How to Cure Mass Mental Illness

Mass Mental Illness is when the society at large behaves irrationally and loses social cohesion and normal functionality. It’s not too hard to diagnose because it manifests itself in easily recognizable ways:

1. Widely divergent interpretation of proven or somewhat self-evident facts
2. High percentage of people reporting above normal anxiety
3. High percentage of people reporting depression or general dissatisfaction
4. Increased use of psycho-pharmaceuticals, both legal and not
5. High percentage of people experiencing insomnia
6. Abnormal increase in violence
7. Political upheaval and indecision
8. Proliferation of delusional thinking and adherence to conspiracy theories

These conditions often take many years to develop and likewise take many years to cure. Many of these are interconnected and addressing one or two of them can quickly impact others in a positive way. If allowed to reach critical mass (>50% degradation), the society loses the ability to self-treat and is subject to complete meltdown, mismanagement, civil war and chaos.

I figure, the United States is currently at 35%-40% degradation (not just us).

There are many causes of Societal Mental Illness, some of which often go unnoticed, including but not limited to:

1. Loss of connection to Nature and the Stars
2. Noise and light pollution
3. Overstimulus
4. Amplified Info-toxins (misinformation, lies, manipulation and spin)
5. Governing malfeasance and corruption
6. Environmental degradation
7. Educational deficits
8. Lack of ethical guidance
9. Over-glorification of material success and fame
10. Hyper-marketing

It is extremely important to understand the relationship of these degrading factors to the overall mental health and cohesion of the society because without recognizing the causes, we would be left with no practical mitigation or therapy.

The Treatment

You can’t exactly put a society or a nation on a couch and psychoanalyze or prescribe to it, so treatment of this patient is much different than with an individual. In a democracy, it requires a concerted effort on all fronts via the mechanisms of governance, education and community-based agencies over a period of years.

In order to do this, you need to find a certain level of concordance on certain critical “Acupuncture Issues” that can unblock the Social Chi to begin movement toward healing. It may require a radical change of direction in certain areas, starting with the relationship to Nature. You have to start there.

While something like the Green New Deal may seem to some like a socialist plot to overthrow the petroleum hegemony we have lived under or to others only about energy production, it may have much larger implications. The status quo of our energy usage profile and carbon footprint is untenable and even when not admitted, or when denied, deep down, people know it can’t go on forever. We all know something is wrong whether we admit it or not. But that doesn’t matter because in order to get consensus, you have to paint a pretty picture and a vision of a better life, not just warn and scold.

By the simple act of converting to a 100% renewable, carbon-neutral energy system, we will do humanity more favors than can be imagined, well beyond the employment and business opportunities so often touted, including:

1. Begin to reduce anxiety about the future, especially in younger people.
2. Create a sense of hope and positivity and empowerment for making a positive change for once.
3. Reduce air and noise pollution.
4. Have faster, easier to maintain transportation
5. Reduce pulmonary exacerbations such as asthma. Unlocking fresh air is a huge benefit for all!
6. Greatly reduce cancer causing agents from the environment.
7. Remove all of the petrochemical transport and disposal (where does all that oil from your oil changes and radiator fluids go?) mechanisms from the roads and rails and landfills, now replaced with efficient transmission lines.
8. Create jobs that feel better to do because they are geared to a sustainable future.
9. Reduce guilt in participating in a system you know is highly flawed.
10. Unlock a new era of creativity for further improving our lives.

Once people start to experience the tangible improvements to the quality of life and the fear of some strange socialist plot fades away, they will become open to other ideas on a grander scale. What else can we do together?

This simple togetherness is the cohesion that is missing and once it returns, the trend feeds itself. By this simple act of bowing before Nature and seeking harmony with Her Most Benevolent Majesty, the Earth and King Sun, we will learn the humility that is required to survive and thrive and this will spill over to all parts of life.

In Humility, we learn more easily to appreciate things and this in turn creates greater satisfaction and mental health improves on both the individual and societal levels. As mental health improves, fewer drugs are used or needed and violence subsides as well and so a Virtuous Cycle begins.

The virtuous cycle begets a more educated public, one that appreciates music and the arts in new ways and one that is capable of electing better, more educated, more virtuous representatives and executives. Over time, the virtuous cycle allows us to reclaim and fix everything from unethical business practices to the justice system and much more.

Journey Into the Mind

There is one class of drugs that is starting to be recognized as highly beneficial in all sorts of ways toward repairing and rewiring our psyches—the psychedelics. I have no doubt that if more people were carefully guided on “psychonautic journeys,” especially with natural, plant-based substances such as mushrooms and Ayahuasca, or even the pharma types of DMT and LSD and others, properly administered, many people would benefit greatly. Shamans have been doing it for centuries in tribes where mental illness doesn’t have nearly the same prevalence as in our “modern” cultures. I wouldn’t be surprised if more states loosen up regulations on these (as some already have) since the benefits are now well-documented. Just a little footnote.

Remember the fable—for want of a nail the kingdom was lost.

Now is the time to find that one nail we can all agree upon and repair the horse’s shoe and so redeem our society and stop the madness!