Covid-19: A Deviously Deceptive (and Effective) Psychological Operation

June 1, 2021

By Aimee Hoffman

Wherever you believe you stand on the Covid-19 divide, it’s time to shift your focus from your headspace and look down at your feet. 

You may be surprised to find your feet walking in unison with people you thought you disagreed with. 

“How can they be going the same way as me? They don’t see the Truth!” 

And yet, they are walking with you—in lockstep.

If you accept this, you can then ask the question, “Where are we going?”

This question gives you a chance—should you have the courage to pursue it—to break the spell that has you distracted and blindly following a preprogrammed path.

In the art of deception, your only safeguard is to let go of certainty, remain doubtful, be prepared to be wrong, and know your own mechanisms for fooling yourself. 

The moment you think you “know” and stop paying attention is the moment you are lost. 

Remember, a clever manipulator is a good listener, incredibly perceptive and adaptable. But a manipulator is only effective when the intended victim has no self-knowledge or the courage of self-inquiry.

The Rules of the Game

Psychological manipulation occurs every day. 

Just one example of this is in marketing: creating a desire to sell a solution. 

How does one create a desire?

First, there must be focus on a problem that is causing distress. Distress, in any form, is feared for the sensation of pain associated with it. 

It is that base fear that is vital—however, it is only used to inform a strategy employing positive messaging.

Positive reinforcement is known in behavioural psychology to work much better than negative reinforcement. 

The solution must hold within it the essence of true human desires: freedom, joy, love. 

For example, a man is sitting in a suit and tie in a board room, attending a business meeting and then, the day is over, he leaves the gray, cold building and steps into a new sports car, speeding down a winding road lined with green hills at sunset, the driver now wearing stylish sunglasses and sporting a healthy tan, smiling as the wind whips through their silky hair—all this portraying freedom, health, joy, and love of life. 

In reality the car does not provide freedom, health, joy or love of life. It is simply a car. 

However, it does provide car payments, oil changes, maintenance fees, fuel costs, and auto insurance. 

This is the clever marketing that pretends to sell freedom, but ultimately sells the illusion of it in exchange for chains.

Stimulating Fear and Sowing Confusion

Covid-19 is no different. 

It stimulates the fear response by seeding the narratives of deadly infectious pathogens, pandemics and zombie apocalypses brought on by superbugs and/or scientific experimentation. Yet, this is done indirectly, while at the same time sowing the cool confidence in the experts to solve the problem by creating an antidote. 

There is always an underlying narrative of the good guys versus the bad guys, and the talented script writers will have nuanced layers of this throughout the narrative. 

There must be hope intertwined with the fear. In the Covid-19 narrative, there were many layers of this, as well. The back and forth can be seen with the juxtaposition of the Event201 pandemic preparedness simulation in October 2019 and then the subsequent release of the Netflix documentary, Pandemic.

The first portrays a sense of confidence and competency to deal with a global pandemic caused by a respiratory pathogen that spread from pigs to humans. Leading figures in global industry, government institutions and philanthropic organizations were present—the experts who represent humanity’s desire for hope.

Pandemic, on the other hand, released January 22, 2020, instilled a sense of hospitals and healthcare workers being unprepared to face such a pandemic, using the 2018-2019 influenza season as an example. These experts are representative of humanity’s fear that the worst-case scenarios will play out in the end. 

This pendulum swing continues ad nauseum throughout 2020 news reporting, with the misrepresentation of deaths to ramp up the fear going hand in hand with reports of hope for the future when this pandemic is over, and we can live again.

Overwhelm, Distract and Sell the Problems and Solutions

Seeding the narrative with problems and solutions continues throughout 2020 as well, such as the introduction in March of different strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus—which disappeared and resurfaced again in 2021. When all is said and done, everyone ends up accepting the problems and solutions that have been woven across all dividing lines.

The next layer is creating noise (contradictory information simultaneously claiming to be true), sowing confusion, and overwhelming the logical faculties and senses. 

A good example for this is in the field of nutrition. The back and forth between this food being healthy only to be declared unhealthy the next week, each claim stating “scientific” studies to back it up, leaves people confused, overwhelmed and ultimately buying the nutrition option that tells them what they want to hear (and doesn’t work—because if it worked and people got healthy, it would be bad for business).

In a world where everything is online and data is the new gold, it should not be surprising to think that the conspiracy theories across different platforms were not only not censored but enhanced to reach a wider audience. Why? To create noise, sow confusion and overwhelm the senses. 

This plays out much more simply than anyone can realize. Just think of rumor mills. We all know how quickly a single rumor can spread and change the entire atmosphere of a place, even irredeemably damaging personal relationships. 

As I said before, those who will manipulate others are only successful with people who have no self-knowledge or the courage for self-inquiry—as our biggest hurdle to seeing clearly is our ability to fool ourselves.

The Divide and Controlled Opposition

The Covid-19 rumor mill was a success (for those who designed it). The obvious flaws in the pandemic narrative drew in numerous people around the globe who questioned the logic and pointed out the flaws to others. This created the primary divide (on the surface). 

Many people accepted the conclusion that there was something amiss about the Covid-19 narrative. However, in accepting that conclusion, people were drawn into theories about why it smelled off; and the theories themselves contain atom bombs, like the Trojan Horse of old. 

The only way to discover if your theory is a Trojan Horse is to follow it all the way through to end, logically, and see every possible point of manipulation. If you do not take the time to do this, you can be assured that you will be swept along in someone else’s tide, your feet being guided in a direction you may not want to go. 

Another effect of the Covid-19 rumor mill was to generate the leaders of the resistance, standing for Truth with a capital T and freedom. But, as anyone who knows a little about human nature understands, people are not that simple—and therefore, no leader is either. 

This touches on another aspect of the game many people have heard about but know very little about how it works: controlled opposition. 

Is everyone just out to scam you? Can no one be trusted? 

Well, let’s just say it’s difficult to answer those questions with a one-word reply. 

People are biased. We all are. We have all unique conditioning and experiences that give rise to our reasoning processes. We all have agendas, as well. We have intentions that guide how we act. Biases and agendas are neither good nor bad. They have to be viewed in context with a preponderance of multiple data points in order to determine their effects overall. People see only what they see and therefore can want only what they want.

Now, some people are quite confident in their viewpoints and are not afraid to take the microphone and speak their mind. If they sound competent, charming, relatable, and their theory suits the overall endgame, then they will be given the stage. The most successful controlled opposition comes from the genuine true believers in their cause. They, unfortunately, end up selling the same problems and solutions, just in different colored gift wrap.

Worldview Warfare 

As the game continues, the leaders rise up, groups begin to form, the primary divide widens and further fracturing throughout the groups spread. 

The average person, overwhelmed by the barrage of psychological torture tactics for months on end, has been consistently destabilized and is now desperate for grounding and certainty. There’s too much noise, too much conflict, too much data being thrown around to make sense of any of it. 

Some people could not question the main Covid-19 narrative because that alone was far too threatening to their worldview and sense of identity. Some could question it but needed to look for experts on the other side to replace the previous authority figures they used to follow. Most needed a new narrative to fill the void and provide the grounding and sense of certainty—a new identity. 

The fear to let go (questioning one’s sense of reality) and the desire to grasp hold of something appearing certain are the two most exploited aspects of human nature—because they provide excellent traps that are willingly accepted.

Once a worldview is grasped to cement an identity, the person becomes entrenched in defending it. They see only those who agree or disagree. Life polarizes into black and white. 

From the side with the people believing the Covid-19 ploy without question, those who do question it are seen as threatening and therefore it is justified to demonize them. 

From the side with the people questioning the Covid-19 ploy, those who do not question it are seen as threatening and therefore it is justified to demonize them.

Either way you look at it, both sides have been played.

During WWII, Germany called this “Worldview Warfare.” 

Why is it so successful at dividing and distracting? Because a person’s actions are determined by their beliefs, aka worldviews. Challenging a person’s core beliefs, the structure they have built to form their sense of reality, will always meet with defensive opposition. Always. 

And, while everyone is arguing with one another, what is really happening?

1. Both sides are trying to impose their views on the other (violating the respect for free will and basic human rights)
2. Both sides are trying to tell the other side what to do or not do with their health (which should be private and personal)
3. Both sides are convinced they are right and are not listening (preventing connection)
4. Neither side sees that they are both, in fact, moving in the same direction while being distracted with particular focal arguments

So long as anyone engages with the Covid-19 narrative, the conversation will only go along predictable lines and nothing of value results. Both sides have preprogrammed responses, and with neither really speaking their own truth nor listening, no connection can be made. It’s a dispersal of energy that could be more effectively employed.

Getting Out of the Game 

Covid-19, thus far, has succeeded in its goals. It has worn people down with psychological torture tactics. It created the primary divide. It set off worldview warfare, preventing connections. The problems and solutions it sold on both sides have been accepted. And, ultimately, it has hidden the true intent—the real endgame. 

Is it all over then? 

No. 

The endgame can be uncovered. The traps that we create for ourselves, and others, can be undone. 

If you can look at yourself as you are right now, without guilt or shame or pride or arrogance—just look without any judgement whatsoever. Whatever you’ve done is past. The only time you have is now. And listen, pay attention. Perceive without grasping. Recognize the traps of fear and the desire to cover up the fear with illusory certainty. Don’t fight them; just let them arrive and depart. 

Question your fears. Where do they originate? Look unflinchingly. Go gently. Fear is often a messenger to focus awareness. What needs your attention now, today, this moment? Approach it in equanimity and grace. 

After that, think about someone who is on the other side of the Covid-19 divide, someone you know well. What is your intent in that relationship? What do you desire from your interactions? Do you honor their free will, inherent dignity and conscience, even if they reason differently from you? Can you disagree without demeaning them in your mind?

Remember, a forced Utopia is no Utopia at all—for it was not freely chosen—and “the ends can never justify the means, for the simple reason that the means determine the ends produced.” (Aldous Huxley)

What means are you employing? Do they align with the person you want to be? Or with the world you wish to live in?

And, most importantly, remember the hard-won right to doubt, such as Richard Feynman wrote about. 

“A doctor without a doubt is not a doctor—he is an executioner!”—Hercule Poirot

Have the courage to doubt, especially when you feel certain. And have the heart to connect, for we are all sharing this existence, however brief it may be. 

Have the courage to be the sole determiner of how you choose to be in every moment. And, no matter what situation arises, you will the captain of your ship. Respect others and allow them that same freedom.