Para-Politics

The Manipulation of Society

“The only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”: FDR’s First Inaugural Address

As I settle into the rhythm of writing from an awakened perspective, the challenges I encounter become more subtle and intricate. Imposter syndrome, fear, anxiety, delusion—all of these surface, as they are inherent to the human experience. It’s natural to feel them and face them. However, being awake allows me to recognise when I’m caught in the spiral of overthinking and mental traps. Awakening provides a centre, a place to return to, where all thoughts, sensations, and experiences emerge and dissolve. No one truly understands the nature of consciousness—where it originates or its purpose. It remains a mystery. Many have tried to unlock it, leading to the darker side of psychology, where control and manipulation become tools in the hands of those who seek power over the mind.

The Weaponisation of Psychology

Psychology, once a tool for understanding the human mind, has been co-opted into a weapon used to mine our desires and insecurities in a relentless, ever-evolving propaganda assault. Far from being an innocent or academic pursuit, the psychological insights of Freud and Jung have been harnessed by governments and corporations to manipulate the masses, shaping our reality through sophisticated means of control. The work of Edward Bernays, the godfather of modern public relations, alongside the covert operations of MKUltra and Project Artichoke, reveal the dark legacy of psychological manipulation. These projects represent modern heirs to the Inquisition, where the desire to mould and control the human mind has not ended with the creation of mind-controlled soldiers like Manchurian candidates, but has evolved into modern drone warfare and AI-informed advertising campaigns that are waged with military precision.

Our personal data is harvested from every interaction we make with the machine, to only make it stronger. Every want, desire, and need curated into the algorithmic weapon that is on the verge of total control of our world.

The ultimate goal of these forces is not to make their plans visible to the public but to ensure that we, as passive consumers, remain oblivious to their methods. The large-scale data harvesting at Facebook, and the use of Twitter to verify all humans and thus have a large dataset for AI training, is hidden, like the bunkers of the rich in New Zealand.

Their plans are shrouded in secrecy—and the spectacle they construct around us is designed to keep us entranced, unable to resist the subtle manipulation at work. The greasy intimacy of advertising, the calculated rapport of media campaigns, and the constant sensory re-arrangement we experience are all part of a grand design to make us not “citizens under Cæsar” or even responsible agents of our own lives, but “alienated from nature” and continuously sold a narcotic spectacle that simultaneously sickens and sedates us.

The Loss of Agency

The world we live in today is not simply a landscape of modern conveniences and comforts; it is a carefully constructed reality that rewards complacency and discourages rebellion. The system we inhabit has mastered the art of rewarding failure, lulling men and women into a deep sleep with the allure of central heating, smartphones, video games, antidepressants, Pringles, and endless streams of pornography. We are made to believe that life is better because of these conveniences, yet what has truly been taken from us is the capacity to confront reality. Pain, dirt, loss, and hard work—these essential elements of the human experience have been systematically stripped away, replaced by a sanitised, artificial version of life that encourages obedience and submission.

Even more insidious is the rebranding of moral failings—conceit, cowardice, and spite—as mental illnesses or even laudable qualities. What once would have been seen as character flaws are now treated as afflictions or, worse, personal virtues. This societal shift excuses the selfish ego from any real accountability. Spoiled by luxury, we become monstrous egomaniacs, pitiful cowards, and craven addicts, cut off from the natural consequences of our actions. In this way, society not only turns us against our own nature, but even against our own mothers, the original source of nurturing and care.

Global Manipulation

Enter the United Nations, an institution that, on its surface, represents the ideal of multilateral cooperation toward peace, security, climate change, and human rights. Yet, there is something deeply unsettling about the Pact for the Future and its grandiose visions of global governance. The UN, like the international community it represents, can be seen as a vehicle for further control, shaping the narrative of what it means to live in a modern world under the guise of noble objectives. Climate change, sustainable development, and human rights are not the contemporary “front lines” in a battle not for humanity’s emancipation, but for deeper entrenchment into a system of control that few of us can truly understand.

As Carlyle once noted, the answer to our confusion lies not in the questions we ask but in the answers we are given before we even know what to ask. The Allies, during World War II, were not merely fighting for freedom or the salvation of the Jewish people, despite what postwar narratives would have us believe. Roosevelt’s war effort, sceptics might argue, was for the consolidation of a new global order—the United Nations itself. The war was not only about defeating fascism but about securing the dominance of a particular vision of international governance, a vision that today we know as the “international community.”

This phrase, “the international community,” is often nothing more than a euphemism for the dominant Western powers that shape global policy. This manipulation of global narratives, like the manipulation of individual minds, aims at securing power and maintaining control over populations under the banner of cooperation and unity. Just as individual psychology is manipulated for commercial and political gain, so too are global structures built to secure the dominance of specific ideologies and interests, rather than serving the interests of all humanity.

If you look at the world of government today, it is guilty of finding evil everywhere, except in itself, and if I may be so bold, I assert that this franchised blindness—this unconscious reverie—is in fact, a death wish.

Witchcraft as Resistance

In the face of this constant barrage of manipulation, witchcraft offers a form of resistance. While it may sound archaic or mystical, witchcraft in this context symbolises the refusal to be drawn into the spectacle, the rejection of the narcotic seduction that modern society offers. Witchcraft opposes the carefully curated reality of propaganda, offering instead a return to nature, to raw experience, and to unmediated existence. It is a form of rebellion against the commodification of life, the numbing effects of modern convenience, and the alienation that technology and media have wrought.

Witchcraft represents the power of individuals to take control of their own destinies, to confront pain, loss, and the harsh realities of life head-on, rather than succumbing to the artificial comforts that society provides. It is a way of reconnecting with the deeper, primal truths of existence that modern propaganda seeks to obscure. What makes us sick is countered by witchcraft’s embrace of the real—an embrace of dirt, of nature, of hard work, and of personal power.

The potential of the human mind is immense, yet instead of engaging in self-work, humanity often takes refuge in hope—clinging to comforting fictions, endless consumption, and the illusion of immortality through others.

A common cliché I encounter in response to the darker truths I’ve described is that “ignorance is bliss.” In my experience, true peace and happiness come not from avoidance, but from learning to accept reality as it is. The first step is understanding and accepting the nature of the human animal. But that’s just the beginning.

Once acceptance is achieved, the real work begins…