The John-Henry Westen Show - A Catholic perspective on COVID 'mass formation psychosis' with Franciscan University professor

00:00:00.000 when you see people walking outside wearing a mask, when they should be exposing themselves

00:00:05.240 to the air, which is how we build our immunity. These are all irrational

00:00:09.400 behaviors, and this seems to be one crucial aspect of mass formation.

00:00:18.360 Hello and welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show. You know, today we are so

00:00:22.560 beset by confusion because everywhere you look, you don't know who to believe.

00:00:26.080 Do you go this way or that? Well, something's come up of late that's been very interesting,

00:00:31.160 but who knows what to make of it. It's called mass formation psychosis. We've heard it talked about

00:00:36.180 by a Dr. Desmet, Dr. Malone has raised it, Dr. Peter McCullough, some of the known voices. I wanted

00:00:42.080 to talk to somebody who is a known figure, at least in the faith world, who we can trust. A professor

00:00:49.480 from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a professor in the Department of Psychology,

00:00:54.100 he actually has a PhD in neuroscience and actually a background in pharmacy as well. He was a

00:01:00.560 pharmacist. So you're going to want to stay tuned for this discussion about mass formation psychosis

00:01:05.820 with Dr. Stephen Samut. Please stay tuned.

00:01:27.800 Dr. Samut, welcome to the program.

00:01:29.920 Thanks for having me on.

00:01:30.860 Let's begin, as we always do, at the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:01:35.580 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:01:39.000 First of all, if you could explain to us, what is this new phenomenon? This is mass formation

00:01:44.580 psychosis. What is it? Is it a well-established teaching already? Is this something new? What

00:01:50.620 is it? If you could explain it to us, please.

00:01:52.420 Mass formation is a kind of mass hypnosis in a way. You can look at it, where society, a big percentage

00:02:01.100 of society starts following a particular narrative without any reasoning behind it. It's an irrational

00:02:09.700 following that doesn't involve real thinking, the utilization of our intellect. It really isn't a

00:02:18.520 new concept. There's psychologists, for example, Gustave Le Bon, who addressed this. And that was

00:02:27.640 just before the World War, World War II. So this is not a new concept. It's basically a formation of a

00:02:35.720 herd from humans. And we shouldn't be acting as a herd. It really explains what went on in Nazi Germany. 0.70

00:02:43.780 It explains what happened in many of the communist countries and really, truly explains how people just 0.68

00:02:51.620 become accepting of things that they shouldn't accept that are being imposed upon them, very often in the

00:02:58.900 form of government and positions such as what I mentioned. What is different, I guess, about mass formation is

00:03:05.780 that if you look at the literature, the scientific literature, you don't actually find too many papers on mass

00:03:11.620 formation. And this is because mass formation is actually made up of many concepts. As Dr. Desmet from

00:03:18.840 Ghent University addresses, there's several requirements for mass formation to take place.

00:03:24.760 And those require many aspects in society to come together at a crucial point that then leads to mass

00:03:31.780 formation. If you could go through them, what are the elements to mass formation? How should we recognize

00:03:37.240 this? What do we have to see to understand that it's happening? I think one aspect that is clear in

00:03:43.880 all of it is irrationality, irrational arguments. However, as you indicated earlier, one aspect that

00:03:53.480 is problematic is how do you find the truth? But irrationality plays a significant role in this regard.

00:03:59.340 In fact, Dr. Gustave LeBlanc himself addressed how basically people who become part of a crowd,

00:04:08.560 because that's what you're doing. Crowd formation is another term for this. People who become part of a

00:04:14.980 crowd lose their distinctiveness and also start acting in a more primitive way. And the more primitive way

00:04:24.480 is more of the lower brain, which is more impulsive, less rational. So one of the aspects that we need

00:04:33.700 to look for is irrationality. If I may give an example from this pandemic, for example, if we start

00:04:40.360 listening to aspects where people refer to a pandemic of the unvaccinated, that just does not make

00:04:48.500 scientific sense. It's irrational. When you start seeing people wearing, with all due respect, wearing

00:04:54.820 a mask in a car when they're on their own. When you see people walking outside wearing a mask, when they

00:05:01.540 should be exposing themselves to the air, which is how we build our immunity. These are all irrational

00:05:07.040 behaviors. And this seems to be one crucial aspect of mass formation. The other aspect also

00:05:15.600 is the abandonment of, in a way, of community, and yet the forming of a community. But it's the wrong

00:05:26.680 kind of community that is formed. There is a wrong form of connectedness that takes place. It's not the

00:05:33.680 human social good connectedness that we should all have. It's a connectedness that is associated with

00:05:42.140 either an ideology or a false teaching or some sort of a teaching or a leader that suddenly comes out

00:05:51.740 and is leading the mass in this particular direction. So there's that aspect also. So there's

00:06:03.380 irrationality. Then there's the aspect of the formation of a leader, of a concept that draws the

00:06:11.020 focus of people from anything and everything that has gone on around them solely to it. And that is

00:06:16.380 exactly what we've seen with COVID. And Dr. Desmet talks about this also. And for those people who

00:06:23.980 have been watching this progress, they would have seen how I've often complained, for example, how

00:06:30.780 it seems like people have focused on the virus particle. Can it pass through a mask?

00:06:36.220 Yet the virus particle is not everything. We've forgotten the consequences on humanity. So that

00:06:45.580 narrow-minded focus is another aspect that distinguishes it. And I think you could probably

00:06:52.680 recognize from the points that I've mentioned that these are all aspects that we have been observing

00:06:57.620 with regards to what is being called the COVID pandemic.

00:07:01.300 Dr. Desmet and Dr. Malone, they outlined sort of four requirements to get to this situation of

00:07:08.840 mass formation psychosis. What are those and how have we seen them all play out?

00:07:14.540 One is lack of social connectedness. Now, things like this don't happen suddenly. So in terms of

00:07:21.360 explaining how we have seen them play out, we have seen social media, you know, cell phones,

00:07:26.660 people on their cell phones. I mean, you speak to a chiropractor, even he'll tell you that one of the

00:07:32.560 issues that he has to fix most is because people are so much looking down at their phone. So there's

00:07:37.980 this isolation that we are, we have created in society. So there is a social disconnectedness

00:07:45.420 that has been that has been lost. Lack of meaning. Desmet calls it meaning making sense making. So

00:07:53.980 lack of meaning in life. As a society, we've become more secular and we've abandoned God.

00:08:00.860 In our society, as humans, realistically speaking, as creatures, we referring to each other

00:08:09.580 has a limit because we're referring to a person or a being that is in a way equal to us. And there's a

00:08:17.940 limit to how far we can go in terms of how much that person could potentially help us, for example,

00:08:22.880 or how much they could even understand us. This lack of meaning, then, you know, being, not being

00:08:30.120 able to look towards a greater being than us as a reference point that is unmovable, unchangeable,

00:08:37.260 and we can refer to constantly without any potential difficulty, let's put it that way. Not that it's

00:08:45.360 not difficult sometimes to approach God, not because he makes it difficult, but because as humans,

00:08:50.260 sometimes it's intimidating and sometimes we're just obstinate, then there's the free-floating

00:08:56.780 anxiety. As a society, over the past 60 years, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed. The

00:09:04.460 amount of prescription medication that is given for this is phenomenal. And we see it. I mean,

00:09:10.880 I've published a number of papers and we have another one actually coming out in relation to COVID and

00:09:17.280 mental health, but we see a significant amount of anxiety even among our students and in society

00:09:25.560 in general. So a free-floating anxiety. And again, this is potentially associated with the previous

00:09:31.720 point of lack of meaning in life, because if you don't have a purpose in life, then you're going to

00:09:35.900 be anxious. You're going to be insecure. The next aspect that he talks about, the fourth point,

00:09:41.100 is free-floating aggression, frustration. And this is a result of potentially all of the previous points

00:09:49.440 that I've mentioned. If I'm on my phone a lot, if I don't communicate, if people don't understand me

00:09:55.000 because I'm on my phone and my communication is not the way I would express it, then there's going

00:10:00.600 to be frustration. If I don't understand what my meaning in life is, there's going to be frustration.

00:10:06.540 If I have anxiety that I feel I can't control, there's going to be frustration. So those are

00:10:12.120 the four points. So just putting them in single words, lack of connectedness, lack of meaning,

00:10:18.900 free-floating anxiety, and free-floating aggression.

00:10:22.960 I guess in the end game with this, you come to a, they were speaking about an ability to believe

00:10:32.060 anything, to not question things, which don't make sense. The irrationality that you spoke of

00:10:36.320 earlier. And then also we're, we're now coming to a sort of painting of an enemy. When, when we saw

00:10:44.380 with the Nazis in particular, the Jews were painted as the enemy and sort of the, the, the solution 0.97

00:10:53.440 was getting rid of them. We seem to be there as well with the painting of the unvaccinated as the 1.00

00:11:01.300 enemy. And the, the somehow great solution is for everyone to, to mandate the vaccines. What do you,

00:11:08.880 what do you make of that?

00:11:10.140 Well, we're basically giving the people an idol to, to compare it to the scriptures. It's like when

00:11:16.100 Moses went up to the mountain and, you know, the Jews went, went up to Aaron and said, well, we need

00:11:21.740 to have a God. And that's, that's what is happening. So one was, we had COVID being put forward. Then we

00:11:29.880 have the experts supposedly that tell us what we're supposed to. So you can see, this is a dynamic God,

00:11:36.660 if you want to call it. It's a constantly changing because sometimes people catch on. And that's one of

00:11:42.280 the things that you really don't want. If you intend on controlling the crowd, on controlling people,

00:11:47.600 we have experts. I mean, with some people like Fauci who will say, you know, I am science. I mean,

00:11:53.860 when a person says I am science, I mean, nobody knows everything in science that is the, you can't

00:11:58.820 get any more arrogance than making such a statement as, as, as that. So we have these, these false gods

00:12:06.200 that are placed in front of people that, that continuously cause the people to have some other

00:12:13.620 focus. Because remember, the moment you are asked to look at your own insecurities, that's going to

00:12:19.420 cause you anxiety. And that's what the people don't want. And this is why they keep on, well, we have

00:12:25.000 the COVID pandemic. Okay, let's focus on that. Now we need to focus on who's telling us the truth and

00:12:31.420 who's supposedly taking care of us. Next, if those things don't seem to be working, then we have to

00:12:36.940 blame somebody. Anxiety is necessary for a mass formation, as is an enemy. And in that case, then

00:12:44.780 you, you find the, the, the unvaccinated, you, you, the respect of, of how irrational it is to, to blame

00:12:53.040 the unvaccinated, you blame them. And who knows what's next? Even, even the constant variation in the 0.99

00:13:02.020 variants that keep on coming out. Not to say that they don't, I mean, this virus, these viruses have

00:13:07.140 been, coronaviruses have been around for many, many thousands of years, and they're going to

00:13:12.520 continue being around. They continue to vary, and that's how they, they, they change. So I, I feel

00:13:20.960 sometimes one of the first things that I had said when this pandemic supposedly broke out, I said, you

00:13:26.440 know, it was, it's, I find it rather interesting. If you had told people, this is a flu pandemic,

00:13:30.580 I don't think anybody would have cared. We've gotten used to the word flu, but think about it.

00:13:35.680 If I tell you SARS-CoV-2, if you're not into immunology, virology, you're going to look at this

00:13:42.480 and think, oh, wow, oh no, this must be some sort of a monster, and then come out with COVID.

00:13:48.720 So there's always this constant movement of, of, of focus in order to keep people from realizing the

00:13:58.620 reality, and also just keeping them under, under control.

00:14:04.040 What are the things you, you told me before the, the interview that I'd really like you to address

00:14:08.440 is some of the ways we got here in the first place, and how, for instance, this relates to

00:14:16.460 one of the great lacks in our society today, particularly related to fatherhood.

00:14:20.860 As we have been progressing as a society, or regressing, sadly, one of the aspects that has

00:14:28.440 been clear is, despite the fact that we've learned a lot, we've grown in knowledge, I

00:14:34.040 don't think as humans we've really grown in sense, or it's common sense, as many people

00:14:38.960 joke, although it really isn't, the joke is not so common after all.

00:14:42.460 Um, so, everything we do in life, everything that we do as a, as a functioning human being

00:14:49.580 relates to each other.

00:14:51.640 I, I mentioned earlier the lower brain.

00:14:54.640 I have a model here, let me just, uh, pull it up.

00:14:58.540 This is half a brain here.

00:15:00.300 So when we talk about the upper brain, we're talking about the parts up here, the lower brain

00:15:04.260 is down there.

00:15:05.140 Um, the upper brain is the more executive function, the, the, and it is executive and

00:15:13.400 function in the sense that it has to control what's going on in the lower brain.

00:15:16.900 Now, when we talk about psychological disorders, all psychological disorders are basically an

00:15:22.940 imbalance between the upper brain and lower brain.

00:15:25.660 Not that I'm going to go into psychological disorders, but what we've seen in society and

00:15:29.840 what we've fostered in society is an imbalance between the upper brain and lower brain.

00:15:34.200 Because be it, if I'm enjoying a nice meal, be it, if I'm in deep prayer and meditation,

00:15:42.580 there's activity going on in the brain between the upper brain and lower brain that is either

00:15:48.680 allowing the upper brain to control the lower brain or allowing the lower brain to run loose.

00:15:54.740 So what we've seen in society with, for example, the increased amount of pornography, the destruction

00:16:00.380 of the family, the attacks on the family, the attacks on manhood, uh, you know, where, where

00:16:07.940 even members of Congress basically make it sound like it's criminal to be a man.

00:16:14.480 Um, all of these aspects have affected the way our brain functions, because for example,

00:16:21.500 in general, okay, at a quick look, if I had to look at a brain of a person with schizophrenia versus

00:16:28.160 a person that has abused with alcohol, uh, I really wouldn't be able to tell much of the

00:16:33.740 difference. You'll see a shrinkage in the upper brain. You'll see an increase in ventricular size

00:16:38.440 and the lower brain becomes more powerful. We've done that in society with our various addictions,

00:16:45.940 be it shopping addictions, be it the pornography increase in pornography, the, the, these obsessions

00:16:52.940 that people have, uh, the, the video games, uh, all of these feed into each other. There is absolutely

00:17:00.880 no disconnectedness, uh, between how the brain functions, uh, and how we behave and how we ultimately,

00:17:10.820 uh, how that ultimately affects even our spiritual life. So for example, if I spend time meditating,

00:17:18.560 I actually increase the capacity of the upper brain to control the lower brain. That's being

00:17:25.580 shown in MRIs. On the other hand, if I abuse the drugs or if I use, if I'm a consumer of pornography,

00:17:31.540 the lower brain will become more, more stronger. The, the aspect to keep in mind there is that

00:17:39.260 unfortunately the way we, unfortunately it's the way we were created, uh, the upper brain

00:17:45.860 slows down in growth towards the age of about 25. It slows down. It's still capable of changing

00:17:54.020 because otherwise we wouldn't be able to change our behavior, but it slows down in growth. But the

00:17:59.020 lower brain has the capacity to keep on changing and changing significantly. And it, it keeps on wanting

00:18:05.400 more and more and more and more to feed it. And so you, this is where you get the instant gratification.

00:18:11.840 So once, once we've become a society of instant gratification, where it's me, how I feel, what I

00:18:19.920 want, and I want it now, then you're lowering your capacity to reason, increasing your capacity to be

00:18:27.260 impulsive, and then making situations like this, the mass formation, which is more of a primitive form

00:18:33.820 of behavior, easier to happen. You mentioned the fatherhood aspect. We know that, for example,

00:18:40.640 families, most especially African-American families, we know from the statistics that the absence of

00:18:46.920 fathers is part of the reason of the high levels of crime rates there. That, again, that is, um,

00:18:53.200 scientifically, has been scientifically shown. Even Obama admitted that when he was giving a talk

00:18:58.020 in, in, uh, Illinois. See, there is no contradiction between faith and science. Sadly, unfortunately,

00:19:05.000 I think many of us Catholics have forgotten that aspect. Uh, we say we believe that, but we don't

00:19:10.960 act it. Um, so the way we have been created to be in community, to have a family that consists of a

00:19:20.260 mother, a father, and a child, um, of a male, of a male, female, and a child, um, just to be clear

00:19:29.000 these days, uh, is, is something that is actually not only an aspect of faith, but it is also an aspect

00:19:37.000 that has been shown to be, uh, uh, of great significance and for stability, uh, and mental,

00:19:45.020 positive mental health in society, even in science. So we've seen that in science. So this absence of

00:19:51.640 fatherhood because of the increase, the breakdown of the family is, is really significant. And that's

00:19:58.780 why we have a crisis of fatherhood in society. People look for the leader. This again goes back

00:20:06.940 to the mass formation aspect. People will look for a leader for them to be led because they want to be

00:20:13.360 led. So there is obviously an importance in terms of trying to preserve and bring together and keep

00:20:19.680 together the family that is obviously essential. But then also from the perspective of the church,

00:20:25.240 unfortunately, I feel that we have a crisis of fatherhood, even within the church, because when,

00:20:31.100 when we have a situation that is so irrational as this, where clearly you have in general up to

00:20:41.300 approximately age 65 or so less than a 1% mortality rate. And yet we have lockdowns, we have the forced

00:20:52.060 mask, mask mandates, we have the church closings and the church is cooperating with this. And then we

00:20:59.820 have the vaccine mandates and that you see the church leaders, uh, cooperating with this. It is

00:21:06.660 rather disturbing because they truly are not acting as fathers, the fathers that the flock needs or the

00:21:13.720 shepherds that the flock needs in order to be led, uh, led in the right direction towards Christ and

00:21:20.020 towards, uh, physical as well as spiritual health. Because when, when you look at the church closures,

00:21:26.480 for example, when you have so many saints, I believe, I think St. Ignatius of Antioch said this,

00:21:31.660 uh, who emphasize the necessity for communion, for the reception of communion, uh, with the, the,

00:21:40.520 the importance as Catholics, we believe in so much in, in the importance of the sacraments in, in our

00:21:47.600 functioning as a spiritual, in, in spirituality, as well as physical, um, uh, being, um, when we,

00:21:57.800 when you think about the importance and significance of that, uh, uh, of those, and then you see churches

00:22:04.400 closed, the church is not doing its duty in leading, or I should say the church leaders are

00:22:10.960 not because Christ's church is, is, is, is not the issue here. It's, it's the leaders within the church.

00:22:18.360 Um, they, they are not providing the leadership that is necessary in order to maintain and keep the

00:22:25.100 people focused on where they should be focused on the faith aspect. Because faith, if you recall,

00:22:32.140 I said the issues that lead to a mass formation include lack of connectedness. Well, when we go to

00:22:39.680 mass, there's this community aspect. If you're depriving people of mass, but telling them to watch

00:22:45.980 it on TV, that is not the same aspect of community, the spirit faith community that is so necessary for the,

00:22:53.040 the, the, the same functioning basically of, of people, the meaning sense-making. If people,

00:22:59.180 people may pray at home and hopefully they do, but when you give them, when there is a purpose

00:23:04.640 of going to church, being with your community, being part of that sacrifice that is actively being

00:23:10.840 offered in front of you, there's sense-making there. There is meaning-making there. In a way you

00:23:16.260 could say then the, one of the greatest enemies of the great reset or the, the, the plan, if you will,

00:23:23.520 to go down this road, to create a situation where you have this mass formation so that people

00:23:28.780 basically aren't questioning anything and are looking hungry for, uh, some kind of ultimate

00:23:33.500 leader is actually the faith. And that's probably why it's so threatening. 1.00

00:23:36.860 Absolutely. In fact, Desmond himself refers to that because when he was asked, uh, why do people

00:23:44.680 succumb to this or who in a way are the proponents of this? One of the things that he referred to,

00:23:51.720 he said, he, he, he spoke about the fact that the number, the people he's met that are proponents of

00:23:57.820 this are, uh, more mechanistic, biological reductionist, transhumanist mentalities. And these,

00:24:04.420 these are obviously contrary to our, our faith. Um, so in a way he, uh, hinted towards the aspect

00:24:13.660 of the necessity for, for faith without saying it directly. Dr. Samut, thank you so much for being

00:24:19.880 with us. Um, any parting thoughts for us as, uh, as we, as we go? It is necessary for people to keep

00:24:26.180 on questioning, to keep on asking, to keep on seeking the truth. The truth, um, as my grandmother and

00:24:32.960 my parents used to say, it's not a fruit that's going to fall into your mouth. You need to look

00:24:37.160 for it. And it is difficult sometimes to look for it, but we must look for it because unfortunately

00:24:42.680 even peer reviewed journal, scientific journals and articles, even scientists, unfortunately,

00:24:49.180 even some Catholic scientists are not telling the truth. So we need to reason. We need to look for

00:24:56.640 the truth. We need to defend our faith. We need to fight for our faith. We need to fight for the

00:25:01.920 sacraments. We need to desire the sacraments. We need to build our knowledge, both in terms of the

00:25:08.440 science, if you want to call it. And I mean that in the broadest sense, because obviously not everybody

00:25:13.180 is a virologist, not everybody's a neuroscientist, et cetera, but we need to broaden and grow our

00:25:19.500 knowledge in the truth, be it in the material world through science, but also certainly in our faith

00:25:26.080 and ensure that we are, uh, uh, helping our faith, nourishing our faith and helping it grow.

00:25:32.920 But we must continue to inquire because the moment we stopped challenging, the moment we stopped

00:25:39.840 questioning, that is when the, the, the great reset, the mass formation has basically taken over

00:25:47.600 and returning from it is going to be significantly difficult.

00:25:53.120 Dr. Samut, thank you so much for being with us on this episode of the John Hunter Weston show.

00:25:56.520 Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on.

00:25:59.120 And God bless all of you. We'll see you next time.

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The John-Henry Westen Show - January 19, 2022

A Catholic perspective on COVID 'mass formation psychosis' with Franciscan University professor

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