Like most Daily Sceptic readers I’m just an ordinary citizen outraged at the gratuitous suffering and absurdities of the last three years. We are all accidental activists. Yet it just so happens that for 12 years I worked with a plethora of Government departments including the Department of Health, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office and the Department of Education (under its ever-changing names) and many others. I also have a PhD in philosophy and for 30 years I have been a psychotherapist, working with hypnosis and collaborating with Paul McKenna on a series of best-selling books. I found that I was uniquely well placed to comment on the Covid imbroglio.
I started a blog and in May 2020 the Lockdown Sceptics website, as it was then, picked up on my piece about how Covid catastrophists were behaving like members of the cult researched by social psychologist Leon Festinger in When Prophecy Fails. The more evidence accrued that they were wrong, the more fervently they asserted they were right. Later I offered an alternative to the cock-up versus conspiracy dichotomy, and several of my other posts have been flagged up in the News Round-Up section.
In the last year or so I have not blogged so much because I have been writing a book, The Bug in our Thinking, which addresses a critical question: how do so many decent, sensible people become entrapped in delusions?
The book is built on sound philosophy but it is far from an academic text. Led by stories, it explores the practice of hypnosis, the nature of our being, and the winding path towards clearer perception. The deep patterns that facilitated recent events long pre-date them and we face even bigger problems than the over-reactions to Covid, hideous and deadly though they are. The same technology that liberated us from grinding poverty has rendered us profoundly vulnerable to delusion and our efforts to educate our way out of ignorance often increase our vulnerability.
Readers sceptical of mainstream narratives will find the book gratifying and it will equip them to bypass the frustrating arguments that we have been having since March 2020. However, beyond ratifying the sceptical point of view, it has another, greater, purpose.
It is written to be welcoming to those mainstreamers identified by Mattias Desmet who have fallen into mass formation and been captured by orthodoxy. There is not one mention of Covid, nor vaccines, in the whole book. It is neither polemic nor confrontational, rather it is a gentle invitation to all comers to a more thoughtful understanding.
You can pre-order The Bug in our Thinking now via my website and this is way I prefer to sell it.
For those outside the U.K., or who prefer an ebook, it is available on Amazon on its many global sites and there will soon be an audiobook version as well, again via Audible and Amazon.
However absolutely the best way to get a copy of the book will be to come to the book launch on May 24th in London. It will be an opportunity for our community, born online, to meet face to face. There will be others there who may not be sceptical – but that is the point. We need to understand each other more, and those with a reasonably open mind will find in my book the means to do so. If you would like to be put on the guest list for the launch please email me here by May 20th.
It will be a great pleasure to see you there.
The Bug in our Thinking by Hugh Willbourn – Book Launch
Wednesday May 24th, 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Old Diorama Arts Centre, London, NW1 3FE
The building is less than five minutes walk from Warren Street Tube station. Here are the directions and access details.
You will be able to purchase a (signed!) copy of the book for £13.50 and save the cost of postage. Please bring cash.
What sort of a book is it? What a very good question. Here is an early, unedited review:
John Heron meets Roger Zelazny in this rollercoaster ride through some of the multi-layered intricacies of human consciousness and how we make sense of things. Written for grownups – such an immense relief to be spared the smug condescension to be commonly found in such writings. Willbourn is determined to meet us on his level, and if we’re not there already we find ourselves picked up by the scruff and ceremoniously brought along. Quite exhilarating. And very, very funny in many parts. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I loved reading it anyway. This is a robust, challenging, absorbing, lively and illuminating read. And utterly human and personal. Almost impossible to put down.
Catherine Llewellyn, YesYouNow.today
I had to google John Heron and Roger Zelazny, but having done so I am flattered to be put in their company. I hope to meet you on May 24th.
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