The Great Reality Debate and Synchronization Rituals

Cognitive dissonance release valves and the terror of learning what we already know

Open wrist talk back again
In the wounds of its skin
They'll pinprick the witness
In ritual contrition
The A.M. trinity
Fell upon asphyxia-derailed
In the rattles of

— The Mars Volta, “Roulette Dares (The Haunt of)”

The above lyrics, penned and performed by the brilliant Cedric Bixler-Zavala, wafted into my mind as I reflected upon the U.S. presidential “debate” that stomped across our cultural consciousness last night like Godzilla Minus One participant.

Those lyrics provided both a memorable usage of the word I was ruminating on, “ritual,” and also a far more coherent, pellucid statement than anything the mentally missing debate “participant,” Joe Biden, mumbled during said ritual. That is a problem for Biden considering that the original song lyrics were meant to be ambiguous, evocative, and poetically provocative. Biden’s somnolent, word salad scatting was meant to be assertive, eloquent, and persuasively presidential.

… Or, was it?

What did we really witness during that “debate?” How much of it was orchestrated? And if orchestrated, by whom? Cui bono?

You will find people positing various possibilities. For example,

Sharon ShihTzu

(a delightful appellation, by the way) laid out several viable options, ranging from an insulated populace simply getting a rare glimpse behind the curtain to a coordinated operation to humiliate and replace a failing figurehead.

I have my hunches here, but I am not certain where I would place my paycheck if all the chips were down.

What I would like to do, however, is explore one particular option a bit further, as I feel that it not only serves as an intriguing thought experiment for this specific event, but also elucidates a more general phenomenon, providing insight into a vital component of the Party’s (and similar cults’) system of control.

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A cool film! But unrelated save the title and eerily appropriate tagline.

As I've written about on my Substack, the Party’s indoctrinated cultists have had their powers of discernment and critical thinking systematically obliterated for years. They are conditioned to parrot the Party line, no matter how absurd or even injurious to them.

Still, I contend (on a surprisingly hopeful note) that many cultists retain a certain sense of humanity and intellect flickering beneath the trauma-based tempest of their operant conditioning. That flame is fueled by confrontations with incongruent events, and as much as Yuval Noah Harari may wish otherwise, it is difficult to outright extinguish. Given enough time amidst this juxtaposition of orthodoxy and reality, the cultist will either suffer a complete breakdown or their cognitive dissonance (“CogDis” for short) will finally crack. Either of these options renders the victim useless to the Party, and thus is to be avoided.

That is where what I term “Synchronization Rituals” come in. The Party periodically needs to move people off certain egregious lies and back toward some semblance of reality to avoid the aforementioned outcomes. But, this transition must not be allowed to occur naturally, individually in the cultist—on their own timeline and of their own accord—as that breaks their programming, and each new dissident creates another powerful “Juxtaposition Node” to confront other cultists, potentially sparking a complete program collapse. To prevent that, a “Synchronization Ritual” is conducted.

A “Synchronization Ritual” is when the Party coordinates with its various ministries to arrange for a specific event or series of events to simultaneously shift the entire cult consciousness to a new “Maximal Level of Processable Delusion.” For example, we have seen this happen with some of the COVID narrative in recent months, e.g., the infamous agitprop Atlantic “amnesty” article permitting cultists to admit they might have gotten some things wrong. (Gee whiz, ya think!?)

We could be seeing that now with Biden. The level of CogDis among Democrats witnessing Biden’s utter incoherence while simultaneously being told (and forced to repeat) that he is a wonderful, capable man who “rescued America” and “restored the soul of a nation” could be reaching critical mass.

But they need permission to acknowledge that, even internally. They need permission to know what they already know.

Everyone with functioning senses and at least a half-functioning brain has known for years that Biden is a belligerent potato. Mainstream mockingbird media and longtime TDS touts suddenly suggesting it may be time to move on from Biden, while maintaining narrative control to make it seem like an epiphany the cultists are all just now having organically in real time together, could be the latest example of a “Synchronization Ritual” to herd the flock into a new conceptual corral, defusing just enough of the CogDis to keep them docile.

Of course, this may not be how things play out with Biden specifically, as there are any number of confounding factors, yet I think the underlying phenomenon is worth considering regardless. Once one recognizes this ritual structure, it becomes easier to identify it in the wild. Its relationship to techniques like predictive programming and soft disclosure could also prove interesting to explore. After all…

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Postscript #1) This article is based on an earlier “note” which you can read below. My thanks to all-stars like

The Starfire Codes

,

leithian

, and

Sharon ShihTzu

for engaging with it, inspiring me to share it out in “post” form.

Postscript #2) Key terms to consider, in my mind, are “Synchronization Ritual,” “Juxtaposition Node,” and “Maximal Level of Processable Delusion.” I am curious if these resonate with anyone else, and if so, if any other examples come to mind. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to revisit these ideas down the line. Thanks for reading!