“I highly recommend Paul Levy’s Wetiko: The Greatest Epidemic Sickness Known to Humanity. This book brilliantly exposes how the very roots of the madness that is threatening life on earth are ultimately to be found within our own psyche. I love that Paul is taking seriously the profound implications of what it means that all of us are living in a mass, shared dream. His startlingly clear premise challenges me to reflect upon both the world and myself in radically mind-altering ways. Something important is coming through his imagination-filled musings; his visionary insight into the intrinsic genius of our species feels inspired by a truly creative, compassionate and enlivening spirit. I always look forward to reading Paul’s work; it stimulates me to greater heights of lucidity, disturbs me enough to awaken me out of my complacency, and encourages me to fly on the wings of the creative imagination. The world would be a better place if everyone read this book. His vision is a royal gift for all of us. It makes me want to sing. Bravo!”
— Sting
— Sting
From Chapter One:
In the book Columbus and other Cannibals, indigenous author Jack D. Forbes lucidly explores a psychological disease that has been informing human self-destructive behavior that Native American people have known about for years. After reading his book, it was clear to me that he was describing the same psycho-spiritual disease of the soul that I wrote about in my book, The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis. I introduce the idea that from the dawn of human history our species has fallen prey to a collective psychosis which I call malignant egophrenia. Speaking about this very same psychic epidemic, Forbes writes, “For several thousands of years human beings have suffered from a plague, a disease worse than leprosy, a sickness worse than malaria, a malady much more terrible than smallpox.” Indigenous people have been tracking the same ‘psychic’ virus that I call malignant egophrenia for many centuries and calling it ‘wetiko,’ a Cree term which refers to a diabolically wicked person or spirit who terrorizes others. Professor Forbes, who was one of the founders of the Native American movement during the early sixties, says, “Tragically, the history of the world for the past 2,000 years is, in great part, the story of the epidemiology of the wetiko disease.” Wetiko/malignant egophrenia is a ‘psychosis’ in the true sense of the word as being a ‘sickness of the soul or spirit.’ Though calling it by different names, Forbes and I are both pointing at the same illness of the psyche, soul and spirit that has been at the root of humanity’s inhumanity to itself.
When people are infected by the wetiko virus, Forbes writes, they are “the host for the wetiko parasites.” The wetiko germ is a psychic tapeworm, a parasite of the mind. Just like certain computer viruses or malware infect and program a computer to self-destruct, mind-viruses like wetiko can program the human bio-computer to think, believe and behave in ways that result in our self-destruction.Wetiko is a virulent, psychic pathogen that insinuates thought-forms into our mind which, when unconsciously en-acted, feed it, and ultimately kills its host (us). It doesn’t want to kill us too quickly however, for to successfully implement its agenda of reproducing and propagating itself throughout the field, it must let the host live long enough to spread the virus. If the host dies too soon, the bug would be prematurely evicted and would suffer the inconvenience of having to find a new residence.
Like a cancer of the mind that metastasizes, in wetiko disease, a pathological part of the psyche co-opts and subsumes all of the healthy parts of the psyche into itself so as to serve its pathology. To quote Jung, “an unknown ‘something’ has taken possession of a smaller or greater portion of the psyche and asserts its hateful and harmful existence undeterred by all our insight, reason, and energy, thereby proclaiming the power of the unconscious over the conscious mind, the sovereign power of possession.” The personality then self-organizes an outer display of coherence around this pathogenic core, which ‘masks’ the inner dysfunction, making it hard to recognize. In a psychic coup d’etat, the wetiko bug can usurp and displace the person, who becomes its puppet and marionette. Like a parasite, the wetiko virus can take over the will of an animal more evolved than itself, enlisting that creature into serving its nefarious agenda. Once the parasite becomes sufficiently entrenched within the psyche, the prime directive coordinating a person’s behavior comes from the disease, as it is now the one calling the shots. Just as someone infected with the rabies virus will resist drinking water, which would flush out the infection, someone taken over by the wetiko parasite will have nothing to do with anything that will help them get rid of the disease.Wetikos are phobic towards the light of truth, which they avoid like the plague. In advanced stages, this process takes over the person so completely that we could rightfully say the person is no longer there; they are just an empty shell carrying the disease. In a sense there is just the disease, operating through what appears to be a human being. The person becomes fully identified with their mask, their persona, but it is as if there is no one behind the mask.
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