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They Refused the Love of the Truth: Mass Formation Psychosis
“…and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.”
— 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
They refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.
There has been much discussion swirling around the internet about a psychological concept called mass formation psychosis. Surely, you’re aware of it. In a nutshell, this psychological phenomenon describes a kind of powerful “group think” that takes hold of large numbers of people at the same time, drawing them into a type of group hypnotic state where they think alike, feel alike and quickly respond to outside suggestions in a similar manner. It is as if the group has been hypnotized.
Dr.Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA technology appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast talking about mass formation psychosis, and for this sin, the left has demanded that Rogan’s wildly popular podcast be de-platformed. In another podcast about mass formation with Dr. Malone, Dr. Mattias Desmet a Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Ghent University, Belgium went into significant detail about the conditions that can lead to mass formation and how he believes that these very conditions have existed surrounding the COVID pandemic response. Dr. Desmet believes that mass formation explains the sheer lunacy that we have witnessed in not only the governmental response to this pandemic, but more importantly, in the response of so many of our fellow Americans– the super-hyper focus on ineffective vaccines as the only possible solution and the demonization of the “unvaccinated.”
I recorded an entire podcast about mass formation and Torah that can be found at torahtalk21.com. But for our purposes here, I want to focus on one thing that Dr. Malone and Dr. Desmet talked about: What makes someone susceptible to mass formation? While they acknowledged that those who actively resist mass formation are a varied lot, they speculated that there are two types of personal psychological structures that differentiate those who fall to the allure of mass formation and those who do not: the former find their stability, meaning, and purpose in identifying with a group vs the latter who find stability purpose and meaning by searching for truth- even if it goes against the dominant group narrative and causes great discomfort or pain for them personally.
The search for truth.
Is this search what keeps some of us from going over the cliff with the crowd? I have always set the search for knowledge and truth as a primary goal of my life. In fact, if you ask anyone who knows me, you can verify that the Bible verse that motivates my entire life is Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed by lack of knowledge.” I am therefore a voracious reader and student, not just of the Bible but of other knowledge too. But I do set God’s truth as my plumbline. Personally, I don’t care about anyone’s personal truth. The phrase: “This is my truth” is ridiculous. You can have your own lived experiences, your own feelings, your own opinions. But you cannot have your own truth.
Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to believe that we can have our own truth. This is why our society is ripe for mass formation psychosis. Many in our society believe that marriage can be between any two consenting individuals, not the antiquated idea of one man and one woman. Gender? God didn’t assign that at my birth. I’ll decide if I’m a woman or a man today– thank you. I don’t need God to determine that for me. In fact, I am God. I have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so I can determine what is right and what is wrong. I can determine my own truth.
— except for one tiny little fact– if I think like this, I am deluded.
The Bible tells us that those who refuse to love the truth– God’s truth– submit themselves to delusion. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians that God Himself hands them over to delusion. I know that is a difficult pill for some to swallow, especially for those who have learned that God is merciful but not just. (Ahhh, but that is another post entirely.) This idea of being turned over to delusion is similar to the concept of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. The Hebrew word for “harden” means to “strengthen.” God strengthened what was already in Pharaoh’s heart. When God turns someone over to delusion, He is only clearing the path to destruction that they have already chosen to follow. Choice by choice, decision by decision, they forge their own wicked path and at some point, there is literally no turning back.
The Hebrew word for truth is EMET. It is written with an Aleph, a Mem, and a Tav– the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. How telling. In Hebrew, truth starts at the beginning, includes everything in the middle, and goes all the way to the end. Truth doesn’t just show up halfway down the road as some new kind of revelation. It is what was at the beginning and will be at the very end. We cannot escape God’s truth. Oh, we try– we run from it, we wrestle with it, we ignore it, and we distort it, but we can never escape it. For this reason, it is wise for us to seek it out. If you don’t want to go over the cliff with everyone else, seek out God’s truth. Start at the beginning of truth– Genesis–and go all the way to the end.
It is our only hope for escaping the mass insanity of the world around us.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
That certainly expresses a position. Is it a principle of yours that if one doesn’t subscribe to a group’s positions or belong to the group then they should not engage in public commentary? Or is this position only to be applied in the religious context and is not open to the views of non-members?
Given the means and methods used over the millennia in attempting to force or coerce religious conversion, I think particular care should be taken in that area. Public commentary is certainly fine, but representing oneself as a member of a group–and referring to the first five books of the bible as “Torah” is exclusive to Jews–is a deceptive practice and one can’t help but wonder about the person’s motives in doing so. Non-members of many groups, but particularly easily mischaracterized ones like religions, should take care when speaking about or for the group. I would say the same about people who leave a religion excusing their exit by smearing the members who remain within or taking out of context religious practices to mock them. It’s very easy to ridicule or mischaracterize to the uneducated.
Many Christian missionaries target young, unconnected, or religiously uneducated Jews. I believe this is an evil practice, especially in the shadow of the Holocaust. I realize that a lot of Christians here believe that the Jews need to convert, whether to immanentize their eschaton or out of some misplaced idea of love, most have the decency not to be pushy about it. The worst, really, is to be deceptive about it. Kathy has had my antennae raised since she started posting here.
This is a bit confusing between religious belief and ethnicity. Can a Gentile ever qualify to reference the “Torah”?
It is said that if a gentile claims to have wisdom or truth, he should be believed; if he claims to have Torah, he is a liar. From this, a gentile can for sure talk about Torah or, more correctly for him, the first five books of the Bible, but, no he (or she) can not “teach” Torah.
So we can refer to the text as the Torah, but we can’t say we have Torah? What does it mean to have Torah–to be keeping Torah/law?
You ever met any Gentiles who claim that?
So your premise is that Jesus-based interpretations of Torah are excluded by definition?
People can claim to teach whatever they want (such as Torah). Others are free to disagree with them, but we don’t have language officers on Ricochet except for violations of the CoC.
And yesterday, Saint Augustine, it appeared you were wondering why I confined my remarks to only the Catholic Church, as the beliefs I had posited about were teachings of the Catholic Church, but possibly other faiths as well.
I just did not wanna be slammed with culturally appropriating another faith’s culture.
As apparently it is so easy to do, and a damned crime at that. (Of course that begs the question if one is not of a religion, why should that individual bear guilt for committing a sin that is not part of their own belief system.)
I don’t remember wondering why, but I did want to mention that it wasn’t just Catholics.
I don’t know what that means.
Word of the day: Pentateuch
Wow, this is grossly unfair and offensive. Kathy has displayed non of the hatred that you have been guilty of in this post. As a Christian, I feel badly if anyone treated you so badly in Jesus’ name. There is no excuse for it but you are out of line.
I ate a bagel once and now I feel like I need to make a public apology.
You know nothing about the state of my heart. I say right out that I distrust people who misrepresent themselves and believe that Kathy does so, and I’ve explained my reasoning. I don’t see what’s hateful about that. I’ve also not accused her of hatred. I suspect she–like many missionaries–thinks she is doing something loving. I suggest you read up on the Inquisition, the Crusades, the various expulsions and pogroms during the centuries of Christian rule of the middle-east and Europe, and perhaps the lovely treatment of their Jewish neighbors by Polish Christians before, during, and after the Holocaust and then talk to me about how badly you feel about Christian treatment of Jews. Read this and then talk to me about Christian deception and targeting of Jews and explain why I should trust Kathy’s activities as benign.
Correct. Torah is the law (oral and written) given to the Jews at Sinai. Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Linguists, etc. are certainly entitled to interpret what they have access to based on their own internal guidelines, but it then ceases to be “Torah,” because it has become something else entirely. That’s all I’m saying and I don’t see why it’s raising so many hackles. Perhaps we should call it “cis-Torah” and “trans-Torah” for clarity’s sake. Christians (or whomever) take Torah and dress it up in the clothing of their choosing, reading Jesus into it, but it’s no more Torah qua Torah than Kaitlyn Jenner is a woman.
There is no excusing Christian bigotry or mistreatment of Jews just as there is no excusing Jewish bigotry and mistreatment of Christians. There has been plenty of both throughout history. The only bigotry and mistreatment on display here today is from you towards Kathy/Christians.
Caryn, what most people don’t remember is that Christianity is not an alternative religion that usurps the Jewish Torah. Rather it’s a view — of the Messiah — that started with Jews, composed of Jews and interpreted events in a Jewish light. Gentiles are, according to these early Christian Jews, grafted into the the Jews, but hereditary Jews are still the primary beneficiaries of the Abrahamic covenant and promises.
I’m sorry, please educate me on the balance through history of “Jewish bigotry and mistreatment of Christians.” Good luck. Jews were marching with MLK against his white Christian “brethren” in the KKK and died fighting for voting rights for Blacks in the South. It’s weak tea, you calling me names rather than responding to my thoroughly explicated comments. I’ve called Kathy out for using misleading terminology and have made an accusation that she has so far refused to refute. Maybe it’s time for the rest of you bullies to back off me and ask her to reply.
There have been repeated false messiahs throughout Jewish history. Jesus was not the first. Many Jews followed them until it became clear that they were not what they were thought to be. They were wrong; our Messiah has not come. Christianity became an alternate religion when the Law–the Torah–was thrown out and the new, easier version adopted by the Romans. I don’t care what Christians believe and teach among themselves; it’s your religion to do with as you choose. I don’t care–in fact, I think it can be a very good thing–if Christians want to convert the irreligious or pagans to knowledge of God. I do care when Christians prey on unsuspecting or undereducated Jews for conversion. I care very much when anyone wants to wipe out my people and that’s what’s being done with either murder or conversion. The Jews as a people have a mission from God. Whether or not we’ve done a good job of it is an open question and our failures have not been obscured to anyone who has read the Bible. We believe that some of our mission has been wildly and successfully spread by Christianity and Islam and consider those to be good things. When they’re not trying to wipe us out one way or another.
It’s nice that you consider Christians to be grafted to the Covenant and recognize the primacy of the Abrahamic covenant to his children through Isaac and Jacob. But at least half of Christians believe in replacement theology, several on Ricochet most certainly and vocally so.
Well, I’m a Christian and I don’t have any ill-will or bigoted intentions toward Jews. And I’ve only heard one Christian say anything that could in any way be interpreted (or misinterpreted) as disparaging of Jews.
This is a limited argument I’m giving here, but Hitler is considered by some to have been a Christian, and purported evidence for this is the “Gott Mit Uns” on nazi belt buckles. But the god this refers to is not the Biblical God, and he wasn’t Christian, but antichristian.
So, not everyone who presents himself as appearing as a Christian is actually a Christian.
Well, Jesus was the only one that I’ve ever heard of (and I wasn’t there) who came when He was supposed to come, specifically the 483rd year after the decree to rebuild the Temple.
Artaxerxes gave the decree, as is as far as I know universally accepted by historians, in 457 BC. 69 sevens (of years) is 483 years and, even with varying calendars and even counting the days, this brings the time of the Messiah’s appearance at roughly 26 AD, approximately when Jesus started His public ministry.
When I doubt, I lean on my own experience, but I invariably this fact stands out as assurance that Jesus was and is the Messiah; other things like the effect of Jesus’ words on human history and what I consider His effect on my own life notwithstanding.
I also consider Jesus’ interpretation (or reinterpretation, if you will) of the Hebrew Scriptures to be Good.
And frankly, regarding replacement theology in a Christian context, it may be a popular misinterpretation, but it is just plain wrong (from New Testament writings).
@caryn
I want to start off by saying that I appreciate your honesty and willingness to share your thoughts and feelings. I also appreciate the kindness and respect of everyone on this thread. We all know that participation in the Ricochet community does not mean that we will always agree with each other, but it is good to be in a community of thoughtful and respectful communicators.
It might be helpful if we started over and got to know each other.
I have spent the last 20 years studying Torah, focusing on the weekly Torah portions as millions of Jews around the world do each week. I have often learned from Rabbis and Jewish friends who have always been eager to share their knowledge with me.
My calling is and always has been to teach Christians all of God’s word. My Holy book begins with Genesis, and I greatly respect, honor and believe every word of the Tanakh. For 20 years I have taught Christians about the Hebraic roots of their faith and the primacy of Israel and the Jewish people in God’s plan of redemption for the entire world. I stand strongly against replacement theology and recognize the intense harm, destruction and death it has caused the Jewish people. Unlike other Christians, I believe that Yeshua was 100% Torah- observant and I don’t subscribe to the Christian idea that he was anything less. This belief doesn’t always gain me friends and allies in the Christian community, but my goal is not to make friends but to seek truth.
I agree that it is important that Jewish people do not assimilate (the lesson of the story of Chanukah) but be a kingdom of priests:
(Exodus 19:6) But you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Yisrael.
I have nothing but love and respect for Jewish people and was not attempting to be deceptive or hurtful in any way. I have lived a large portion of my adult life as an advocate for Israel and the Jewish people and will continue to do so. I fully understand the horrific events of the Holocaust were perpetrated by many who professed to be Christians; the reasons for that are too numerous and involved for this discussion. But I live my life humbly serving Jewish people and do not subscribe to the tactics you listed and hate.
One of my motivating verses for studying and teaching other Christians Torah is
And the many peoples shall go and say: “Come, let us go up to the Mount of Hashem, To the House of the God of Yaacov. That He may instruct us in His ways, and that we may walk in His paths.” For instruction shall come forth from Tzion. The word of Hashem from Yerushalayim. (Isaiah 2:3)
Shalom-kathy
So we can’t interpret this particular text unless it is also law for us specifically?
I suspect that you know little or nothing of what you speak. To be fair, Christians often have the same problem.
It’s the problem of thinking backwards about what Christianity means.
Stop thinking of Jesus-based interpretations of Torah.
Learn about the Torah-based interpretations of Jesus. That is the first step towards understanding what you disagree with.
Yes. Christianity is a development of Second-Temple Jewish religion (or of some of the variants of it).
Who did that, and when?
Are you serious? You’re understanding of history is as steeped in ignorance as your understanding of your own religious texts. Every bigot in history has their own justification for the hatred in their hearts. None of it is acceptable in the eyes of God.
Do you maintain a kosher diet as outlined in Leviticus? There’s a lot more than that, but it’s a good starting place.
BTW, no Jewish teacher asks a non-Jew to do so.
I suspect you suspect wrongly. It’s quite probable I know at least as much about Christianity–in both Catholic and many Protestant/Evangelical (Calvinist and Arminian; I know less from the Lutheran perspective)–as you think you know about Judaism.
There is no “Torah-based interpretation of Jesus” to think about because Jesus doesn’t come from the Torah. There is only post hoc Jesus-based interpretation of Torah.
Yes, but it was based on the long-prophesied coming of the Messiah, or Christ, thus Christianity. And though it was not received well by the majority of the Jews a the time, this is also addressed in then-contemporary writings.
As a lowly, yet anxious, layman and innocent bystander who hung on to this conversation deep into the second page expecting fireworks, I now feel the big one coming…