A long time ago, a French king believed he was made out of glass. Here's his story, why it matters—and how it can help us understand modern delusions such as QAnon or insane anti-vax theories.
Fascinating piece Brian. A very helpful analogy. I am not paranoid (yet) but I have a recurring dream in which I am trying and failing to get through to a person close to me on the phone to ask for help. The dream has kept pace with technology. When I first had it, I couldn’t get the holes in the dial on the rotary phone to line up with the numbers (yes, I’m that old). Then it was that the keys were missing from a digital phone, then from an early cellphone through an unresponsive touch screen to the most recent iteration, which is not being able to access Zoom and/or FaceTime. I find the phenomenon objectively intriguing. And I do not need to have it interpreted for me, thank you very much.
Thanks again for another enlightening piece. The glass example really brings home the fragility and fear of this paranoid delusional mindset. It really does stem from deep fear and confusion.
Conspiracy theories are just another form of mythos. They have been weaponized in political influence campaigns for sure, and QAnon is a prime example and now absolutely a dangerous mass delusion. So called narrative warfare and 5G warfare are becoming the new norms, a new front in hybrid warfare. The “good guys” seem to be far behind in this effort and deceptive “bad guys” have many advantages stemming the fact that they are not beholden to the truth.
Conspiracy theories tend to be hard to dispel among believers because the beliefs stem from such deep fears and confusion. So, simply disproving them does not often move the believer. Generally, to successfully displace these beliefs, they must be replaced by a different mythos, one that is more compelling, to explain the underlying fears/confusion.
This presents an issue for those of us who would like to dispel these beliefs but are also insistent upon truthful communication. Communicating competing myths often seems like issuing propaganda. But it can be done well and truthfully. One should note that mythos is not inherently “wrong” but rather seeks to explain mysteries, the unknown and the inexplicable. Mythos can be logically established from fact, however uncertain, and be presented as a *possible* explanation to counter the conspiracy theory. But it generally must be a wholistic explanation for the same phenomena to actually work to deprogram.
Paul Cobaugh has an excellent blog on Narrative Warfare as a US military veteran and specialist in mitigating foreign influence campaigns.
Thanks for sharing this, Ed. One of the big problems about debunking conspiracy theories is that they are self-contained and impossible to refute by design. For example, when I debunk election conspiracy theories -- as someone who studies election rigging -- people just say I’ve been bought off by the deep state and am “in on it.” There’s no way to ever break through when every source of information that challenges the narrative is instantly dismissed as being in service of the forces of darkness and deception.
I guess also that there is an asymmetry that it is easier and quicker to create a conspiracy theory than it is to investigate and debunk one. So the conspiracy peddlers have a built-in advantage.
Thank you for the link, Ed. Looks interesting. I agree with your assessment. What you suggest is quite difficult to do while maintaining the truth. And the other problem is that those who believe in conspiracy theories are now so anchored, it is hard to move them.
This looks fascinating, and hopeful. Combating dangerous delusions seems to me to be a crucial struggle in the struggle against malevolent authoritarianism.
Is it not true that myths are not necessarily false, but rather factually-unsupported narratives? So, socially positive , and possibly true, myths could challenge false and malicious ones?
I believe that archeological discoveries have found evidence that many stories from both the Bible and the Iliad, once considered myths only, have some likely factual bases.
TC, it is possible to engage with and understand the various writings of " that other thing" through the lens of literary and contextual criticism. For instance, better understandings of First and Second Temple Judaism and Jewish life under Roman colonization really helps in understanding the shape and growth of the first three centuries movement which became Christianity.
A person does not have to use " that other thing" as the foundation for meaning or understanding in life to appreciate that " that other thing" does represent a mythos ( meaning not " lies" or " fake" but a narrative for understanding) that others found/find valuable.
The new insights of archeology and other sciences (giving the context of real life to the writings of "that other thing") are, in my mind, the best antidote to the damaging literalism and weaponization and distortion of " that other thing" by the politically bad players abundant in our time. The result--the dangerous delusions we see in so much of the politically co-opted Religious Right.
I'm willing to concede that archaeology can show that stuff in the Bible HAPPENED. But it has no way to showing any truth of the significance of those happenings for the writers or later readers. A lot of the events, of course, show up in other narratives (the flood the most well known) but without the same "lesson" and this can show a common ancestral memory from before anyone got around to putting it into "fixed" form.
Interestingly, particularly since the reign of Ramses II (the Pharaoh of "Exodus") left behind quite a bit of documentary evidence of many things, nowhere has anyone found even the least mention of the events of Exodus leading to the Israelite departure, and no evidence in any pharoanic records of a large group of foreign slaves with a different religion. And Rameses II died in his bed of old age, not drowned in a resurgent Red Sea. And no other Pharaoh is recorded as dying in such a situation. "Exodus" never happened. It is a myth from the tribe of Bronze Age nomads who entered the "Holy Land" to justify their presence. Right up there with "God" creating the United States.
no one claimed verification of everything from the archaeologists. Just SOME of the stuff. Just like they've found evidence of Troy, but nothing about Achilles's tent, with or without sulking.
This is quite the thought provoking piece, Brian. Breaking it down to the basics, delusions come from a combination of 1) Rapid change in our individual lives and society; 2) Uncertainty that rapid changes create about the future and our place in the future; 3) Techno-phobia in that while we benefit from the technology of microchips (all of our devices use them), it is not well understood by most; and 4) the inherent complexity in the world.
People fear change because they have a sense of loss (hence the reason the MAGA is so appealing) and those people need somebody to blame for this in the great sense of victimhood we observe today. In many ways the sense of loss is due to the unwillingness to adapt to a changing world and thus it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and it is easier and more comforting to blame external forces than to look within.
But because the world is complex with so many linkages and interwoven relationships that do not easily lend themselves to simple explanations. So we make up simple, plausible sounding stories whether they make sense or not, because the cognitive dissonance and inherent narcissism of not admitting we do not understand is just too painful psychologically to handle.
And this is where we get “knowingness” and the “death of expertise” that come from these simple but false stories.
How do we change this? Education and open minded thinking. But we seem to be moving in the opposite direction on these issues. We now have movements to close minds by banning books and ideas from our schools, curricula that avoids the known facts of history and science. Fear is winning and being reinforced by bullying and intimidation.
Great reflections, as always, Paul. Yes, I think education is central. As a professor, I obviously care about students understanding the content I teach, but what matters most is that they learn how to critically evaluate ideas. Education is about teaching people how to think, not necessarily what to think, and I think now more than ever that requires an updated curriculum about informational pipelines that are often designed to trick or lie to them.
Ah...teaching how to think or in Maslow’s hierarchy: synthesis, analysis, and evaluation. Always ask questions, test conventional wisdom. All that is essential. But the psychological part is the tougher but to crack.
Great piece and I always like that contemporary problems are put in a long term perspective. I think it would have been even greater if you had pointed out that nobody is immune from this. I will always remember a coffee break at the science institute I worked at, soon after 9/11, where everybody there maintained that 9/11 was staged by the US government. I was appalled, but these were highly educated people (BSc to PhDs) who nevertheless bought into a fantasy completely divorced from known facts. And man you should have heard the detailed explanations they came up with when I tried to challenge their stories. They were things of beauty, sounding very rational. So I am not one to fall for the idea that 'delusional' thinking is a thing of the right or the left or of the uneducated. The educated and scientists just sound a lot better when they rationalize their own delusions.
Yes, that’s one of the most disconcerting lessons of recent years: there’s no magic vaccine for disinformation and conspiratorial thinking. There are society-wide correlates (education matters, as does whether someone has a “Manichean worldview,” for example). But nobody is immune and the information environment we inhabit makes it all too easy to fall down the rabbit hole.
An excellent analysis. Having once been in the vicinity of what turned out to be a religious cult (of the "New Age" variety) it was interesting to see how otherwise-intelligent people could be taken in by simple parlor tricks of "magic" I had learned as a kid from my older cousin who got into being a magician when he was in junior high.
But I don't think you have to be a conspiracy nut to think they don't teach civics and critical thinking in UK schools because it suits the powers-that-be to keep us plebs in ignorance.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that you didn’t already know about an obscure 14th century king and his delusions of being made of glass! Thanks for indulging my weird random offshoots of writing with weird examples.
Thank you Brian. I learned much from this. My own interest in conspiracy theories and delusions stemmed initially from the serendipitous discovery of Martin Gardner’s “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science” as an undergraduate in the early ’80s; your treatment reminded me of how compelling I found the topic in (for me) pre-internet days.
By way of nothing much,
I have worked professionally with many deluded individuals and would like to contribute the view that, when they are the sole expression of major mental illness, they are extremely resistant to change. They formerly fell into the category of paranoid states (they may still).
Can old and young accept societal and technological change at the same pace? I think the older we are, the more rigid we become. That's why we need generational turnover to accept and implement change. But as lifespan extends and generations turnover more slowly, we look for ways to stop change: conservatism, conspiracies, and yes, older leaders. Meanwhile, innovation advances and a backlog develops.
And it seems to happen to almost everyone at some point. I used to be amazed that my mom was consistently open minded and willing to accept change. But now that she’s 85 I definitely see her resisting change in at least some areas of life.
Sterling essay and lovely tidbits in support of it. I've always felt that conspiracy theory was at root a way for insecure people to make sense of a world where all the dots seem disconnected because, well, they often are. But some people don'ts seem to be able to just accept that. I've often wondered whether religious training has anything to do with that. If you are brought up to think the world has to make sense because a god has to have meant it to, then random is too scary. Somehow "moving in mysterious ways" is not an acceptable explanation for their discomfort.
But when I think about this, I also think about resilience. A lot of people CAN accept randomness--no doubt those religious people too if they can see that God might very well play dice with the universe. There IS that bit about quantum foam. Another way of dealing with disorder and change is to, well, not simply accept it but roll with it, find ways to adapt. Some people simply keep on going and jump ruts in NEW ways. This is not to say that one has to LIKE all changes. Some, one can choose not to bother trying to adapt to. The secret of resilience is not letting it bug you. WhatApp is just not on my personal worry list.
Years ago I wrote a poem where I was using the death of the dinosaurs in a metaphorical way--really, the poem was about those folks who couldn't adapt to change, though this was long before conspiracy theories became the threat they now are. At the end....
Mammals move out of the grass
and cracks and burrows where they've hidden
from the ponderous, deadly feet by being sharp and
quick
and flexible.
(apologies for the crummy line breaks. Substack is not very good at poetry posting)
What a lovely comment - and I love those lines you shared! One interesting aspect of accepting randomness is that it’s asymmetric: we accept it much more easily, according to psychology studies, when it’s positive. Nobody questions winning the lottery. But bad news needs an explanation. And that’s where conspiracy theories thrive and burrow, a word you use beautifully in your poem, into the minds of people searching for meaning in misfortune.
It is very hard to take Q-Anon delusions seriously, what some call, a failure of imagination, but this is true. What you leave out is the intentions of potent people to support and encourage these delusions. Steven Hassen's book, "The Cult of Trump" is spot on, identifying elements of mind control that can be effectively disseminated, such as outright lies, purposeful confusion, inciting fear, to make vulnerable people more prone to delusions and resistant to rational thinking.
Brian, is there any research suggesting that arming folks with this kind of historical perspective concerning delusional thinking, and it's causes helps to reduce the amount of such thinking? Or is it a case of a certain number of delusional people are going to be delusional?
I’d like to think that this article is the secret weapon against QAnon, but alas, the forces of conspiratorial delusion are stronger than ever (largely due to the vast decentralised pipelines that modern people use to get their information). Rather, I think the point is that the exact delusions that exist now point to larger social dislocation -- and politicians might be able to defuse some of the delusions by trying to address the underlying anxieties (the opacity and faraway nature of modern power is something that is a problem and it’s likely to spark more and more conspiracy theories).
I have been having extensive conversations with a friend who fell off the deep end to some pretty concerning conspiracies this year. I can pinpoint the loss and uncertainty and grief in her life that makes sense she is looking for bigger forces to blame but I am also so worried at where this will land her. It seems like I can't pull her to reality. Do you know good resources for walking with friends not only through these conspiracies but out the other side to hope? I worry about the consequences and the intensity by which she is feeding herself these more and more by time spent online...
Interesting. I hadn't heard of the glass king. But I have read elsewhere that mental illnesses tend to mirror societal fears e.g. native indian mental illnesses were often related to cannibalism, due to their (very real) fear of starvation.
Also you can see how sleep paralysis gets reinterpreted according to culture. For example it used to be a 'night hag' or spirit. But now it is more likely to be interpreted as alien abduction.
I always learn things new and essential to navigating this world from your work. Thank you.
It is indeed essential to know about the glass buttocks delusion - how could you navigate modernity without it? But seriously, thanks Mary!
Fascinating piece Brian. A very helpful analogy. I am not paranoid (yet) but I have a recurring dream in which I am trying and failing to get through to a person close to me on the phone to ask for help. The dream has kept pace with technology. When I first had it, I couldn’t get the holes in the dial on the rotary phone to line up with the numbers (yes, I’m that old). Then it was that the keys were missing from a digital phone, then from an early cellphone through an unresponsive touch screen to the most recent iteration, which is not being able to access Zoom and/or FaceTime. I find the phenomenon objectively intriguing. And I do not need to have it interpreted for me, thank you very much.
That’s amazing! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks again for another enlightening piece. The glass example really brings home the fragility and fear of this paranoid delusional mindset. It really does stem from deep fear and confusion.
Conspiracy theories are just another form of mythos. They have been weaponized in political influence campaigns for sure, and QAnon is a prime example and now absolutely a dangerous mass delusion. So called narrative warfare and 5G warfare are becoming the new norms, a new front in hybrid warfare. The “good guys” seem to be far behind in this effort and deceptive “bad guys” have many advantages stemming the fact that they are not beholden to the truth.
Conspiracy theories tend to be hard to dispel among believers because the beliefs stem from such deep fears and confusion. So, simply disproving them does not often move the believer. Generally, to successfully displace these beliefs, they must be replaced by a different mythos, one that is more compelling, to explain the underlying fears/confusion.
This presents an issue for those of us who would like to dispel these beliefs but are also insistent upon truthful communication. Communicating competing myths often seems like issuing propaganda. But it can be done well and truthfully. One should note that mythos is not inherently “wrong” but rather seeks to explain mysteries, the unknown and the inexplicable. Mythos can be logically established from fact, however uncertain, and be presented as a *possible* explanation to counter the conspiracy theory. But it generally must be a wholistic explanation for the same phenomena to actually work to deprogram.
Paul Cobaugh has an excellent blog on Narrative Warfare as a US military veteran and specialist in mitigating foreign influence campaigns.
https://www.truthaboutthreats.com/
Thanks for sharing this, Ed. One of the big problems about debunking conspiracy theories is that they are self-contained and impossible to refute by design. For example, when I debunk election conspiracy theories -- as someone who studies election rigging -- people just say I’ve been bought off by the deep state and am “in on it.” There’s no way to ever break through when every source of information that challenges the narrative is instantly dismissed as being in service of the forces of darkness and deception.
I guess also that there is an asymmetry that it is easier and quicker to create a conspiracy theory than it is to investigate and debunk one. So the conspiracy peddlers have a built-in advantage.
Also true!
Thank you for the link, Ed. Looks interesting. I agree with your assessment. What you suggest is quite difficult to do while maintaining the truth. And the other problem is that those who believe in conspiracy theories are now so anchored, it is hard to move them.
This looks fascinating, and hopeful. Combating dangerous delusions seems to me to be a crucial struggle in the struggle against malevolent authoritarianism.
Is it not true that myths are not necessarily false, but rather factually-unsupported narratives? So, socially positive , and possibly true, myths could challenge false and malicious ones?
I believe that archeological discoveries have found evidence that many stories from both the Bible and the Iliad, once considered myths only, have some likely factual bases.
The Iliad, yes. That other thing no.
TC, it is possible to engage with and understand the various writings of " that other thing" through the lens of literary and contextual criticism. For instance, better understandings of First and Second Temple Judaism and Jewish life under Roman colonization really helps in understanding the shape and growth of the first three centuries movement which became Christianity.
A person does not have to use " that other thing" as the foundation for meaning or understanding in life to appreciate that " that other thing" does represent a mythos ( meaning not " lies" or " fake" but a narrative for understanding) that others found/find valuable.
The new insights of archeology and other sciences (giving the context of real life to the writings of "that other thing") are, in my mind, the best antidote to the damaging literalism and weaponization and distortion of " that other thing" by the politically bad players abundant in our time. The result--the dangerous delusions we see in so much of the politically co-opted Religious Right.
I'm willing to concede that archaeology can show that stuff in the Bible HAPPENED. But it has no way to showing any truth of the significance of those happenings for the writers or later readers. A lot of the events, of course, show up in other narratives (the flood the most well known) but without the same "lesson" and this can show a common ancestral memory from before anyone got around to putting it into "fixed" form.
Interestingly, particularly since the reign of Ramses II (the Pharaoh of "Exodus") left behind quite a bit of documentary evidence of many things, nowhere has anyone found even the least mention of the events of Exodus leading to the Israelite departure, and no evidence in any pharoanic records of a large group of foreign slaves with a different religion. And Rameses II died in his bed of old age, not drowned in a resurgent Red Sea. And no other Pharaoh is recorded as dying in such a situation. "Exodus" never happened. It is a myth from the tribe of Bronze Age nomads who entered the "Holy Land" to justify their presence. Right up there with "God" creating the United States.
no one claimed verification of everything from the archaeologists. Just SOME of the stuff. Just like they've found evidence of Troy, but nothing about Achilles's tent, with or without sulking.
This is quite the thought provoking piece, Brian. Breaking it down to the basics, delusions come from a combination of 1) Rapid change in our individual lives and society; 2) Uncertainty that rapid changes create about the future and our place in the future; 3) Techno-phobia in that while we benefit from the technology of microchips (all of our devices use them), it is not well understood by most; and 4) the inherent complexity in the world.
People fear change because they have a sense of loss (hence the reason the MAGA is so appealing) and those people need somebody to blame for this in the great sense of victimhood we observe today. In many ways the sense of loss is due to the unwillingness to adapt to a changing world and thus it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, and it is easier and more comforting to blame external forces than to look within.
But because the world is complex with so many linkages and interwoven relationships that do not easily lend themselves to simple explanations. So we make up simple, plausible sounding stories whether they make sense or not, because the cognitive dissonance and inherent narcissism of not admitting we do not understand is just too painful psychologically to handle.
And this is where we get “knowingness” and the “death of expertise” that come from these simple but false stories.
How do we change this? Education and open minded thinking. But we seem to be moving in the opposite direction on these issues. We now have movements to close minds by banning books and ideas from our schools, curricula that avoids the known facts of history and science. Fear is winning and being reinforced by bullying and intimidation.
Great reflections, as always, Paul. Yes, I think education is central. As a professor, I obviously care about students understanding the content I teach, but what matters most is that they learn how to critically evaluate ideas. Education is about teaching people how to think, not necessarily what to think, and I think now more than ever that requires an updated curriculum about informational pipelines that are often designed to trick or lie to them.
Ah...teaching how to think or in Maslow’s hierarchy: synthesis, analysis, and evaluation. Always ask questions, test conventional wisdom. All that is essential. But the psychological part is the tougher but to crack.
Great piece and I always like that contemporary problems are put in a long term perspective. I think it would have been even greater if you had pointed out that nobody is immune from this. I will always remember a coffee break at the science institute I worked at, soon after 9/11, where everybody there maintained that 9/11 was staged by the US government. I was appalled, but these were highly educated people (BSc to PhDs) who nevertheless bought into a fantasy completely divorced from known facts. And man you should have heard the detailed explanations they came up with when I tried to challenge their stories. They were things of beauty, sounding very rational. So I am not one to fall for the idea that 'delusional' thinking is a thing of the right or the left or of the uneducated. The educated and scientists just sound a lot better when they rationalize their own delusions.
Yes, that’s one of the most disconcerting lessons of recent years: there’s no magic vaccine for disinformation and conspiratorial thinking. There are society-wide correlates (education matters, as does whether someone has a “Manichean worldview,” for example). But nobody is immune and the information environment we inhabit makes it all too easy to fall down the rabbit hole.
An excellent analysis. Having once been in the vicinity of what turned out to be a religious cult (of the "New Age" variety) it was interesting to see how otherwise-intelligent people could be taken in by simple parlor tricks of "magic" I had learned as a kid from my older cousin who got into being a magician when he was in junior high.
It's not hard to fool someone if they want to be fooled. I do wonder we should teach critical thinking skills in school.
Teach critical thinking in school??!! What are you, sir? A *communist* ??!!!! :-)
Clearly! ;0)
But I don't think you have to be a conspiracy nut to think they don't teach civics and critical thinking in UK schools because it suits the powers-that-be to keep us plebs in ignorance.
And the same over here. They've always wanted you "literate" enough to be able to read and follow the company instructions.
Wow, fascinating. I love that your essays always connect me to events and ideas which are completely unfamiliar. Thank you.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that you didn’t already know about an obscure 14th century king and his delusions of being made of glass! Thanks for indulging my weird random offshoots of writing with weird examples.
Thank you Brian. I learned much from this. My own interest in conspiracy theories and delusions stemmed initially from the serendipitous discovery of Martin Gardner’s “Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science” as an undergraduate in the early ’80s; your treatment reminded me of how compelling I found the topic in (for me) pre-internet days.
By way of nothing much,
I have worked professionally with many deluded individuals and would like to contribute the view that, when they are the sole expression of major mental illness, they are extremely resistant to change. They formerly fell into the category of paranoid states (they may still).
Can old and young accept societal and technological change at the same pace? I think the older we are, the more rigid we become. That's why we need generational turnover to accept and implement change. But as lifespan extends and generations turnover more slowly, we look for ways to stop change: conservatism, conspiracies, and yes, older leaders. Meanwhile, innovation advances and a backlog develops.
And it seems to happen to almost everyone at some point. I used to be amazed that my mom was consistently open minded and willing to accept change. But now that she’s 85 I definitely see her resisting change in at least some areas of life.
Sterling essay and lovely tidbits in support of it. I've always felt that conspiracy theory was at root a way for insecure people to make sense of a world where all the dots seem disconnected because, well, they often are. But some people don'ts seem to be able to just accept that. I've often wondered whether religious training has anything to do with that. If you are brought up to think the world has to make sense because a god has to have meant it to, then random is too scary. Somehow "moving in mysterious ways" is not an acceptable explanation for their discomfort.
But when I think about this, I also think about resilience. A lot of people CAN accept randomness--no doubt those religious people too if they can see that God might very well play dice with the universe. There IS that bit about quantum foam. Another way of dealing with disorder and change is to, well, not simply accept it but roll with it, find ways to adapt. Some people simply keep on going and jump ruts in NEW ways. This is not to say that one has to LIKE all changes. Some, one can choose not to bother trying to adapt to. The secret of resilience is not letting it bug you. WhatApp is just not on my personal worry list.
Years ago I wrote a poem where I was using the death of the dinosaurs in a metaphorical way--really, the poem was about those folks who couldn't adapt to change, though this was long before conspiracy theories became the threat they now are. At the end....
Mammals move out of the grass
and cracks and burrows where they've hidden
from the ponderous, deadly feet by being sharp and
quick
and flexible.
(apologies for the crummy line breaks. Substack is not very good at poetry posting)
What a lovely comment - and I love those lines you shared! One interesting aspect of accepting randomness is that it’s asymmetric: we accept it much more easily, according to psychology studies, when it’s positive. Nobody questions winning the lottery. But bad news needs an explanation. And that’s where conspiracy theories thrive and burrow, a word you use beautifully in your poem, into the minds of people searching for meaning in misfortune.
It has been said that conspiracy theories allow the ignorant to feel like intellectuals. It's a bit harsh, but I think there is some truth to it.
It is very hard to take Q-Anon delusions seriously, what some call, a failure of imagination, but this is true. What you leave out is the intentions of potent people to support and encourage these delusions. Steven Hassen's book, "The Cult of Trump" is spot on, identifying elements of mind control that can be effectively disseminated, such as outright lies, purposeful confusion, inciting fear, to make vulnerable people more prone to delusions and resistant to rational thinking.
Brian, is there any research suggesting that arming folks with this kind of historical perspective concerning delusional thinking, and it's causes helps to reduce the amount of such thinking? Or is it a case of a certain number of delusional people are going to be delusional?
I’d like to think that this article is the secret weapon against QAnon, but alas, the forces of conspiratorial delusion are stronger than ever (largely due to the vast decentralised pipelines that modern people use to get their information). Rather, I think the point is that the exact delusions that exist now point to larger social dislocation -- and politicians might be able to defuse some of the delusions by trying to address the underlying anxieties (the opacity and faraway nature of modern power is something that is a problem and it’s likely to spark more and more conspiracy theories).
I have been having extensive conversations with a friend who fell off the deep end to some pretty concerning conspiracies this year. I can pinpoint the loss and uncertainty and grief in her life that makes sense she is looking for bigger forces to blame but I am also so worried at where this will land her. It seems like I can't pull her to reality. Do you know good resources for walking with friends not only through these conspiracies but out the other side to hope? I worry about the consequences and the intensity by which she is feeding herself these more and more by time spent online...
Interesting. I hadn't heard of the glass king. But I have read elsewhere that mental illnesses tend to mirror societal fears e.g. native indian mental illnesses were often related to cannibalism, due to their (very real) fear of starvation.
Also you can see how sleep paralysis gets reinterpreted according to culture. For example it used to be a 'night hag' or spirit. But now it is more likely to be interpreted as alien abduction.
Thanks for your insight. Hopefully the glass will shatter and we can regain some sense of normalcy.
And there was the flying saucer phenomenon…..illuminated last century by Carl Jung.