A Catholic perspective on COVID 'mass formation psychosis' with Franciscan University professor
Summary
In this episode, Dr. Stephen Samut, a professor of psychology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, discusses the concept of mass formation psychosis, a phenomenon that has been discussed by Dr. Desmet and Dr. Malone and others.
Transcript
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when you see people walking outside wearing a mask, when they should be exposing themselves
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to the air, which is how we build our immunity. These are all irrational
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behaviors, and this seems to be one crucial aspect of mass formation.
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Hello and welcome to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show. You know, today we are so
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beset by confusion because everywhere you look, you don't know who to believe.
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Do you go this way or that? Well, something's come up of late that's been very interesting,
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but who knows what to make of it. It's called mass formation psychosis. We've heard it talked about
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by a Dr. Desmet, Dr. Malone has raised it, Dr. Peter McCullough, some of the known voices. I wanted
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to talk to somebody who is a known figure, at least in the faith world, who we can trust. A professor
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from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a professor in the Department of Psychology,
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he actually has a PhD in neuroscience and actually a background in pharmacy as well. He was a
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pharmacist. So you're going to want to stay tuned for this discussion about mass formation psychosis
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Let's begin, as we always do, at the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,
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First of all, if you could explain to us, what is this new phenomenon? This is mass formation
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psychosis. What is it? Is it a well-established teaching already? Is this something new? What
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Mass formation is a kind of mass hypnosis in a way. You can look at it, where society, a big percentage
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of society starts following a particular narrative without any reasoning behind it. It's an irrational
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following that doesn't involve real thinking, the utilization of our intellect. It really isn't a
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new concept. There's psychologists, for example, Gustave Le Bon, who addressed this. And that was
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just before the World War, World War II. So this is not a new concept. It's basically a formation of a
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herd from humans. And we shouldn't be acting as a herd. It really explains what went on in Nazi Germany.
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It explains what happened in many of the communist countries and really, truly explains how people just
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become accepting of things that they shouldn't accept that are being imposed upon them, very often in the
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form of government and positions such as what I mentioned. What is different, I guess, about mass formation is
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that if you look at the literature, the scientific literature, you don't actually find too many papers on mass
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formation. And this is because mass formation is actually made up of many concepts. As Dr. Desmet from
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Ghent University addresses, there's several requirements for mass formation to take place.
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And those require many aspects in society to come together at a crucial point that then leads to mass
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formation. If you could go through them, what are the elements to mass formation? How should we recognize
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this? What do we have to see to understand that it's happening? I think one aspect that is clear in
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all of it is irrationality, irrational arguments. However, as you indicated earlier, one aspect that
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is problematic is how do you find the truth? But irrationality plays a significant role in this regard.
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In fact, Dr. Gustave LeBlanc himself addressed how basically people who become part of a crowd,
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because that's what you're doing. Crowd formation is another term for this. People who become part of a
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crowd lose their distinctiveness and also start acting in a more primitive way. And the more primitive way
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is more of the lower brain, which is more impulsive, less rational. So one of the aspects that we need
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to look for is irrationality. If I may give an example from this pandemic, for example, if we start
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listening to aspects where people refer to a pandemic of the unvaccinated, that just does not make
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scientific sense. It's irrational. When you start seeing people wearing, with all due respect, wearing
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a mask in a car when they're on their own. When you see people walking outside wearing a mask, when they
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should be exposing themselves to the air, which is how we build our immunity. These are all irrational
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behaviors. And this seems to be one crucial aspect of mass formation. The other aspect also
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is the abandonment of, in a way, of community, and yet the forming of a community. But it's the wrong
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kind of community that is formed. There is a wrong form of connectedness that takes place. It's not the
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human social good connectedness that we should all have. It's a connectedness that is associated with
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either an ideology or a false teaching or some sort of a teaching or a leader that suddenly comes out
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and is leading the mass in this particular direction. So there's that aspect also. So there's
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irrationality. Then there's the aspect of the formation of a leader, of a concept that draws the
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focus of people from anything and everything that has gone on around them solely to it. And that is
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exactly what we've seen with COVID. And Dr. Desmet talks about this also. And for those people who
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have been watching this progress, they would have seen how I've often complained, for example, how
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it seems like people have focused on the virus particle. Can it pass through a mask?
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Yet the virus particle is not everything. We've forgotten the consequences on humanity. So that
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narrow-minded focus is another aspect that distinguishes it. And I think you could probably
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recognize from the points that I've mentioned that these are all aspects that we have been observing
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with regards to what is being called the COVID pandemic.
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Dr. Desmet and Dr. Malone, they outlined sort of four requirements to get to this situation of
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mass formation psychosis. What are those and how have we seen them all play out?
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One is lack of social connectedness. Now, things like this don't happen suddenly. So in terms of
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explaining how we have seen them play out, we have seen social media, you know, cell phones,
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people on their cell phones. I mean, you speak to a chiropractor, even he'll tell you that one of the
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issues that he has to fix most is because people are so much looking down at their phone. So there's
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this isolation that we are, we have created in society. So there is a social disconnectedness
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that has been that has been lost. Lack of meaning. Desmet calls it meaning making sense making. So
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lack of meaning in life. As a society, we've become more secular and we've abandoned God.
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In our society, as humans, realistically speaking, as creatures, we referring to each other
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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
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limit to how far we can go in terms of how much that person could potentially help us, for example,
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or how much they could even understand us. This lack of meaning, then, you know, being, not being
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able to look towards a greater being than us as a reference point that is unmovable, unchangeable,
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and we can refer to constantly without any potential difficulty, let's put it that way. Not that it's
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not difficult sometimes to approach God, not because he makes it difficult, but because as humans,
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sometimes it's intimidating and sometimes we're just obstinate, then there's the free-floating
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anxiety. As a society, over the past 60 years, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed. The
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amount of prescription medication that is given for this is phenomenal. And we see it. I mean,
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I've published a number of papers and we have another one actually coming out in relation to COVID and
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mental health, but we see a significant amount of anxiety even among our students and in society
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in general. So a free-floating anxiety. And again, this is potentially associated with the previous
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point of lack of meaning in life, because if you don't have a purpose in life, then you're going to
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be anxious. You're going to be insecure. The next aspect that he talks about, the fourth point,
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is free-floating aggression, frustration. And this is a result of potentially all of the previous points
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that I've mentioned. If I'm on my phone a lot, if I don't communicate, if people don't understand me
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because I'm on my phone and my communication is not the way I would express it, then there's going
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to be frustration. If I don't understand what my meaning in life is, there's going to be frustration.
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If I have anxiety that I feel I can't control, there's going to be frustration. So those are
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the four points. So just putting them in single words, lack of connectedness, lack of meaning,
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free-floating anxiety, and free-floating aggression.
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I guess in the end game with this, you come to a, they were speaking about an ability to believe
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anything, to not question things, which don't make sense. The irrationality that you spoke of
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earlier. And then also we're, we're now coming to a sort of painting of an enemy. When, when we saw
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with the Nazis in particular, the Jews were painted as the enemy and sort of the, the, the solution
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was getting rid of them. We seem to be there as well with the painting of the unvaccinated as the
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enemy. And the, the somehow great solution is for everyone to, to mandate the vaccines. What do you,
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Well, we're basically giving the people an idol to, to compare it to the scriptures. It's like when
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Moses went up to the mountain and, you know, the Jews went, went up to Aaron and said, well, we need
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to have a God. And that's, that's what is happening. So one was, we had COVID being put forward. Then we
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have the experts supposedly that tell us what we're supposed to. So you can see, this is a dynamic God,
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if you want to call it. It's a constantly changing because sometimes people catch on. And that's one of
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the things that you really don't want. If you intend on controlling the crowd, on controlling people,
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we have experts. I mean, with some people like Fauci who will say, you know, I am science. I mean,
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when a person says I am science, I mean, nobody knows everything in science that is the, you can't
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get any more arrogance than making such a statement as, as, as that. So we have these, these false gods
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that are placed in front of people that, that continuously cause the people to have some other
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focus. Because remember, the moment you are asked to look at your own insecurities, that's going to
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cause you anxiety. And that's what the people don't want. And this is why they keep on, well, we have
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the COVID pandemic. Okay, let's focus on that. Now we need to focus on who's telling us the truth and
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who's supposedly taking care of us. Next, if those things don't seem to be working, then we have to
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blame somebody. Anxiety is necessary for a mass formation, as is an enemy. And in that case, then
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you, you find the, the, the unvaccinated, you, you, the respect of, of how irrational it is to, to blame
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the unvaccinated, you blame them. And who knows what's next? Even, even the constant variation in the
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variants that keep on coming out. Not to say that they don't, I mean, this virus, these viruses have
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been, coronaviruses have been around for many, many thousands of years, and they're going to
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continue being around. They continue to vary, and that's how they, they, they change. So I, I feel
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sometimes one of the first things that I had said when this pandemic supposedly broke out, I said, you
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know, it was, it's, I find it rather interesting. If you had told people, this is a flu pandemic,
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I don't think anybody would have cared. We've gotten used to the word flu, but think about it.
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If I tell you SARS-CoV-2, if you're not into immunology, virology, you're going to look at this
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and think, oh, wow, oh no, this must be some sort of a monster, and then come out with COVID.
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So there's always this constant movement of, of, of focus in order to keep people from realizing the
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reality, and also just keeping them under, under control.
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What are the things you, you told me before the, the interview that I'd really like you to address
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is some of the ways we got here in the first place, and how, for instance, this relates to
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one of the great lacks in our society today, particularly related to fatherhood.
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As we have been progressing as a society, or regressing, sadly, one of the aspects that has
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been clear is, despite the fact that we've learned a lot, we've grown in knowledge, I
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don't think as humans we've really grown in sense, or it's common sense, as many people
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joke, although it really isn't, the joke is not so common after all.
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Um, so, everything we do in life, everything that we do as a, as a functioning human being
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I have a model here, let me just, uh, pull it up.
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So when we talk about the upper brain, we're talking about the parts up here, the lower brain
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Um, the upper brain is the more executive function, the, the, and it is executive and
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function in the sense that it has to control what's going on in the lower brain.
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Now, when we talk about psychological disorders, all psychological disorders are basically an
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imbalance between the upper brain and lower brain.
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Not that I'm going to go into psychological disorders, but what we've seen in society and
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what we've fostered in society is an imbalance between the upper brain and lower brain.
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Because be it, if I'm enjoying a nice meal, be it, if I'm in deep prayer and meditation,
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there's activity going on in the brain between the upper brain and lower brain that is either
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allowing the upper brain to control the lower brain or allowing the lower brain to run loose.
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So what we've seen in society with, for example, the increased amount of pornography, the destruction
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of the family, the attacks on the family, the attacks on manhood, uh, you know, where, where
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even members of Congress basically make it sound like it's criminal to be a man.
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Um, all of these aspects have affected the way our brain functions, because for example,
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in general, okay, at a quick look, if I had to look at a brain of a person with schizophrenia versus
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a person that has abused with alcohol, uh, I really wouldn't be able to tell much of the
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difference. You'll see a shrinkage in the upper brain. You'll see an increase in ventricular size
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and the lower brain becomes more powerful. We've done that in society with our various addictions,
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be it shopping addictions, be it the pornography increase in pornography, the, the, these obsessions
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that people have, uh, the, the video games, uh, all of these feed into each other. There is absolutely
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no disconnectedness, uh, between how the brain functions, uh, and how we behave and how we ultimately,
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uh, how that ultimately affects even our spiritual life. So for example, if I spend time meditating,
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I actually increase the capacity of the upper brain to control the lower brain. That's being
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shown in MRIs. On the other hand, if I abuse the drugs or if I use, if I'm a consumer of pornography,
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the lower brain will become more, more stronger. The, the aspect to keep in mind there is that
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unfortunately the way we, unfortunately it's the way we were created, uh, the upper brain
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slows down in growth towards the age of about 25. It slows down. It's still capable of changing
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because otherwise we wouldn't be able to change our behavior, but it slows down in growth. But the
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lower brain has the capacity to keep on changing and changing significantly. And it, it keeps on wanting
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more and more and more and more to feed it. And so you, this is where you get the instant gratification.
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So once, once we've become a society of instant gratification, where it's me, how I feel, what I
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want, and I want it now, then you're lowering your capacity to reason, increasing your capacity to be
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impulsive, and then making situations like this, the mass formation, which is more of a primitive form
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of behavior, easier to happen. You mentioned the fatherhood aspect. We know that, for example,
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families, most especially African-American families, we know from the statistics that the absence of
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fathers is part of the reason of the high levels of crime rates there. That, again, that is, um,
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scientifically, has been scientifically shown. Even Obama admitted that when he was giving a talk
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in, in, uh, Illinois. See, there is no contradiction between faith and science. Sadly, unfortunately,
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I think many of us Catholics have forgotten that aspect. Uh, we say we believe that, but we don't
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act it. Um, so the way we have been created to be in community, to have a family that consists of a
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mother, a father, and a child, um, of a male, of a male, female, and a child, um, just to be clear
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these days, uh, is, is something that is actually not only an aspect of faith, but it is also an aspect
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that has been shown to be, uh, uh, of great significance and for stability, uh, and mental,
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positive mental health in society, even in science. So we've seen that in science. So this absence of
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fatherhood because of the increase, the breakdown of the family is, is really significant. And that's
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why we have a crisis of fatherhood in society. People look for the leader. This again goes back
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to the mass formation aspect. People will look for a leader for them to be led because they want to be
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led. So there is obviously an importance in terms of trying to preserve and bring together and keep
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together the family that is obviously essential. But then also from the perspective of the church,
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unfortunately, I feel that we have a crisis of fatherhood, even within the church, because when,
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when we have a situation that is so irrational as this, where clearly you have in general up to
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approximately age 65 or so less than a 1% mortality rate. And yet we have lockdowns, we have the forced
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mask, mask mandates, we have the church closings and the church is cooperating with this. And then we
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have the vaccine mandates and that you see the church leaders, uh, cooperating with this. It is
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rather disturbing because they truly are not acting as fathers, the fathers that the flock needs or the
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shepherds that the flock needs in order to be led, uh, led in the right direction towards Christ and
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towards, uh, physical as well as spiritual health. Because when, when you look at the church closures,
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for example, when you have so many saints, I believe, I think St. Ignatius of Antioch said this,
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uh, who emphasize the necessity for communion, for the reception of communion, uh, with the, the,
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the importance as Catholics, we believe in so much in, in the importance of the sacraments in, in our
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functioning as a spiritual, in, in spirituality, as well as physical, um, uh, being, um, when we,
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when you think about the importance and significance of that, uh, uh, of those, and then you see churches
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closed, the church is not doing its duty in leading, or I should say the church leaders are
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not because Christ's church is, is, is, is not the issue here. It's, it's the leaders within the church.
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Um, they, they are not providing the leadership that is necessary in order to maintain and keep the
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people focused on where they should be focused on the faith aspect. Because faith, if you recall,
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I said the issues that lead to a mass formation include lack of connectedness. Well, when we go to
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mass, there's this community aspect. If you're depriving people of mass, but telling them to watch
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it on TV, that is not the same aspect of community, the spirit faith community that is so necessary for the,
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the, the, the same functioning basically of, of people, the meaning sense-making. If people,
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people may pray at home and hopefully they do, but when you give them, when there is a purpose
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of going to church, being with your community, being part of that sacrifice that is actively being
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offered in front of you, there's sense-making there. There is meaning-making there. In a way you
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could say then the, one of the greatest enemies of the great reset or the, the, the plan, if you will,
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to go down this road, to create a situation where you have this mass formation so that people
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basically aren't questioning anything and are looking hungry for, uh, some kind of ultimate
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leader is actually the faith. And that's probably why it's so threatening.
00:23:36.860
Absolutely. In fact, Desmond himself refers to that because when he was asked, uh, why do people
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succumb to this or who in a way are the proponents of this? One of the things that he referred to,
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he said, he, he, he spoke about the fact that the number, the people he's met that are proponents of
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this are, uh, more mechanistic, biological reductionist, transhumanist mentalities. And these,
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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.
00:25:59.120
And God bless all of you. We'll see you next time.
00:26:03.840
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