"Every win—no matter how small—is important. The tide turns not all at once but over time and with a sustained effort by many individuals and groups. The downstream effect of these wins touches us all"
100% AGREE MARK...Congrats on a BIG win ....Onward Pilgrims
Well said and well done Dr. McDonald. I am proud to be on your team you have been a voice of reason and power since the Scamdemic evolved into a full blown public health farce. I look forward to your writings your podcasts and your next fight as your army General is growing. Thank you for your leadership your academic prowess and your commitment to fight the wrongs not only in your profession but in society as a whole. I hope you don’t move to Croatia but if you do I get it, it’s a beautiful country and hopefully not as corrupt as this one. Congratulations and thanks again for all you do for people like me!
I agree completely that those with the most influence are the ones who should be standing for the truth no matter the cost to them personally. You are correct, anything else is cowardice.
Congratulations on getting that unjust investigation dropped.
I recently listened to an interview with you by Peter Breggin. You discussed your definition of the fear generated by our government resulting in Covid vaccine despite indications that the risk outweighed the benefit. I believe you referred to the determination to be endlessly vaccinated as caused by a mass fear psychosis. Matthias defines it as "mass formation." You were the first author to publish the role of fear in promoting vaccines. I worked in the Columbia Department of Psychiatry while I was completing my doctorate (in sociology).
I'd like to ask how it is possible for "psychosis" to be applied to a whole group of people. Is it like cases of mass hysteria where certain fears seem to become contageous? I searched for the definition, and it seemed to mean a person who is not in touch with reality. But what is reality? To me, the earth feels and looks flat. I believe that the earth is round--but I wouldn't naturally believe that if it weren't for education.
Isn't this experience also true for vaccines? I don't personally know of anyone who died from Covid. As far as I'm concerned mRNA vaccines are, indeed, safe and effective. Except that I'm constantly exposed to interviews and substack articles that describe deaths and severe adverse reactions.. They also describe scientific evidence that makes spike proteins dangerous
If propaganda keeps urging you to be afraid and keeps telling you that the only way to avoid Cofid is through safe and effective vaccines--well, then why wouldn't you believe the propaganda? Not everyone has the training to recognize statistical fallacies.
Are you psychotic that you don't want to constantly keep checking the news and you want to trust the authorities?
It's quite simple, actually. Holding a fixed belief in opposition to reality is delusional. When a group (or society) of people holds that belief, then we have a mass delusion. An example of this is the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego whose members committed mass suicide in 1997. Before killing themselves, they all put on identical Nike sneakers they would have the right footwear when they ascended to the alien spaceship.
Your examples point to the natural process of an evolving understanding of the world around us. What has happened over the past three years is not that; rather it is just the opposite...a rejection of known, established, accepted reality for a set of delusional beliefs that deny what we have learned over decades.
Just listened to Merryl Nass and Steven Colbert on CHD. They list various attempts over the last 20 years to scare people with viral infections--and then urge them to get vaccinated in order to avoid death and destruction (infecting other people).
Other attempts to frighten us didn't work. This time death rates from Covid were truly frightening. Every day newspapers published news of people dying. I think people believed the mass media that we were all at risk from dying from Covid, there was no treatment--and only vaccines would save us. And we trusted vaccines because we also believed the propaganda that vaccines saved us from smallpox and polio.
Are all the people psychotic who follow these untruths and believe vaccines are safe and effective and we should all get vaccinated? Their reality is hospitals are crowded with the unvaccinated dying like flies. It seems to make sense the everybody needs vaccines because we all grown up with them and know how they saved us from MMR.
So all the people who don masks, get jabbed, and avoid social contact feel safe, virtuous and protected. Vaccines are safe and effective. People are save and protected. The fear goes way down. And the sudden decrease in fear and immediate faith in everything the authorities amd medical authorities are doing (ha ha) to help us immediately seals the deal.
But what if you have any doubts? What if you DONT'T want to get boosted? What if you want to examine the evidence? Well we have some names for YOU! Domestic terrorist! Conspiracy theorist!
Any time you try to undo some of the effects of propaganda, you run into the disapproval and the rejection of the government, your doctors, and your community. You can lose your job, your professional license, your friends and relatives and spouses. Do you really want that?
So any time you start trying to dismiss the delusional ideas of the majority, you find yourself becoming increasingly fearful. What if you're wrong? Listening/obeying propaganda makes you feel safe and accepted (acceptable). Trying to give up the delusion, raises your anxiety level.
Have you treated kids with school phobias? Staying home from school makes them feel safe and lowers their anxiety. When they start to confront their fears, and try to attend school, they feel even more intense fear. And when they give up and stay home from school--they are rewarded with an immediate decrease in anxiety.
Is this the way it works for those deluded by false claims of vaccine safety and efficacy? Are they delusional? Are they psychotic?
We try to convince people with the true statistical evidence. But unless we simultaneously address their fears of being isolated, scorned and rejected--surely they will return to their former beliefs?
I studied works of Silvan Tomkins as a member of a Tomkins Institute study group. Tomkins was a psychologist who had a theory of emotions. He believed that a strong emotion would definitely win out over reality. Quote: "To the angry man, the world is a scoundrel." He stated that emotion is typically self validating. There are always scam artists who are ready to take advantage of this principle. When I traveled to L.A. as a young woman in the 1960's, I had men promising me a career in the film industry and I should join them for a date to discuss this. I believed them. Lucky me that I wasn't terribly interested in being a movie film star since I was a grad student in sociology. Otherwise my DESIRE to be admired and recognized as an actress would cause me to believe him and perhaps cause me to be sexually exploited
I attended your course "How Not to Be Fooled" at IPAK-EDU. (GREAT COURSE). I was astounded when, in one of the early lectures, you reported your criticism of vaccines and Covid. I never heard ANY of this. As you reported, main stream media thoroughly censored your information. If anything leaked out--well, you were all deranged conspiracy theorists, so best not to pay attention to you.
Even though I didn't dare get vaccinated because I have a history of unpleasant reactions to almost every drug, procedure, or device that comes my way, I yearned to be vaccinated. I yearned for the new normal. I cringed at being unworthy and immoral to avoid following the shibboleths of good citizenship supporting public health and my community. I was, like most people, excited by how quickly vaccines were becoming available.
Do you remember how the Pied Piper enticed all the children to follow him to punish the people of Hamlin who refused to pay him for his rat extermination services? I think there were one or two children who couldn't follow because they were disabled and couldn't keep up. I feel as though I'm one of those children who were inadvertently saved--even though they were also deluded.
I do wonder that it took me some time to stop arguing AGAINST vaccines and arguing FOR early medical treatment. Why can't we have both? Why are vaccines our only recourse against a highly deadly infection? Why are we putting all our eggs in one basket? Doesn't medicine believe in treatment?
Nobody ever made this counter argument to me, but I believe it exists. Unless 50% no 60% no 80% no A HUNDRED PERCENT of the population is vaccinated and so protected against Covid, we can never attain herd immunity. Also we kept hearing that Covid-19 is a novel virus with no treatment possible for it. And if people are not complying, they are spoiling it for the rest of us. Therefore, we unvaccinated people are right wing conspiracy theorists, domestic terrorists, and WORST OF ALL Trump supporters only selfishly interested in our own freedom at the expense of everyone else's health and happiness. We shouldn't even deserve medical treatment!
Is everyone delusional? Can you cause schizophrenia in a normal person by telling him FBI agents are spying on him and he is the incarnation of Jesus Christ meant to save everyone? Most people would laugh at this idea. There is a Seamus the instagram cat cartoon. https://www.instagram.com/p/Coih6sWJP8n/ Seamus says that he told his psychiatrist that he hears voices in his head. In the next frame he hangs his head and admits, "My psychiatrist told me I don't have a psychiatrist."
"Every win—no matter how small—is important. The tide turns not all at once but over time and with a sustained effort by many individuals and groups. The downstream effect of these wins touches us all"
100% AGREE MARK...Congrats on a BIG win ....Onward Pilgrims
We're expecting more legal victories from all our lawsuits this year.
Congratulations Doctor! Keep on fighting against the woke mob that has been so destructive to our beautiful state.
Including a governor who has done more harm than good......I am proud to support you!
It's important to have a win every now and then.
Well said and well done Dr. McDonald. I am proud to be on your team you have been a voice of reason and power since the Scamdemic evolved into a full blown public health farce. I look forward to your writings your podcasts and your next fight as your army General is growing. Thank you for your leadership your academic prowess and your commitment to fight the wrongs not only in your profession but in society as a whole. I hope you don’t move to Croatia but if you do I get it, it’s a beautiful country and hopefully not as corrupt as this one. Congratulations and thanks again for all you do for people like me!
No plans to move yet--just frequent trips...for a decompression!
I agree completely that those with the most influence are the ones who should be standing for the truth no matter the cost to them personally. You are correct, anything else is cowardice.
Congratulations on getting that unjust investigation dropped.
YES! Thank you for being courageous!
God bless you Dr McDonald… 🙏🌠
THANK YOU DR. MCDONALD! You are a Earth Angel. The world NEEDS more of you! May God be with you.
God sees ALL.
It's easy to become pessimistic, but perhaps 2023 will be the year the tide turns.
I recently listened to an interview with you by Peter Breggin. You discussed your definition of the fear generated by our government resulting in Covid vaccine despite indications that the risk outweighed the benefit. I believe you referred to the determination to be endlessly vaccinated as caused by a mass fear psychosis. Matthias defines it as "mass formation." You were the first author to publish the role of fear in promoting vaccines. I worked in the Columbia Department of Psychiatry while I was completing my doctorate (in sociology).
I'd like to ask how it is possible for "psychosis" to be applied to a whole group of people. Is it like cases of mass hysteria where certain fears seem to become contageous? I searched for the definition, and it seemed to mean a person who is not in touch with reality. But what is reality? To me, the earth feels and looks flat. I believe that the earth is round--but I wouldn't naturally believe that if it weren't for education.
Isn't this experience also true for vaccines? I don't personally know of anyone who died from Covid. As far as I'm concerned mRNA vaccines are, indeed, safe and effective. Except that I'm constantly exposed to interviews and substack articles that describe deaths and severe adverse reactions.. They also describe scientific evidence that makes spike proteins dangerous
If propaganda keeps urging you to be afraid and keeps telling you that the only way to avoid Cofid is through safe and effective vaccines--well, then why wouldn't you believe the propaganda? Not everyone has the training to recognize statistical fallacies.
Are you psychotic that you don't want to constantly keep checking the news and you want to trust the authorities?
It's quite simple, actually. Holding a fixed belief in opposition to reality is delusional. When a group (or society) of people holds that belief, then we have a mass delusion. An example of this is the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego whose members committed mass suicide in 1997. Before killing themselves, they all put on identical Nike sneakers they would have the right footwear when they ascended to the alien spaceship.
Your examples point to the natural process of an evolving understanding of the world around us. What has happened over the past three years is not that; rather it is just the opposite...a rejection of known, established, accepted reality for a set of delusional beliefs that deny what we have learned over decades.
Just listened to Merryl Nass and Steven Colbert on CHD. They list various attempts over the last 20 years to scare people with viral infections--and then urge them to get vaccinated in order to avoid death and destruction (infecting other people).
Other attempts to frighten us didn't work. This time death rates from Covid were truly frightening. Every day newspapers published news of people dying. I think people believed the mass media that we were all at risk from dying from Covid, there was no treatment--and only vaccines would save us. And we trusted vaccines because we also believed the propaganda that vaccines saved us from smallpox and polio.
Are all the people psychotic who follow these untruths and believe vaccines are safe and effective and we should all get vaccinated? Their reality is hospitals are crowded with the unvaccinated dying like flies. It seems to make sense the everybody needs vaccines because we all grown up with them and know how they saved us from MMR.
So all the people who don masks, get jabbed, and avoid social contact feel safe, virtuous and protected. Vaccines are safe and effective. People are save and protected. The fear goes way down. And the sudden decrease in fear and immediate faith in everything the authorities amd medical authorities are doing (ha ha) to help us immediately seals the deal.
But what if you have any doubts? What if you DONT'T want to get boosted? What if you want to examine the evidence? Well we have some names for YOU! Domestic terrorist! Conspiracy theorist!
Any time you try to undo some of the effects of propaganda, you run into the disapproval and the rejection of the government, your doctors, and your community. You can lose your job, your professional license, your friends and relatives and spouses. Do you really want that?
So any time you start trying to dismiss the delusional ideas of the majority, you find yourself becoming increasingly fearful. What if you're wrong? Listening/obeying propaganda makes you feel safe and accepted (acceptable). Trying to give up the delusion, raises your anxiety level.
Have you treated kids with school phobias? Staying home from school makes them feel safe and lowers their anxiety. When they start to confront their fears, and try to attend school, they feel even more intense fear. And when they give up and stay home from school--they are rewarded with an immediate decrease in anxiety.
Is this the way it works for those deluded by false claims of vaccine safety and efficacy? Are they delusional? Are they psychotic?
We try to convince people with the true statistical evidence. But unless we simultaneously address their fears of being isolated, scorned and rejected--surely they will return to their former beliefs?
I studied works of Silvan Tomkins as a member of a Tomkins Institute study group. Tomkins was a psychologist who had a theory of emotions. He believed that a strong emotion would definitely win out over reality. Quote: "To the angry man, the world is a scoundrel." He stated that emotion is typically self validating. There are always scam artists who are ready to take advantage of this principle. When I traveled to L.A. as a young woman in the 1960's, I had men promising me a career in the film industry and I should join them for a date to discuss this. I believed them. Lucky me that I wasn't terribly interested in being a movie film star since I was a grad student in sociology. Otherwise my DESIRE to be admired and recognized as an actress would cause me to believe him and perhaps cause me to be sexually exploited
I attended your course "How Not to Be Fooled" at IPAK-EDU. (GREAT COURSE). I was astounded when, in one of the early lectures, you reported your criticism of vaccines and Covid. I never heard ANY of this. As you reported, main stream media thoroughly censored your information. If anything leaked out--well, you were all deranged conspiracy theorists, so best not to pay attention to you.
Even though I didn't dare get vaccinated because I have a history of unpleasant reactions to almost every drug, procedure, or device that comes my way, I yearned to be vaccinated. I yearned for the new normal. I cringed at being unworthy and immoral to avoid following the shibboleths of good citizenship supporting public health and my community. I was, like most people, excited by how quickly vaccines were becoming available.
Do you remember how the Pied Piper enticed all the children to follow him to punish the people of Hamlin who refused to pay him for his rat extermination services? I think there were one or two children who couldn't follow because they were disabled and couldn't keep up. I feel as though I'm one of those children who were inadvertently saved--even though they were also deluded.
I do wonder that it took me some time to stop arguing AGAINST vaccines and arguing FOR early medical treatment. Why can't we have both? Why are vaccines our only recourse against a highly deadly infection? Why are we putting all our eggs in one basket? Doesn't medicine believe in treatment?
Nobody ever made this counter argument to me, but I believe it exists. Unless 50% no 60% no 80% no A HUNDRED PERCENT of the population is vaccinated and so protected against Covid, we can never attain herd immunity. Also we kept hearing that Covid-19 is a novel virus with no treatment possible for it. And if people are not complying, they are spoiling it for the rest of us. Therefore, we unvaccinated people are right wing conspiracy theorists, domestic terrorists, and WORST OF ALL Trump supporters only selfishly interested in our own freedom at the expense of everyone else's health and happiness. We shouldn't even deserve medical treatment!
Is everyone delusional? Can you cause schizophrenia in a normal person by telling him FBI agents are spying on him and he is the incarnation of Jesus Christ meant to save everyone? Most people would laugh at this idea. There is a Seamus the instagram cat cartoon. https://www.instagram.com/p/Coih6sWJP8n/ Seamus says that he told his psychiatrist that he hears voices in his head. In the next frame he hangs his head and admits, "My psychiatrist told me I don't have a psychiatrist."
Thank you for joining my online course How Not to Be Fooled through ipak.edu. I hope to teach more courses though IPAK in 2023.
Congratulations, that's great news! It took a lot of courage to stand up and call this for what it is.
I have two that I am working on, one with co-author Peter Breggin. I hope that one will be short and quick to publish. Two heads are better than one!
Can't wait to read it!