For example: "What you say about the mental and physical harms of masks is true but Dr. Fauci wants us to wear them so you should shut up." But we have lost transparency and "misinformation", "disinformation" and "malionformation" hide the truth and the motive behind the act of censorship. The truth is now a crime in the U.K. where speaking the truth results in immediate jail time while rapists go free.
Our ‘public health agency’ is a sham…much like all of the alphabet agencies today…we have made our reps rich while enslaving ourselves.
Thanks for your comment—I really do understand where the frustration comes from. A lot of people feel disillusioned with institutions right now, and it’s not hard to see why. But I also think it’s worth looking closely and specifically at what went wrong, and where there’s still something worth preserving or rebuilding. Not everything is rotten to the core, even if some parts clearly need deep reform. I believe we get further by asking difficult questions and staying open to complexity—especially in times when trust is running low.