PROTECTIVE STUPIDITY:
Epidemic hysteria, Mass Hypnosis and Escaping from the AIDS Zone
by Rev. Dr. Michael Ellner
Note: The information on this website is presented for
educational purposes and
is not a substitute for the advice of and treatment by a qualified professional.
This document was provided by
Continuum Magazine
VOL. 5 No. 2
Michael Ellner is President of HEAL - Health Education
AIDS Liaison - in New York City. A prominent hypnohealer, he has received many honors
including the first International Association of Counselors and Therapists
Mind/Body/Spirit Award, and two Hypnosis Humanities Awards from the U.S. National Guild of
Hypnotists (1989,1994). His new book Quantum Healing written with Richard Jamison Ph.D.
explores self-healing and empowerment.
CAN WE TALK?
Cultural hypnosis, group fantasy and psychogenic death
have profound social functions. They collectively serve to keep everyones attention
off anything in life that matters like real love, health and happiness. They specifically
serve to keep our attention off anything which threatens the focus of this paper the
Big Lie that: within a world in crisis, everything is OK.
Experts and officials also have a social function. If you think about it, when dealing
with personal Big Lie issues, people not only expect to be lied to, but they depend upon
it. As long as the lies have a seed of truth it gives those who need it an
opportunity to dismiss messy things like the role of self-responsibility in health and
illness, not to mention things like economic injustice, political exploitation and most of
all medical murder. And the experts all happily oblige; after all, they need the Big Lie
too. Without it they would have to acknowledge their racism, sexism, homophobia,
exploitation and countless other crimes against humanity.
PROTECTIVE STUPIDITY
When dealing with this sort of group think, the only thing we can
be sure of is that nobody is thinking. This is confounded by the fact most hypnotized
people can not appreciate that they are already in a hypnotic Big Lie-protecting trance.
In fact most people become irritated, defensive or even hostile at the mere suggestion,
because once hypnotized there is a spontaneous impulse to defend the resulting mythology.
Orwell called this "protective stupidity". (Orwell, G. "1984")
This defensive reflex is in itself evidence of the trance as without the trance a
person would simply consider the information being presented. When in a trance however,
one will dismiss as out of hand "dangerous information", i.e., any information
which threatens the Big Lie view of the world or which suggests taking responsibility
and/or action around issues of one's own health and happiness, particularly in the social
realm.
This is what makes it so very challenging to help people realize that they have been
culturally brain-washed throughout their lives (hypnotized without their knowledge or
consent). Without the Big Lie, the true state of the world would be emotionally
devastating.
The group fantasy ends up serving a powerful survivalistic and anxiety-regulating
function. One is not even permitted to think about it let alone discuss it.
THE GROUP FANTASY NEED FOR HIV
The very ideas of group fantasy, cultural hypnosis, epidemic
hysteria and psychogenic death are so unsettling that they almost always produce an
"I cant believe that!" response.
Put simply, group fantasy is the social agreement that black is white, up is down, and
that the emperor is wearing clothes. It is used to mask rather than unveil the Big Lie and
the identity of all who participate in perpetuating it.
Epidemic hysteria is the psychophysiological bridge between the group
fantasy and the development of clinical psychogenic symptoms. Both have very important
functions in that they are unconsciously used by the group to purge the social body of
poisonous feelings that have been generated by the Big Lie in the first place. (C.
Schmidt. MD, Group Fantasy Origins of AIDS. The AIDS Cult - Essays on the Gay Health
Crisis edited by John Lauritsen and Ian Young).
Epidemic hysteria does, however, require a seed of truth of its own (the
core group, discussed later); it requires the existence of people who are actually sick to
get started - people who are in fact sick because of the Big Lie. To dissociate this
connection between sickness and the lie, we pull out the old standby: viral
scapegoats - like the group fantasy object HIV.
HIV AND THE BIG LIE
But how does one tell whether, in the case of epidemics of
illness, one is dealing socially with hysteria, psychogenics and protective stupidity, or
with an actual effort to curb social and physical illness? It depends on how the truly
sick are dealt with. If their illnesses are used to direct attention to the Big Lie,
health and better social conditions will result.
If on the other hand, it is being used to direct attention away from the lie, as in the
case of AIDS/HIV and as evidenced by the many defensive reactions
triggered by exposure of the fraud, there will be an escalation of both illness and social
tension, i.e., a golden opportunity for the critically urgent psychosocial purge. This
explains why most of us have such a hard time seeing that the perception of an
epidemic of HIV disease particularly in the gay community is a
group fantasy.
As Aids analyst Michael Baumgartner points out, more gay men will die of heart disease
this year than AIDS. And yet no-one is putting any energy into heart disease.
Why is it that people are not up in arms over this? Without seductive and titillating
triggers like sex, anal sex or the threat of sexual transmission, there is not opportunity
to bring to a climactic head pre-existing social tensions. There is nothing titillating
about heart disease. With AIDS however there is enough to arouse in everyone a hysteria.
This mass hypnosis allows people to unconsciously act out their reconditioned roles, roles
which are essential to perpetuating the Big Lie. If youre tranced HIV+
your part is to get sick and die; if you are a doctor your role is to test for an
antibody, make healthy people sick and sick people die, and then blame an alleged
virus; if youre a gay AIDS activist your role is to insure that unproven
treatments get into everyones body and that everyone wear a condom as if
everyones at risk; if youre an AIDS organization your role is to deliver
HIV+s to the pharmaceutical ovens and silence anyone who questions the
insanity; and if youre not in any of these groups your role is to wear a red ribbon,
a latex condom and act like you care.
AIDS works because everyone has something to do. It all serves to keep us
all from looking at what's truly going on in the world. The rampant death and subsequent
social cleansing artificially absolve everyone of the repressed tension generated by the
pre-existing social conditions. Meanwhile and more importantly they simultaneously help in
evading the Big Lie which gave rise to both AIDS and the need for the fantasy
in the first place.
THE AIDS AND OTHER ZONES
Which brings me to the AIDS Zone. The AIDS Zone too serves a
protective function within the Big Lie. I think it is the ultimate protective Zone within
many other Zones. It is the little box within which HIV causes
AIDS, AIDS is always fatal, and poison can prolong your life. The broader Big
Lie Zone sustains the AIDS Zone. The whole thing is structured and prolonged by our
cultural myths, illusions and delusions. These are anchored to our deepest fears and
doubts about sex, drugs and life, fears and doubts originally generated by the Big Lie
itself.
Everywhere we turn in the USA the AIDS trance is being deepened; the lie is getting
bigger. Vaccines, prenatal testing, notifiable diagnosis, enforced drug therapy, contact
tracing - the lie is becoming more difficult to see, let alone escape. Remember the
Red menace? Its social function was to scapegoat all the social problems in
our lives. Economically it justified the multi-billion dollar war industries and
reinforced the manufactured belief that we need military experts, covert operations and
weapons of mass destruction to protect us from the Reds.
Today, the collective Red menace has been replaced by the much more
individual viral menace. The social function of the viral menace
is also to scapegoat all the social problems in our lives. Economically it justifies the
multi-billion dollar AIDS War industries which reinforce through their mystery the
manufactured belief that we need to invest in medical experts, Public Health operations
and chemotherapies of mass destruction to protect us from (the Big Lie) HIV.
THE REALITY OF PSYCHOGENIC ILLNESS
Recently there was a brilliant essay published in CONTINUUM ("Communicable
disease" Alex Russell, vol 4/no 6 June/July 97) designed to help
victims liberate themselves from the AIDS Zone. It was a masterpiece that
offered readers a free pass out. This was followed by "Dissenting view"
(WhoseHysteria?, by Cooper and Walker, vol 5 no 1). What we get in this essay is a
conditioned reflex based on the authors unwillingness to address the staggering
implications raised in Russells article. The reality of a transmissible hypochondria
and subsequent psychogenic death was just too much for them.
Make no mistake about it, if you are branded HIV+ you do not have the
luxury of ducking this urgent consideration. For you, understanding the nature and scope
of the AIDS Zone and psychogenic disease (and how to escape both) is a matter of life and
death. There are many concurrent epidemics of hysteria raging today and the psychogenic
factor, particularly in the case of pseudo HIV disease, becomes clearer when
we differentiate between the physiological factors of illness and the psycho-social
factors of illness - that is, the core group of people getting sick and the much larger
shadow group of people getting interpreted as identically ill if they really are ill, or
as at risk of illness.
SOCIAL HEALTH RISKS
Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) is an excellent example of what I am
talking about. The primary social health risk is the stress of war itself. From here
things break up into two groups. In addition to the stress of war, the core group of
people developing GWS symptoms suffer very serious exposures to very serious stressors,
i.e. experimental vaccines, deadly pesticides, chemicals and possibly weapons of
biological war - the very probable physiological factors of their illnesses. But the much
larger shadow group unconsciously identifies with the core group and, even in the absence
of the same complex of stressors, begin to generate physical, psychosomatic versions of
these symptoms to express the intense emotional trauma of war.
This is also the case with AIDS. The core group of people who develop
GRID/AIDS indicator diseases and conditions suffer the physiological impact of
very serious stressors, i.e., experimental vaccines, deadly medicines, street chemicals
and sexually transmitted biological stressors (not HIV!).
The much larger group of people who are developing symptoms
perceived by themselves and others as AIDS-related symptoms are suffering a combination of
hypochondria and normal flu, colds etc. But within the AIDS Zone, these take on a life of
their own. They were once called ARC -AIDS- related complex, the precursor to
AIDS, but are now called HIV disease because in the absence of treatment a
majority of ARC cases never develop into AIDS. Those actually presenting
psychogenic symptoms though are suffering from the psychological consequences of the
destructive social lies nobody wants to talk about - alienation, homophobia, racism,
poverty, malnutrition, self-hate, medical consumerism and drug use.
The unaddressed emotional tension finds a substitute form of expression by gravitating
to and identifying with the physical syndrome manifested by the core group - this, in
addition to the medical choices based on the hysteria, can lead to death. In the case of
pseudo HIV disease the major emotional stressors, the major psycho-social
stressors relate to being gay, non-white, and/or labeled HIV+. Simply put,
its the core group that defines the badge and the others who later adopt it. If that
sounds unfeasible consider this:
1) There are well documented case studies of people who are loosely called "the
worried well". Even though they have repeatedly tested HIV negative and
have been repeatedly assured they are not at risk for AIDS, these people
present a whole range of pseudo HIV disease symptoms like dramatic weight
loss, low grade fevers, skin disorders, diarrhoea, low T-cell counts and chronic flu like
symptoms. The American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations named the disorder
AFRAIDS (Acute Fear of AIDS) deeming its symptoms psychogenic (Redotz. Considering the
psycho-social aspects of AIDS. Mi. Hosp. Jnl. 8/86, Vol.22 No.8) Of course such studies
have failed to explore an equation between those who test negative and think they are ill
and those who test positive and think they are ill. Since the HIV test is
unvalidated, both groups are actually dogged by the same beliefs and victims of the same
HIV hex.
2) Among certain cultures there is a powerful phenomenon called "bone
pointing". Its similarity to an HIV-positive diagnosis is a crucial and
long over due consideration because among those cultures, the belief that the bone can
kill is enough to cause death. The bone has no physical power in the same way that
HIV has no physical power, but inside the Zones, the belief in either the bone
or HIV can be deadly.
WE NEED AIDS!
Which brings us back to the mass hypnosis. Ever notice how
defensive some people become when you point out that the non-specific HIV
tests are not proof that anyone is infected with the putative HIV ? Or that
there is compelling evidence that low T-cell counts can reflect merely a chronic
psychocortico-physiological redistribution of T-cells to the skin and other organs, not an
indication of one's actual state of health or illness? Or that long-term antibiotic and
chemotherapy/anti-viral drug use are classically recognized to cause
AIDS?
Instead of being relieved, most people are insulted! How dare anybody suggest
HIV is any less than the brutal killer virus that every-body knows
it is! Without HIV we might have to look at the true nature of the world
around us, and perhaps even our responsibility in it all. No. Its better not to know
that you can escape from the AIDS Zone; its better not to lose HIV
solidarity and the social tolerance one gains within an unaccepting society. (Note that
you're tolerated as long as you die!)
They react like many people who are told their GWS problems and symptoms are the result
of post war stress. They are hurt and offended because like everyone else they have been
culturally conditioned to seek the legitimacy of the medical industry for their health
complaints; post war stress just isnt an industrially or socially sanctioned
disorder - we might have to consider things like economic injustice, political
exploitation and emotional murder! As communities we have been persuaded and programmed to
ignore and/or de-value both psychogenic disease and the intense distress of the war
experience!
We have become unknowingly programmed to surrender our power to
experts, germs and other government officials who know what's best for us; to ignore
anything that challenges our necessary illusions. We believe in the entity of
AIDS through the same mechanisms as we believe in the marvels of modern
medicine: brainwashing, protective stupidity and the social function of the lie.
THE DOCTOR WILL KILL YOU NOW
Modern medicine exploits the unconscious pain of a wounded
society to obscure the real causes of its disease, while
artificially numbing that pain. Even though in the US the day to day practice of
conventional medicine kills at least three times as many people as are attributed to
AIDS, we still insist on being treated by these charlatans. Surely this can be
explained only by a lifetime of social and cultural conditioning to stop thinking while
surrendering to "experts" all responsibility for our health. Which brings me
back to the AIDS Zone. The War on AIDS is a huge success socially, politically
and economically because most people really dont care if gay men and IV-drug users
are being murdered. Their homophobia and own guilt and shame dull their basic humanity
while contributing to their "stupidity". But as terrible as this gay
extermination is, it is only the tip of the genocide. Most people really dont care
if 30 million of the poorest people on earth starve to death either. The Big Lie
HIV simplifies things. These horrific crimes are more easily ignored when
these people are sentimentally written off as victims of a mythical AIDS
pandemic.
The Zones are the only atmosphere in which pseudo HIV disease and this
massive cover-up could thrive. In other words, everybody has been hypnotized to turn off
their thoughts and feelings and, instead of living, we are mindlessly sleepwalking from
one Zone to the next. There is an unconscious agenda at work - evading the
role of self-responsibility in generating ones own health and happiness - that
simultaneously serves its broader social function - evading the Big Lie. Is there a better
explanation?
AIDS AND PSYCHOIATROGENIC STRESSORS
Hysteria and self-hypnosis explain why the group fantasy object HIV is as
seductive as it is menacing; why so many gay men wear their seropositivity like a badge of
honor, why the public has dully accepted the massive discrepancies perpetuated by the AIDS
industry, and why most doctors, scientists and public health officials are so into testing
and treatment without the required scientific evidence to justify either. Or maybe doctors
are just cold-blooded murderers?
The real challenge for health activists is to educate themselves about the true causes
of illness. We must be able to appreciate that in addition to the psychoiatrogenic
component of AIDS, the hysteria, cultural hypnosis and group fantasies serve to keep us
from realizing the huge social injustices we live with everyday. How can we defend
ourselves from everyday crimes against our humanity if we are constantly distracted by
imaginary monsters.
We must fight the real monsters that poison our air, water, food and finally our
hearts, minds and souls. In order to save and live with the planet (and ourselves) we must
work together to expose the life-threatening health risks that epidemics of hysteria mask.
Masking is their social function.
Roberto A.Giraldo, MD has written a penetrating exposé of the ever increasing
industrial (and other) stressors in our daily lives. I wholeheartedly recommend interested
people read Giraldos AIDS and Stressors to get a comprehensive understanding of what
is really making us sick and make sense of the really serious threat this is to
everybodys health. In closing I highly recommend that anyone testing
positive read The AIDS Cult - Essays on the Gay Health Crisis edited by John
Lauritsen and Ian Young. This, combined with What If Everything You Thought You Knew About
AIDS Was Wrong? by Christine Maggiore is your passport out of the Zone. Reading CONTINUUM
on an ongoing basis is essential to staying out of the Zone as it provides the only
international forum in which the free exchange of this kind of information is possible. I
also recommend boning up on Pavlov, Chomsky, Orwell, Freud, Lacan and Showalter for a
better understanding of group dynamics, psychological contagion and hysteria. Thank you
for your consideration.
The HIV Virtuality Trance
Protecting Head Set "Most hypnotized people cannot appreciate that they are already
in a hypnotic Big Lie-protecting trance."
"Its better not to know that you can escape from the AIDS zone"
Stressing health
Roberto Giraldos AIDS and Stressors
Roberto A. Giraldos radical book, AIDS
and Stressors (Impresos Begon, 1997:205p, USA, $15.00 Published in Medelin, Colombia) is
paradigm-shifting, gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring. Well-researched with more than 800
references and citations, Giraldos thesis links AIDS to iatrogenic,
psychogenic and immunological stressors. The book contains a foreword by Angel Galeano,
President of the Art and Science Foundation of Medelin, a preface by the editor, and six
chapters: Chapter 1: Worldwide rise of immunological stressors; Chapter 2: A proposal for
the pathogenesis of AIDS; Chapter 3: A proposal for the Natural History of AIDS; Chapter
4: The Real Meaning of HIV; Chapter 5: AIDS is neither an infectious disease nor is
sexually transmitted; Chapter 6: AIDS Crisis in the scientific method.
Giraldo, an expatriate Colombian and formerly one of that countrys experts on
infectious diseases, was an organizer of the Conference AIDS Without HIV: Myth or
Reality, which took place from 2-5 October, 1997.
The Conference was held under government auspices at the University of Santander in
Bucaramanga, Colombia and featured Drs Stefan Lanka, David Rasnick, Prof Peter Duesberg
and Kary Mullis. Giraldo nominates AIDS as "the maximum state of
deterioration that the human immune system can reach; it is a toxic-nutritional syndrome
caused by the alarming worldwide increment of immunological stressor agents". Giraldo
argues that AIDS should be understood as a severe acquired immunodeficiency
due to repeated, chronic and multiple exposures to immunological stressors. The
immunological stressor agents create immunotoxic or immunogenic effects, or both, which
generate a state of oxidative stress in cells and in metabolic reactions of the immune
system.
Giraldo points out that the scientific community has been wrong many times in once
considering as infectious diseases that are not: pellagra, scurvy, beriberi...
Giraldo sees his AIDS/Stressors thesis as a practical tool for the medical authorities
and disease(d) communities to fight AIDS. Only by abandoning the redundant and
futile HIV/AIDS hypothesis and implementing strategies for the AIDS/Stressors
model can we hope to solve AIDS. This mind-blowing, life-saving book must be
read as soon as possible...its a wake-up call.
Alex Russell
For orders contact: 36-25 29th Street, Long Island City, New York 11106. Phone (718)507
7889. E-mail: rgiraldo@cdiusa.com
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