I read a piece by Mattias Desmet, a professor of clinical psychiatry, who studied the psychology of totalitarianism. In it he states that when it comes to Mass Psychosis, 30% are lost 30% are not hypnotised and 40% are in the middle, and that they will lean towards the strongest side in a desire to achieve a tranquil life.
He urges us, the 30% who are unhypnotized to keep talking for if we fall silent then history tells us that that is when the real darkness begins.
So I looked for something I could do to reach out to the middle forty percent.
This is when I saw Mark at a protest. He was standing in the crowd offering Free Hugs, and they were in high demand.
This was the idea that saw us set up a Free Hug Army.
The Army walks down the sides of the march, offering free hugs to all those watching the protesters pass. The 40%.
Fear is the weapon that is being used to divide us and a simple hug can disarm that fear.
We use this hash tag,
#freehugarmy
Healing the Divide one Hug at a Time.
We work with photographers who capture the faces of the people being hugged. We then make videos out of these images and post them on social media.
Remarkably this not only works, but those who accept a hug often end up hugging others in our army. Often too, those people nearby also start accepting hugs and it becomes a hug fest.
We don’t believe this will win the war to unite us, but we think it can help.
Since we started doing this and posting about it, other free hug armies are setting up in Canada, New Zealand, and other cities in Australia.
We will be invading Melbourne again this Saturday and our army is growing.
Michael