Psychosis: Can Sanity Return to an Insane World – An Academy of Ideas Video Discussed

The Academy of Ideas continues to amaze me. https://academyofideas.com/2021/04/manufacturing-of-a-mass-psychosis-can-sanity-return-to-an-insane-world/

Perhaps listen and watch the full 16m 09s before reading my notes below. I believe my notes are brilliant, yet who has time to read and consider all this?

At just 2m 47s into that video I decided to look up Joost Meerloo and found this a fascinating read: Joost Meerloo – Wikipedia

Academy of Ideas somehow manages to pull together so much artwork to be displayed in their videos. I have paused at 4m 44s with a picture that, for me, is only slightly disturbing, yet, surely it is an image that is very disturbing… or maybe not… so much going on in the picture… looking at it again, I am struck that even the characters holding weapons seem very disturbed… none seem anything like happy with the role they have to have/play.

Now looking at the picture at 5m 25s I have decided I can categorise myself as sane! Sane compared with the poor ‘sod’ who got that image in his mind and had to draw it… perhaps to have some release from some fears of his own… the narrator talking about how fear is needed to get menticide underway.

In terms of the words/quotes, there are many I could say are outstanding. So far, if I were to just pick one quote, it is that from Joost Meerloo at 7m 10s that stands out for me. It matches with a conversation earlier today. In fact, matches with several recent conversations with several people. In one such conversation “A scotch-egg constitutes a substantial meal” was an example of the craziness of last summer when so many, including me, were confused.

Please read the quote at 8m 15s while being aware that Joost Meerloo died on November 17, 1976. Was he a genius? Maybe, yet mainly he was in the wrong places (E.g. as a jew in occupied Holland 1940-1942) such that he was set on a course of wanting/needing to understand how/why such situations were occurring.

Isolation is discussed at 9m 50s.

Just 6 months ago, I believe I would have regarded the picture at 10m 28s as nonsense. Right now, I consider that picture is an accurate representation of the world I know… (Do I have to again redefine what is sane and sanity!?) I believe I know what the artist was thinking when drawing (in the upper-left part of picture) the person under the shell and the person upside-down above the shell. I believe I have recently met people dealing with their current reality in these alternative ways, but please do not lock me up just for my ‘appreciation’ of this art.

According to Carl Jung, for those of us who wish to help return sanity to an insane world, the first step is to bring order to our own minds, and to live in a way that provides inspiration for others to follow:

I will now use the transcript supplied to share, “It is not for nothing that our age cries out for the redeemer personality, for the one who can emancipate himself from the grip of the collective [psychosis] and save at least his own soul, who lights a beacon of hope for others, proclaiming that here is at least one man* who has succeeded in extricating himself from the fatal identity with the group psyche.” Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition

Here I will point out that Carl Jung died on 6 June 1961, yet he was writing about “our age” as if he were living today. This perhaps confirms that the massive shifts many (including me) experienced in 2020 were really just part of a flow that has been going on for centuries. You may find it interesting to listen now to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Light the Fire”, or just familiarize yourself with the lyrics and know that, whether in our own lives or on the world-stage, each action has to follow from the action before. Not for political correctness but from  my own observations of the mass rally in London on 24^th April 2021 and of the meeting in our local park this morning that Carl needs to change “one man” to “person” as there really does seem to have been a shift from men standing up against tyranny to us now being so very reliant on women. It seems we need the “lionesses” more than ever while the reasons why there has been so much de-masculination of so many men could be the subject of another article from me.

Now, I do hope this is still true, “…the weapon of ridicule. The demagogue himself is almost incapable of humor of any sort, and if we treat him with humor, he will begin to collapse.”

Near the end now at 15m 15s, I am reminded of my own experiences at age 20, behind the Iron Curtain,

“…Czechoslovakia, is the construction of what are called “parallel structures”. A parallel structure is any form of organization, business, institution, technology, or creative pursuit that exists physically within a totalitarian society, yet morally outside of it. In communist Czechoslovakia, Havel noted that these parallel structures were more effective at combating totalitarianism than political action.”

It is then mentioned that “to prevent a full descent into the madness of totalitarianism is action by as many people as possible.”

I believe some of my newest friends will appreciate the final quotation, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.” Thomas Paine, American Crisis

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