Godmindfamily, Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Social Fusion, Conformity and Groupthink

Bowen was right to draw analogies between the functioning of family systems and national systems. If a country functions like a family, the government and especially the leader is the dominant paternal (or maternal) figure, and the citizens or subjects are the children. At the national scale, the chief mechanism for the deceiver’s false beliefs and concomitant anxiety to disrupt the system is obviously via the primary sources of information in a society: schools, universities, the internet, religious institutions and the media (social, news and entertainment), which are of huge importance and can do a lot of damage to the society and the health of its citizens. That doesn’t guarantee that the curriculum and media will be dominated by the deceiver, but it means that they will be targeted by him. It is of vital importance to the healthy functioning of a state that the schools, universities, religious institutions and media are mostly telling the truth, which will create a more permissive environment for good legislation and executive decisions, as well as better outcomes in elections, where applicable. As Andrew Breitbart noted, ‘politics is downstream from culture’, at least in a democracy. Laws and collective behaviour are the product of a society’s beliefs, and beliefs are largely determined by information.

The great tragedians portrayed the fate of the hero and the city he represents or defends as inextricably linked. Thus the city of Thebes is racked by plague and war, because of the self-fulfilling beliefs adopted by the ruling dynasty and indeed by the public themselves, who knew of Oedipus’ curse against his sons and participated in making it a reality by taking sides in the conflict between the brothers Eteocles and Polynices…The fact these beliefs came from demons means that, in a limited sense, the Greeks’ fates were indeed controlled by the demons they regarded as ‘gods’, but only because they and God permitted this to happen, as a punishment for their sins, to generate suffering and desperation eventually leading to repentance, and to demonstrate the need for a saviour. For these reasons, centuries later, Saint Paul did well among the Greeks as a missionary: the pagan religion had created a yearning in the people because of what it failed to provide. The same could be said about other formerly pagan peoples – such as the Britons, the Gauls, and the Romans – who converted en masse in ancient times, having previously suffered under the influence of demons.Conformity is the act of matching attitudes and behaviours to the norms of a particular group in order to fit in. If the appalling records of human history and everyday experience are not enough, psychology has provided abundant evidence of the destructive effects of social conformity and misplaced obedience to authority figures. A classic example is the famous 1951 study by Solomon Asch, in which groups of eight male students were selected. Seven of them were actor-confederates. One was a genuine test subject. The groups were given a simple question with an obvious correct answer (which of these lines is the same length as the line on the other chart?). The actors gave deliberately wrong answers. 36% of the subjects also answered incorrectly.[i]Then there was the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, directed by Philip Zimbardo and funded by the US Navy. The goal was to evaluate how people conformed to their assigned roles. Zimbardo accepted volunteers from the Stanford University student body and split them into two groups, guards and inmates. They were given uniforms. The guards wound up tyrannising, abusing and humiliating the inmates and the experiment had to be called off on the sixth day.[ii]Stanley Milgram also conducted an experiment on obedience to authority, an important part of conformity, since it is normally the boss who sets the tone for the group. Milgram placed subjects in a room with a ‘learner’, actually an actor, and had a white-coated researcher order subjects to electro-shock the learners when the learners gave a wrong answer. There weren’t really any electro-shocks, but the actors simulated the effects, including slumping over on their desk, apparently unconscious. The experiment was replicated throughout the US and other countries. In a meta-analysis, it was found that an average of 61% of subjects were prepared to administer a fatal voltage.[iii]Groupthink is a social psychological phenomenon whereby a group’s desire for conformity and harmony produces irrational decisions and collective behaviour. The group agrees at all costs. The term groupthink was coined by William H. Whyte.[iv] Whyte focused on the deleterious effects of groupthink in the context of American corporations in the 1950’s.Groupthink also has very important political consequences. In his book, Victims of Groupthink, Irving Janis cited the US’ lack of preparedness for the Pearl Harbor attacks and the US invasion of Vietnam as three prominent examples of groupthink in the foreign policy arena, all of which had disastrous effects.[v] Subsequently, the Watergate scandal,[vi] the Nazi’s decision to invade Russia in 1941, that led to their total demise, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and social media echo chambers have been (correctly) identified as instances of groupthink. It should be noted that while groupthink played a role in all the above examples, not all of the aforementioned disasters were disadvantageous to everyone...The invasion plan for the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco was provided by the CIA, and uncritically accepted by the Kennedy administration. Objections were dismissed by the government, and the objectors, including Arthur Schlesinger, began to self-censor. Unquestioned assumptions were made about the weaknesses of the Castro regime and its military defences, that led to the CIA-backed paramilitaries being easily defeated shortly after landing on the Bahía de Cochinos. Irving Janis intended that the word groupthink should deliberately evoke the ‘doublethink’ concept from George Orwell’s novel of totalitarianism 1984, defined as the ability to believe in two contradictory positions at the same time.[vii]Janis cited eight symptoms of groupthink: 1. Illusions of the group’s invulnerability, engendering arrogant recklessness.

2. Dogmatic belief that the group is morally right at all times.

3. Rationalizing warnings that challenge the group’s beliefs.4. Stereotyping the opponents of the group as biased, weak, ignorant, evil and generally bad and not worth listening to.

5. Self-censorship of controversial or out of the box ideas among group members.

6. Illusions of unanimity among the group’s leadership, when group members may not be unanimous, but simply afraid to speak up.

7. Pressure to conform – applied to anyone who deviates from the group orthodoxy.8. Mindguards – group members who ‘protect’ the group from dissent. Janis believed that when a group exhibits most of these symptoms, a bad decision is sure to follow, that generally includes a failure to consider alternative courses of action.[viii] He was right. In fact, groupthink is the norm, rather than the exception, in human groups, from informal gangs of friends in high school, to policy-making cliques at the heart of government. That’s why I say, if you want to make people worse, put them in a group. There are exceptions, like Jesus and the 12 apostles, but these are rare.It is totally obvious that western politically correct ideology is the product of groupthink, as Christopher Booker pointed out;[ix] the ‘movement’ unquestionably ticks all eight boxes, just like other forms of Marxism in the past, especially the self-censorship and stereotyping of opponents. In Stalinist Russia they called them ‘exploiters’, in Maoist China they called them ‘rightists’, now they call them ‘far right’, but these are all just labels for people the in-group does not agree with and typically, the terms are psychological projection, too – accusations are often confessions, especially when they are made by ideologues. The spit-frothing fanatic pointing the trembling finger while shrieking j’accuse! is almost invariably guilty of the same crime. For example, Mussolini was a socialist before becoming a fascist, his regime incorporated socialist ideas, and he persecuted and killed socialists. Hypocrisy is the rule, not the exception. Some people don’t even understand why they hold the beliefs they do, but they are nonetheless willing to go after those who don’t agree with them: this is the hallmark of groupthink. Groupthink is a top-down phenomenon, in which the group’s leader, a person who is role modelled and feared by many, sets the agenda and his acolytes follow their pied piper until they are well and truly lost. Increasingly, beliefs are adopted not as a consequence of a painstaking and well-researched quest for truth, but because they are regarded as coming from some ‘prestigious’ body of experts and acquire their prestige merely through constant repetition by the relevant authorities, especially via the media and social media. Those beliefs are then regurgitated very confidently second hand as if they were obviously true, especially when they are total nonsense. So many people are incredibly confident without any valid reason whatsoever, though naturally this is a façade masking deep insecurities and ‘impostor syndrome’.

Janis outlined three causes of groupthink: high group cohesion, situational issues like external threats to the group and recent failures, and structural faults such as the group’s insulation from wider society, biased leadership, and homogenous backgrounds of the group’s membership. Although high cohesion does not always entail groupthink and groups lacking cohesion can also be flawed in different ways, low-harmony groups do not suffer from groupthink. There are some ways to combat groupthink: encouragement of dissent, routine consideration of alternatives, the selection of a good, experienced leader or manager who is open-minded, the permanent appointment of an advocate of the opposing view, and consultation with outside experts. There have been relatively few follow up empirical studies on groupthink.

Conformity and groupthink are emotional fusion with society, a group or an ideology, but again, this kind of fusion is a function of the beliefs that one chooses to adopt. For example, if one believes that fitting in is all important, then that enables fusion with the mores of a particular group, and adherence to their ‘groupthink.’ Conformity, groupthink and social fusion are fuelled by the pervasive fear of social exclusion, the desire to fit in, and the material ‘perks’ that come with being accepted (easier access to higher status jobs, friends, money, sex and even love). Yes, many people will not love someone unless they are a conformist, who subscribes to fashionable opinions, wears the right clothes, drives the right car, lives in the right neighbourhood, and talks in the right way for their in-group, which gives you some idea of what their love is worth. Bowen knew about the dangers of fusion with society, but society’s downward spiral has dramatically worsened since his death in the nineties, and social fusion now typically represents a bigger danger than it used to.

Ironically, the people whom Bowen and Kerr would call high SD are often fused with society, at least in recent times, because they almost had to be to exhibit the hallmarks of their definition of SD (stable marriage, degree, successful employment, etc.). I’ll provide a more extreme example that illustrates my point: dissidents in North Korea who are not fused with society are swiftly imprisoned or executed. If the individual had a family and a job, he would thereby lose them. If he did not, he wouldn’t live long enough to start a family or find work. Needless to say, this is a significant limitation of Bowen’s conception of SD.

In The Undiscovered Self (1957) and other writings, Jung warned that society was becoming increasingly dominated by collectivist ideology and totalitarian states, leading to mass repression and projection of the shadow onto ‘enemy’ countries and groups. He saw self-knowledge, particularly of the shadow, and private religious experiences, as buffers against the power of totalitarianism.Jung was right to use the word ‘possession’, which is one way of looking at fusion. As previously indicated, the ancients called people possessed when some negative emotion dominated their mind and made them behave erratically. But people’s demons are controlled by the deceiver: the Bible states that the devil rules the fallen angels (Revelation 12:9; Matthew 12:24). Jesus exorcised those demons easily on numerous occasions, demonstrating his power over them, and the deceiver.

It was the collective carnage of the First World War that prompted Freud to develop his concept of the death drive, the urge for aggression and self-destruction in human beings. This was the closest Freud came to the idea of social fusion. Jung saw this phenomenon and he called it possession by the persona archetype, the mask people wear to operate in society and conceal their undesirable traits.[x] What Jung didn’t realise is that the deceiver is the one pushing people to wear the mask, and never take it off, and that if you don’t want hollow validation, there is actually no need for a persona, or a vastly reduced need for one. If someone has a strong mask, it is because they are ashamed of their true self and want to hide it. It is unfortunate that so many people fear their peers’ disapproval more than they fear God. When Judgement Day comes, the trendy will say, ‘but everyone was doing it!’ And Jesus will not be impressed.

An annoying thing about society is that a lot of people need an outgroup, an enemy, an opponent, a scapegoat, someone to ‘other’ and blame for the society’s problems in order to generate sufficient shared fear and loathing to hold the society together, especially when the society is placed under stress or faces some existential threat. So yes, society is to some extent built on fear and hatred of the other. This has always been the case.

The French philosopher and social anthropologist Rene Girard went so far as to proclaim that desire is mimetic – that people want things, not because they really desire them in and of themselves, but because we see someone else wanting them.[xi] There is a model, whose desire for an object is imitated by others. In other words, psychological conformity, more than purely biological urges, creates and fuels desire. There is undoubtedly some truth in this idea, especially with regards to materialistic aspirations, which have been blown out of all proportion in the west by advertising. Sexual desire is definitely innate, but can be exaggerated out of all proportion by mimesis. For example, The Beatles were not really that attractive. When they reached a critical mass of popularity, people just jumped on the bandwagon. Moreover, there were reports of miraculous healings caused by contact between the Beatles and their fans – if healings did occur, it can be attributed solely to the power of the fans’ belief, because the Beatles are not Jesus, regardless of what John Lennon said.[xii] Girard wrote that mimetic desire had its advantages but resulted in zero sum games, because the most desirable resources – food, money, mates, land, social status – are often limited, leading to conflict and the desire for violence, which grows so strong that it must find an outlet.[xiii] Girard posited that violence could not be avoided altogether, but it could be diverted onto a different, more vulnerable object.[xiv] According to Girard, the solution people historically came up with to prevent anarchy was to divert the blame onto one scapegoat, who is sacrificially killed. Thus the sins of all are projected onto one victim.[xv] The murder of the victim normally carries a low to no risk of vengeance – that is the main criterion for the selection of the victim.[xvi] Thus the victims were normally animals, and when they were human, they were marginalised or disenfranchised in some way: foreigners, prisoners of war, children or the king, who is paradoxically isolated by his power. This scapegoat actually plays an important role in maintaining the social order, substituting for the whole community, which Girard thought would erupt in violence without a patsy. Girard believed that the importance of the victim for social cohesion meant that the scapegoat was sometimes perceived as divine. (He wrongly thought this was how religions emerged).[xvii] Hence Oedipus was reviled member of the community, and was voluntarily exiled, but paradoxically became a kind of blessing and a source of protection for whatever city state took him in and buried his corpse.[xviii]Girard provides numerous examples from the Bible and classical literature to back up his thesis. In Euripides’ famous tragedy Medea, the title character killed her own children as a substitute for her disloyal husband Jason, the true object of her rage, who was not in the vicinity and as a famous warrior, would have been much harder to kill than the children, even if he were there.

Girard called this process the scapegoat mechanism.[xix] Girard noticed that the Bible is on the side of the victims (Christ, his precursors and disciples), and negatively portrays the persecutors. The Bible thereby flips the narrative perspective of mythologies, which typically position the victim who was killed as the villain, the guilty party, in order to unify the community against them.[xx] An example of this is the Romulus and Remus legend, which positions Remus as the transgressor, and Romulus as the hero. History is written by the victors. Girard hoped that by pointing out the total innocence of the victim, and revealing the injustice of the scapegoating mechanism, the Bible might enable a society that does not rely on sacrificial victims to hold it together. Girard identified the eucharist as the ultimate nonviolent sacrifice (involving as it does the eating of a piece of bread and the drinking of some wine), and a marked improvement from ancient human and animal sacrificial cults. He was right about that one.The French anthropologist posited that modern society did not need to sacrifice so much because the judicial system was sufficiently advanced and handled the danger of vendetta more efficiently than ancient sacrifices, by having the state take a controlled and legitimised form of revenge on the perpetrators. But if we pick at this thread, the Girardian tapestry begins to unravel. Ancient Greece, Egypt, Israel and Rome all had sophisticated judiciaries, but sacrifice was nonetheless central to all four societies. The truth is that sacrifice served other roles besides diverting the desire for vengeful and envious violence.

The Bible’s sacrificial typology is worth enumerating in this connection. In Genesis, Abel was a shepherd, and Cain tilled the earth. Abel’s offering to God was accepted, and Cain’s was not (Genesis 4:4–5), because Abel’s sacrificial offering was a sheep, a living animal with blood, which foreshadowed Jesus, the lamb (John 1:29; Revelation 17:14). Cain took it personally. His envy drove him to kill Abel (Genesis 4:8). Girard believed this was because unlike his brother, Cain lacked a proper sacrificial outlet for his rage.[xxi]

Abel was thus the archetype or first instance of the human sacrifice.Abraham was willing to kill his son Isaac when God told him to, because he believed God would resurrect his son. At the last moment before Isaac was slaughtered by his father, Yahweh’s angel told Abraham to refrain from killing his son (Genesis 22:11). Abraham killed a ram instead (Genesis 22:13), again foreshadowing Jesus the Lamb’s sacrificial death, the firstborn Son of God given as a substitute for the firstborn of Abraham, because the patriarch was willing to obey God. God promised Abraham that through his ‘offspring’ the world would be blessed (Genesis 22:18), and the Hebrew word for offspring, zera, can also mean seed or descendant. Thus Jesus, a distant descendant of Abraham, took the place of the patriarch’s offspring, Isaac, who was also conceived via miraculous means (Genesis 21:1–2; Genesis 18); he was born of a 90 year old mother, Sarah.Jacob stole a blessing from his hairy brother Esau by wearing goatskins, so that he would feel like Esau to their blind father Isaac (Genesis 27:1–40), who gave the blessing and identified his sons by touch. The skin was taken from goats killed by Jacob’s mother Rebecca – another instance of a sacrificial animal averting misfortune in the form of a curse, while enabling a blessing.[xxii]

Then we come to the ritual animal sacrifice of the Mosaic Covenant, particularly the Passover lamb, whose blood smeared on the doorposts and lintels of the Israelites’ houses protected their firstborns from Yahweh, when he went abroad slaughtering all the other firstborns in Egypt (Exodus 12). The paschal lamb was also ritually eaten by the Jews (Exodus 12:8), and thus they took the innocent creature whose death protected the community, and made its flesh a part of themselves, conferring a kind of atonement by proxy upon them. Although Girard is partially right in his analysis of the scapegoat mechanism, the primary reason for animal sacrifice is elucidated in Leviticus 17:11: ‘for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life.’ In other words, the life or spirit is in the blood of a creature, the sins of the society engendered a blood price that had to be exacted to satisfy the demands of justice (‘a life for a life’),[xxiii] and the offering of the sacrificial animal’s blood on the altar to Yahweh was a substitution for the Israelites own blood being shed, for their own sins. The animal sacrifice among the ancient Israelites was intended as atonement for sins not punishable by the law, and illegal sins not caught by the justice system, which generally outnumber those which are prosecuted. In a pre-Messianic society, animal sacrifice was a means of propitiation for sin, a form of discipline imposed by God, and a foreshadowing of Jesus the lamb. Mosaic animal sacrifice was never meant to be ideal and was always intended to be superseded by a superior solution.

In the incarnation of the Christ, his sacrificial death on the cross, and the new covenant of his blood (Luke 22:20), which enables eternal life and the forgiveness of sins when it is drunk, we have the antitype, the culmination of the typology. By drinking blood of one who has atoned in full for all sin, you also atone by proxy, and incorporate his life into the bargain. He who is one with Christ has no need of any other scapegoat or false ‘enemy’ to expiate or project his sins, because they have already been forgiven.

The tech billionaire and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, in his 2014 book Zero To One: Notes on Startups, or How To Build The Future, identified an interesting psychological dynamic among ‘founders’, unique individuals who challenge conventional wisdom and embark on important enterprises. Thiel believes that these founders can seem strange or extreme, but that they are necessary to bring new ideas and products into existence (in Bowen-speak, they are not socially fused and so are free to operate outside the parameters of society’s groupthink). Thiel posited that ‘founders’ are generally born different, and are therefore perceived as different by the people around them, which makes them even more different than they were before, in a feedback loop. The mechanism here is the self-fulfilling prophecy, the power of the belief ‘I’m different’ to actually make the individual even more different, especially when that is the feedback he’s consistently getting from others. While this dynamic can make the founder’s company radically different from its competitors and lead to significant innovations, we must remember that SFP’s not only dominate families, businesses and societies but the lives of individuals and their behaviour, too.This kind of SFP feedback loop applies to everyone, and every trait. For example, if someone is thought of as being ‘emotionally unstable’, their family and friends will be more careful or perhaps provocative around them, eliciting more emotional behaviour, in another self-fulfilling prophecy (like Anna in the aforementioned example). If a child is considered to be ‘really smart’, many will treat them as if they were a prodigy, making the kid more likely to live up to their reputation by doing homework, and playing chess. Thiel also noted that the most successful individuals, businesses and countries are optimistic about the future and believe they can build it; this is at least partly attributable to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect.

Being socially fused was far less hazardous in the sixties, when Bowen was theorising, than it is now, because the society was healthier. As societies regress, the dangers of social fusion increase. Nowadays, to be a socially fused conformist is to automatically download every trendy mind virus going, from ‘politically correct’ ideology to low carb diets.

People may well ask, how do we know a belief is positive or negative, limiting or liberating? Well, as Jesus said, judge a tree by its fruit. You don’t get bad fruit from a good tree, or good fruit from a bad tree (Matthew 7:15–20). That is, judge a person, idea or belief by its real-world effects. Have social trends of the last 70 years improved society? No, as Bowen observed decades ago, the pattern has been one of regression in the west: increased divorce rates,[xxiv] rising rates of chronic disease[xxv] and psychological disorders[xxvi] and lower self-reported happiness,[xxvii] even if the crime rate has decreased or stabilised since the nineties,[xxviii] and the overall life expectancy has risen slightly, with an international dip during the pandemic. So many people are sick now because society is sick, as a result of the mass adoption of wrong or harmful beliefs about health, facilitated by the internet. If thinking in normal ways makes people miserable and ill, don’t think normally.

Obesity and toxic modern ‘junk food’ are often blamed for a lot of chronic illnesses but worrying about what you eat is far more dangerous and leads to fat gain and related diseases via the nocebo effect. People expect to gain fat by eating certain foods, so they do, because of their beliefs, engendered by reading ‘health-related articles’ and expectations derived from their parents’ girth. I made myself very ill by fearing various foods which I thought I was intolerant to – at one point, I got bad reactions every time I ate those foods. Eventually, I wound up unable to consume anything except boiled water, almond milk, cucumber and melon.[xxix] I recovered when I stopped fretting about food and just ate what I wanted. Eat what you like within reason, just stop when you’re full. ‘All things are indeed clean’ (Romans 14:20) was written of food.

What are we to do about the dangers of social fusion? Well, Bowen was right that one should differentiate oneself from society. This can be done by changing the beliefs that engender that fusion – especially, ‘fitting in is all important’, and ‘being excluded or unsuccessful is the worst and must be avoided at all costs’ – through understanding the detriments and dangers. Union with Christ is the best way to immunise oneself against mind viruses stemming from a fallen world and a decaying society.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was wrong about a lot of things, but his observations of the ‘the herd’ are sometimes insightful. For example, his description of the comfortable, conformist, safety-obsessed society of the ‘last man’ in Thus Spake Zarathustra undeniably contains an element of truth  about modern society: ‘No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse.’[xxx]

Where Nietzsche went astray was in ascribing the irrational herd instinct to Christianity, because Christianity is true, or rather, Christ’s teachings and the Bible are true, and the religion that developed around them is largely correct, with serious flaws, misinterpretations and inaccuracies. If your group’s beliefs and norms are built on the truth, if the group is always right, and the crowd really is wise, then conformity and obedience to authority is actually good. But in practice this is seldom the case in our current era, and therein lies the problem.The Nietzschean ideal of the übermensch, a sovereign and supremely creative individual, re-valuing all moral values and being completely independent of all hitherto established moral codes, law tables and outside influences,[xxxi] is an impossibility that drove its author mad. There are objective moral values, because God created them and put them in our consciences, and laid them out for all to see in the form of the ten commandments and Jesus’ two commandments.

Nietzsche’s attempt to deny that objective morality not only drove him mad, it has driven the west mad. Throughout his writings, Nietzsche evaluated concepts by the following yardstick: ‘an idea is good, when it tends to health, and an idea is bad, when it leads to decadence’. He defined decadence as the process of social decay whereby natural, ‘healthy’ instincts are replaced by self-destructive or conflicted instincts.[xxxii] By his own standard, then, Nietzsche’s ideas are bad, since they have unquestionably led to decadence and they ruined not only his own health, but the health of western society, to the degree that they have been accepted.As Nietzsche sank into the dark waters of insanity, he called himself ‘Dionysus’, clearly revealing the demonic origins of his psychosis.[xxxiii] When in 1889, he saw a horse being whipped by a driver in the streets of Turin, he threw his arms around the horse’s neck, sobbing.[xxxiv] He collapsed, physically and mentally.

People are sheep-like, insofar as they must be led by something or someone else; this is an inescapable fact. That’s why they’re called sheep in the Bible (John 10:14; Isaiah 53:6; Psalm 23:1; Matthew 9:36). Humans do not have free will, defined as the ability to choose between competing courses of action, independent of fate. People only have ‘free will’ in the sense that they may choose whether to obey or disobey God – this is abundantly obvious from everyday behaviour, which furnishes many examples of disobedience.

Our choices and lives are predestined, but according to our will, that is, what we truly and deeply want, even if that sometimes differs from our conscious intentions. And what we really want is predestined.[xxxv] That is how the Bible was – and will be – able to predict so many events in exact detail.

Typically, people are dominated by their base desires and negative emotions, but only because they allow themselves to be. Even nonconformists – a relative term – and the highly differentiated are swayed by factors other than their own ego, albeit to a lesser extent than the majority. The trick is to pick the right beliefs, and be led by the good shepherd, not an incompetent shepherd, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or the bleatings of a sheep.In God’s kingdom, the leader and main ‘mimetic’ role model will be Jesus himself, a former innocent victim, and those who are punished will actually be the chief evildoers and enemies of the human race: the Antichrist, the False Prophet and eventually, Satan, all of whom will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10). The ‘goats’ in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25) are sinners, justly scapegoated by God in the judgement, demonstrating the role reversals of 1) Christ, from unjustly judged sacrificial lamb, to perfectly just judge; and 2) sinners, from unjust judges of Christ and other innocent victims, including the martyrs, to being the rightful recipients of divine vengeance themselves. When God’s kingdom comes with power, the social order will be transformed to the correct, meritocratic state of affairs. ‘Many who are first will be last and the last will be first.’ (Matthew 19:30).

[i] Cardwell, Mike & Flanagan, Cara (2009). Psychology A2: The Complete Companion. Folens. ISBN 9781850082897.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Whyte, W H Jr. March 1952. Groupthink. Fortune.

[v] Janis. I.L. 1982. Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascos. Boston: Houghton Miflin.

[vi]Ibid.

[vii] Orwell, G. 2013. 1984. Penguin Classics.

[viii] Janis I.L. 1972. Victims of Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Miflin.

[ix] Booker, C. 2024. Groupthink: A Study in Self Delusion. Bloomsbury Continuum.

[x] Jung, C G HG Baynes Cary Baynes trans. 2014. Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Martino Fine Books; illustrated edition.

[xi] Girard, R. 1961. Deceit, Desire and the Novel.

[xii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatlemania

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv]Girard, R. 2013. Violence and the Sacred. Bloomsbury Academic.

[xv] Girard, R. 1999. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.

[xvi] Girard, R. 2013. Violence and the Sacred. Bloomsbury Academic.

[xvii] Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy. Rene Girard (1923–2015). https://iep.utm.edu/girard/#:~:text=His%20first%20book%2C%20Mensonge%20Romantique,important%20distinction%20among%20French%20intellectuals.

[xviii] Girard reinterpreted the desire for the mother that characterises the Oedipus complex as a result of the boy imitating his father – Freud’s ‘way out’ of the complex.

[xix] Girard, R. 1982. The Scapegoat.

[xx] Girard, R. 1978. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.

[xxi] Girard, R. 2013. Violence and the Sacred. Bloomsbury Academic.

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Deuteronomy 19:21.

[xxiv] W. Bradford Wilcox. Fall 2009. The Evolution of Divorce. National Affairs.

[xxv] Hacker, K. 2024. The Burden of Chronic Disease. Mayo Clin Prov Innov Qual Outcomes. Jan 20; 8 (1). CDC. 2024. About Chronic Diseases. https://www.cdc.gov/chronic-disease/about/index.html

[xxvi] Mao et al. Aug 2025. Global burden of mental disorders in 204 countries and territories results from the Global Burden of Disease Stidy 2021. World Journal of Psychiatry.

[xxvii] Heliwell et al. 2024. World Happiness Report. https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2024/happiness-of-the-younger-the-older-and-those-in-between/

[xxviii] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2025#:~:text=there%20was%20a%203%25%20decrease,to%20know%20about%20this%20releasehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20for,first%20six%20months%20of%201998.

[xxix] For more on my symptoms and recovery, see my book The Mind Solution: Healing TMS Pain with Doctor Sarno.

[xxx] Nietzsche F. 2019. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Grapevine.

[xxxi] Ibid.

[xxxii] Nietzsche, F. 2013. On the Genealogy of Morals. Penguin.

[xxxiii] Nietzsche, F. Original Thinkers Institute. 2022. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One is. Grapevine India.

[xxxiv] Kaufmann, W. 1974. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton University Press.

[xxxv] Nietzsche, F. Original Thinkers Institute. 2022. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One is. Grapevine India.

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