I have long been familiar with the term “gaslighting,” but mostly in the sense of distorting reality, as in the 1944 film (Gaslight) starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. I think it remarkable that the power of art has introduced a concept (gaslighting) that effectively removes the definition from reality and places it in the realm of psychology and human manipulation.
I’ve been subscribed to The Epoch Times, a newspaper sent to me for free (an actual paper newspaper). I liked it, that is, why I don’t imagine the writers are right about everything they tackle, I find within it stories not printed elsewhere. One such article, an opinion piece (‘Gaslighting’ is the Word of the Year for Good Reason’), caught my eye, and gave me a better working definition of gaslighting than I had before.
The term means to be subjected to extended psychological trickery to cause the victim to question his or her own reality. In the film, Boyer plays a handsome stranger who meets the beautiful heiress Bergman on a foreign journey and they fall in love. He convinces her to marry and move back together to London to her family home, whereby he embarks upon a subtle campaign to convince her she is bonkers while he secretly searches the home for legacy jewels he intends to steal.
When he leaves, he makes sure that the gas lights (it is set in 1875) are dim, and when she complains, he tells her that her perceptions are wrong, and that the lighting has not been affected. She slowly begins to question her own reality.
I have seen this concept at work … though I cannot write about it. Just let it be known that getting us to question our own mental health is often the objective of sociopaths, allowing a normal and healthy person to act as a front for a deranged and manipulative person. How to break that spell? How to get a grip? I have little use for the pill-dispensing profession of psychiatry, but there are thousands of therapists out there who by means of talk therapy help people to have better lives. A series of solid sessions can lead to either reconciliation or divorce, and happiness in an un-gaslit environment.
The author of this piece, Jeffrey A. Tucker, claims (rightly) that we were all gaslit by the leaders of the pandemic, the major news media, the government and the health care industry. Knowing as I did on March 11, 2020 (there’s that number, 33) that the pandemic was fake, that there was no virus and that the PCR test was bogus, I would like to presume that I was unaffected by everything. But how could I be? At certain times I was forced to wear a mask (Costco was a major culprit in this regard, clerks even telling me to cover my nose after entry), and at other times I merely did so because my wife and I do not like being the object of scorn in public. We capitulated now and then.
However, through it all, I never doubted my own sanity, never for a second imagined that I was threatened in any way by an imaginary virus, and never had so much as a sniffle in that two-plus year ordeal***. The vaccine was a major gaslighting weapon, and I watched as friends flocked to it, so tired were they of being under constant tension and in a state of fear. I take some (schadenfreude) comfort in knowing that even after these folks were vaxxed, they continued to test “positive” for Covid, the PCR and rapid antibody tests being false indicators of presence of the illusory virus.
However, over time, I learned to STFU, never make waves, and sit silently as utterly vapid comments issued forth from otherwise intelligent people. If they came down with the sniffles, they voluntarily underwent PCR testing (!). I regarding this as insanity and a tribute to the power of effective gaslighting.
The notion that it was the “worst pandemic in a hundred years” is certainly disputable. We still don’t have real clarity on precisely how many people died from COVID, and this confusion is due to vast false positives of PCR testing backed by subsidized and rampant death misclassification. To this day, we don’t know precisely how many people died from COVID or merely with COVID, or even if they truly had symptomatic COVID at all. None of this do we know for sure.
I’ve done my own research (The Illusory Pandemic) regarding how many people died in the “pandemic,” and found by consulting different (non-CDC) sources, that excess deaths in the United States were nonexistent. CDC, howver listed 779,540 excess deaths while Macrotrends, an independent research group working under auspices of the UN, recorded none. Of course, the powers in charge of these matters took the trouble prior to 3/11/20 to change the definition of pandemic, eliminating “excess deaths” as a factor. That was prescient.
Then we can talk about the vaccine, which was never sterilizing the virus simply because it isn’t possible to create such a thing around a fast-mutating coronavirus, a fact that we knew long before the pandemic began. So they called it a vaccine and lied that it would prevent infection and stop transmission even though that was never possible. Once this became obvious, and the whole point of mandatesdisappeared, they demanded we get it anyway at the pain of losing our jobs.
Tucker is a good writer, but the notion of the reality of the virus blew right by him. Nonetheless, I find The Epoch Times good reading for folks who can keep their bearings intact, and a decent source of news not reported elsewhere. Wikipedia rips the newspaper for various sins:
The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party,[32][33][22] promotes far-right politicians in Europe,[8][10][22] and has championed former President Donald Trump in the U.S.;[34][35] a 2019 report by NBC News showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign.[30][36][22] The Epoch Times frequently promotes other Falun Gong-affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun.[34][24][37] The Epoch Media Group’s news sites and YouTube channels have spread misinformation and conspiracy theories, such as QAnon and anti-vaccine misinformation,[34][40] and false claims of fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election.[43]
I can live with all of that. I have no illusions about Donald Trump, regard “conspiracy theories” as mere disallowed skepticism, and know there was massive fraud in both the 2020 and 2022 elections. I’ve never trucked with QAnon, my own good sense steering me clear. I see the Chinese Communist Party as a source of corruption in that country, but do not excuse the United States from accusations of similar corruption, finding it to be equally repugnant and censorious. Pointing the finger at China still leaves three fingers on that hand pointing right back at us.
So Wiki, you’re not scaring me away from what appears to be, on the whole, a legitimate news source. Nice try, however.
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*** We have visited Florida twice during the pandemic, and each time came down with sniffles. As I sit here I have a box of tissues handy. My wife suffers as well. On another trip to Fort Myers some years back, pre-pandemic, I developed a runny nose and cough that scared my aunt, who refused to come near me. Symptoms went away immediately on return to Colorado. I do not know what causes this, and can only speculate that it has to do with toxins, particularly in wandering about in the massive Miami International Airport complex, where sulfur and nitrogen dioxide and hydrocarbons abound. A quick Duck-Duck search tells me that sunlight has significant effects in turning these compounds into particles, which can lead to illness. This would be a post on its own, but would tend to implicate Denver and Miami International Airports, our usual haunts when we travel lately.
On our recent trip over Thanksgiving, we were a gathering of ten people, and only my wife and I developed symptoms, although another person in the gathering developed gastrointestinal issues on departure. This tends to discredit any notions of viral or bacterial infection. If it was that, it would be contagious, but only three of ten were affected. I find the coincidence of presence in Miami and five incidents of sniffles or other issues telling. There is something in the air.
Piece of Mindful 
As per usual you, Mark, decide if this comment goes public or not.
Excellente article. Two thumbs up. I share the same pov as you and your wife.
Further from where I view…
The matrix world trap is pathogenic – parasitic – antilife – constructed world reality – parasiting off of Real Life, the Real Natural World created by God.
it (antilife/matrix) creates dis ease in order to provoke ‘holes’ in man’s body and spiritual fortress from which its parasites can enter. Once in, the parasites eat what they like, sugar, etc. thereby proliferating, thereby generating a health-destroying acid shit by product that fills the body, the location, thereby compromising the body/earth further with a destructive acid based whatever.
When dealing with an invasion because of my love of the seasonal yums – I fast and purge. I purge the influx of cell-destroying acid with a large glass of water/teaspoon of baking soda on an empty stomach in the a.m. If I can’t fast I eat a lot of C-containing fruit. Drink stinging nettle tea in quantity (chilled) throughout the day. I include raw probiotic foods like sauerkraut (and cbd to calm the inflammation that comes from the infestation).
Baking soda and live probiotics purge the gut, stinging nettle purifies the blood. A purge happens and then all is right again. This is how one deals with parasites. 1) Recognition 2) Know the enemy very well 3) Deal accordingly.
Seeing this reality for what it is – pathogenic – parasitic – antilife harvesting the product of Life – machine – frequency visual/mind controlled trap –changes how one deals with it. As the lies it is built on, and the os (or mo) become oh so very obvious.
After the reinstatement of vision, seeing what is, and what we don’t want, we can see THAT WHICH IS ALSO, what we DO want, and head in that direction.
In short, ignorance does not serve Life.
Thanks for speaking Truth, all the best.
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Had to get a cbd plug in there, of course.
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One item no one mentioned and I forgot to address is that the PCR test as a cv test was bs. It was/is a dna/genetic harvesting process. I’ve heard the harvesting was for the purpose of targeting certain races for disease/death (which is documented as occurring in different ways for generations that we know of) and for the connection of the digital twin (US headquarters south of Provo UT) as the matrix world descends into the virtual/digital, further away from the natural.
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My 65-year-old brother lives near you in Colorado. He runs 5 miles a day, looks 40 and has periodic bouts of coughing and hacking. I live on a peninsula (SF) surrounded by water, drink a six pack a night and do no running and barely any walking. I never get sick. I asked my brother what gives? He thinks our Irishness is conducive to a watery environment but not to the dry days of Colorado. You may be allergic to the beach after a lifetime in mountain air.
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My then 68-year old brother lived in Montana, and ran several times a week, 14 miles or more.He died in 2011 at age 68, reminding me that runners are not necessarily healthier, and may grind their bodies towards earlier death. There is an element of sack cloth and ashes in them. No coincidence my brother was a priest.
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My brother is just hyper. He got it from our old man. He was a runner in high school- didn’t know that he needed to tire out in order to concentrate on his studies. It finally came out when he was at Annapolis. He was fine when he rowed for the crew team but off season he was advised to run long distances to get into the zone. He graduated near the top of his class. Sorry for the boasting, but he’s my hero.
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Remarkable coincidence. My brother, Steve, was also my hero.
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The topic of imbedded nano-technology in the vaccines, and also imbedded in those who escaped the jab, first contemplated here in early 2021, just won’t go away.
https://pieceofmindful.com/2021/03/20/part-6-rise-of-the-cybernetic-wizard-bio-nanorobots-to-the-rescue/#more-92318
The “mRNA vaccine” may not be a vaccine at all, but rather, an “AI/nano/biological” devise.
Devises are not approves by the FDA. What gives? More details here:
https://video.icic-net.com/w/sdWHeFYZcMM4p4RvSncnDF
Yes, I know it is long. Watching Yellowstone is much longer.
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I miss Stephers on this topic, and others! Where is she? Mark, do you have news of her or are you encouraging her participation here still? And, other regulars on this blog, do you not miss her, too?
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She is free to post and comment here. Not here by her own choice.
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Not surprised
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I was wondering if she moved to another venue, maybe with her friend Allison Vollmer? Yes I miss her feisty pushback and vast range of knowledge. Often it was hard to keep up, maybe she found an audience that could absorb it all..
For instance on this post, I’m sure she’d politely but firmly tell Mark how as much as he might enjoy The Epoch Times, they’re playing their role on the chessboard as well.. and sketch out some of what that is. Mark would say he knows something of that, but enjoys it anyway. And she would insist that’s a risky game to play, and they’d agree to disagree. Lol
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Of course I know and expect all of that stuff. One has to be able to walk and chew gum. But in defense of Epoch Times, I’ve seen not a hint of magenta in their paper.
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So says he who can’t see the chemtrails!
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Odd I cannot find it, but I once put up a post on how to distinguish a contrail from a chemtrail. It contained math, and measured rate of dissipation based on temperature and the size of water vapor particles, yielding the time that a contrail should dissipate if it is that. If it lingered longer, it was a chemtrail.
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If that post was from about 15 years ago, that would be appropriate. I’d be interested to see it, in any case. Otherwise I get the sense of, “the check is in the mail.” Because I’ve seen you minimize, normalize and dismiss the geoengineering, weather modification, chemtrails on many occasions in the limited time I’ve been following. And MM full out claims nothing is happening in the skies and they are just the same as they’ve been since forever.
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No, it was not that long ago. You are snarky. Please do me the favor of not presuming I am stupid in my opinions, and I will return the favor. Otherwise go find your Stephers. I left a door open here. She lost me at magenta. I spent five hours listening to her friend Alison, and felt like I was buckled to my chair, forced to listen to a very boring teacher. Five hours? What hubris!
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You seem to lose writers here at a fairly regular clip. Why is that? So you ‘felt’ overwhelmed by the presentation and therefor pushed her away? You leave a door open, but don’t wonder why one would not choose to go back through it? Snarky? Clearly I need to up my game. I was going for bitch.
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Allison Vollmer? Not a person.
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might be mashup
Alison McDowell re: steph
and
Amandha Vollmer, virus debunker naturopath
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And she was hardly feisty, and hardly pushed back. She was excessively tolerant and kind and getting constantly dismissed. I’d have moved on to after contributing so much and getting so little respect in return. More power to her, and I’ll be glad to follow her in whatever new venue she finds and leave this lame site far behind.
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I was not aware of the film when I first heard the term Gaslighting. It is far more pervasive, insidious and dangerous than that film or your commentary would convey.
“ . . .and happiness in an un-gaslit environment.”
Whaaat??? There IS NO environment that is not gaslit in our culture today. Zero.
If and when you are finding ‘happiness’ in our environment you are deliberately, and with good reason, turning a blind eye to the shit-storm brewing all around you.
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That’s a choice … to wring my hands in perpetuity or be happy anyway. Little I can do about the world.
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Little you can do, or little you are willing to do?
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Perhaps no excess deaths during covid (unless from vents etc), but maybe evidence of post vax excess deaths – anyone following that? Here’s one data point I came across, but there’s much more on his blog, probably still rolling out from Steve Kirsch and others –
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/cancer-rates-are-increasing-and-may
See especially the graphs if you scroll down a little.
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That is some pretty interesting stuff there. What do you get if you upgrade to paid?
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I think the subscribe button is just to get notices, you can click “let me read it first” for free access.
Not too familiar with him but he seems to be in the Steve Kirsch camp where viruses are real (if overhyped in some cases) but skeptical of mRNA vax and against mandates etc.
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In “Gravity’s Rainbow” Pynchon talks about the “schwarzkommando” or Black Nazis. Reminded of this by the nonsense spouted by Ye (the whilom Kanye West) .
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KenshoHomestead and TIMR,
Stephers sent me the following link a while back. This is already a vast and growing field of research and applications I cannot begin to fully understand.
I do believe it is changing our world in ways we would not consent to if we could only grasp more fully the adverse biological and psychological impacts kept well out of sight.
https://www.advancedmaterialscongress.org/feb20/pages/biomaterials-&-biodevices
I am not aware of another blog or regular forum where Stephers has posted her work lately. If that changes I will be happy to pass that link along to others. As far as I know she is continuing her research and doing quite well.
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She went out of her way to email me several months ago with some suggestions for my wife’s covid hangover. It was very nice of her.
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I would be glad of that link if & when Stephers begins posting again. Thank you Steve.
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