…and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.
(2Thessalonians 2:10-12)
They refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.
There has been much discussion swirling around the internet about a psychological concept called mass formation psychosis. Surely, you’re aware of it. In a nutshell, this psychological phenomenon describes a kind of powerful “group think” that takes hold of large numbers of people at the same time, drawing them into a type of group hypnotic state where they think alike, feel alike and quickly respond to outside suggestions in a similar manner. It is as if the group has been hypnotized.
Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA technology appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast talking about mass formation psychosis and for this sin, the left has demanded that Rogan’s wildly popular podcast be de-platformed. In another podcast about mass formation with Dr. Malone, Dr. Mattias Desmet a Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Ghent University, Belgium went into significant detail about the conditions that can lead to mass formation and how he believes that these very conditions have existed surrounding the COVID pandemic response. Dr. Desmet believes that mass formation explains the sheer lunacy that we have witnessed in not only the governmental response to this pandemic, but more importantly, in the response of so many of our fellow Americans– the super-hyper focus on ineffective vaccines as the only possible solution and the demonization of the “unvaccinated.”
I recorded an entire podcast about mass formation and Torah that can be found at torahtalk21.com. But for our purposes here, I want to focus on one thing that Dr. Malone and Dr. Desmet talked about: What makes someone susceptible to mass formation? While they acknowledged that those who actively resist mass formation are a varied lot, they speculated that there are two types of personal psychological structures that differentiate those who fall to the allure of mass formation and those who do not: the former find their stability, meaning and purpose in identifying with a group vs the latter who find stability purpose and meaning by searching for truth- even if it goes against the dominant group narrative and causes great discomfort or pain for them personally.
The search for truth.
Is this search what keeps some of us from going over the cliff with the crowd? I have always set the search for knowledge and truth as a primary goal of my life. In fact, if you ask anyone who knows me, you can verify that the Bible verse that motivates my entire life is Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed by lack of knowledge.” I am therefore a voracious reader and student, not just of the Bible but of other knowledge too. But I do set God’s truth as my plumbline. Personally, I don’t care about anyone's personal truth. The phrase: “This is my truth” is ridiculous. You can have your own lived experiences, your own feelings, your own opinions. But you CANNOT have your own truth.
Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to believe that we can have our own truth. This is why our society is ripe for mass formation psychosis. Many in our society believe that marriage can be between any two consenting individuals, not the antiquated idea of one man and one woman. Gender? God didn’t assign that at my birth. I’ll decide if I’m a woman or a man today– thank you. I don’t need God to determine that for me. In fact, I am God. I have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so I can determine what is right and what is wrong. I can determine my own truth.
— except for one tiny little fact– if I think like this, I am deluded.
The Bible tells us that those who refuse to love the truth– God’s truth– submit themselves to delusion. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians that God Himself hands them over to delusion. I know that is a difficult pill for some to swallow, especially for those who have learned that God is merciful but not just. (Ahhh, but that is another post entirely.) This idea of being turned over to delusion is similar to the concept of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. The Hebrew word for “harden” means to “strengthen.” God strengthened what was already in Pharaoh’s heart. When God turns someone over to delusion, He is only clearing the path to destruction that they have already chosen to follow. Choice by choice, decision by decision, they forge their own wicked path and at some point, there is literally no turning back.
The Hebrew word for truth is EMET. It is written with an Aleph, a Mem and a Tav– the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. How telling. In Hebrew, truth starts at the beginning, includes everything in the middle and goes all the way to the end. Truth doesn’t just show up halfway down the road as some new kind of revelation. It is what was at the beginning and will be at the very end. We cannot escape God’s truth. Oh, we try– we run from it , we wrestle with it, we ignore it, and we distort it, but we can never escape it. For this reason, it is wise for us to seek it out. If you don’t want to go over the cliff with everyone else, seek out God’s truth. Start at the beginning of truth– Genesis–and go all the way to the end.
It is our only hope for escaping the mass insanity of the world around us.
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