The belief that human interaction should be restricted to mitigate contagion of COVID-19 is irrational in the extreme. Like pneumonia or the flu, COVID-19 is a mild respiratory illness that is only fatal in people already at the end of their lives. After infection, an individual is immune for at least a few years, probably for life. Subsequent infections, if they occur, will be progressively milder. The world has been turned into a prison for what is nothing more than a common flu strain.

Many people who support this absurd ‘new normal’ were rational, intelligent people prior to the outbreak in Wuhan. How could so many mentally sound people deteriorate into shut-ins, germophobes, and devotees of long-discredited “public health experts”? 

All signs point to the intensive psychological operation waged by governments and news outlets that began in early 2020. The campaign has brainwashed a large portion of the world’s population into accepting the inhuman doctrine of the leaders of The Terror — a doctrine that conflicts with all logic and changes frequently at the leaders’ whim. In many countries, the brainwashing effort has captured the minds and allegiance of the majority, who now persecute their clearer-minded brothers and sisters.

Everyone thinks that their beliefs about spirituality and the nature of life is the correct one and that of others’ is flawed. To believe in something is to disbelieve in other things. There is an unlimited spectrum of beliefs. Parties having beliefs spaced far apart on the spectrum must surely appear misguided to one another. A cult is not defined by having ‘crazy’ beliefs because all belief systems seem crazy to a segment of the population. Cults are defined by the exercise of extreme control over members.

A cult is a group or subculture in which the independent thinking of adherents is strongly discouraged and the doctrine of the cult leadership is imposed. In a cult, the pre-existing individual identity of followers is replaced with a uniform group identity. The lives and minds of followers are strictly controlled by the cult leader. Unconditional submission is demanded and enforced. 

Cults only exist to serve their leaders. If you know someone who has joined a spiritual or ideological group and become happier, more mature, and better adjusted as a result, he is not in a cult. The defining feature of cults is that they do not attempt to meet the needs of their members; they keep them in a perpetual state of fear and insecurity. The peace promised is never found.

A distinguishing feature of cults is the infallibility of their leaders. Any criticism of the leader is forbidden and subject to punishment. Cult members often retaliate against someone who criticizes their leader, including someone from within the cult. Leaders are not accountable for any of their actions, no matter how disastrous. For instance, in a set of policies called the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong created a huge famine in China. Yet he was never criticized for the policy failure within his country because of the threat of punishment.

Covidist leaders have never been held responsible for the billions of lives that they have ruined or the people that have died as a result of their policies. No matter how much evidence of the harms and futility of their actions is presented to their followers, it is immediately dismissed. Covidists don’t even offer a reason for their dismissal other than their divine leaders must be working in mysterious ways. As with other cults, followers stand by their leaders no matter how badly they fail.

Cults practice strict control over their members, including the use of mind control. Some cults, such as Covidism or ISIS, take mind control to such extremes that it may decisively be categorized as brainwashing. Brainwashing is a severe form of mind control in which the identity of an individual is profoundly altered against her will. Cult leaders use a variety of strategies in order to take control of people mentally and exploit them for their own ends. 

The essence of brainwashing is the destruction of the mind and identity and their reformation in the image of the cult leader. By provoking fear and insecurity in an individual, often through abuse and false information, an artificial need is created that the individual is led to believe can only be satisfied by strict obedience to the leader. The ‘world’ of the follower is reconstructed to maximize the influence of the leader while minimizing all other influences acting upon the person. The basic process is the same whether the cult is religious or political.

Breaking Down the Target

A person who possesses a healthy level of self-esteem, independent thinking skills, and emotional stability is not vulnerable to brainwashing. Cult leaders, thus, mentally weaken people to gain control over their minds. There are two common means of accomplishing this: convince people that they are deeply inadequate and kindle an intense fear inside of them. Once sufficiently weakened, the cult leader seeks to keep his followers under the delusion that only by devotedly following him shall they be safe and whole.

Religious cults instill fear in people by telling them that they risk going to hell or reincarnating, possibly as an animal, if they do not follow their particular doctrine. They also promise profound fulfillment in this life, which cannot be achieved any other way. In political cults, people are told that foreign nations and their political systems are destructive and dangerous. In North Korea, one of the world’s poorest countries, the government tells its citizens that they are far richer than people in capitalist states. Of course the opposite is true, but North Koreans don’t have access to the internet or free media to educate themselves.

The invention of an ‘enemy’ is the foundation of totalitarian cults, such as Covidism or Nazism. For Nazis, it was Jewish people who were villainized and blamed for all of Germany’s problems. For Soviets, the enemy was the capitalist economic system, which allegedly caused poverty and inequality, as well as capitalist states which were looking for war. To members of ISIS, anyone who rejects their radical interpretation of Islam is a dangerous adversary who prevents people from living Allah’s glory. In the Covidism cult, the enemy is the SARS-CoV-2 virus and anyone who defends human rights or disseminates accurate information related to the pandemic. While the virus is not imaginary, it is a bioweapon engineered to give birth to a ‘public health’ cult.

Fabricating enemies and phobias is only the beginning. Human beings who are well mentally, emotionally, and socially will be able to see through the smokescreen. Cults don’t only tell people that they should be afraid, they convince them that they are badly broken. Religious cults often accomplish this by persuading people that universal human desires, such as for sex, healthy self-esteem, or a comfortable standard of living, are sinful. 

There are many methods used by cults to break down people and convince them that they are inadequate. A common tactic, used by many religions, is to tell people that if they have ever felt suicidal, they are sick inside and need their religious leader to heal them. They tell people that contemplating suicide at any point in their life means something is gravely wrong with them. (In reality, it is normal. Everyone feels like dying sometimes.) 

For those in the cult, the process of being broken down is continuous. They are perpetually made to feel afraid and helpless. Members of cults are often given impossible tasks to convince them of their worthlessness. For instance, their leader may tell them that they have to eat a very small quantity of food everyday or never have angry thoughts. By continually assigning ‘impossible’ tasks, cult followers are kept perpetually convinced that they are inadequate and in desperate need of help to be a good person. The self-confidence and self-efficacy of Covidists is kept low by convincing them they should avoid others completely. Most Covidists have some level of human contact, thus they feel guilty and inadequate for not perfectly isolating themselves. 

Only The Leader Can Save You

Once people have been hoodwinked into believing that they have a dangerous enemy and are too powerless and inept to defeat the enemy, they are ready to accept that the cult leader can protect them. Scared and desperate, they are disposed to believe anything they are told so they can feel secure again. They will adopt beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes that they never would have considered prior to the indoctrination as they urgently try to protect themselves from the threat. 

Cults inform their victims that they alone can provide the solution to the problem or threat. In spiritual cults, that generally takes the form of the leader being the only true incarnation or representative of God. Religious cults present a certain doctrine as the only divine set of truths — no other doctrine will save people from hell. In political cults, the solution provided can come from the divinity of the rulers or from their political-economic systems. 

In the pandemic, the media and government, who lead Covidism equally, tell us that only by strictly following their advice, will we survive. If we think for ourselves and act contrary to the advice, such as by not wearing a mask, we will kill ourselves or others.

Every conceivable method of persuasion, such as those in the Mind Control section, may be employed to convince people that following the cult is the only protection from the super scary threat. Cults produce a large volume of false information. In the case of political cults, many citizens simply do not suspect that their government is capable of profound dishonesty. This is certainly the case in Covidism. No matter how absurd and inconsistent the pandemic messaging from government, people tell themselves that it can’t be a swindle because they think politicians have too much integrity.

In order to brainwash victims into believing cult doctrine, which is built upon lies, cults control the information they access. In many religious cults, followers are encouraged to avoid the news, as well as fiction, such as movies and novels. They are told to only consume media produced or pre-approved by their group. 

Covidists have almost completely taken control of the news media and social media. Reporters are warned to never say anything anti-Covidist. Those who do not comply are terminated and blacklisted from the industry. Facebook and Youtube posts criticizing COVID restrictions are promptly removed along with their respective accounts. Even Google search results are carefully censored for anything that exposes the social distancing narrative.

Information control for Covidism parallels other cults of ruling parties. Governments pressure, if not force, the media to relay their anti-rights indoctrination. Employers and schools are forced to ‘educate’ their employees/students on the importance of social distancing and strictly enforce compliance. Employees or students may be disciplined for saying anything contrary to Covidist doctrine. Advertising for COVID restrictions can be seen on billboards and bus shelters. It is impossible to use the internet without being bombarded with Covidism ads. The whole population is inundated with Covidist propaganda everyday and prevented from accessing dissenting views or honest information.

Cults also control the social interaction of their members. This is partly to control information. Public health orders to stay away from other people certainly prevent the dissemination of quality information about the pandemic response. People can keep in touch over text and phone calls, but everyone’s “phone circle” is much smaller than their entire social interaction circle, severely limiting the number of people from which one can access information. 

Almost every religious cult encourages members to minimize socialization with ‘outside’ people. Cult leaders know that everyone is influenced by others, especially others they relate to as peers. By restricting social interaction as much as possible to the group, leaders ensure that social influence will serve to strengthen, and not weaken, their influence. 

Exposure to the leader and the leader’s materials is made as great as possible. Due to human psychology, the more ‘contact’ people have with the leader, the more they will see her as a trusted figure. People are not suspicious of those that they feel they know. We see this tactic used in Covidism. The cult leaders hold press conferences gratuitously. Most of the time, there is no new important information to convey. The purpose of the conferences is psychological. 

The governor or public health officer becomes a part of your family. You come to see her as your aunt or your pastor. You should be suspicious of her cruel and strange actions against society but you are not because you feel like you have a relationship with her from watching her on TV everyday.

The success and depth of the brainwashing is directly related to the degree to which the cult can isolate and control the environment of their targets. The greater the environmental control, the more the mind will succumb to the propaganda. ISIS has had incredible success brainwashing kidnapped boys by placing them in camps in which the only view they will encounter is the radical view of the Islamic State. In only a few weeks, the most moderate Muslim boys can be turned into fierce ISIS warriors, eager to kill and die for the most extreme faction of Islam.

Covidism has also been very successful in brainwashing people by strictly controlling their environment. Victims are drastically isolated from others. They can’t get physically close enough to others to have a conversation due to the 6 foot rule. They may not even be allowed to leave the house or be around more than a handful of people at a time. Emotional communication is hindered by face coverings. Communication via social media is strictly censored to only permit pro-Covidism views.

People are coerced to be highly suspicious of others in the Covidism era. The media tells us that anyone criticizing restrictions on freedoms is stupid, crazy, dangerous, racist… everything bad under the sun. Consequently, most people only trust those who express the mainstream Covidism narrative. Covidists are trained to avoid dissident opinion. Thus, they play a direct role in creating their fake world. Mao Zedong was known for inciting suspicion and advocating violence among his followers for anyone who was not a strict devotee of him.

Sowing suspicion of others is a common cult tactic. Incredibly, it is very common for cult leaders to sow suspicion of other members of the same cult. Intra-cult suspicion amplifies the isolation for each member. Only the leader can be trusted, not other members, and certainly not outsiders. In Covidism, everyone can be a source of the deadly virus. The only safe place to turn is to the propagandists on the television.

Because of the isolation and excessive time spent at home, Covidism recruits spend all their time watching television or on the internet. They are thus receiving the propaganda constantly, overwhelming any mental resistance. Repetition is itself a powerful form of mind control. 

Leave at your Peril

Cults are destructive by definition. They do not deliver on whatever it is they are promising. An ideological sect that is honest, respectful of personal autonomy, and makes its members happy, is not a cult no matter how crazy their beliefs may seem to others. Cults are groups that deceive, control, and harm their members.

Members of cults are never satisfied. They are kept in a constant state of anxiety. They rely on their group for fulfillment and security from threats, but never find it. People often stay in these destructive organizations for many years, not because they like being in them, but because they are afraid to leave. In religious cults, leaving is akin to checking into hotel hell for an eternal stay. Walking away from a political cult can get a person tortured, imprisoned, or killed. Covidists constantly threaten people that leaving (ie. ceasing to mask and social distance) is deadly.

Cults often make it very difficult to leave from a practical perspective. For instance, someone in a spiritual cult for a long time may not have the financial resources or social skills to live independently. They may have no friends outside of the group and have little ability to relate to outsiders. They may not have any college education and lack job skills from living in a collective for many years. Much of this dependence is by design. Cult leaders want their followers to be so dependent on their group that they won’t know how to function outside of it.

It is very difficult to orient a loved one to reality who has been brainwashed by a cult. Steven Hassan is a cult expert who has been helping people leave cults for decades. Below are some pointers of his Strategic Interaction Approach for helping someone leave a cult.

1. Don’t be confrontational. Attacking someone’s beliefs will rarely weaken them. More often, it causes the cult member to become defensive and strengthens his resolve.
2. Ask non-threatening questions. Rather than preaching the truth as you see it to the friend who is in a cult, ask him to explain his beliefs and their rationale. He may find that he is unable to logically justify his cult’s convictions and actions.
3. At first, don’t suggest that he leave the cult. That will make him angry and raise his guard. Ask him to imagine what life would be like outside of the cult. Ask him hypothetical questions of situations in which he might consider leaving the cult.
4. Tell a true story about how someone was under the influence of a cult or another person and was able to break free.
5. Use a series of short interactions. A long session is too threatening. Also, change of perspective is a slow, gradual process.

Hassan’s approach should work well with Covidists. Of course, your brainwashed relative first needs accurate information about the pandemic response. Many people are not brainwashed by Covidism, they just don’t have quality sources of information. If she still thinks social distancing is important, you need to help her understand that many doctors and scientists oppose distancing but have had their voices silenced. There is no consensus about the pandemic response. There is just a lot of censorship.

As long as Covidists read the newspaper or watch CNN, they are doomed. The only way to get their brains working independently again is to cease consuming the news altogether. Tell your brainwashed loved one that you have noticed that reading the news elevates his anxiety (it invariables does) and you think he should give it a break for his mental health. If you have done this yourself and seen your anxiety decrease, let him know. After a few days with no exposure to the press, it will be much easier for him to think independently. After a couple weeks, he is getting more clear-headed. Tell him you have seen a big improvement in him and recommend he permanently stay away from the news. The news is Covidism’s core medium. You can’t break the spell without first stopping the input.

Many Covidists are more emotional than logical. Logic alone cannot awaken these people. Tell them about the horrible suffering that restrictions are causing people. Show them videos of police arresting people just for being outside. Express your sadness of the hundreds of millions of people who will die well before their time due to restrictions, both from lack of medical care and the impact of restrictions on socio-economic determinants of health. Make it clear that you want the restrictions ended so people can be happy and live as long as possible.

Propaganda works only because people don’t realize it is propaganda. Tell Covidists about the many methods of propaganda that have been used to capture their minds, along with the cognitive biases that made it possible. Once people know about mind control methods, they stop working and logical thinking can once again take place.

Most Covidists are avowed statists. They don’t think that their government could be corrupt. To them, government is always the ‘good guys.’ These people need to understand that the pandemic response is based on corruption. Destroying the economy was planned years ago. The uber-wealthy have become $5 trillion richer in the first year of social distancing. Naturally, they want the economy oppressed for as long as possible to continue the wealth transfer. 

The pandemic has given governments an excuse to exercise extreme control over citizens with a digital ‘vaccine passport.’ With the passport, our every move is monitored and whom we hang out with is tracked. Any criteria can be added to this social credit system. For instance, people who criticize the government online can be prevented from riding the bus or going to school. 

Moreover, the freedom-restricting response to COVID is rooted with the WHO. The WHO is controlled by Big Pharma which wants to sell vaccines and other medicines. They tried to fabricate a pandemic in 2009 to sell vaccines, as well. WHO actions have no basis in public health. Laying out the above evidence of corruption will help Covidists to understand that their government has been totally corrupted.

It is very hard on one’s pride to abandon closely-held beliefs. It involves admitting to oneself of being wrong. To make this easier for your Covidist friend, be sympathetic and non-judgmental. Mention that billions of intelligent people have been brainwashed by Covidism. It is nothing to be ashamed of. 

Covidism is a new global cult. Billions of people have been brainwashed into its extremist anti-freedom ultra-authoritarian ideology. Their beliefs and behaviors are irrational and destructive for themselves and others. By constructing an artificial world and immersing people in propaganda, the ruling class has accomplished a psyop of Biblical proportions. Be patient and help your loved ones gradually wake up and take back their own minds. They can’t do it on their own.