The "existential abyss" is key to understanding the crisis we face

The technocrats created a false idol that failed and now they are lashing out

Forrest Maready is one of the finest scholars of our era. Self-taught on the topic of vaccines, he was not constrained by pre-existing biases and his independent research has produced stunning insights. His books, The Moth in the Iron Lung, Crooked: Man-Made Disease Explained, and The Autism Vaccine will be influential for decades and they offer us a path out of our current era of chronic illness and premature death.

Over the holidays, I read two Twitter threads by Maready that are so brilliant I am going to write an article in response to each. This was posted over the summer and it’s a gift to the world:

Forrest Maready @forrestmaready

I want to explain why so many in government, tech, public health, pharma, and philanthropy are SO dedicated to pushing the coronavirus vaccine, no matter what. Got a minute?

Do yourself a favor and click over ^^ and read the entire 21-part thread and then come back and we can chat about it.

Maready argues that yes, profit may be part of what drives the mainstream obsession with vaccines but that’s only a part of the story. By the same token there may be some people who wish to reduce the world population via vaccines but again, that does not necessarily explain the total obsession with vaccines throughout the bourgeoisie. Maready believes that the zealous defense of vaccines against all logic, reason, evidence, and data, is the result of religious fanaticism. The key part of his argument is contained in these four tweets:

Forrest Maready @forrestmaready

The main reason most of these government officials, public health officials, tech and pharma companies, and everyone else are so aggressive about protecting the coronavirus shots is because they have a RELIGIOUS devotion to vaccines.

Forrest Maready @forrestmaready

People tend to think of religion as based purely on an unseen deity, but in the last few decades, something else replaced this traditional definition: Science. Progress. Technology. For many people, these things have become that thing they worship.

Forrest Maready @forrestmaready

Humans are designed to worship something. It is in our DNA. It is unavoidable. And any people unwittingly found themselves worshiping at the altar of Science & Technology. They may still go to church. They may still pray. But their faith is more easily put in “science” than God.

Forrest Maready @forrestmaready

I can’t overstate how important this is to understand. All humans worship something. Even atheists. Many people, Christians included, have replaced God with Science and Technology as the most important entity in their lives.

I think Maready is exactly correct. And I want to go one step further with the analysis.

The scientists, philosophers, and technocrats of the Age of Enlightenment killed God. God was probably due for a new understanding or at least a bit of reframing after hundreds of years of corruption and dogmatism in the church. But I think it was more than that. Brimming with the enthusiasm/arrogance/hubris of extraordinary new discoveries (after centuries of stony silence) I think these scientists, philosophers, and technocrats saw God as competition and were more than happy to install themselves in his stead.

It does not help that the wealth of that era was funded by global conquest based on slavery and genocide so I think that the scientists, philosophers, and technocrats of that era were more than happy to push aside thorny questions about ethics and morality as well.

The die was cast and that’s the system we live under today — with science and medicine as the new high priests and the technocrats eager to serve them.

But as Maready wisely reminds us, “all humans worship something.”

The technocrats created a Golden Calf to worship — a belief in the infallibility of science, vaccines as the new Eucharist, and an entire economic and social system to serve these high priests and this vision of the world.

If the technocrats’ false idol was working, there would be no need for them to worry. But it’s not. Everywhere they look their false idol is in ruins. The replication crisis. The rise of chronic illness. The complete failure of the coronavirus “vaccine” campaign. Everything they believed about how the world worked, and the entire “meritocratic” system they set up to propel these beliefs forward, has been revealed to be a fraud.

And so the reason that they are behaving so badly right now is that they are staring into the existential abyss and it terrifies them more than anything else in life. Their worldview has become, ‘there is no God; our attempts to create a new God have failed; life is empty, meaningless, and short; why am I here?’ This is beyond fear, this is total panic and the cold dread of annihilation. And they blame this existential crisis on the critical thinkers who had the audacity to point out that their junk science vaccines do not work and cause tremendous harms.

Screenwriter Zach Braff captured this dynamic in the film Garden State. Returning home after the death of his mom he confronts an existential crisis that is depicted as screaming into an infinite abyss.

Bougiecrats (=bourgeois technocrats) are willing to do anything to avoid thinking about the infinite abyss — set up Vaccine Jim Crow, set up Vaccine Apartheid, set up Vaccine Totalitarianism, engage in genocide, poison themselves and their families, and cause economic and political collapse across the developed world.

It seems to me that the panic, the pandemics, and the genocide will continue until we are able to help them navigate their fears about the infinite abyss.

This is a much more difficult task than it would appear.

These people are not likely to choose traditional religion nor any of the modern feel-good evangelical praise services.

Science and medicine have failed.

They are going to want to make a move to transhumanism. But that’s just another false idol that will accelerate the emptiness and collapse rather than provide inner harmony and stability.

It seems to me that there are a few different ways for us to respond:

1. We can say to them ‘look, if you want to worship science, great, but in that case follow actual science not this preposterous Pharma junk science that is killing you, your family, and most of the developed world right now. You have been worshipping the worst toxic mimic of actual science and you look like a fool. Actual science is characterized by a deep humility, questioning, critical thinking, proper methods, endless doubt, failure, surprise, mystery, paradox, uncertainty, and an appreciation for the sacredness of all life. Actual science is ever-changing and nothing like what passes for science in the mainstream press today.’

2. But I also think there is space for a new version of Christianity (and/or other religions) to emerge that blends the best of science and faith. I think it starts with the question of, “Why is there something rather than nothing.” Ken Wilber was very good at this for a while — blending all human knowledge into a map that he called a theory of everything. Wilber’s book, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality is one of the finest religious treatises ever written. Rob Bell and Charles Einstein also seem to blend a deep reverence for faith with an understanding of science. I just think, now more than ever, there is space for new approaches to faith that transcend either the boredom of traditional Protestantism, the fluff of much of modern evangelicalism, and the idolatry of the current sci-tech crowd.

3. Or maybe we insist on the old ways and make the case that something crucial was lost in our modern approaches to faith? Gnostic Christianity, Zen, and deep meditation practices are brilliant, experiential, and fascinating. Maybe we utilize their existential panic to convert them into true believers who can learn to practice age-old wisdom traditions?

Solving this problem is among the most pressing issues facing the world today. As long as the bougiecrats are staring into the infinite abyss and freaking out, they are going to keep trying to throw us in to the pit to appease their junk science idol.

In the comments please let me know what strategies you think might work best to help these people manage the existential terror that resulted from their ill-advised decision to worship idolatrous junk science.

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