Resisting Mass Formation...,

amidwesterndoctor  |  One of the greatest challenges for individuals with advanced knowledge in a subject is the gradual realization of just how little they know (conversely, as shown by the Dunning–Kruger effect, the less individuals know, the more they overestimate their knowledge and competence). Being able to proceed forward despite not knowing if you were on the correct path requires a great deal of courage, especially when most of your peers oppose what you are doing. That said, virtually every person who has been highly successful and changed the world for the better had this type of courage.

In some cases, we are just born with it, but in the majority cases, it comes from living a life that cultivates courage. One of the most useful words of wisdom I heard at a young age was “comfort makes you weak” which is important because our technocratic society has tried to create the illusion that if we always comply with it, it can guarantee our safety and prevent all discomfort.

This is fundamentally impossible (and often creates many medical issues), but many traumatized and pampered members of society have become so ingrained with this mythology they now lack the courage to venture outside safe spaces created by the technocracy. Unfortunately, if you lack the courage to oppose something you know is wrong, as history repeatedly shows, that same evil will eventually show up at your doorstep, and by the time it does it will have gained enough momentum that you will no longer have the ability to oppose it.

The strength that produces courage ultimately arises from our connection to ourselves (particularly our physical body) and our connections to each other. Hence, like many things in medicine where you cannot reduce a problem to one single component, mass formation is also a complex process that weaves into so many other aspects of our society that it must also be dealt with holistically. Just remember: 

Postscript: I have noticed that many groups will develop a collective consciousness that often transcends the individual participants (often leading them to rapidly adopt terrible behaviors once they join the group holding that collective conscienceless) and can often persist for generations. The best term I ever came across for this, Egrigore, was something I came across on wikipedia. I cannot fully endorse the idea because of where it originates from, but over and over I have come across situations where it appears an egrigore has taken over a group (particularly in Allopathic medicine, which I believe carries fairly malignant Egrigores).

Reading Desmet’s work has led me to suspect crowd psychology and the mass formation concept provides another potential explanation for the “Egrigore” concept I keep on running across. Put differently, this means I believe in addition to Mass Formation applying to society as a whole, it can also manifest within specific subgroups which have some type of strong ritualistic link to each other especially when they also have to suffer through a collective hardship.