By Mitch Verigin

The word “magic” is often used to describe phenomena we cannot comprehend. I remember Masked Magician, a Fox network special presentation, during which an accomplished illusionist — later revealed to be Val Valentino — divulged the secrets behind numerous popular magic tricks. Viewers would recall that every illusion had a unique trick to it that, once understood, eliminated the possibility of using the word “magic” to describe it. Essentially, once the secret of the trick had been unmasked the “trick” no longer worked.

Mark Twain once said “It is much easier to deceive someone than to convince them that they’ve been deceived.” However, I am not one to choose the easy way out, and thus, in this article, I will attempt to remove the mask and persuade you, the reader, that you have been and are being deceived.

The mask of virtue has been used throughout history to conceal nefarious behaviours. I’m reminded of the notorious serial killer BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) Dennis Rader. He killed 11 people we know of, while a happily married Air Force veteran and volunteer at his local church. It’s much easier to hide in plain sight than in the shadows and there are many more examples of this, like priests who claim to do God’s work while abusing young children, or charities like Black Lives Matter claiming to raise money to support black communities, but instead using the majority of the funds raised for personal gain.

How many examples do we need of people posing as public-serving politicians that turn out to be in the game for personal profit? How do people like Joe Biden make a public service salary his whole life, and end up a multi-millionaire?

Stories have the power to make people buy into a belief system. A strong example of this is Heaven’s Gate. On March 26, 1997, the largest mass suicide on U.S. soil was discovered. Thirty-nine members of Heaven’s Gate were found dead in their suburban home in California. Laid in bunk beds and across tables, the members wore identical uniforms labeled “Heaven’s Gate Away Team” and the now infamous black-and-white Nike running shoes. The Heaven’s Gate message, intentionally or unintentionally, targeted vulnerable people — people who had just lost jobs or cherished family members or friends. And by stripping their followers of their identities, renaming them, changing their physical appearance (shaving/cutting their hair, dictating their dress), and forcing their departure from friends and family, the cult leaders held ultimate power over their isolated and transformed followers.

Belief can make people change everything about who they are.

Move over money, vaccines are the new religion, brought to you in part by people who believe there is no God and worship money and power! Even the Father of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, learned that convincing people to buy into a religion was profitable, and he was insane! It’s truly frightening how the word belief has worked its way into the Covid conversation.

As a wise man once said: “Belief is the death of intelligence, doubt is the custodian of truth.”

The fact that people are being forced to believe that the vaccine is the only way to fix the problem or risk losing their reputations, their job, their friends, their families and basically everything that ever made life worth living should be enough for them to take pause. I acknowledge many people were scared at the time and fear robs us of our ability to think rationally, but it’s 3 years later — isn’t hindsight supposed to be 20/20? Just like in the Heaven’s Gate cult, society was targeted during a vulnerable time, the difference was they themselves were responsible for their state of vulnerability.

With Covid, it was the state instilling fear and robbing people of their ability to work, isolating them, forcing mask wearing and dictating changes in appearance by closing salons and barbers. There is widespread evidence that locking down society did more harm than good. Gyms and parks were closed, churches and AA meetings were forced to stop operating while Alcohol stores were deemed essential. From rises in addiction, domestic abuse and suicide, it leaves no doubt what the intention was. It made everything worse. All while insisting we “Do the right thing.” Masks and vaccines were turned into virtue signals for caring about others — that was the trick — when really what was happening was, we were forfeiting our fundamental rights and freedoms, the very rights and freedoms that our ancestors fought for and often died to protect.

The mask was a visible signal of one’s willingness to do the right thing, but it concealed the real intention, which was to break the spirit, cut communication, scare us into submission and ultimately control the masses. Being that the (alleged) virus is less than 0.1 microns in size and the masks only filter out particles 0.3 microns in size or larger, It was like trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence. They failed to offer any protection against anything except fresh air and human connection. The story they told was that we were all in imminent danger and if we didn’t listen to them then we would not just die, but we’d kill grandma too. The Covid-19 experimental medical interventions did nothing to prevent infection or transmission; the injury and death rate post-vaccination is much higher than pre-pandemic. They did, however, take hard-earned tax-payer money and make Pfizer over 60 billion dollars richer in a single year.

Our problem is our inability to discuss plausible issues without falling into absolutes. There is wisdom in “I don’t know”, yet it’s been vilified. If you ask the spectators of an illusion to explain how it was done, one might say, I don’t know, and the other might ecstatically exclaim: “It was magic!” There’s wisdom in one answer and entertainment in the next, so, which one will they show us? When I was in class, sometimes I’d become frightened to ask questions because I was afraid of looking foolish. When did my concern shift from seeking knowledge to managing appearances and why?

People who have confidence and speak like they know what they’re talking about are attractive and get everyone’s attention, and those who are uncertain about things are given less attention. “I don’t know” is boring, but it’s honest, it’s real life. It calls for a collaborative response to solve the problem. I certainly see the entertainment value in confidently spouting off things that make no sense, but in real life that’s not helpful, it’s make-believe. They are incredibly confident, but they are incredibly wrong. So please dear reader, remove the mask of belief from the conversation and begin raising doubts. Belief has no place in the facts and data surrounding Covid and its response.

Questioning science is how you do science, (not blindly trusting the science that we have never been shown) We cannot afford to make decisions about public health based on belief, instead, we must be critical and thoughtful as we constantly reflect upon decisions made, based on information and data as it develops.

Watch the video essay at: youtu.be/Nwhpxj79SfA