How Ideas can Trigger a Mass Psychosis

“Man does not make his ideas; we could  say that man’s ideas make him. ” Carl Jung, Freud and Psychoanalysis Ideas are the seeds of our greatest creations, but they can also sow destruction. Ideas, when put into action, lead  to individual and social flourishing or to individual suffering and social ruin.

And  certain ideas, as we will explore in this video, can induce a mass psychosis and motivate  individuals to commit acts of such cruelty and depravity that to an outside observer the  society will appear to be possessed by evil. Reflecting on the mass psychosis that broke  out across Europe in the mid-20th century and that led to multiple wars and multiple  genocides, Carl Jung wrote the following: “Just when people were congratulating themselves  on having abolished [the belief in demons], it turned out that instead of haunting the attic or  old ruins the [demons] were flitting about in the heads of apparently normal Europeans. Tyrannical,  obsessive, intoxicating ideas and delusions were abroad everywhere, and people began to believe the  most absurd things, just as the possessed do.

” Carl Jung, After the Catastophe Jung devoted his life to studying the psyche of man and was acutely aware of how ideas influence  individual and social development. We must, therefore, be careful which ideas we affirm and  which we deny and this is especially true with regards to our ideas about human nature, the human  potential and the proper structure of society. For this set of ideas helps determine our value  system impelling us to act in certain ways and to strive after certain things.

These ideas are an  integral component of our moral compass teaching us what is right and wrong, what to love and hate.  And our ideas about human nature place bounds, wide or small, on our potential at both  an individual and collective scale. Most of us, however, are not careful when it comes  to the ideas that occupy our minds as we passively accept whatever ideas form the zeitgeist  of our time.

Most of us, in other words, are controlled by the ideas of other people and  we give little thought as to whether such ideas are right or wrong, beneficial or harmful and  as the psychologist Silvano Arieti warns: “If he controls your ideas he will soon control  your actions, because every action is preceded by an idea. (The Will to Be Human) Silvano Arieti, The Will to Be Human Sometimes this passive conformity in the  realm of ideas promotes our well-being and contributes to a prosperous  society, but at other times the ideas that make up the spirit of our age  do the opposite. Certain ideas weaken us, make us prone to fear and anxiety, disconnect  us from reality, drive us to excessive hate, cause us to regress psychologically and distort  our view of human nature and the human potential.

Ideas of this variety the Russian author Fyodor  Dostoevsky labeled as demons, and as Richard Pevear wrote in the preface to Dostoevsky’s novel  Demons, throughout Dostoevsky’s work exists “…the possibility of an evil or alien idea  coming to inhabit a person, misleading him, perverting him ontologically, driving him to crime  or insanity. . .

The person born of the idea may be distorted and even destroyed by it. ” Richard Pevear, Foreword to Demons When possessed by demons an individual is less  capable of facing up to the challenges of life. For demons, by distorting and degrading our  image of human nature and the human potential, trick a man or woman into acting in ways  that are maladaptive to the environment and injurious to individual flourishing and social  prosperity.

Demons are not based in truth and are not built on an appeal to facts and evidence,  but are illusions and as Jung wrote: “Illusions are inimical to life, they are unhealthy and  sooner or later trip you up. ” (v10) But humans are very susceptible to illusions and advances  in science and technology have not made us immune to illusory ideas or as Jung wrote: “…the psychic conditions which breed demons are as actively at work as ever. ” Carl Jung, After the Catastrophe And as he stated in a lecture  given at Yale University: “We can never be sure that a new idea will  not seize either upon ourselves or upon our neighbours.

We know from modern as well as from  ancient history that such ideas are often so strange, indeed so bizarre, that they fly in  the face of reason. The fascination which is almost invariably connected with ideas of  this sort produces a fanatical obsession, with the result that all dissenters no matter how  well-meaning or reasonable they are, get burnt alive . .

. or are disposed of in masses. ” Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion Demons take many forms – be it ideas that promote  learned helplessness or passivity and so degrade the human potential; social or religious ideas  that deem a race or ethnic group as a plague to mankind and so promote persecutions and mass  cruelty; or political ideologies that elevate a select few far above the rest of mankind and  so set a society up for the mass psychosis of totalitarianism.

This latter belief,  which divides society into two classes, the rulers and the ruled, has a long history and  many variants. Whether it be communism, rule by kings, queens, or pharaohs, or in the modern day  unchecked rule by bureaucrats and politicians, this demon of authoritarianism prevents the  prosperous functioning of a society by inhibiting the potential of the masses and shackling society  within the constraints of total control by a small group of power hungry and corrupt individuals: “. .

. it is delusional. .

. to think of man as an obedient machine. It is delusional to deny  his dynamic nature and to try to arrest all his thinking and acting at the infantile  stage of submission to authority.

. . ” Joost Meerloo, Rape of the Mind How do these authoritarian ideologies which set a society up for the horrors of totalitarianism  spread throughout society?

Typically, the first to be possessed by the demon of authoritarianism  are individuals with a particularly strong thirst for power and who desire to quench this  thirst through control over others: “Not all men want to dominate a  large number of other persons, but those who do affect the life of many. ” Silvano Arieti, The Will to Be Human When individuals of this nature attain  positions of institutional and political power the scene is set for the spread  of the demon of authoritarianism. For these individuals gain power and  resources the more this demon spreads and so they instinctively seek to disseminate  their favoured authoritarian ideology as far and wide as possible.

Unfortunately for the  rest of us, advances in the field of psychology, and specifically in the understanding of group  psychology, has allowed for the development of very effective methods of molding the minds  of the masses and politicians and bureaucrats the world over now make use of these methods  of mind control, or as Meerloo explains: “Just as the technological advances of the  modern world have refined and perfected the weapons of physical warfare, so the advance  in man’s understanding of the manipulation of public opinion have enabled him to refine  and perfect the weapons of psychological warfare. . .

[and] totalitarian psychological  warfare…is an effort to propagandize and hypnotize the world into submission. ” Joost Meerloo, Rape of the Mind But are the individuals who spread these  authoritarian ideologies simply evil? Do they spread these ideas, in other words, with  the intention of causing harm to other people?

The Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,  who lived in a society caught in the grip of the authoritarian demon of communism,  suggests that such individuals are evil, but that they lack full awareness of the fact  that they are setting society up for ruin. Instead, such individuals convince themselves,  and then others, that what they are doing is for the good of society, and not merely for their  own personal gain, or as Solzhenitsyn writes: “To do evil a human being must first of  all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act  in conformity with natural law. ” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago Or as he further explains: “Ideology –that is what gives evil  doing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary  steadfastness and determination.

That is the social theory which helps to make  his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and  curses but will receive praise and honors. ” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago In the next video we will explore how this small group of power-hungry individuals is able to  spread the demon of an authoritarian ideology to the masses at large and in the process induce  the mass psychosis of totalitarianism. We will explore the techniques that are used for the  dissemination of this demon, the conditions that create fertile ground for its spread and the role  that modern technology plays in this process.

“The comparison between totalitarianism and  psychosis is not incidental,” explains Meerloo. “Delusional thinking inevitably creeps into  every form of tyranny and despotism. .

. Evil powers from the archaic past return. An automatic  compulsion to go on to self-destruction develops, to justify one mistake with a new one; to enlarge  and expand the vicious pathological circle becomes the dominating end of life…This [delusion] starts  with the leaders and is later taken over by the masses they oppress.