MindMatters

Power-hungry despot. Dictator for life. Vain ladies' man. Murdered by his peers for aspiring to be king. That was Julius Caesar, at least according to his critics and modern interpreters. But countless portrayals of the most famous Roman - in histories, novels, plays and films - omit what were quite likely his greatest features: his multifaceted genius, unparalleled leadership skill, and, rem...

Today on MindMatters we interview Thomas Costello , Emory University PhD candidate and lead author of a groundbreaking new study on leftwing authoritarianism. Long thought by social psychologists to be the exclusive of social conservatives (RWA), studies of authoritarianism on the left have been few and far between. Until now. Despite the almost willful ignorance about the subject in the field, LW...

Soon after World War II, Germany was cleaved in two by the allies who won the war. 'West Germany' came under the influence of Western Europe and the US, and East Germany under the Soviet Union. The eastern section of Germany, under the political and ideological influence of Communism, came to develop one of the most notoriously oppressive secret police organizations in modern history: th...

At this time of sweeping societal change, ideological propaganda is bombarding western culture everywhere one looks. No tradition or institution is spared, particularly when it comes to our value systems and the most basic ideas of what it means to be human: family, relationships, sex. The cult of wokeness must be adhered to, or else. Refuse to comply and you risk being labeled, demonized, cancell...

In 1985, greater Los Angeles and San Francisco were struck with an ever-growing list of brutal murders, rapes and robberies of dozens of individuals, including children. The crimes shocked and terrified not only the families of the victims and the communities where the crimes took place - but also captured national attention - as the viciousness and malevolence involved in these acts were made pub...

Joshua Slocum hosts Disaffected - the best new podcast on the market. Our society isn't just getting crazier - it's getting Cluster B crazy: borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, and antisocial personality disorders and their traits are off the charts. In the universities, media, social media, and the Democratic establishment - something is happening, but few can put their finger on it....

Want to avoid the joycamps? Afraid of being unpersoned? Then be a goodthinker and watch 1984! There's a reason the term "Orwellian" is used so often today. From the news to politics, the novels and allegories of writer George Orwell help explain how and why the Big Lies are disseminated, and with good reason. Orwell grokked the true nature of totalitarianism, and how its pathologica...

Based on true events, Agnieszka Holland's 2019 film Mr. Jones tells the story of an English government functionary who, hot off the heels of interviewing Hitler in the early 1930's, tasked himself with going to Soviet Russia to interview Stalin. The story's protagonist, Gareth Jones, seeks to inform Stalin of Hitler's plans for European domination and plant the seeds of an alli...

Today on MindMatters we share seven books to understand what's really going on in the world today: in the universities, on the streets, in government; the ideologies running the show, the psychopathy behind them, and the rise of soft totalitarianism. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radi...

Wokeness may appear crazy to its critics, but underneath the surface is something even more sinister than most are willing to admit. As an ideology with wide appeal, critical social justice theory has served its purpose as the lockpick to western civilization, as James Lindsay has put it. It has opened the gates to the highest political power, and every aspect of western culture. But what has ente...

The mind-virus of psychopathic thinking is all around us. Day after day, individuals are falling prey to the paramorals and paralogic of a weaponized pathological ideology. It has its own purpose-built language, government polices, and social norms, making it difficult to escape. But it is not real. And the lies only seem to be getting bigger, and more numerous. What is the endgame? Utopia. But fo...

Fifteen years ago the world was introduced to the research of Polish psychologist Andrzej Łobaczewski in his seminal work Political Ponerology. In it, he outlined the danger of pathological revolutionary movements, the poisonous influence of psychopaths in positions of power, and the real origins of totalitarianism - as well as why relatively normal people are left woefully vulnerable to pathologi...

In 1996 Dr. George K. Simon wrote and self-published In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People, almost single-handedly changing the 'self-help' landscape in the U.S. The book remains a best-seller. With decades of clinical research under his wing, Dr. Simon saw that a very large percentage of psychological and emotional issues people suffered from were...

Science. Politics. Religion. Interpersonal relationships. There is no sphere of human study, thinking, belief or behavior that isn't affected in some way shape or form by what we believe to be true or false. That's what it all boils down to. And yet doing the work to understand ourselves and the world in which we live is no small task - as we are constantly being presented with policies,...

When looking at the news, the best analysis quite often comes with a fair bit of 'dot connecting'. Ideally, we seek to understand our world and the major events unfolding as deeply as possible, but we're too often served a dish of two-dimensional news that furthers our knowledge just so much and not much more. So when a writer in the alternative news world manages to draw upon histo...

In 1974 world-renowned author of The Gulag Archipelago Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a short essay to his Soviet compatriots beseeching them to live in truth. The message, called "Live Not By Lies" was a call to not feed into the communist government's ubiquitous daily diet of falsehoods used to perpetuate the overwhelmingly oppressive system in place. Fast forward nearly fifty years...

We've all seen them: Hollywood superhero blockbusters where the protagonist is a two-dimensional cardboard cutout, a shallow reflection of what makes a real hero a model of inspiration to begin with. All too reliant on presenting a spectacle to dazzle the eyes and the ears, these productions bombard us with imagery, ideas, and mediocre writing - in lieu of a fully drawn character who embodies...

As current events and crazy people continue to spiral downhill with ever greater frequency and intensity, we find ourselves challenged not to react or respond in ways that are detrimental to ourselves and those around us. From both within and without each of us faces the choices of what to believe, how to feel - and what the appropriate responses to life could and should be. Will we fall prey to t...

We all have belief systems, maps to reality that inform our perspectives and help us form the bedrock values we have about ourselves, others, and the world at large. This means thoughts on everything from religion and politics to how we interact with friends, and the specific truths about reality we have come to know and adapted to in our everyday lives. But when it comes to taking in new facts, w...

Covid-19. Trump. Social Justice. War. Human rights. Economics. Whatever the issue, it seems that every day we are being told we must adopt a particular position. And to do so "or else". Under incredible pressure to be in the right and to feel good about ourselves, we are bombarded with "ways to think" that are quite often delivered by overt propaganda, but that are also, perhap...

Everyone likes a good optical illusion, but fewer understand them. Today we interview Katie Tregillus PhD about her research on color perception and adaptation. Katie takes us through the strange and complex world of color, from basic physiology up to conscious perception. How can different people looking at the same image 'see' totally different colors? How do colored lenses change our...

Today on MindMatters, Harrison and Adam use one of David Ray Griffin's recent books as a jumping-off point to bring together many threads from previous episodes. What is our place in the cosmos? What can the study of nature tell us about ourselves, and about the cosmic mind? From the smallest bits of 'matter' and energy, to animals, minds, and meaning, we tie together our previous d...

In recent years researchers like Stephen Porges have brought a newfound understanding of the body's all-important polyvagal system to greater and deeper awareness. The tenth cranial nerve, or vagus nerve, has a great impact on the health of major organs (including the brain), and even direct impact on a human being's 'higher' functioning. Interestingly however, is the historic...

In such works as Inside the Criminal Mind and The Myth of the Out of Character Crime criminologist Dr. Stanton E. Samenow conceptualized and gave credence to the specific traits and behaviors of the 'criminal mind'. Such works not only show the thinking processes involved in law-breaking and antisocial behavior, but also (however unintentionally) instruct the more normally oriented of us...

The philosophy and practice of alchemy, in one form or another, has been around for millennia and espoused by many different cultures, the idea centering around the chemical and physical transformation of some common ore to its highest most valuable state, gold. Modern chemistry naturally discounts this view as outdated and simply not true. But what if that is to miss the point? What if the true a...