“Terrorist!”. “Witch!”. “The Far-Right!”. “The Occult!”.
One of the few things we share in common with each and every past society is that we confidently stand on the frontline of time. We are the cutting edge. We don’t have the luxury of hindsight, we are the moment. In these moments societies are often tasked with making quick judgments pertaining to war, the economy, disease, religion, crisis, inventions, art, etc. Canadians are currently in a time of crisis. I will submit to you that the crisis is not a virus, but indeed a crisis of the mind. In respect of due diligence, we must seriously and rigorously discuss the possibility of a mass psychosis event stemming from the emergence of Covid, specifically in Canada where I believe a modern political witch-hunt has commenced. This possibility needs to be considered by the media, the medical community, the legal community, the historical community, academia, the public, along with our government, and eventually world leaders. This careful review of Canada must be done to ensure we aren’t making the same mistakes other societies have made countless times throughout history. Failure to do so may be catastrophic. Denying the possibility of a collective mass psychosis is akin to denying the possibility that the individual may succumb to mental illness. Both realities are far more common than we care to admit.
Most societies believe they are the pinnacle of morality, they presume that their actions will be looked upon favourably by future generations, although this is often not the case. Witch-hunts and their subsequent trials occurred in different parts of Europe from 1580-1650. During this era, those engaging in the trials often felt justified in their actions through a combination of ‘gods will’ and the most advanced science the world knew. In reality, the causes of these trials were varied: fear, paranoia, dogmatic religious ideas, prejudice, vindictiveness, bigotry, hapless economies, a false understanding of science, and poor governance are the leading candidates for shared blame. The targets were usually single and outspoken women who challenged the status quo of the church or local government. In past societies, single women were often viewed as a threat and considered suspicious. This suspicion caused members of the public to conjure various negative attributes, but the common denominator was that these women were a problem. Now what I am writing may seem like a stretch, but you should know that the similarities between the witch-hunts and what is happening right now to the mandate protesters are striking.
We are familiar with the witch trials of Salem, but many don’t understand how frequent witch-hunts were prior in Europe, even fewer understand the role the printing press’s played in the European trials, nor do they know the printing press had been mass-produced merely a generation before the Salem trials began. I firmly believe our society is grappling with the same problems that people from the past dealt with, however, instead of religion and the printing press, we are now dogmatically subscribing to political ideologies online while we fragment into tribes all the same. We are marching along in arrogance, as if we are the pinnacle of science and morality. Instead of the printing press, fear and propaganda are spread online. The invisible enemy of Covid is no longer the key issue; the attack has now moved to a section of the public referred to as the “far-right”. During the various witch-trials the devil was often the main topic, ultimately though it was the people themselves who were targeted; all for having a separate set of beliefs than the majority.
Many of us underestimate the ability of prior generations to express their ideas, fears, and beliefs. For example, the newsletter is credited to John Campbell, it was first introduced in 1705, near Salem, a generation before their witch trials. The mass production of the printing press allowed a new generation of people the ability to share their thoughts. Within that generation newsletters became extremely popular. Leading up to the Salem trials, there were many small local newsletters throughout the area (some larger scale ones too) composed of letters written exclusively by the public. In these publications everything from recipes, life tips, stories, religion, royalty, music, sports, politics, gossip, and society were discussed. It was their version of social media. The more well-written or controversial letters usually found their way to the front, encouraging a style of discourse. Almost every letter made it in, the poorly written ones were reframed by the editor in such ways as “a reader out in New York named Jim Thompson thinks we should rejoin England to avoid future war, what are your thoughts?”. This discourse often contained tales of the devil or other salacious topics that stirred up both fear and interest, like a social media feed.
Thanks to Gutenberg many people had access to a printing press and their fears and beliefs were along for the ride. Juxtapose that with a modern internet filled with various forms of virtue derived from ideological philosophy that is now being cultivated and censored by big tech, such as men like Jack Dorsey. In the 1700s, it was commonly believed that the people who controlled printing had a high level of integrity and that printed words were drafted in the publics best interest. In reality, the printed word was a tool of propaganda as much as it was a benefit. Both the flow of propaganda and the censorship of ideas were controlled by the guardians of the technology. Surely we can’t believe that we are the pinnacle of science, morality and law, or that Jack Dorsey will be the last John Campbell. What mistakes are we making?
During the Salem trials, the level of propaganda being spread through print was high, a lot based on a morality derived from religion. You could say it was the original North American ‘virtue signaling’. There was popular fear that the witches were also using the printing press, and that this would cause their movement to grow. There was a growing effort to make sure only the pure had access to the press. It was feared that unholy printed material would corrupt the youth. This needed to be stopped, so, often material relating to witchcraft was banned. It was determined that the press should only be used for good, such as spreading the word of God, or facts discovered by trustworthy news tycoons. The elite determined that mass production of printed material should only be left to the pure and trustworthy; also known as themselves. All of these tropes and concepts have been applied to the mandate protesters by the powerful of this time, in eerie similarity.
Our current dilemma with the internet has been talked about for decades. In 1967, on an episode of PBS’s Firing Line, Bill Buckley debated Timothy Leary about LSD and the topic of the internet came up. Leary explained to Buckley that future communication would be electronic, and that it would cause people to become uniform. Leary said “the future religious language will be electronic, it’s going to involve a vocabulary and an instrumentation that’s as new to me as the printing press was when Gutenberg came along and said ‘hey did you know you can turn onto the word of god?’...Electronics is going to be the theology of the future”. Buckley then scoffed and said “That’s total gobbledygook. It may be in the future we are incapable of making sound distinctions. I don’t deny that. It may be that we are heading to some Orwellian future where IBM will assume some sort of metaphysical reality, but if that happens, we will have lost whatever it means to have a civilization at all. I don’t think it’s that easy to form new religions”. Considering some of the dogmatic rhetoric online, has a new political religion emerged?
According to the current media structure, the far-right now encompasses most of the working class (especially the ignorant members), every racist in Canada, every unvaccinated person, everyone who owns a legal firearm, anyone who questioned mandates, as well as every cookie-baking grandma who wants to enjoy her grand kid’s soccer games again without restrictions. The brush strokes are that broad. Those dogmatically immersed in modern liberalism believe that opposing mandates is evil and could only be the position of people dabbling in darker parts of society. From most media reports, it’s safe to say that a large portion of the far-right is propagated by single and disillusioned men seeking to find a set of beliefs and myths offering explanation for their lack of dating or financial success. It’s a problem that society needs to help solve. Sound familiar?
Covid is much like the devil in that it’s invisible. Most of us firmly believe the devil doesn’t exist, but people of the past did not have this luxury. To them, the devil was as real as covid is to us. We as a people are hardwired to fear the unknown, this is a positive trait for the most part, especially when it comes to the wilderness or the edges of cliffs, but it’s not necessarily helpful when it comes to assessing all risk. For thousands of years we have engraved in our cultures and minds mechanisms of both guilt and sacrifice which offer explanations and solutions for catastrophe. During times of the past, plagues were frequently blamed on blasphemy and tongues were often cut out. We now blame illnesses like Covid on people who don’t follow arbitrarily constructed rules and we shut down their Twitter accounts, effectively removing their electronic tongue. They can listen, but not speak. We’ve determined they are the root cause of our trouble, like the witches of Salem.
The term “dark” appears in both the witch trials and in modern times. The witches were accused of using “dark magic”, and the protesters are accused of using “dark money”, including cryptocurrency. These assets have been labelled and used by the government to promote the concept that nefarious, shady, and unknown actors with ill beliefs are lurking off in the distance attempting to wreak mayhem on our soil. “Dark money” now encompasses everything from laundered money to donations that come naturally from people abroad who take interest in your cause. The media and government in Canada were theatrically shocked that a few Americans were also funding the protest; but did they ask the same questions of Canadians who donated to Black Lives Matter or George Floyd causes in America? Are those dollars now considered “nefarious and dark” foreign money? Of course not, BLM and George Floyd protests are part of the new dominating religion, so those donations are pure. However, any donations that challenge the ‘new church of modern Liberalism’ are considered “dark money” and must be dealt with. See where this has already gone?
A final thought; as useless as they were, even the witches’ got trials, which is something not afforded to anyone who has had their bank account frozen; the sad truth is, the ability to freeze a person’s entire wealth is both magical and dark.